Recent Happenings

Well, February was a total blur.  Valentine's Day was a very nice day full of love, as all of my days are between my precious little daughter and my work in the Land of Hugs.  I was extremely surprised by the sweet roses I received at work from Kyle and Evangeline.  They had spent the previous Tuesday together and one of the things they did was stop in at the local flower shop to order flowers and personally sign a card.  Evangeline even drew a little face on it.  It made my day.  Evangeline had a great day too.  When I picked her up from Ms. Linda's she had a whole gift sack full of Valentine's day paraphernalia.  When we got home she promptly dumped it out all over the living room floor to check it out.  I was trying to keep the junk intake to a minimum, but I kept finding her scampering off with pieces of chocolate and I really couldn't blame her.    When Kyle walked in the first thing she said to him was "Daddy, look at all of my junk!".  She hit the nail on the head, all right.  That evening I made stakes, baked potatoes, Brussels sprouts and chocolate covered strawberries.  Ahhh, love...

 Here's Evangeline with the flower she handed me when I picked her up from Ms. Linda's along with some treats she got at school and the new Valentine's Day Hello Kitty shirt surprise from Mommy and Daddy.

 

As I mentioned earlier, Kyle and Evangeline got to spend the day together on Abraham Lincoln's birthday.  Kyle had the day off and decided to have a Evangeline and Daddy day (just another reason I love him so much).  He took her to Terre Haute to the Bouncing Barn (or Barncing Bound as Evangeline calls it) and then to Walmart to pick out a new leotard and dance skirt for her dance class.  They met me in Terre Haute at her dance school and we both watched her in action.  Evangeline is loving dance class.  When we got in the car following her first night in class she said "I got to do everything I wanted to do".  She was just thrilled.   She really enjoys the part of class when she gets to Grande Jatte over Sebastian the crab.

Another big event around here is the decision Evangeline made to finally try taking her bath in the big tub!  She just didn't know what she was missing! I added some bubbles and Kyle added the Disney music on the stereo.  She was in bathing heaven!

Over President's Day weekend we packed up the car and headed 3 hours south for a long overdue trip to Carbondale.  Unfortunately our house has not sold yet (bitter topic), but it is kind of nice to have a place to stay when we visit our wonderful friends.  Not to mention, it's a place filled with happy memories.  I feel almost overcome with precious memories that fill my mind when I enter that house.  Evangeline's crib is still up for crying out loud.  Evangeline was so excited when we pulled up to the house.  She enjoyed being changed on her changing table, sitting in her crib, being rocked in her glider and crawling around and acting like a baby for a little while.  After inspection of the house and wondering out loud why the darn thing hasn't sold yet, we headed over to our friend house for one of our classic pot luck dinners that I miss so much.  We got to see almost all of or Carbondale crew and their kiddos that are growing so big.  We had a great time catching up and watching our kids play together.

Here is Jack, Owen, Tadgh, Audrey and Evangeline vegging out after hours of running around wild.

The following morning we went with the Abbotts to Harbough's for breakfast.  Evangeline got a Micky Mouse pancake and thought it was hysterical!!!!

She adores Owen.

Evangeline has a fashion sense all her own.  She is absolutely adamant about what she wears each day.  I oblige her most days, but often we have all out battles about some of her choices (i.e. tank tops in the dead of winter).  She even insists that she sleep in a skirt. She almost always picks out her jammies for each night....that is one fight not worth waging.  She has a few shirts that she is particularly partial to.  One of them is this shirt that she calls her Barbie shirt. I found a bow that I thought looked like the one on her shirt.  She was over the moon when I suggested we fashion it into a hair bow to make her look like the girl on her shirt...

She is the BIGGEST ham!  She is always striking a pose for the camera and sometimes it's hard to just get a regular old smile out of her!

 

We had a snow day a few weeks back and it was perfectly blissful. I took Evangeline outside to sled for the first time.  It was so much fun.  She squealed with joy each time we went down.  We sat on the sled together and would make it a ways down before hitting an embankment and getting turned backwards.  We also spent the day reading books, playing with blocks, snuggling and feeling blessed.  

 

I feel confident that I'm raising a reader!!



More blocks post wardrobe change.

This is what a typical Sunday afternoon looks like at our house.

My sleeping babies.  God bless them.