Visit from Gia

My sister Adrianne had a whole 2 weeks off of work and so I convinced her she needed to come see us!  It didn't take much.  Evy and Nathan are so cute no one can say no to coming to see them.  We had a lot of fun while she was here!

Nathan's school put on a "Turkey Trot."  There was a little track for the kids and parents to walk/run around.  Nathan thought it was pretty cool that we were at his school.

We also went back to the Museum of Nature and Science.  We did more exploring this time and discovered a children's play area.  I was already thinking about getting a membership after our first visit and now after seeing the children's area, I really want one!  They had the coolest waterworks.  Nathan could have played there all day.  And Evy loved the music section and banging on all the drums.

One day we ended up running a quick errand to Home Depot and discovered they had all their bulbs on clearance. Our yard has so few flowers so I've been wanting to plant a bunch of bulbs.  And our landlords are awesome and will pay for anything we put into the yard.  We must have been seeing visions of tulip gardens, because we bought a bunch.  G generously offered to help me plant them.   We thought we could plant them while Nathan was gone at preschool and still have time to go out in the afternoon.  We'll 250 bulbs later, we finally finished at 3:30.  We were soooooo tired, but it's going to be a gorgeous spring.

While we were at it we cleaned up the yard for winter which meant raking up the leaves.  We left a big pile of them and we went out to jump in them a few times.  I thought Evy might not like them, but she was so mesmerized.

We had so much fun with Gia here.  She needs to come back so we can play even more!  Love you G!

Evelyn at 9 Months

- Evelyn gives the best hugs.  She'll snuggle right up to you and squeeze tight.  And then sometimes she'll come back for another one right away.
- Evy is crawling up the stairs like a champ. She will sneaks up the stairs if someone happens to leave the gate open.  And with a 3 year old in the house who can open up the gate by himself, it happens more than I'd like.

- Getting into cabinets and drawers.  Her favorite drawer is the one with all my hair stuff.  I'll find her with all my combs, brushes, clips, straightener, etc. pulled out.  I think I have a little girly girl on my hands.
- Eating lots of food!  I've been putting food in the mesh feeder and she loves it. She's also liking feeding herself these days so bananas, avocados, and mangos have been favorites.

- First swing.  She liked it, but I think she'd like to climb around the jungle gym more.
- Evy's starting to babble.  Her favorite, "Dadadadada!"  She'll through in a, "Yayayaya," every once in a while too.  It's so funny listening to her.  She'll be talking so loud sometimes and then other times she be whispering it likes she's talking to herself.  Nate does like to encourage Evy to talk by calling out, "Dadadada," to her and they'll get going back and forth.

- Loves looking out the windows especially when we're watching for brother's school bus.
- Her 9 month stats: 18 lbs (47th percentile), 27.5 inches tall (42nd percentile), and 17 inches head circumference (39th percentile.)  I went back to look at Nathan's stats at this age and they are practically the same size, but Evy's percentiles are quite a bit higher since she is a girl.

- If there was any question, Evy is a mommy's girl.  Brad can be trying to calm Evy down, but once mommy is there she stops.  And of course, she wants me to hold her all the time when we're out.
- She is pulling everything out.  Books, toys, puzzles, videos, wipes, blocks, simply everything she can get her hands on.

- She does the cutest head tilting, back and forth, back and forth, all while giving you a huge grin.
- Evy is waving!  Seriously melts my heart.  She loves saying hello and night night to daddy.
- Nathan and Evelyn have not been getting a long great, but it's getting better.  Evy's usually pretty easy going and doesn't put up a fuss, but Nathan is definitely not used to having someone touch his things.  So Nathan's come up with a new nickname for her.  In the TV show Daniel Tiger, Daniel gets a new baby sister, Margaret.  Daniel has to learn to get a long with his new baby sister.  So sometimes in an exasperating moment, Nathan will yell out, "Margaret!"

- It's so fun seeing her little personality and funny side coming out.  She is such a little cutie and she's so sweet to all of us.

First Snow

Evy and Nate both woke up in awe of the snow.  They stood at our sliding glass door for a long time just looking at it snowing.  Nathan told Evy, "Evy I like it. Snow."  I love it when he talks to her and it was so sweet of him to want to share the experience with his sister.  We went outside later in the day to build a snowman.  Nathan happily romped around for awhile.  Evy was so mesmerized.  She kept patting the snow.  I loved seeing her take in the new experience of snow.  We're looking forward to many more snow days.

Halloween 2015

Back in June when we just moved into our house, I was talking to a lady at church and she asked me where I lived.  When I told her where we lived she said, "Oh your street is great for trick or treating."  She said they didn't even trick or treat on their street, but came over to ours.  Well, our street lived up to the hype.

Halloween was nuts.  People went all out.  Several houses had small spook alleys in their garages. There was one house that topped all the rest.  There was a graveyard in the lawn, a organ and coffins in the driveway, a skeleton on the porch, ghosts lit by black lights in the windows, and the homeowner was a vampire.

And there were so many people.  Crowds of people for about 2 or 3 hours.  We walked up to the lady from church's house, who lives just off of our street, and it was dead.  I saw 2 families trick or treating and not many people were giving out candy.

Nate had a great time with Halloween this year.  He was a astronaut, but Nathan calls them space rangers like Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story.  He loved that he got to wear his space backpack with the rest of his costume.  He figured out what happens after the first couple of houses and then he was happy to go along and get candy.  He was pretty motivated even though he doesn't even like candy.

 

Evy was a star to go with her astronaut brother.  She took a late nap that day so she got to go with us trick or treating and was pretty happy about it.

Once we got home, Nate had to check out the goods.  And then he wanted to help Grandma to give out the candy.

Unfortunately, Brad and my dad came down with the stomach flu so they missed the festivities.  Both of them said they haven't been that sick in a very long time.  Brad said it rivaled the swine flu of 2009.  But luckily the sickness abated long enough for my parents to hop a plane ride home.  We had a great time with them here!  We just wish everyone would have stayed healthy.  We can't wait for them to come back!

Grandma and Papa Visit

For Halloween weekend, Grandma and Papa came out to Aurora to come visit us.  We were so happy to have them come!  And of course they brought presents for the kids.  Nathan got a book of Thomas the Train which Nathan played all weekend with.  Evy got her first baby doll.  It's so cute to see her giving it hugs and kisses.

We carved our pumpkins with Grandpa.  As Nate put it we had a, "Scary pumpkin, sad pumpkin." Evy loved chewing on a big piece of pumpkin.

While Grandma and Papa were here we took a trip out to Red Rocks.  We looked around the ampitheather and then did some hiking.  Nathan did great hiking around.  But it definitely helps to have a Papa around to encourage him along.

We also headed out for dinner with the whole family and surprisingly both of the kids did great.

And then there was Halloween. . .

Making Progress

Nathan's Preschool Picture

Nathan was in the typical classroom playing at the sensory table with some tissue paper.  He walked across the classroom, grabbed a little boy by the hand, and lead him back to the sensory table.  Nathan told the little boy, "Look!" That may not seem huge to most people, but Nathan rarely seeks out a friend to play with him.  It's so awesome to see the progress he's making with his peer interactions!

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On the first snow day of the year, both Evy and Nathan were standing at our sliding glass door looking in awe at the snow.  Nathan turned, looked Evy in the eye and said, "Evy I like it. Snow."It's so sweet to see him talking to his sister.

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We had Nathan's parent teacher conferences.  Nathan's teacher from the typically developing side was telling me he's become really great buddies with another little boy.  Even though Nate can't really talk with his friend, they just click and do so many things together.  It makes me so so so happy to see him making friends.

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I was loading Nathan into the car and I asked Nathan, "Have you been good so Santa can bring you presents?"  I got an enthusiastic, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" in reply.  We have been really struggling with Nathan responding to yes and no questions so getting 3 yeses made me beyond excited!

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We were driving around doing some errands and Nathan said something in the backseat that I didn't understand.  He said it again and this time I caught that he was saying, "Heavenly Father." So we had a little conversation about how Heavenly Father loves Nathan.  He must be listening to all our prayers we've been saying with him.