Thursday, June 28, 2012

Milestones: 11 Months


Wow. We are only one month away from celebrating our first year with the most amazing little girl I have ever seen. She has learned so much and taught me so much more, and honestly, I have never had so much fun!


Evey just keeps getting cuter and cuter. Maybe I'm a little biased... but, what can I say?!? Her sweet blue eyes seem to get bigger with every new thing she takes in and they light up her face.

This month's photos were a little difficult. The older she gets, the hard it is to keep her attention on something like a photo shoot, so we resorted to bribery. A toy for a smile!

This month, she has fallen even more love with books. Her favorite book is her Elmo puppet book, "If You're Happy and You Know It" and she loves the song, too! She knows to clap when we sing it.

She loves her steering wheel toy and knows which songs are her favorite. It amazes me how she recognizes certain songs or words as ones she loves.

She has fallen in love with some of her stuffed animals this month. She loves to snuggle and cuddle with Llama Llama, Emaline, Carter, Jasey Ray and Violet. One of these goes with us wherever we go and she smiles and hugs them tight when she sees them!

She spent all of June with her Nana and her Auntie Ali. We pulled her out of daycare a month before it closed to save a little money and she got to know some other members of her family, other than Mommy, Papa and Mimi. With Mimi being gone for a month, there was room for the others to step in!

Auntie Ali watched her at our house, and she was such a good girl!

She spent a lot of time at Nana's house and loved one of her old Cabbage Patch dolls. It was one of the preemies that were a little bit smaller and just her size! She was so sweet with it and I loved seeing in her that, one day, she's going to be amazing Mommy, just like I hope I am!

She is cruising and moving everywhere. It's adorable to see her do Feng Shui everywhere. She loves pushing furniture and rearranging everything she can get her hands on! She's definitely close to walking, but hasn't worked up the courage just yet! I'm not worried, though!


She eats anything now. As long as it's not super-spicy, she gobbles it right up!

She did hit a fun new milestone this month that makes food-time much easier!
She learned how to drink out of a straw! We went to Red Robin for my free birthday burger and got a kid's cup, and, as usual, ordered a feast of broccoli, sweet potato fries and mandarin oranges for her. In the process of stuffing the food into her mouth as quickly as possible, she just decided she knew how to drink. It was such a big achievement and now she can wash the stored food down with a simple drink! We bought new sippy-cups that have the straws attached and she loves to drink now!




We measured her at home, and she's now 17 lbs and 28 inches tall... She got teeth #'s 5 and six and now has the most adorable snaggletooth grin. Since she got fangs first, now that she has her central incisors, her smile is full, but a little wonky. Last, but not least, her hair is growing in! Little by little, she's growing sweet brown locks that look very light except in comparison to her cousin's hair!







Sunday, June 24, 2012

Home Away from Home


 Growing up, Christopher and I both spent a lot of time in the Smokie Mountains. We love to visit over a long weekend, so we packed our bags and had a mini-vacation. We couldn't check into our villa until Saturday, but we didn't want to lose time, so we drove down and camped out our first night there. Our friends, Ellen and Mark went with us and had never been to Gatlinburg before!

Evey did excellent sleeping on the ground. She actually slept better than me! She was so cute in the tent!






When we woke up at sunrise, we packed up camp and headed out to drive the dragon. Christopher has been talking about driving Deal's Gap for years, so we made the plans to do it this trip. I get very, very car-sick (which is why we hadn't gone before) and so we got some Dramamine and got ready to go.

I've never taken Dramamine before, so I had no idea how it'd affect me. I definitely wanted maximum car-sickness-prevention, so we decided I should take two. By the time we actually got to Deal's Gap, I was so loopy! I couldn't hold my head up... at all. I felt like my speech was slurred and I was so groggy. We drove all 318 turns in 11 miles and got to the Dragon's gift shops and decided to turn around and drive it back again. I slept through every turn.

I definitely got maximum prevention!

By the time we got to Mountain Loft, we found out that we couldn't check in until 4pm. That wasn't part of the plan We were exhausted and hot, so we hit the pool to waste some time.



After a few minutes swimming, we realized how hungry we were. So we got a recommendation and headed down to the strip. I had eggs benedict which weren't as great as Christopher's but definitely did the trick. After lunch, we had enough energy to hit our favorite spots on Glades Road.







We stopped for our traditional Sasporillas and Ice Cream at the Old Fashioned Soda Shop!







Finally, it was 4pm!! We headed back to the villa for a quick nap before heading downtown for the evening.



Evey played Peek-a-Boo with Mark.








We always love spinning the massive marble in front of Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum and Evey had a great time running her hand throught the water.




We went to Old Smokie Candy Company, and Evey decided she wanted some toys... This was the first time she'd ever pulled things off the shelves, and she did it right! She just kept going back for more! She did really well, though, when we put them back and waved "bye-bye."



By 11pm, Evey was starting to get fussy, but she'd been such a trooper all night! She may have been tired, but she enjoyed the trolly ride home!

When we got back to the villa, we put Evey down and decided to play the Redneck Game of Life. The four of us were up until 2am (which I haven't seen in ages!) but had to be up and running again by 5 to hit Cades Cove. It was going to be an early morning!



Cades Cove was beautiful! We got there a little after sunrise, but still in time to see loads of deer!



















Evey loves to drive with her Papa.







After all that running, we were all exhausted! Evey fell asleep half-way through Cades Cove, and then we all napped again when we got back to the villa. Ellen and Mark had to leave at noon, so we had crammed as much of Gatlinburg as we could into the time we had!




When we woke up, it was a bit rainy and we decided to head out for a late lunch.


Look, Mom!! NO HANDS!!

Evey stood on her own for the first time!



After a tasty lunch at Blaine's, we decided to go to the aquarium. I'll post those pictures later!