Eve is 18 months old!

It's hard to believe that my Eve just turned 1 and a half! She's my baby. I'm a little sad because I miss the baby cuddles, little toddling steps, sweet coos and toothless grins. But it's also been so much fun watching her personality develop. She's funny. Here are some words that have been used to describe her: ornery, sassy pants, stinker-pot, mischievous, proud and fearless. With the exception of the last two, those all sound similar don't they? That's because she's quite the little handful. She figures out which buttons to push on people she loves and then pushes them for her own amusement. She figured out at about 12 months old that if she spit food at my mom, then my mom would act disgusted. So Eve has had a blast spitting at my mom, with or without food. She knows I hate it when she takes her pretties out and that her aunt Bo can't stand it when she tells her "no" when Bo reaches for her. She also loves to tickle people and give raspberries. She can get aggressive and hit but I've found that the best way to deal with that is to ignore it and walk away from her when she does that. She only does things to get a rise out of people because that's what ticks in her little one year old sense of humor. She's still a sweetheart, just an ornery one.

Now you might ask how a one year old can be proud. Just tell Eve that she's cute and watch her face light up, in a smug little way at that. Talk about her and watch her prance around with her little nose in the air. She puts on quite the show when she knows people are praising her. She's also proud when she accomplishes something challenging to her. For instance, when she puts the right shape in her shape shorter, she will clap for herself and say "yah!" Then she'll look around to make sure everyone saw her great feat.

The last term I mentioned, "fearless", might not be a word that some people would choose for Eve. There are lots of people who have seen her shy, momma's girl, side who might not agree. Yes, she is a momma's girls and can be shy around new people. This is especially true at church, when she knows I'm going to "abandon" her in the nursery for a couple hours. She's never apart from me, except when we are at church, so she gets very nervous when we are there. However, anyone who has seen her at a park would agree that "fearless" is a good term.Other parents at the park are always shocked to see this tiny little girl climb all the big equipment, refusing any help from her nervous momma, and do just fine with all the stairs, slides, wobbly bridges... In fact, strangers at the park always seem to have the same thing to tell me: "She's fearless." And I always agree. She's completely wild at playgrounds. She's funny: she's a momma's girl when I want her to be independent and fearless when I want her to be more cautious.

Her growing up has been bittersweet. When she was born, I felt as though Kylie was my big girl and Eve was my baby. And that's the way it would stay, right? I didn't expect her to leave the baby stage quite so fast. She's now starting to hit her language explosion and learns new words every day. She's keeping up with her older sister as they play chase and wrestle through the house. She eats all of our foods. She finally has some teeth. She calls me "mommy" instead of "momma." Really the only baby things about her is her attachment to her "ya-ee" (her word for her beloved paci) and the fact that she still wears diapers. But she's also so much fun at this age. She's a ball full of lovable energy and turning into the prettiest little girl. I love my "baby" so much!

Check out how long Eve's hair is getting

Stuck at home

Jason just started a new job this week, it's a huge answer to prayers! It's more hours than he worked at Sears and more of a drive, so I'm going to have to get used to not having him around the house and no longer seeing him on his lunch breaks. That's the downfall, but the job is so much better for our family, so we are very excited. Yesterday was his first day and he blew his tire on the drive home and didn't have time to take the car anywhere after work, so he took the van to work today. So that meant we had the whole day to fill today... without daddy... without the van... I like to take the girls somewhere everyday, just to get out of the house. It's been too hot lately to just play in our yard, so we like to go to splash parks or just somewhere air conditioned. I was quite worried that we wouldn't be able to escape our small apartment since Jason was taking our van. So what to do today with two wired, bouncy, destructive, energetic toddlers? Thankfully, the girls figured that out for me. It all started when I was trying to make my bed and they wanted to play "nap" on it:Yep, they were taking turns doing touchdown motions, they like to copy each other. But seriously, how cute are these little munchkins:
And here they are having "sister talk":
And playing "nap" is only fun for 5 minutes if you are a 1 or 2 year old, so they decided to start jumping on the bed... for literally about an hour. Of course I let them, they had lots of energy to burn:
I snapped a lot of pictures like the following one, where it looks like Kylie is about to land on her sister. No worries, it's just the angle. (Or maybe you have bad depth perception.) I promise that there were no toddlers injured in the making of these pictures.
Eve was showing me where she fell. What a silly girl:
I love this following one. Epic:
I captured some pretty silly faces from each of the girls during all the excitement:
Eve just mainly leaned forward, letting herself fall, instead of jumping:
Hahaha, this next one looks HORRIBLE, but like I said, she never landed on or hurt her little sister:

I love Summer weather...

... and I love enjoying it outside. The only problem? Being so busy doesn't leave much time left for blogging. So here is a (very long, but not complete) update of what we've been up to lately.

We have...

...played countless times at countless parks... ... played in tons of water...... including the rain...... blown a gazillion bubbles...... gotten multiple "owies" due to falling on our dumb concrete steps (only one "owie" is pictured, as soon as one would disappear, she would get hurt again, so you get the idea with just the one picture)...... played with some friends at Air Zone, which consists of blow up slides, bounce houses and obstacle courses...... (apparently air hockey is just as interesting as the blow up obstacles)...... gone to the city market for cheap fruits, veggies and of course maracas (Kylie is with her friend Josey in the first pictures and with Jason's mom in the last one)...... enjoyed Sonic's happy hour...

... visited Clifford the big red dog...

... watched my cousin get married and watched Kylie and Eve tear up the dance floor at the reception...

...(those dance moves included breakdancing from Kylie)... ... watched Eve enjoy her first ice cream cone...

... made smores (my favorite)...... lost at miniature golf (by ONE stinkin' point!)...
... won at miniature golf (SERIOUSLY BY ONE POINT!)...
...seen some cRazY wildlife...

... ok so we did see some real wildlife, when we went to the zoo for instance...
... Eve's bestie Sadra came too, but of course neither one would look at the camera...... seen more wildlife (snakes, birds, turtles...) at Cassie's first birthday at the nature center in Wichita...

... found even more wildlife in our "backyard", aka a worm, what a fun day THAT was...
...enjoyed our "backyard" even without worms...

... watched Kelly play softball...
... bounced a lot...... Sound exhausting? Eve sure thinks so!