I should have asked for flowers.

The weekend before Mother's Day, I was heading out of town to Utah for Kelsey's bridal shower.  Before I left, Steve asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day.  I told him that I would be happy if he pressure washed the white fence and slapped up a fresh coat of white paint for the summer.  (it was looking a little grungy).  Steve asked if I would rather have my car cleaned and some weeds pulled.  NOPE.  The fence should be an easy project and boy will it look better with a fresh coat of paint.  So, we agreed.  Happy Mother's Day to me with a fence project on the horizon.  (All this was communicated by text messages -  they were not quite as animated, but you get the picture).

On Friday night, Kels and I hopped on a plane to Utah with baby Evan in tow.  I was panicked about how the plane ride would go, but was pleasently surprised as he slept the whole ride.  In fact, he snuggled in for a nice nap right as the engines started and didn't wake up until we found our luggage in good ole' SLC!  On a side note (you know how I love a good side note...) after I was gone, Steve contacted his dad about the fence project and boy was I wrong to believe this would be an easy job...

As they started pressure washing the fence, paint started flaking off.  Lots of paint.  And what comes with flakey paint?  Well, the need to scrape and sand the rest of the fence of course!  On Mother's Day, I returned to Seattle to find Steve, Bob, and Kathi (YES... she was outside with a scraper and gloves working on my fence for her mother's day.  Totally unacceptable!)  Turns out, my small, little, one day project had turned into quite the job!  They had started working on it on Sat and kept working on it on Sunday.  They kept working on Thurs of the following week (when Bob came down in the middle of the day to keep chipping away paint), and kept working on Friday and Sat until Bob had to head back home.  Steve got up early on Sunday to work on it before the U-District Street Festival and before the next week's predicted rain started.  At this point, we have a washed, sanded, scraped, scraped, brushed, scraped, and primed fence.  I have to admit, it looks way better than I had even hoped and I can only imagine how fancy it will look when it actually gets the fresh coat of paint I had been hoping for!

 

4 Months Old!

Yesterday, we had Evan's 4 mo. check up.  He was 25 inches long (51%), his head was 45 cm (98%), and he weighed 16 lbs 7 oz. (78%).  The best part of the check up was when Jen and I figured out he weighs more at 4 months than Ivy did at 9 months.  Hooray for my big brained, big boned, short little guy! :)

Ode to Nabisco and to the Glorious OREO cookie.

Dear Oreo: (BUT only if you are a double stuf cookie. Who even eats the ones with 1/2 the cream? I cannot imagine wasting my time or money on such a small version of the wonder cookie)



Words cannot describe the way I feel about you my friend. You taste wonderful as a snack after dinner.  You taste wonderful as a snack before dinner, or even AS dinner.  You taste good on a cold rainy day, or on a hot summer picnic.  You were the perfect surprise to find in my lunch box as a child and you are the perfect surprise to find in the kitchen at the office (Jen shares my love of the oreo and will sometimes leave a few there for me - today, she left 8 or 9 and I ate them all.  Don't judge me.)

Little Oreo, at the store the other day I found a version of you combined with mint and dipped in chocolate.  I was pleasantly surprised.  You never cease to amaze me.

On a sad note, you are contributing to the way my tummy hangs over my pants, but for now, Little friend, I am willing to give a little to keep you in my life.  That is, after all, what friends are for, right?  Thank you for being invented.  Thank you for existing and for just being you!

All my love,
Sincerely,
Angie

He Rolled Over!

I am proud to announce that Evan can roll over!  :) 
If you are satisfied with that fact, you can stop reading.  If however, you would like the play-by-play you should definitely keep reading.  (I am fully aware that some of you may not be as excited about this turn of events as I was.  Kids roll.  Yes, but this rolling kid was MINE!). 

Here it goes:
He was laying on his new blanket in the living room with Steve.  I was in the kitchen making dinner and told Steve to put him on his tummy so Evan could show him how good he was getting at lifting his head.  Steve put him on his tummy and then said, "oh, he wants to roll over!" 
Me, being the know-it-all-mom that I am, say, "Yes, he is getting really strong" and keep cutting vegetables.
Steve:  "OH, he just rolled over!" 
Me: "All on his own?  You helped him, didn't you?"
Steve: "NO!  He did it on his own." 
Me:  (coming from the kitchen with cut zuchinni in hand) "Do you think he did it on purpose?" 
Steve:  "Yes!" 
Me: "See if he will do it again!" 
Steve put Evan back on his tummy and he rolled to his back with ease.  He did it like 5 times.  It was on purpose!  Hooray! 

First Mariners Game!

Last night, we headed out to Evan's first ever Mariner's game.  I rushed home from work, we loaded the bag, the car, grabbed the tickets and were on our way!  It had been a perfect weather day. The sun had been shining, the sky was blue - Perfect weather for a ball game.  As we arrived down town, we circled the area for free parking spots (we didn't have any cash on us and didn't really have too many other options).  We found a free spot pretty close to the ball park, loaded Evan in his back pack and were on our way.

We hadn't walked more than about 10 steps when the rain started coming down!  At first it was just sprinkling.  Ok, we can hurry into the park before we are too wet -- NOPE.  The rain started pouring down!  We walked as fast as our legs could go.  I held my hand over Evan's face, but was unable to escape Mother Nature.  We were all wet.  Wet faces, wet jackets, wet pants and shoes, wet blankets, WET.  Evan experienced his first (and for sure not his last) feeling of rain.  As we approached Qwest field, we could see Safeco in the distance.  Just then, this nice Pedi cab lady biked over and asked if we wanted a ride.  No thanks - (we don't have any cash, remember).  Then she says, "Lady with a baby - get in.  It's free.  Get that baby inside!"  Oh, lovely little pedi cab lady in extremely short shorts and little tank top --Thank you!  We hopped on the little bike and rode to the entrance of the stadium.  The rain had subsided a little, but was still coming down.

We got inside, the rain stopped (of course), we ate nachos for me and pizza for Steve.  We watched what we could of the game standing in the concourse (Evan didn't like all the screaming and was WAY happier standing up than he was sitting in our seats!). 

He made it to the fifth inning before falling asleep.  After that, Steve and I opted to leave.  It was way too sad to see him startled awake after every good play.   When we left, the Mariners were beating the Tigers 5 to 2.  It was a good game.

(AND... even though I hate scenary shots, Steve took this photo after the rain stopped)

I don't really have anything to report.

BUT, Steve did take this adorable little photo of Evan before their walk the other day.  The walk didn't last more than 5 min. because he ended up screaming and crying once we put him in the stroller, but at least he looked adorable!

Pretty Soon...

Starting a few weeks after he was born, Evan started having extremely dry skin on his head.  After a bath, he would look like he had a little white swim cap on (hence the name "craddle cap," I suppose).  I read on the internet that it usually just goes away on its own and there is really no need for all the chemicals you can buy to try to speed the process of getting rid of it.  "Just wait it out" was the best, most organic advice I could Google.  Grandma Lori helped by rubbing it with a towell and suggesting a nice soft brush to help get rid of it.  We kept with a routine of washing, softly rubbing with a towell to dry, and brushing.  With this routine, for the most part, the dry skin went away.  The next stage was a bunch (I should say hundreds) of little yellow scaley looking things on his head.  That was fun.  Seriously, there were hundreds of little yellow dots on his head.  Again, my friend Google said to just leave it be.  I did, and most of the scaley yellow skin has rubbed off.  Most of it. The ones that have stuck around are bringing us back to an extremely dry head.  Lovely little cycle.  It IS getting better, but today it looked so dry and I was concerned it would be itchy.   This time, I stayed away from the computer and turned to my hippiest friend, Courtney.  For my shower she had given me some natural lotion and I decided that it couldn't hurt.  Luckily, in addition to helping the dry skin, the lotion also caused his little hair to stand up all over!  I totally loved it.  Hopefully the little dry skin will heal quickly... but if it doesn't, at least I have awesome rock star hair (that is about 1 cm long) to look forward to.

P.S.   It won't be long now until Evan has more hair than his dad!