Evelyn 6 months and July 2010

Evelyn turned 6 months old on July 2nd. She had her well baby checkup on the 6th and weighed in at 15 lbs, 6 oz (29%). She was 26 3/4 in. tall (77%) and her head was 16 3/4 in. (43%). She's in 6 and 9 month clothes...anything footed has to be 9 months because she is getting so long. Still in size 2 diapers during the day, but wearing size 3s at night. She LOVES to eat. She likes her pureed food of all kinds but also likes to eat anything she can pick up and feed herself like pieces of fruit, puffs, yogurt melts, etc. She likes to gnaw on biter biscuits, her spoons, and carrots because she is teething. She sits up very well now without any support from her hands. She picks up everything and chews on it, which made getting her monthly pictures with the blocks a little challenging. Her beautiful smile and playful giggles made up for it though!! She's certainly a charmer--people are always commenting on what a good baby she is! She takes a morning nap about 2 1/2-3 hours after she wakes up (around 6 or 6:30) for 30-90 minutes, and takes an afternoon nap around 1pm for about 2 hours. If this schedule is pushed earlier, she takes a late afternoon short snooze. She goes to bed between 7 and 8 and sleeps mostly through the night with some short wake ups every once in a while.

Alex is possibly the epitome of the "terrible two's" some days. He makes up for it with his sweet politeness (likes to say please, thank you, and excuse me) and entertaining antics (singing, dancing, playing music, telling stories). He is doing well in his big boy bed most naps and at night. We've been fighting some diaper rash, so on the occasion when we've let him air dry for a while, he's done a great job of running to the potty and peeing in it. Outside of that, he isn't very interested in potty "training" so we aren't pushing the issue right now. He's been loving going to the Y, Gymboree, the pool, bouncy castles (Pump It Up), and the playground but I think he'll be ready to start school again in September because he has asked about it several times. He has really started to enjoy playing with other kids, especially his best little buddy Jacob who is just one month older than Alex. He loves to go outside, and doesn't seem to mind the heat and getting super sweaty (which happens almost instantly considering the weather now!). He's taken an interest in teaching Evey things and telling her what is going on, but isn't too excited about sharing toys with her!

We started July with a visit from our friend Ken. I got to fly to Birmingham to pick him up and Andy and he got to play a few rounds of golf. We celebrated the fourth of July with a barbeque with Ken and some of our local friends and their kids. It was fun and hot! Ken even babysat for us (after the kids were in bed) so we could have an early anniversary dinner, which was very nice (both the dinner at Michael's Table and Ken babysitting!). We celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary on July 6th. Well, we at least thought about it that day, since on the same day, Andy started his new school, SAASS--School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. And that's pretty much the last time we saw him...he's been at school or stuck in a book ever since! We had a short visit from Gram and Pop mid-month and celebrated Pop's birthday while they were here. I appreciated the break and the chance to run errands without the kids, and the kids greatly enjoyed the attention and fun with their grandparents! We will finish off the month with a trip to Atlanta over the weekend to visit with Kelly and Chris.

Here are the pictures from July!

June Travels

We took advantage of Andy's time between schools to take some leave and visit family in Tennessee and Illinois. The kids really did great with all the driving, the abnormal schedules, different places, and new people. We visited with Grandma in TN for a short weekend and got to celebrate her birthday with her while there. Alex and Charlie the bird did not get along too well this time, as Alex got scared and upset when the bird would screech. He did however love to hear and see the trains and airplanes nearby. We visited a great park with a running path and playgrounds so Alex could show Grandma all his latest accomplishments with playground equipment.

We spent about a week in Illinois, where we got to introduce Evelyn to her cousins, aunts, uncles, great-grandparents, and friends. Alex had a blast riding on tractors, catching lightning bugs, petting the new farm kittens, and otherwise entertaining anybody who would watch with his never-ending energy. He helped Pop prep his airplane to fly to a Father's Day breakfast fly-in at a nearby airport. We enjoyed Club 41 onion rings (twice!), a Dallefeld family brunch, and cookies with Great-Gram. The grandparents took care of the kiddos while Andy and I got an afternoon and night (yes, whole NIGHT) away together. We visited the Kickapoo Creek Winery, and spent the evening in Peoria at the Mark Twain Hotel. We went back to Peoria early Saturday morning to run the Steamboat Classic. Andy placed first in his age group for the 4-miler with a 23:05, running alongside (well, just slightly behind) several Olympians and other elite athletes from all corners of the world. I finished Illinois' toughest 15K (9.3 miles) in 1:22:50--surviving the hills in the big park not once but twice.
We saved the longest drive for the way home, and luckily had time left before Andy had to go back to work to recover from this trip!! Here are almost all of the rest of the June pictures that were not included in the last post. The last few pictures had to go into yet another album, so there are just a couple random pictures from June here too.

Evey 5 months and June at Home

Evelyn turned 5 months old on June 2nd. Throughout May, she tried several more foods (fruits, veggies, and oatmeal). She has eaten everything she's tried with gusto and loves to grab the spoon and try to do it herself and chomp on the spoon (teething, probably?). She really likes to drink water out of her sippy cup, though she struggles with being able to lift it and tilt it on her own. She is very interested in everything we eat and drink and wants a taste of anything we have. She is wearing size 2 diapers and 3-6 month clothes. She found her feet and likes to play with them, especially the left one. In early June, she really started to roll around more and by the second week of June started sitting on her own. First she did the quad-pod and tri-pod stances, but has since mastered sitting up while playing with toys with both hands and reaching out for things. She also has been trying to scoot a little on her belly around mid-month, doing the head-first inchworm movement to shimmy towards her toys. She has a hearty laugh, especially when she is tickled, and loves to pet the cat with her hands and feet. She sleeps around 11 hours most nights (7pm-6am) with an occasional wake up, and takes 3 naps most days around 9am, 1pm, and 4pm. She is almost always happy and smiles often but gets cranky when she wants to eat food faster and when she gets really tired.

Alex loves having so much attention with daddy home and visits to/from the grandparents. He's enjoyed playdates with friends, Gymboree, playing at the Y, the zoo, the pool, splashpark, hoses, and sprinklers, and the GA aquarium. We converted his crib to a toddler bed after our travels were over, on the 22nd. He did fine at night sleeping in it, but struggled with naps the first few days. He does stay in his room, whether crying, yelling, or playing and tends to fall asleep with the lights turned on (he does that after we leave). The first day at naptime, he protested for quite a while, but never came out (even though he is perfectly capable of opening, closing, locking, and unlocking his door--and all the doors for that matter) and eventually fell asleep on his floor. To celebrate the occasion, we let him pick out some new bedding. He of course chose Thomas the Train. It only came in twin-size however, so he just uses the comforter draped over his bed to sleep on and the pillow case, and still uses (sort of) his baby blankets over him. He is an endless ball of energy who never wants to go to sleep although he finally admits he is tired sometimes. He loves to read books (with us and by himself--he can recite almost all his books), sing songs (Twinkle, Twinkle and Itsy Bitsy Spider are favorites), play trains, and climb, run, and jump everywhere. He likes to play outside with water, blowing bubbles, playing baseball, basketball, catch, frisbee, and riding the slide. He's started to enjoy coloring and drawing more (sometimes on the floor, tables, couch, wall, pillars, train table/tracks, etc...). His favorite pictures to make are snowmen and fish. He wants to do EVERYTHING himself. His favorite words are MY and ME (yes, yelling them). Examples are "MY do it!!" and "ME watch TV!" He makes long phrases and sentences to tell us about lots of things like planes (fly far away), trucks (oh that's a big truck), firetrucks (go woo, woo, woo), buses (go beep beep), helicopters (whoomp, whoomp, up in the sky), clouds (gray ones make rain and thunder), and trains (choo-choo, can you see it? no, too far away). He likes to talk about what he and Evey are doing (Baby Evey sleeping, eyes closed). Curious George has replaced Thomas the Train as the favorite TV show, with Blues Clues on the car DVD ranking near the top. We finally got his hair cut the third week of June, and he looks older but still very cute, as the little curls still are there.

Andy graduated from ACSC on June 7th as a Distinguished Graduate. He was then mostly free from work obligations until SAASS--his next school--starts on July 6th. While many of our friends from Montgomery are moving to their new assignments, we are lucky to have several friends staying in the area. So we travelled to visit family for about 11 days in June, but the rest of the time we spent here at home enjoying the summertime schedule and time with our family and friends.

We had a short visit from Andy's parents just before he finished school. They joined us on our June 4th-5th trip to Macon, GA where Andy ran his first half-Ironman triathlon. That means he swam 1.2 miles (in a lake), biked 56 miles (on very hilly roads), and ran 13.1 miles (that's a half-marathon) to finish in an impressive 5 hours and 44 minutes. It was a very hot and humid day and the course was very challenging, but all his hard work at training paid off with a strong finish. We all went to cheer him on at the transitions and the finish and are very proud of him!
We visited the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta on the first leg of our travels. Alex had a blast seeing all the big fish, and especially liked the otters (like his best buddy, Ollie the Otter) and the penguins. He was intrigued by the starfish stuck to the wall of the tank, and was awed by the big sharks, rays, and scuba divers swimming over and around him in the tunnel through a tank.

slide at zoo from Andrea McElvaine on Vimeo.

I had so many pictures from this month that I had to break them up. These pictures don't necessarily all coincide with this posting, but they are the first set I've uploaded. I'll include the second set with my next post about our travels in June. So here are June pictures, part 1!