Evie- 8 month update

I didn't mean for my blog to turn into monthly updates on my daughter and nothing else, but that is what its become lately. I don't have a charger for my computer so I have to blog somewhere I can borrow a charger, which I apparently only find time for once a month...but I'll get better at it. There IS more going on in our lives besides Evie's monthly birthday, I promise. But I'm sure she's the reason most of you read anyway ;)

EIGHT MONTHS! I honestly lose track all the time, so its probably a good thing I have this blog so I can remember how old my only child is. I stopped counting weeks by the time she hit double digits, and I'll probably have to do that with months too. Evidently numbers aren't my strong point. I'll work on that too.

All that aside, little Evelyn is becoming quite the person. She is learning to assert her opinion and makes it verrrry clear when she wants something, or doesn't like what is happening. Any second now she will be crawling (finally)- she has SO many places to go and gets frustrated that she can't get there.

Likes:
- Clapping: Whenever anyone says "yay!" she gets really excited and claps her hands. She also loves grabbing someone else's hands and clapping them together.  I love this new way for her to express herself- she's becoming a "big girl" more and more each day.
- Waving goodbye: Sometimes it takes a while, and she occasionally waves to herself, but she can do it.
- Reading "Goodnight Moon": This is literally her favorite. We read it multiple times every night during bedtime. Its a good thing she has such good taste in literature, or that would get really monotonous.
-And of course ROXY: This dog is about as close to a nanny as we can get. Set Evie in front of Roxy, and endless opportunities to push, pull, yank, pet, kiss, sit on, head butt and hug keep her occupied for minutes on end (which is a long time, trust me).
- FALLING ASLEEP AND SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!: Thank the good Lord for this one. With the help of a consistent bedtime routine, lots of tries and tears (from all of us), and patience, she learned how to fall asleep on her own and stay that way. And there was much, MUCH rejoicing.

Dislikes:
- Naps: No matter what I do, she will not fall asleep for nap time. I've tried everything. The only way she will nap is if we drive around in the car or nurse her. I'll take that though, since she sleeps at night. You can't win them all.

I just love her wrinkled nose ^^ :)

Firsts:
- She intentionally says "mama" and "papa" when she wants us.
- Pooping in the bathtub. Yeah, this has happened three times now....I can't argue with the logic, but it kind of defeats the purpose.
- Clapping.

Evie- 7 Month Update

Evie has yet another month under her belt....it's crazy how that keeps happening. It surprises me every time- I can hardly believe she'll be 8 months old soon. This month, like all the ones before, brought with it lots of changes- not just for Evie, but for all three of us.

We moved into our first house (*cue HUGE sigh of relief*), and watched my little brother get married, among other changes but I'll post more about those later.

Miss Evelyn had quite the month as well:

Likes:

- Showing off. She's realized that she can make people smile- and she LOVES it. If someone laughs at what she is doing, she will keep doing it with MUCH enthusiasm.
- Scooting. (Kind of). If she sees something she wants and isn't in her walker, she will scoot with her face buried in the ground and her butt in the air towards what she wants. We are still working on the whole picking our face up thing....
- Eating. She love love loves eating solids. We aren't doing any baby food, just for the sake of convenience and letting her teach herself how to eat, but are doing a "baby led weaning" approach. So far she loves avocado, banana, sweet potato, cheerios, watermelon, apple sauce, scrambled eggs, peppers (non-spicy, of course) and water. Shes turning in to quite the connoisseur.
 - Chewing on her toes.

Dislikes:

- Putting herself to sleep. We've been working on teaching her how to fall asleep without needing me. I'll just say its much harder to actually implement than it seems. She typically wakes up about every three hours during the night to eat or just cuddle- which is really sweet for about the first two weeks. Needless to say, this mama is ready for a full night of sleep. With the move into our tiny one bedroom home and Aj's new job working at night, though, its been hard to let her put herself to sleep without totally giving up on our sleep....its a work in progress, I hope.

Firsts:

- Shes started saying "words". Her favorites are "ba-ba", "ma-ma", "da-da" and shaking her head "no no no".
-Viral rash. This one's not as fun :( If you look closely in most of the pictures you can see the rash all over her face, arms and legs. It started out as a mosquito bite and broke out from there (though the two may not be related). It was so sad to see my baby so itchy and red...but luckily, I think it bothered me a lot more than it bothered her.
-TEETH! Her bottom middle teeth are starting to peek through. The toothless grin days are coming to an end. 

Tummy time with her best friend.

A Week In Home-aha (or Omaha, if you're not my husband)

A few weeks ago we spent a week in Omaha with AJ's family. When we lived in Colorado, it was an eight hour drive- one we only dared to make once with the baby. It was rough, let's leave it at that. Now, though, it's only four hours, which is MUCH more do-able. We usually drive at night so E can sleep. We load up on coffee, red bull and the Black Keys and its a straight shot.

Pre-trip enthusiasm. Even Roxy was excited. 

We stayed with Aj's Mom and kept very busy. One highlight was going to his family (the very Italian side's) yearly "sausage day". I watched in awe as they, clearly a well oiled machine, formed an assembly line and (literally) cranked out hundreds of pounds of Italian sausage. It was fascinating to watch and I met and "re-met" lots of lovely members of my new family.

E and Nona had some great bonding time :)

Just chatting away with Uncle Sammy

Another highlight was going to the Henry Doorly Zoo. For all you zoo connoisseurs out there, this is definitely one to hit. It's one of the biggest in the country (the second largest I believe?), providing hours of fun (and sunburns, in our case unfortunately). I'm so excited for Evie to be old enough to actually enjoy all of the animals, but for now she had a blast being chauffeured around in her stroller all day.

Sleeping the day away….

We spent lots of quality time with AJ's dad's side too. E got to know her great-grandma Evie (her namesake) even better. I'm so grateful that my little girl gets to grow up with grandparents on both sides who love her so much. Though I am dreading the years when she realizes how spoiled she is by them.

Aj's little sisters and cousin loving on their niece

We got to see the girls' softball game. It was SO hot, but they played great.

One of the main reasons we decided to move was to be closer to family, and I'm already so glad that we did. Being able to take trips like this on a moment's notice is so special, and we're looking forward to many more like it.

I hope you're all having a lovely week!

Until next time,
Liv

Evie- Six Month Update

Half a year under her belt! I can't believe it. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't already in the planning phases for her first birthday party…but I'm trying not to rush myself. Everyday she changes and learns something new, and I don't want to miss a single thing. She is turning more and more into her own little person, with definite preferences and dislikes.

Likes:

- Beards. Or really any hair for that matter. She grabs and pulls as hard a she can the minute any hair is within reach. Maybe she just likes the reaction she gets out of the victims…
- Being outside. Now that summer is firmly established, we love lathering her up with sunscreen and letting her play outside. Right now walks in her stroller are her favorite, sometimes we go on two or three a day.
- Squealing. She makes a really high pitched squeak now, rather than her random babbling she was doing. I have a hard time telling if she is frustrated or happy when she does it, but it sounds cute nonetheless.
- Mimicking. She loves to copy us when we stick out our tongues or make fake coughing noises.
-Blowing spit bubbles.

Dislikes:

- Sleeping through the night. There were three or four nights where she slept ALLLLL the way through- which was clearly just to tease me because recently she's been waking up two or three times a night.

- Sitting still. She constantly has to be moving, rocking, bouncing, sucking, chewing, grabbing, rolling or pulling to be happy.  

Firsts:

-Rolling over! She first rolled over from back to tummy only, but now she does both really well, once she figures out she can roll to get what where she wants to go, we will have some major baby proofing to do. 

-Sitting up! She still needs occasional support, but she can sit unassissted most of the time. 

-Sickness :( She had her first fever and sore throat (we think) this week. It broke my mama heart to see her so unhappy and unable to sleep. But thankfully it was nothing serious and she is on the up and up now!