18 Months...A Little Late

This month Evan turned 18 months.  He is quite the little busy body now.  Exploring and getting into everything.  Trying to talk more and very vocal at times.  Still very smiley and a happy little boy.  He is on target for growth and development.  Here are his stats:  Height--34 in. (91%) and
weight 28 lbs. 2 oz. (78%).

Evan seems to have grown in a weeks time.  All of his 12 month pants are now too short and it seems like just within a week or two.  His vocabulary is getting a little bit bigger.  Please, up, down, bye, ball, truck.  And his recognition and understanding are great.  He knows exactly what we are telling him.  Whether he does it or not is another story, but he is a toddler :).  Also, this weekend, driving around town he would say "go Papa!"  And he wanted to go see Papa and Nana.  It was so cute.  He also is recognizing where we are.  Pulling into Mom's work this week and having not said where we were going, he said "Nana, Nana!"  So much fun right now.  But he also takes in everything we do and especially Madi.  He tries to do a lot of what she is doing, but not quite big enough yet.  He loves playing outside and in the shed.

Both of the kids have been playing so well together lately.  Evan and Madi will take off for the basement or one of their rooms and can play together for a good half hour.  It's very helpful at meal times or just trying to get the house picked up.  And Madi is so helpful with Evan.  She loves to take care of him and do things for him.  She gets mad at times when she wants to help him and I step in.  She is the little mommy and plays that way too!  They are great kids!

Love, Amy

Our Busy Spring (So Far)

I hope everyone found me after doing a bit of cleaning up and changing on my blog here.  I used to think that it would be really cool for a bunch of people to follow me and my little writings here.  But once I started getting some people I didn't know and from different countries following, it made me really nervous.  Maybe if I wasn't so specific about what is going on in our lives it would be different.  I follow a couple of other mom bloggers but they tell funny stories about what their kids do or one does craft projects and shares tutorials.  So I am sticking with my family and friends because they are the only ones that would care about the stuff I write.  I guess I won't be one of those bloggers with 1,000 hits everyday!

Back to the family and kids stuff!  We've been busy with outings and outside fun this month.  We've been having fun with our church friends on Monday's with the Monday Mommy group.  And even had everyone over this week.  It was fun and wild.  14 kids running around playing on bikes, shooting hoops and getting really muddy.

Madi went to her cousin Kenley's birthday party at On the Pot.  What an awesome place.  I have been in and had them make me a plate for my parent's anniversary several years ago but I haven't been in and looked around and checked out what all they have.  I could go crazy in there.  Luckily (for Chris) it's not a place I could easily go to with the kids.  So I won't be spending all my time there.  But I may have to do their once a month ladies night sometime.  If anyone would like to join me, it sounds like a lot of fun!!

We also had a birthday party for Malia (my cousin Jaime's little girl) at the Wichita Zoo.  What a wild and crazy day that was!  The birthday party was fun and the kids all got zoo animal masks and they had zoo themed cupcakes and then we all went and started walking the zoo.  It was pretty chilly out and we got through the reptile building and the rain forest building before the skies opened up started raining.  We all made a running dash for the chimp exhibit.  But we were all soaked by the time we got there.  We waited it out and let the kids run around and the adults visited.  Then we left for the day.  Which was a good thing.  We get to Newton and Mom and I both looked at each other and asked "Is that snow in the fields?"  Can't be!  Wait, there are two cars in the ditch, what is going on?!  Two hours later we finally get home after seeing rain, snow, slush, sun, clouds, rain, sleet, snow, rain, snow and pull into my drive way with almost an inch of very wet snow on the ground.  It was crazy!  The kids didn't help any either with no naps they were both prone to meltdowns on the way home.  Not fun and so glad I didn't make the trip by myself.  Thanks Mom!!

Evan loved the birds!

My little monkeys with cousin Arianna

Madi finished her school week last Wednesday before Spring Break with a field trip to the bowling alley.  She loves bowling!!  Evan is usually so good on the field trips but once he turned 18 months old, he is non stop and into everything and ready to explore.  It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been the only one on our lane with three other little kids.  Somehow all the other lanes had at least two parents.  He wanted to check out the ball returns.  You know the ones with moving exposed parts that shoot 6 lb bowling balls out at like 100 miles an hour.  Yeah, quite scary when you turn around and see his face in front of it. Luckily no squished noses or smashed toes...es (Dr. Seuss, I am not)  But the kids had fun!

Bowling friends: Zoe, Kenley, Madi and Evan

The girls watching the bull riding Saturday night.

My little cowboy...eating M&M's off the ground, YUCK!

Madi has had a couple of sleep overs with her cousin Mayci the last two Saturdays.  So much fun hanging out with cousins!  We took Mayci to church with us Sunday and she really enjoyed it and is already counting down the days until Sunday when she can go again.  I told her I would take her as long as she wants to go.  I remember growing up and going to church with my Grandma and later on with my Aunt Lisa and her family.  It was harder with the catholic church feeling like you belonged there when I wasn't baptized and couldn't take communion.  That's what I love about our church.  Feeling like I belong and welcomed in no matter what.  I hope that's how Mayci was feeling last weekend.  She was able to participate in Children's time and then to go to Sunday School. 

This last week has been busy around here.  Chris got the show tractor done!!  It looks so awesome.  This was a well taken care of tractor before we got it so it made it much easier to get everything changed back to its original state and get it painted and looking brand new.  Very proud of him!  I guess that means another busy summer of traveling to tractor shows!  We really did have a great time doing it last year.  A lot of work, but we got to spend a lot of good quality family time together at the same time.  This year should be even better with the bigger truck, we won't have to take two vehicles, YAY!!  Chris took the tractor over to the Farm Show at the Bi-Center this week.  Hopefully they are able to sell some tickets!  We also got the basketball goal up.  Chris' parents and I chipped in together to get him one for his birthday.  We had some serious adult PIG going on Sunday afternoon while the kids were taking their naps!  Madi likes it too :)

Cute kids in front of that Big Red Tractor

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Spring Break.  It's been a little windy the last couple of days to do too much outside.  It has been wonderful having the windows open, hearing the birds chirping and watching the grass turn green.  Too bad it isn't here to stay.

Love, Amy

Evan's Baptism

Today was Evan's Baptism.  He did such a great job.  We really enjoy our church.  They have so much to offer for families and we love it.  The people are nice and inviting.  I'm really glad that we have all started to attend together and are finding our own niches and likes within our church.  Now if we can just get Evan to like the nursery and out of Mommy's sight, we will be good to go!

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We finally got the office done and back into shape.  I love it!  I haven't gotten everything totally organized yet and I still have a lot of empty cabinets, but I am getting there.  It is so nice to be organized and not having everything crammed onto a little table.  Madi and Evan enjoy their space and having room to color.

 

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Evan is getting a molar in and has been working on it for the last two weeks.  He was pretty cranky most of last week.  Running a fever and a runny nose.  So it was cute that we finally got a nice big grin out of him the other night while playing downstairs.

 

What a cheese!



Huh?  Did you say something!

My pretty girl!

We have had a great weekend.  Spent most of yesterday at Mom and Dad's with Jason, Tabatha and Jaxson.  The kids play together so well, it's a lot of fun to watch them together.  And then after church we had everyone out for breakfast and more playing.

Tomorrow is Chris' birthday and another busy week for all of us.  Have a good one!
Love, Amy

I'm Back...Almost!!

I had a major virus on my computer. It was affecting pieces of everything. If it was a log in page, I couldn't do it. Google, Yahoo any search engine, I couldn't get to it. So I and my tech support (Dan) had to reinstall all the programs back onto my computer, which means starting all over again. I'm still having some problems with being able to send emails, but I can receive them. And the sidebar stuff on my blog is gone. But hopefully I will get it all figured out and be good as new again. Or at least as good as technology will let me!

I'll have a better update later. I'm still trying to get all my favorites saved again, email addresses back into my contacts, and all my pictures back to where they are supposed to be.

Check back soon!!

Love, Amy