Evan's Birthday Party

My mom and sister, Carrie, were able to come to town for Evan's birthday weekend. We had lots of fun while they were here. We didn't get out and do too much, but they did get to go to IKEA for a couple hours and made it out alive. I stayed holed up in the house mixing a bazillion colors of frosting for his cake.

Evan is doing great. I know I have been a bad blogger lately, but I'll try to do better.
Some funny Evanisms:

*Thinks the kitchen table is an acceptable place to play. Today he took his first dive off.... oops.
*Generally has a train or car in hand at all times. Even when he sleeps.
*Throws food on the floor with joy. If he doesn't approve of something he simply tosses it on the floor. Sometimes when you're picking up the recently tossed food, you're lucky enough to be pelted in the head by a banana or piece of cheese.
*Loves his pink satin pillow. Still.
*Squeals so loud dogs for miles around come running.
*Probably eats more calories than I do.
*Comes as fast as he can when he hears me blending up a smoothie, waits patiently in his chair.
*Loves slides and tries to slide down anything... like the driveway.
*Is very popular among the girls in Lucas's class at school.

Evan is a big boy. 95% on height, 85% weight. He still has sweet soft blond hair, bright blue eyes, and satiny smooth skin. We love our little stinker and we're so grateful that he's our baby... er, toddler.

Happy Birthday, Evan!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Evan!

From this...

to this...

The past two years have just flown by. I'm so thankful for sweet little Evan.
Happy Birthday, buddy.

Bootastic!

Remember a month ago when it was Halloween? Well, it was so good, I wanted to make you wait for it. Friday night we went to a party at Ben's work. Lucas dressed as a pirate and Evan was Cupid. And they were both very cute. Ben's coworker got the only pics from that night. After the party we went to the church trunk or treat and Evan fell flat on his face immediately and got a fat lip. He and Ben went home shortly after. Lucas enjoyed sword fighting with some sort of monster and really enjoyed the candy. He and I stayed until the very end.

Saturday was Fall Fest at Lucas's school. Once again he wore his pirate outfit and played fun games for the afternoon. All the moms were so happy to have Fall Fest over with! It's a lot of work for the parents and is the biggest fund raiser of the year.

Monday, Lucas decided to wear his Storm Trooper costume. Drew was also some sort of Storm Trooper. Neither one is an actual Storm Trooper, but there are so many kinds that I just have to call them Storm Troopers. Oh, and Ben was Mr. T.

Surprisingly, Evan had a great time on Halloween. He rode in the wagon with Miles, but wanted to get out and go inside every house. He made it into one, but luckily they were our neighbors across the street. Evan threw a fit at the end of the night and finally Ben figured out that the poor kid only wanted a sucker. Just a sucker.

We have about 4 pieces of candy left. I threw a couple away yesterday. I think the rest will be gone by the weekend.

Love Sac Jumping!

I taught Evan a fun new hobbie yesterday. It kept him busy for a long time!

Week in Review

Last week was quite the week! Tuesday I got to go on a field trip with Lucas's class to the Pflugerville Fire Department. Lucas thought it was great. He answered all the questions about why a firefighter needs an ax, oxygen, and a hat. He would also clarify what the firefighters were saying a lot. If the firefighter was talking about the hoses on the truck and how big they were, Lucas would say, "So, it's just like the hose in my backyard, but bigger?" His teacher said he does this all the time and she loves it because maybe he's helping other kids understand by putting it in a kid's perspective.

After the Fire Station we went to the park and ate/played for a while. A long while. It was hot and Evan and I were sticky and ready to leave when the time came. Lucas had a lot of fun and was exhausted after school that day!

Tuesday night I was heading out for my run when I realized the house was getting hotter and hotter. Our AC was broken! We managed to survive the night with the house reaching 86 degrees. The next day was pretty disgusting. I tried to go on a couple adventures with Evan. I got pulled over by a cop for speeding on a street I drive ALL the time, in a speed trap I see ALL the time. Luckily he was impressed that I hadn't gotten a ticket since 1998 and set me free with a warning. As I drove away I started to cry. I hate getting in trouble.
The AC was finally fixed at 6:30 that night. I think the max temp the house reached was 91. It was gross. I am thankful for air conditioning. Evan was fortunate enough to get to play in the hose that day to cool off.

Thursday... well, Thursday I did some laundry since I didn't get to do any Tue or Wed. When I did the laundry I found a yellow crayon in the bottom of the washer. I thought I was so fortunate to find it before I put the clothes in the dryer. When I got the clothes out of the dryer everything was RED. It was horrible. The dryer was red, too. Through the miracle of 1+ bottles of WD-40 and 4 rounds in the washer I got the clothes pretty much clean. I threw away Ben's basketball shirt/socks immediately and my tan shorts perished in the accident as well, but everything else is wearable!

And that is how my week went last week. Here's to a better week this week... if only these ants would get out of my house!

Evan Boy

I might get a couple complaints here and there from people saying I don't post enough pictures of Evan. (You know how the second kid never has as many pictures and videos as the first kid? )Well, here you go! See, I do take a lot of pictures, I just never post them. And I'll work on the videos.

In the last picture has a story. Last week Lucas and I were upstairs getting ready to go to the pool. When we got downstairs we found Evan like this - COVERED in white powder. At first I thought it was powdered sugar because he was playing with the powdered sugar tupperware. But after a little photo session and making my way over to the pantry, I found out that he was actually covered in a most delicious homemade pancake mix. It was all over the floor. And then there were little trails leading off all over the kitchen to the different places he had visited. It was such a mess. SUCH a mess. But we managed to get it cleaned up and made our way to the pool anyways.

The whole thing reminded us of Lucas's egg incident and the unforgettable watermelon slip. You need to check those videos out if you haven't seen them.

I think I owe you some pictures:

Ben put up an awesome backsplash while I was out of town.
We had a little fine tuning to do when I got back.
You can see my piping skills came in handy.

These boys got to go shoot each other with paintballs the day before Father's Day. Ben came home the most abused. Apparently he ran out of ammo and made a run for it. He looked like he had 5 nipples and he had some awesomely colorful bruises on his legs, too. Then there was a nice gash on his knee... my fault - I put him in holy jeans for his "surprise."

Summertime is awesome. Lucas is working on mastering the cannon ball.

Evan loves the water, too.

I made this shirt for Lucas to wear to school today for their 4th of July party.
Also, Lucas likes chocolate ice cream.

Evan was pleasantly surprised by some bubbles the other day.
He also thinks it's perfectly acceptable to sit on the table.

Our summer break is almost over. Lucas starts Kindergarten in three weeks. I can't believe it. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. We're going to have to start waking up earlier, going to bed earlier, and being organized. Ugh. Plus, I'll miss that kid like crazy!

Tee Ball and Chocolate

The weather here has been fantastic lately. We had a beautiful weekend and tried to take advantage of the picture-perfect evenings outdoors. Ben bought Lucas a little tee ball stand, so we played a bit of that and then some badminton, of course.

After day two of enjoying the wonderful outdoors, I decided we should also enjoy something wonderful indoors - chocolate fondue with strawberries. See, we had these pesky strawberries aging in the fridge, as well as an annoying bar of dark chocolate taking up space in the pantry, then there was some whipping cream and some marshmallow cream that was bugging me. So, really, I was doing some Spring cleaning.
It.Was.Good. Evan loved it! In the first picture below you can see his frustration because I am holding his fork full of chocolaty goodness instead of him. In the second picture you can see how happy he was once I gave it to him. Lucas was also a fan. He thought it was plate-licking good!

You know another great thing about this weather? Evan gets to visit the hose a couple times day. A few weeks ago E-man had a couple blowouts. You know - the kind where you don't know how you're going to clean it up because the kid is such a mess you wish you could just dip him in the annoying neighbor's jacuzzi? And you know when you attempt to change the diaper you'll have to pin his arms down because he'll try to imitate a steamroller, ruining your entire house?
Well, I decided to try washing the kid off outside. Guess what? Worked like a charm. The water in the hose was nice and warm from the sun. Evan gets to play in the water dripping from the faucet, and I don't use wipes, thus saving the environment. Oh, did you catch how that suddenly changed to present tense, instead of the past tense? Yeah, well I kind of got addicted to the baby bidet and now when we have a stinky diaper, I head straight outside. Don't judge.

Tidbits

Just a few tidbits of information since last time...
First off, I made cute Mother's Day gifts. Do you love them? Check out my peeps at OBB.
Saturday we went to the Austin Zoo. Lucas loved it. It's not a big zoo, but they have lions, tigers, and a bear. Oh my!
It was hot by the time we got there in the afternoon, so most of the big cats were resting in the shade. The shade far away from us. My favorite part was the warning sign at the Lion's cage.
After the zoo we hit up a yummy Indian restaurant. Our kids were crazy. Ben was done. His breaking point was when he was repromanding Lucas for spilling rice everywhere and acting like an animal when Evan pulled a glass of water down all over himself. I thought it was kind of funny. From dinner we went to Central Market, the place with the best shopping bags ever, where the boys bought some fixins for Mother's Day breakfast.

Lucas had been excited for Mother's Day for a week or two, so he was happy when he got to wake me up Sunday morning and help me down the stairs, where I discovered a perfectly clean toy room (thanks to Lukie), kitchen, and living room (thanks to Ben), as well as a yummy breakfast all for me: waffles, strawberries, and fancy muffins. Lucas was so excited. He's so cute. We had a lovely breakfast. While we were eating Lucas said, "Mommeeeeeeey, I think you're ready for another babeeeeeyyyyyy!" I thought that was a really funny thing to say. Ben didn't.

We had a lovely morning. The boys had a huge wrestling/jump on daddy match, while I got ready for church. I didn't manage to get good pics, but you get the general idea. Lucas got up with the Primary kids at church and sang a lovely song. He did great and it made me cry a little bit. It might have made a certain 6 1/2 foot-tall man tear up, too, but you'll have to ask him if you see him.

And lastly, what's sadder than little baby feet covered in fire ant bites? Lots of things, but isn't it disgusting and sad looking? Poor baby. They were all nasty and I wanted to pop them so bad. I thought everyone had such bad reactions to ant bites, but apparently it's just me and Evan... gross. Thanks, Texas.