{Life according to my phone}

 Sometimes We dress up and match. Cheesiness to the max - I love it.

We both like to eat. Here's us getting a MASSIVE calzone to celebrate her first few steps.

Here's us waiting for our free chick-fil-a on cow appreciation day

Evette got scratched up this week... We like to play outside a lot. She has figured out that she can bear crawl to avoid scratching her knees on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, last Friday, she misplaced her hand and fell straight on her face. Big old scratches on her nose and forehead. Poor baby....This whole new world of mobility brings along a bunch of bumps and scratches - Oh life.

We found a little baby gecko in our kitchen. The husband wouldn't let me catch it through it outside for fear of cutting off his tail. He said he won't hurt anything and that he even eats bugs - which is great and even if we took him outside he would find his way back in. So... we left him alone. Not sure how I feel about this.

 Playing with another baby girl out in the hallway at church.... Evette may or may not be stealing her binkie.

{Officially Grown up...}

Wow - the timing of that last post could not have been more perfect. That was just yesterday. YESTERDAY!!!!

Today has been a big day. Pretty big indeed.

We had mac n' cheese for lunch. My BABY is old enough to have mac n' cheese for lunch. *sigh*

Then we picked up our friend Miss Emily to go get our free slurpees at 7/11 on 7/11. We went back to Emily's house to enjoy our slurpees. Evette was such a huge fan. LOVED the slurpee. I mean LOVED IT! She cried when we finished it off. Seriously.

After our slurpees we played for a little bit. I was telling Emily how Evette can stand on her own now, but that she doesn't like to do it so much because it scares her. I then got Evette to stand up to show off for Miss Emily and then the crazy thing happened. She walked. Evette took her first steps. Yup. Emily was sitting in front of Evette and was holding a ball. Evette took a few steps to grab the ball from her. True story. AMAZING! I was just squealing and laughing  and so excited and so happy and so nostalgic and so fast and so grown up and so ahhh!!! Amazing. What a strong little girl I have. She did it a second time as well. A few minutes later she also let go of a box that she was using for balance to take a few steps over to the tv stand to use for balance. AMAZING. 


I don't know what else to say. Is my baby still a baby? The answer is yes, forever. When I call my mom I say, "Mom!" and she says, "Hey Baby Girl!" Still a baby.

"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be."

... even if she does decide to grow up...

{Evette is growing up}

Everyday she changes. More and more independent. More and more personality. Learning new things everyday. It's amazing and awesome and scary.

When I was dropping Evette off at my parent's before flying out to Florida we were all playing a game and chatting and I posed the question of "where will you be in 5 years" to my family and when it was my turn I realized that Evette will be in Kindergarten. I busted out in tears. Oh. My. Heck.

 My visiting teacher just had a baby and I got to see her sweet little 2 week old at church - how tiny! I felt like that was yesterday! What happened?

 Sometimes I just want time to stop.

Sometimes I miss that little squish of a baby....

But she's getting funner and funner everyday and I love each day more than the last. Crazy.

Playing Jenga...

 

Eating spaghetti...

Going on a lazy Sunday morning walk in our pajamas...

{Nursing Woes Averted}

Maybe TMI... but oh well - documenting life, here.

Once upon a time Evette and I were a great nursing team. From day 1 there were absolutely no problems. It was easy, we have always been on a great schedule, life was good.

Then one day she grew teeth and I got nervous. Nothing happened for a long time but last week she bit me 3 or 4 days in a row. I screamed/squealed each time, it wasn't fun. After each instance Evette would get startled and scared and would cry. I would feel bad and then I would cry, too.

On Friday morning she bit me, I squealed, she cried, and wouldn't latch on to finish drinking. She wouldn't have it. She didn't want to nurse for the rest of the day. Every time I tried she would just cry and cry and crawl away from me. Broke my heart in a million pieces.

I scared her away from nursing because I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I felt like I had betrayed her. Terrible Mom Award for me. I absolutely loved nursing and I had ruined it and let my Baby Girl down. I seriously looked forward to nursing every single day - nothing like that Mother Baby bond....

For the rest of the day I kept trying to nurse her with no success so she got some apple juice and milk. At the end of the day when she was super cranky I decided it was time to run to the store and get some formula for her. She downed 7 oz in about 1 minute. Sad. Formula is super nasty [yes, I tried it, YUCK!]....She would rather have formula than nurse? Broken heart again. [Also broken wallet - formula is expensive! Holy cow....]

I was so sad and felt absolutely terrible [mentally and physically - you nursing moms know what I'm talking about... I hadn't nursed all day]. I felt like that was that... the end. No more nursing. Evette didn't need me anymore. I knew this day would come but not this soon and not in this manner. I was so sad. Kristen and Caitlan were over when this happened and Kristen was so nice and supportive... telling me I wasn't a bad mom and some of her nursing woes stories - super nice.

That night I had an interesting dream. I was in a super tall building talking with a group of strangers. All of a sudden there was a huge tidal wave that came and crashed into the building. We all ended up on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean [Probably some Life of Pi working there...]. There was a man on the boat with his 9 month old baby boy. The baby was just crying and crying. I told him that his baby was probably starving to death since we had been out at sea for a few days. He said the baby had only been breastfed, no formula ever in his life and he didn't know what to do.... I said, "Hey! Let me nurse your baby! I can feed him! Let me take care of him!" His reply, "What? How can this be? How can you nurse?" "I have a 9 month old baby at home who no longer wants me, she doesn't want to nurse..... so I have all this milk! Let me save your baby! Let me nurse him for you!" I ended up nursing the baby and all the people all the boat were cheering and calling me a hero. I saved the day. The End. Subconscious in turmoil, much?

I prayed that the next morning she would forget and want to nurse again. Like normal, the husband brought Evette into our room to nurse after getting her out of bed and changing her diaper. I crossed my fingers hoping that she would nurse - No. Nothing. Absolutely not. I told the husband to go grab some formula for the baby. I let her take a few gulps of formula and then I hid the bottle from her [sneaky mom] - then she latched on nursed!!! Boom, Baby! Got it! Success! Hallelujah! So grateful!

I was not ready for my little girl to grow up and not need me anymore. I didn't want our nursing teamwork to end on such a sad note. I did not want to stop nursing my baby. Life is good, we're back to normal. I will no longer scream. I will no longer scream. I will no longer scream. Luckily there hasn't been any incidents to test  that statement, and let's hope it stays that way.

The Evette and Momma nursing team is back together again for at least a few more months. :)
*sigh of relief*

{Quick visit}

Kristen and Caitlan drove up to Dallas for a quick spontaneous trip. It was awesome!

We made homemade ice cream...

Played a lot of games...

And drove to meet the husband's cousin and family who were down in the Dallas area visiting their family.

 We had lunch at this great barbecue place.

Here's Evette with her second cousin Sawyer - she's about 1 month older than him. They were so cute together!

Evette gave him a couple kisses but when never caught a shot of it - this one is close lol.

 Harrison and Elliot

 The whole family! 

 It had been a few months since we saw them last and it was great to catch up with them!

 We also stopped by the mall near our house - had to stop by Bed and Body Works to hit up their semiannual sale :)

It was so fun to spend time with family! We hadn't seen Caitlan in a few months and it was great to catch up with her. Evette was excited to play with her Auntie Caitlan. I love living so close to both of our families. Life is good.

Kristen was there, too, I promise. She was just behind the camera instead of in front of it :)

{4th of July}

Our 4th of July was very chill - we didn't do a whole lot. We woke up early and went to our ward 4th of July breakfast. We enjoyed pancakes, sausage, and eggs and got to hear lots of patriot songs be song and also the Declaration of Independence read. And, of course, a flag raising.

Here's Baby Girl sporting her cute fireworks tshirt from Grandma Kristen:

After breakfast the husband returned to work [he was working on a project in Canada where they don't celebrate the 4th of July but now he gets an extra vacation day for whenever] while baby and I played with the balloon we brought home with us.

For dinner we had some pork-chops and kabobs on the grill - delicious!

No fireworks for us this year because Evette likes to go to sleep before the sun even sets....So after the Babes went to bed the husband and I enjoyed the wonderful Red, White, and Blueberry dessert [grandma's recipe - heavenly!!!] and playing a games.

... and took ridiculous looking pictures with my new fancy-pants camera on my phone.

Glad to live in America! God Bless the USA!

{Mommy Olympics}

I'm pretty stoked about the Olympics this year. I love the spirit and the patriotism and the comradery that the games bring. Summer Olympics are my favorite - gotta love the gymnastics! :)

Anyways...

I have decided that I should start my own Olympic games - it's called "Mommy Olympics." I've been thinking about this for a while now but ever since I changed Evette's diaper standing up in a yucky public bathroom without touching a single thing I'm pretty sure I'm qualified for Mommy Olympics. So here are the deets.

OVERVIEW

• You have to be a Mom to participate
• You have multiple events every single day of your life for at least 18 years
• No training, no rehearsals, no half times, just go go go every second of every day
• No calling it quits
• No referees, no judges, no rules
• Uneven playing field [single moms, multiple kids, kids with special needs, financial issues...etc...]
• No endorsements, no fame, no scores, no gold medals.

Who is in? Great - this is a sneak peek what you gotta do [keep in mind there is no plan of what can or will happen, sometimes you gotta do 2-5 events at one given time]:

EVENTS

• Feed a baby every 2 hours
• Run on 1.5 hrs of sleep
• Don't loose your cool while the baby is screaming in the car for 30 min +
• Catch all of her spit-up in your hands so it doesn't get all over her cute new outfit
• Change a diaper while your baby is crawling away from you without getting any poop on the floor
• Memorize all the nursery rhymes
• Be able to carry on a conversation with someone who doesn't talk or understand you yet
• Translate every different kind of cry including every different nuance thrown in there
• Pack a diaper bag [diapers, pacifier, cheerios, toys, picture book, bib, wipes, hand sanitizer, keys, wallet, phone, bottle, grocery list, coupons, chapstick] in 30 seconds or less after your baby has gotten into it and spread the contents across the entire house only using one hand because the other one is holding the baby
• Make sure your baby doesn't crack their head open on the hardwood floor, coffee table, kitchen counter, door frames, etc....
• In the middle of the night walk absolutely silently into your baby's room and place your hand on their back [WITHOUT WAKING THEM UP!!!] to make sure she's still breathing without tripping or stepping onto any of the toys or books strewn throughout the room
• Intercept a mushy banana from landing on your dining room wall right next to the carrot that landed there yesterday

Those are just a select few of the events that you may be asked to do just in the first 9 months of Mommy Olympics. This is how far I have made it so far. I am told that as you continue on in the Olympics it gets harder and harder and trickier and trickier as you start dealing with walking, talking, dating, driving babies. Wowzers.

Here are some power moves that earn you some bonus points as well [bonus points?! There aren't even regular points lol]

• Shower
• Wash Hair
• Shave [yes, those are 3 different power moves]
• Makeup
• Hair brushed
• Dishes done
• Dinner made [bowl of cereal counts]
• Laundry washed
• Laundry folded
• Laundry ironed [yes, those are 3 different power moves]
• Grocery shopping
• Remembering to buy milk [yes, those are 2 different power moves]
• Floor swept
• Plants watered

Got it? Ok.

Basically the point of the Mommy Olympics is to make sure that your Baby is safe, fed, and loved - everything else is just details. If you do those 3 things [safe, fed, loved] then you win. Everyone can win.

Although there is no Gold Medal or even a Gold Star sticker it's the best game in the world. Watching the discovery and joy in Evette is Magic.

I love the spirit, the love, the excitement, everything. Mommy Olympics are the best. I'm glad I get to play every day.

Happy Mommy Olympics!