Happy 4th of July!

For the 4th this year, we headed up to my parents’ house.  My uncle and two cousins were in town from Indiana.  I hadn’t seem my cousin Morgan in over 3 years.  She’s so grown up!  It was a quick trip, but we had a good time.  Grandma and Grandpa got Evan a little crabby pool and he had a splashing good time cooling off in it.

 

 

We also hit what I feel is a big step.  We left my parents house at bedtime.  This means that Evan fell asleep on the way home.  Until this point, he wakes up as soon as we pull in the driveway..naps and all.  Well in the past if he had slept for about an hour on the way home and woke up in the driveway he would have been good to go for about 5 more hours.  We were looking at a midnight bedtime if this happened.  I was prepared.  I didn’t have to work the next day and we were willing to take the risk.  Well he woke up in the driveway, but he was groggy and confused.  Scott carried him upstairs and he went right back to sleep.  Whew!  It is good to know that he can do this.  Especially when traveling and visiting places and things!  Honestly I think Scott and I are just so used to the routine and schedule that we have the harder time breaking away from it.  Evan is so laid-back-go-with-the-flow.  We should of known he’d do just fine.

 

Well I am about 3 weeks into my summer vacation and I haven’t accomplished much.  I still have about 7 weeks left so I'm not too worried.  We are in the middle of a mini bathroom remodel thanks to a leaking toilet.  I have some other projects I’d like to take on, but they are pretty easy.  Painting the front door, making some valances for a couple of windows, organize the linen closet…things like that.  Other than my projects I just plan to take it easy, have lunch with friends (like Julia!), visit the Children’s museum and Lewis Ginter (thanks to our memberships), and hang out with my little guy!  Ahhh summer vacation, if only the whole year could be like summer vacation.  Nah…who am I kidding. Once the school supplies come out in stores (they were already starting to stock at Target last night), I’ll be itching to get back to school! 10 weeks of vacation is about as much as I can handle!

Year in pictures so far

January: Happy birthday, Evan!

February:  Taking a look at the snow!

 

March:  Look I can fit in the cabinets mom! 

April:  Enjoying the kids pool on the cruise ship!

May:  Playing outside!

June: Playing in the “James River” at the Children’s  Museum of Richmond

You’ve been heard

OK, OK, OK!  I have heard you!  You are upset that I haven’t blogged in…umm….about 8 months!  I apologize for that.  My only excuse is that being the mom of toddler is a lot of hard work.  Once he is in bed, I totally tune out in front of the TV or I’m working on school stuff because I wanted to get out of work on time.  But it is summer time now and I no longer have school as an excuse (except I’m teaching summer school starting next week). 

So very quickly I’ll give you a run down of our year thus far.  I’m going to make it a serious goal of mine to carve out some more blogging time! 

January:  Evan turned one.  We celebrated with a small party of close family and friends.  Poor thing was sick as could be with the worst ear infection to date!  It was his 4th or 5th ear infections since October and he really felt miserable, but he was a trooper and played, ate, and opened presents.  And of course it was a sock monkey theme. 

February:  Evan had ear tubes put in his ears.  We had had it up to our…well ears… with the ear infections.  At his 12 month check up I finally asked the doctor if it would be worth our time to visit an ENT.  He said sure.  The ENT said it was not a question; that he needed tubes ASAP.  He had his surgery on the 14th and it was a tough recovery, but we haven’t had a single ear infection since. 

March:  We enjoyed some time with Evan and watching him grow.  We didn’t really do anything special, but with the weather starting to get nice, his love of the outdoors began!  He would actually stand at the back door and scream “OUT” until someone went outside with him. 

April:  We all went on a cruise with my parents.  We sailed out of Puerto Rico and then hit the islands of St. Croix, St. Marteen, St. Lucia, Antigua, and Barbados.  Evan did great.  He was a huge hit on the ship with his blonde hair and blue eyes.  He even got all dressed up for formal night!  Scott and I enjoyed the cruise so much that we decided to book one for just the two of us next January  

May:  We spent more time outside and took a trip to the beach to see Scott’s parents, who have recently relocated to the beach house permanently.  Our beach trip included miniature golf, time with cousins, and time in the pool.

June:  We’re at the beach now. The mornings at the beach have been great.  The water has been comfortable, the beach pretty empty.  Evan wasn’t sure of the wet sand shifting under his feet when the waves, but he did OK with the sand.  He even managed to eat a good amount of it.  We gave the beach a break today and just enjoyed the pool.  He loves games in the pool, especially rocket ship and whirlpool (mommy made games of course).

That’s the quick version of our year so far.  My next post will be just a picture post!  So, now I have blogged and your requests have been heard!

Fall Outings

Well it has been a busy fall (obviously!).  In early October we went to the State Fair of Virginia.  It was a chilly day, but pretty much perfect for the fair.  We walked around and looked at all the animals, ate some good fair food, saw the prize winning stuff, ate more fair food, walked around the exhibit hall, and ate some more fair food.  My folks joined us for the day.   I think Mr. Man had a good time!

  Grandpa and Evan hanging out.

Daddy and Evan checking out the brand new claves.

Whew…the State Fair is exhausting!

Another one of our fall outings was to the pumpkin patch up at my parents house.  It is a pretty cool place.  There are about 6 or 7 bouncy things, lots of things to climb on, and some motorized racing toilets.  It was a bit pricey, but since Evan was under a year, it was free!  Next year he’ll have to empty his piggy bank to go back! 

Cute as a pumpkin or at least sitting on one!

I could drive this plane all day long!

  The silly Gerkes

  I really want this pumpkin, mom!

Ooops

So I already missed a couple days, but at least I’m back this soon.  So during my hiatis Mr.Man turned 8 months old.  Here’s his 8 month picture with Amos!

We didn’t have a well-check, so we have no idea what his stats were at 8 months!

Sorry

That’s all I can say…sorry.  I know it has been way to long and sorry probably isn’t enough.  I can’t believe I haven’t blogged in 2 whole months.  School started, life got busy, things were going on…I know, excuses, excuses.  Well I’m back and hopefully for good. 

So much has happened in the past two months.  Mr.Man is 9 months old. I can’t believe it!  He is crawling, pulling up on everything, cruising the couch, wall, fridge, whatever he can find.  He becomes more and more vocal every day.  He is even starting to walk with his little activity walker.  And of course he’s picking up germs.  He is currently under the weather with his second double ear infection in the last month.  Hopefully the antibiotics get it this time. 

So much more has happened, so to go along with my apology, I promise to post every day for a week.  I think it will take me a least that long to get all caught up!  Hopefully that will gain your forgiveness!

Earthquakes and Hurricanes and Power Outages, Oh My!

It has been an exciting week here in Richmond!  Evan got to experience some for firsts, but not firsts we were looking forward too.  It started on Tuesday at 1:51pm.  A 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck in nearby Louisa County.  The epicenter was right around 40 miles from our house.  It lasted about 45 seconds.  The best part….Evan and I missed it. We were driving to the post office and apparently it was easily missed if you were moving in the car.  I did, however feel 2 of the 3 aftershocks that shook Richmond in the day or two following.  One was around 8:00 the same night while I was putting Evan to bed.  I didn’t like that feeling much and it only measured a 4.2.  Then the next night at 1:00 in the morning I woke up to a 4.9.  I think I heard it before I felt it, but either way Evan slept right though it, so no biggie!

Fast forward to yesterday and Evan met Irene.  Hurricane Irene made landfall as a category 1 hurricane.  We got rained on all Saturday morning and afternoon. We didn’t think it was a big deal, so we decided to clean out our attic.  By early afternoon the winds picked up and we decided it was better to be on the ground level, not in the attic.  As we were watching the wind blow, Scott managed to catch a 15 foot section of a dead tree snap off, bounce off the ground and right into out fence.  So that section of fence will need to be repaired and the tree will need to be cleaned up. 

About 5:30 that evening, I took dinner out of the oven and boom….goodbye power.  Today was miserable.  No power means no AC and it was 93 degrees out today.  Evan was hot and tired, but couldn’t sleep in the heat, so we did a little shopping (ended up with a new fridge) to beat the heat.  Then a very generous relative had us over to their power-filled home for dinner.  And wouldn’t you know it the second we walked in the door our power was restored!!  After 2.5 hours of AC the house is finally getting cool. 

Like I said quite the week, but on the plus side, school is closed tomorrow!  I get one more day at home with my Mr. Man!