Saturday, February 27, 2010

Like aunt, like niece?

This one's for you Aunt Rayray. We sure do miss you while you are over in France eating yummy cheese and bread.


I think that picture of Rachel was taken before Kylie was born.

By the way, isn't Kylie the cutest rice krispy treat eater?


I'm pretty sure she is.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Curing Cabin Fever

Eve's been sick-ish. She's really been kind of pathetic and extremely clingy. She's been keeping Jason and I up at night because she just wants to be cuddled while she sleeps and if she wakes up to find she's not cuddled, she gets MAD! She's sleeping in my arms right now as I type this one handed. I'm hoping some teeth come in or something to explain why she's been feeling miserable. She is eating well, sleeping well as long as she's cuddled, and still interested in playing with her toys as long as someone is right by her side playing with her so she really doesn't have any symptoms of anything except some congestion and a very low grade fever every once in a while. She's just kind of been extra sensative. Like yesterday, she was in a bad mood and Kylie bent down and said "Hi Everz!" and that just sent her over the edge. She started screaming and giving Kylie evil glares. If she's still feeling this miserable on Monday, I'll take her in to her doctor. I just really haven't been too concerned since nothing seems to be serious. I've just been keeping her home because I don't want the weather to affect her congestion and I'm not really sure if she's sick to the point that others could catch anything.

I'm the type of person who hates being "stuck" inside. It just really puts me in a bad mood, to put it lightly. And it really doesn't take that long for me to get cabin fever. So when Eve started acting playful and happy this afternoon, I decided that we needed to go shopping while Jason was working. The girls were being so cute during the drive there, they were playing peekaboo with a blanket. Kylie was yelling peekaboo and Eve was giggling hysterically. It was a noisy car ride, but I was happy to see the girls were just as relieved to get out the house as I was.

The girls were riding in a shopping cart and Eve was mouthing the shopping cart handle. Kylie (the bossy older sister) kept telling her: "No lick the cart. That's yucky!" over and over before deciding to try it herself. She didn't like it so she started licking her sister. This made Eve giggle so she started licking her sister back. Then they both licked each others tongues. I'm sure that if they read this when they are older, they will be embarrassed that I wrote this. So here is a little note to older Kylie and Eve in the event they are reading this:

"Please know that it is NOT embarrassing because you were 2 years old and 11 months old. You were both giggling so hard over it so I'm just glad we were able to cure some of the cabin fever. Also, Kylie, you like to sing really loud in stores. Today you were singing Elmo's world and it was very cute. Sometimes other shoppers will thank you for the concert.
I will be very sad the day that you stop singing when we go shopping. So please continue to keep me entertained while we are out, and please keep your sister entertained as well. You make shopping fun. Love, Mom"

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Future ecologist?

Tonight after Eve went to bed, Kylie and I had some quality time reading her worm book (again...). We started talking about the fact that worms eat dirt. Kylie asked me if she ate dirt and I told her that dirt would make her sick. So we started talking about what she did eat and the list that we came up with went something like this: poptarts, potato soup, toast, chocolate bars (what she calls her granola bar), pancakes, jelly and strawberries. She's been on some weird strawberry kick lately, ever since she played a game of catch with her toy strawberries from her kitchen set. The worm book just so happened to have pictures of strawberries in it too, so she was very excited and pretended to eat the picture, thus getting slobber all over the page (sorry library!). Then there was a picture of a rabbit eating strawberries and she said: "Look! Rabbit eat strawberry." So we started talking about all the little critters that were pictured in the book and what they eat. She learned that snakes eat mice, that squirrels eat nuts, mice eat berries... I don't really remember everything and I probably made some up that I didn't know. Then she asked me what strawberries eat, so I told her "sunshine." I gave her the same answer when she asked what flowers eat. She was amazed: "Sunshine so up high!" And then she started asking me what the computer ate, what the chair ate, what the couch ate, what the blanket ate... pretty much everything that she saw in the room. So I explained to her that only animals, people and things that were alive needed to eat, but who knows how much sense that made to a 2 year old brain. I just loved our little "food chain" discussion, since biology is one of my favorite subjects. I'm really also loving that we can have "real" conversations now, it's so much fun watching her grow up and helping to shape her cute little mind. Yep, I'm pretty sure that if we could look inside her head and see her brain, it would be one of the cutest ones out there, just like the rest of her! :)

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

New adventures in Marshland

There's been all sorts of new discoveries here in our home lately. We've settled into our new apartment quite nicely and I'm surprised that I actually prefer it to our previous one. The only real downfall is that the washer and dryer hookups are no longer conveniently in a room right next to our kitchen. Now our washer and dryer are downstairs in our basement, but we have to go outside briefly to get to the basement door. Weird huh? Well the unfinished basement gives us LOTS of storage, but it's just kind of a pain to go do laundry. I'm used to working on laundry while working in the kitchen at the same time. Oh well, the rest of our new temporary home is wonderful (for our standards, you have to remember that we aren't about to invest in a place to live until after Jason finishes seminary and we have figured out where God will take us from there.) I will post pictures after we get all of our pictures/art/decorations on the wall. Right now the painting I bought in Haiti is above the fireplace and I love, love, love seeing it every day.


Besides moving in, we've had lots of "firsts" and "changes" around here, so I'll just go down the list of family members to update everyone:

Eve

A couple of days after turning 11 months, Eve started WALKING! That's right, it really surprised me. I had given up all hope that she would be walking by her first birthday because she just wasn't interested. She could cruise around and she could stand up in the middle of the room without holding on to anything, but she never made any efforts to take any steps. She really enjoyed (and still does) dancing, so I would watch her stand up and wiggle her body around and wonder "If she can do that, why won't she take steps?" She even jumped a couple times, with her feet off the ground and landed perfectly before taking any steps. Finally one day, she just decided to go for it and really didn't have much problems. She's been working so long at her balance, I guess she finally felt ready. She still won't let me hold her hands and practice walking; that makes her so mad! She still crawls when she wants to go somewhere fast, but she enjoys practice walking all over the house when she's not in a hurry. Kylie thinks it's very special too, she loves to encourage her little sister and always tells me: "Look, baby Everz is walking! Go baby!" It's very special to watch Kylie get so excited for little Eve. Although sometimes, Kylie will push her down, so I never know what to expect. (Generally speaking, Kylie is lovey dovey with her little sister)


Here are some "first steps" pictures; isn't she the cutest?



Eve has also seemed a lot less baby-ish lately. She plays more seriously with her toys, she loves to pick up by putting things in containers, she pays attention when you read books... It's so sweet to watch her grow up. I treat her so much more like a baby than I ever did with Kylie. Part of the reason I think is because Kylie was always so much more fiercely independent and Eve is a cuddle bug. But I'm sure the fact that Eve could possibly be my last baby has a lot to do with it too. She's just also just seems like she should be younger, since she's so small and she still doesn't have any teeth. I can't believe that she will one in just 3 short weeks! That doesn't seem right.

Here she is helping Kylie pick up her blocks:


Another "first" in Eve's life: we took her to a pool for the first time and she loved it. You can read about our gym/pool membership later on in this post. Eve first squealed and splashed and squealed some more in the water. Then she just got a big smile on her face and closed her eyes and completely relaxed as she floated on her back in the water as Jason carried her around. We thought she might have fallen asleep, that's how relaxed she was. But I don't think she sleeps with such a huge smile on her face.

Wait, I just realized that Eve HAS been to a pool last summer when she was 3-4 months old. But she didn't really care at all about it one way or another, and so let's just say this is the first time she played in swimming pool water.

Kylie


I have so many things to say about this cute little 2 year old. She's been saying so many funny things now that she can actually have real conversation with us. But this is a blog post about "new" experiences, so I will blog about her funny conversations later.

Well... the biggest change in Kylie's life right now is that we are potty training now... ummm... I don't really want to talk about it because I hate it. So just know that we have started the process and I'm not happy with how it's going. I've been told it will get better and I know that Kylie is a smart girl, she will eventually be potty trained. That's all I'm going to say about this subject.

We went to the library for the first time together. We made a special mother/daughter trip and left Eve with Jason. Kylie loved the library. She was so excited that she could pick out any book that she wanted. You'll never guess what book she found and just HAD to have... it's called "Wonderful Worms" and it's all about earthworms. She's so silly. I told my mom how weird she was for picking out that book and my mom just said "She's her mother's daughter." Oh yeah, I had completely forgotten about how I went out one rainy day to dig for worms to keep as pets. I just wanted any kind of pets I could get when I was little, and worms were easy to catch. Oh well, maybe it's not so strange then that Kylie wanted a book about earthworms. It's a children's book, not a science manual, so we've read the book many times since bringing it home. Kylie now knows that worms eat dirt and that they have a mouth but they don't have eyes, ears or a nose. We picked out some other books, but that was the one that Kylie picked out all by herself. When we got home, she asked to see her "lion books." I asked her if she meant her "library books" and she said "yes, library books." I don't know why she thought they were "lion" books, but she has figured out the word "library" now.

She has also discovered painting for the first time. At first, after every stroke, she would say: "Look, I did that!" Pretty cute:

Ignore the mess in the background of that first picture; that was the day after we moved.

Her new way to nap is now mostly on the couch. She used to be the best napper and sleeper until she turned two. She still sleeps great at night, but her naps have been a struggle. She will usually fall asleep if I put her on the couch and I'll take naps wherever and whenever I can get them!


Jason and myself

The semester started back up again and Jason is taking some online classes along with a night class. This was so that I could get a full time job, and he could stay home with the girls. THAT hasn't happened yet, but I'm still hopeful and praying.

We bought a gym membership at North Kansas City Community Center because they offered discounts for seminary students. It's amazing. They have free childcare while we work out, shower, sit in the hot tub... whatever as long as we stay in the building and pick them up withing 2 hours. The girls both love the childcare there, so I don't feel bad about leaving them there while I work out. We've also taken the girls a couple times to the swimming pool in the same community center. They have a kiddie area with a slide and they both love it.

We also just bought a bread machine this week. That is a whole adventure in itself. I love cooking, but I'm not much of a baker, it always seems like too much work. Ever since we bought the bread machine, however, I'm always looking for a new recipe to try. So far we have made french bread, french rolls, chocolate chip sour cream tea loaf and I have a potato bread in the machine baking right now. I'm looking forward especially to making cinnamon rolls and pizza dough in the very near future. Jason found one on clearance at Sears, it's very cheap compared to all the ones we've looked at and it's very easy to use. The bread comes out really nice too, but I don't have any other machine to compare it to. Here's what it looks like: The biggest adventure that's about to take place is Jason's trip to Europe this Summer. He will be studying abroad with other seminary students from Midwestern for two weeks in Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland. He'll get 7 graduate level hours in just 2 weeks, so it's a great opportunity. I'm very jealous that Jason will be taking this trip, but I'm excited for him to explore new places. He has never been out of the country, so he applied for his passport yesterday. He took Eve with him and just for fun, they even took a passport size picture of Eve for him to keep in his wallet. Wasn't that nice of them?

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

I'm shameless

And that is why I'm putting up this link HERE for you to read about my husband writing wonderful things about me. No, but really, it is to show you about my wonderful valentine's day that my husband blogged about. The fact that he says nice things about me is just a bonus :)

That valentine's meal he made me just might have been the best meal I have ever had. Jason even used things like nutmeg, real imported creme fraiche AND real imported gruyere cheese. That imported stuff is crazy expensive and Jason accidently made enough of the aligot potatoes to feed an army. It would have been cheaper if he would have cut the recipe down. He used like 4 pounds of potatoes. For just him and me. We ate those mashed potato leftovers for the next four meals. Oh and he made it after the girls' bedtime so we could have a peaceful romantic meal, but somehow the girls knew and decided to BOTH wake up and crash our date. They are normally good sleepers, they knew something was up. Daddy was cooking? Something had to be up. (Just kidding, I love you Jason!)

Happy (late) valentine's day everyone!

Friday, February 5, 2010

Foot Earrings


They are all the rage this year. Well, they've been all the rage since Kylie was a baby and would be the baby attached to this dangly fashion accessory. Often, Jason will walk up to me to tell me he bought some cool, new foot earrings. He'll then ask me what I think of them or if they go well with his outfit. Then, he will let me know that these said earrings are acting wiggly. Wiggly? That's strange. Oh wait, there's a BABY attached to those earrings. No wonder the salesperson said these were a 2-for-1 deal. Buy some earrings, get a baby free. At this point, he will swing the child around and tickle her until she is laughing hysterically (Or just ask to be put down, depending on the which girl it was).

This time, Jason discovered that Eve was the baby attached to the earrings and decided they both needed a little power nap after the excitement:
Isn't he cute? I think so, but that's good since I have to be with him forever. Did you notice his new glasses? He just got his first pair of glasses this month and loves them. Here's a picture I took of him early this morning, before he put his glasses on (or foot earrings for that matter). He had just woken up, but he's still adorable (in a manly way of course Jason!).


Kylie didn't want to be left out of this post, so here is an early morning picture of her too:
She had found one of my tank tops in my dresser and insisted on wearing it. She was calling it a "Go State dress" (There's a KSU powercat on the other side). She's upset because she just discovered that her daddy put a childproof cover over the door handle to this closet. She told us she wanted to: "count my cards just a little bit." Ha! I love the way she puts words together. There are a bunch of playing cards in the closet and she likes to lay them all out in a line and count them. I let her do this of course after this picture was taken, but the childproof door handle kept her from getting everything else out of the closet as well. The fact that she can open doors now has really affected our lives lately.