Totally unrelated thoughts of the day

- Evelyn is always smiling! She brings such joy into our lives. She rolled over for the first time several weeks ago but now is beginning to roll over all the time. She flipped over in her crib a couple times last night and woke herself up. Nate is her absolute favorite person. She watches his every move with rapt attention.

- I am really, really enjoying not being pregnant. After I had Evelyn I felt like my old self, whom I had totally forgotten even existed, returned. I am constantly surprised at how much energy I have! Tackling projects and planning home repairs sound exciting rather than sadly overwhelming. I am incredibly thankful for my ability to be pregnant and for my babies, but I feel much better when not pregnant.

- Recently I have been craving okra and sweet potatoes. We are getting a good bit of okra from the garden, though not as much as I would like to eat every day. It is amazing roasted in the oven!! I am eating a plateful of it right now. Sweet potato fries are another food I think I could live on. Mmmm...maybe I should go make some!

- Rose is being half-leased by a lovely young girl and I am thrilled with how that is working out so far. Rose needs the extra work too!

- My dear childhood friend Kathryn visited with me for a week. I enjoyed our time together immensely. She also helped me paint our front living room, which was still white from when we moved in. The color is a peachy, orange tan that changes hues with the light. I love it! This week I have sat in there every morning, because the sun rises in front of our house, drinking my coffee.

- Nate and I laugh together all the time. I love doing silly things to make him crack up. He still does not talk much but he is growing up so fast! He can walk down the stairs without holding onto the wall. He always wants to "go" and frequently comes up and asks me, "Go? Go? Papa? Dad?" Translated, that means, "Can we please go in Dad's car to Papa and Gram's house?" Whenever we leave the house in the car, he wants to go to Papa and Grams. He knows all of the correct turns to take to get there and protests whenever we make a "wrong" turn.

- I miss Brett. Without him I never sleep well. Only 3 more nights and then he will be back! He has been in Austin for training for work since last Monday. These two-week-long trainings are miserable. Thankfully, this is the last one that he knows of in the near future.

-I have enjoyed having my sister Patience here so much. We have gotten closer and it's nice to have someone come home for dinner. Sadly she only has about 6 weeks left until she will be returning to Maryland. Sadly for me anyway. I will probably have a good cry when she leaves.

- Here I am, staying up late again because Brett is not here. It is amazing how much I can get done at night when I stay up late and am alone though! =) Ok I really am going to bed now.

Video evidence of the aforementioned love=)

Evelyn squealing and laughing at Nate! With a little extra hilarity from Nate. Please excuse us in advance=) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9KqnYFUbcg&feature=plcp

Love all around

Nate and Evelyn love each other so dearly. They are precious together! Just a few minutes ago, Nate went upstairs and woke Evelyn up. I came flying into the room a minute too late to save her nap. She was bleary eyed and slightly confused, but was smiling from ear to ear at him anyway. He was hanging blissfully on the side of her bed, laughing with glee that he had woken her up. Then he laid down on the floor, rolling some of his trucks back and forth, putting on a show for her.

When he comes down in the morning, he runs around looking for her. If she is still asleep, it is difficult to keep him from going upstairs to wake her. 

Nothing (except tickling) can make her laugh like he can. If he starts laughing, her whole face crinkles up and she laughs with him. Then of course, Brett and I start laughing too. So essentially, if Nate laughs around here, we all laugh. =) 

Having two babies is definitely more than double the fun! 

More of Fripp and the adorableness of Evelyn

I forgot that I had taken pictures on my phone as well as on my camera while we were in Fripp. So here are a few more photos from our trip. I LOVE this first picture of Evelyn!

A week at Fripp Island

    
  We had a relaxing vacation at Fripp Island, SC last week. The highlights included taking long afternoon naps, watching Nate have fun in the water, charging into the ocean and pretending for a minute that I was a wild horse (shhh, don't tell anyone), creating and eating good food, watching the Olympics (since we don't have cable, watching TV is a novelty), the guys going crabbing and fishing, and long golf cart rides to no where in particular. 

 Above is what Evelyn did most of the time we were at the pool. I did not want to put a lot of sunscreen on her, so she stayed covered up.
Nate loves the water, but he is also wary of the deep end. The kiddie pool and the beach were his favorite, with his feet solidly planted on firm ground. I'm glad he's a fairly cautious child. It makes our lives as parents easier. This green "puddle jumper" was a hit and you will see it in most pictures featuring Nate, which would be most of my pictures. =)

                                                                                             




Here is the front of the house we rented. I snapped a shot as we were packing up to leave. It looks out over the water.

Our view looking from the house. 

 Proof that Nate and Papa were not the only ones on the trip. 

Here I was attempting to get a similar picture to the one we have of Nate on the golf cart from last year. But he was grumpy and tired and not happy when I took away his paci. What a face! 

Even with the paci, he refused to smile. Oh well! 

Month of July

I haven't posted in almost a month! We've been very busy! Here are a few pictures from this past month.

Nate loves smoothies=)

 Her curly Q cracks me up!

When I forget to take Nate's shirt off before he eats, this is the result. He now insists on feeding himself, even if it is something like yogurt. He loves using a spoon but always turns it upside down right before putting it in his mouth. 

Some of the many adorable faces of the Evelyn

She loves her Bumbo. It is now the only place she will stay happily for a length of time. 

Nate helping Dad with yard work.

When Brett is away, Nate seems to sense his absence and wakes up crying in the middle of the night. Then he ends up sleeping with me, which I'm sure was his plan all along! No wonder I don't sleep with him in the bed, he takes up way more room than Brett.

We had a minor incident which resulted in the skinned nose shown below. Nate rolled over the top of my big exercise ball and flew straight down the stairs. He did a face plant into the carpet, but thankfully wasn't injured except for his poor nose. 

The men shopping for fish tackle=P

Brett grew his first successful watermelon! Actually, I've told him that he is planting the entire fall garden because so far the plants that he planted in the spring are the only ones that have produced well this summer. Those would be our banana peppers, watermelon, and cantaloupe.