A New Baby to Welcome and More!

Welcome Jhett! My lovely neighbors, Dale (she is orig. from South Africa) and Rob had a baby boy last week! He was 6 lb 12 oz. It is so much fun to see the new parents and all the trials and tribulations and JOY that comes along with that. They are adjusting well and very proud. He is a very precious baby.



Evan finally is enjoying wearing his super hero shirt. He wore it out to a play date the other day and after we were home for a while I told him it was time to go up and rest, at which point he asked me to take off his cape. I un-velcroed the cape from the back of the shirt and Evan said, "I not a super hero anymore."





Last week was a holiday so there was a long gap in between preschool days. I had to get out of the house on Thursday and though it was pretty cold out, I loaded the kids in the car to go to a really fun park all the way across town. Once we got there I bundled them up and put Drew on my back and I proceeded to chase after Evan for the next 2 hours.



Evan was very wary of this Dragon and wouldn't go near it until right before we left and he saw a couple other kids his age standing on it.





Our weather has been so mild lately that this cold snap was almost odd if we still weren't in February. Here is a blooming tree.





Evan insisted Drew sit next to him the other day after Drew got up from a nap. This was worth about 20 minutes uninterrupted dinner preparing time for me. Evan was holding Drew on like I had been at first, and then I asked him to give his brother a kiss for the camera.







Some recent Evanisms:

Evan even after being told "no" in the past, finally reached up the other day and touched a hot pan on the stove. I gasped, he started crying, but luckily, after some rinsing in cold water, we saw there was barely a pink mark on his middle finger. I told Evan to stand in the bathroom with his finger under the water after I had shown him how and I went back to take some things off the stove. When Evan came out of the bathroom he said, "I have a cook on my number 2 finger!"

Evan had an unexplained fever Thursday night and Friday and some things he said when he wasn't feeling so hot were:

Evan: I have ABCs in my eyes.

Me: ABCs?

Evan: Yes, A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z, in my eyes.

Me: ...


He also said, "I have butterflies coming out of my ears."

When I thought his tummy wasn't feeling well, I asked him if he felt like he had to throw up, he said, "No! I keep throw in!"

He also woke up one of those mornings and said, "I have puffies in my eyes!"


Finally, here is a little tent-time fun! Take notice that Evan is calling me "Mom" now. That is my name, all the time. And James is Dad.

Drew is walking, the circus and more!

I haven't really discussed Drew's walking very much because he has literally taken baby steps. Slowly but surely he has gone from taking a few steps to walking all over the house. All of a sudden Evan is treating him more like a little kid as well, which is really nice! Drew has even made a lot of progress since I took this video, though he still has that teetering, wobbly drunk Frankenstein walk. It is pretty cute! There is also an example of the sibling rivalry we pretty constantly in this house. It can be amusing.




I took Evan to the circus a week ago for our day together and we had a lot of fun! He did really well but 2 hours was a long time to sit and watch anything for a 3 year old. However, he did cry and try to run back in when we were leaving. Later when we were talking about leaving he said, "I was sad about it."







This is the image I most remember when I think of going to the circus when I was a little girl:



Evan a couple hours later and after a hot dog "brunch."



Afterwards we went and picked up James and Drew and all went out to a late lunch and then I took Evan for a haircut. He had such a good time he was still talking about it this weekend.



Both Evan's preschool class and his play date friends were having a Valentine's party so we had to crank out a lot of Valentines. Evan really got into it though, almost like he was autographing! He painted the cards and then stamped designs on them and put stickers on. He would say, "I am done with this, now number 14!" Child sweatshop labor at its finest.



I recently set up the tent again and it is a hit with the kids. They hang out in there together for 1/2 hour at a time, wrestling, playing peekaboo, just sitting in there, and tipping it. Drew hamster rolled the tent right over.





All of a sudden Drew found he like to wear Evan's baseball cap. He was toddling around all evening with it on.

Another Week Goes By

My Mom so kindly came to visit for a couple days so she could watch the kids when we went out to James' company party.



I gave Evan this fishing game the other day. He stops the wheel, and puts a fish on the pole, then starts it up again. Drew is afraid of it.



At the park on a beautiful Sunday, this last week.



Drew was looking at, and really got a kick out of the geese and ducks.



I gave the kids some apple and eventually I had to take away Drew's gnawed piece because he was getting choke worthy chunks in his mouth, and replace it with a brand new piece. He wasn't happy about that but eventually he got over it.











Evan going to the dump to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump, on his singing garbage truck.



Drew being a tricky stuntman on Evan's trike.



I met a friend at the NC Art Museum Green Way today with the kids. It was cooler than I thought it would be this morning until the sun burned off the clouds.



Come on Mom!



Ryan playing with Drew.



The kids loved the sound of pounding on these metal sheets.



Evan kept calling this the fence house and that he loved walking on tables. I told them they were high benches so he didn't get any bright ideas when we got home.