August 2014

August was a pretty crazy month for us. We had a lot going on, and got hit with some difficult things along the way.

Ben has been playing slow-pitch softball on a team with guys from work all summer. Evelyn and I were only able to make it to his last game because all the rest of them didn't even start until after her bedtime. Ben had fun, and we were glad we could go support him at least once! And Evelyn made lots of friends while we were there.

Off to Daddy's game!

At bath time, I started just putting the basket with all of her bath toys in it in the water with her. She loves to dump them all out and then put them back in the basket one at a time.

Being silly in the bath 

On August 18th, one week before school started, I had an appointment with my OBGYN because I had taken a pregnancy test at the beginning of July and it was positive! At first I was terrified because I was due in the middle of spring semester, and I knew that if I stopped going to school again I probably wouldn't go back. It took a little time, but I got more and more excited about having another baby, and I knew that I would be able to make it work with school. I even worked things out with my advisor and other professors so that I could make up time I missed in practicum after the baby was born. We went in for the appointment, and they did an internal ultrasound. My Dr. was pointing out where the placenta was and where the baby was, and then he made sure there was only one baby in there. Then he started to measure baby, and saw that the little one was measuring about two weeks behind, which would push my due date back a couple of weeks. I was surprised at that. Then, he started looking at baby to find the heartbeat, and there was none. Then he looked for blood flow to baby.. also none. I had had a miscarriage, but it just hadn't happened yet. My body hadn't realized that baby was no longer alive. I still felt pregnant. I still felt sick. My Dr. told me I had a few options in regard to the actual miscarriage taking place. He said I could have a "surgery" called a D&C at the hospital to remove all of the dead tissue, I could wait it out and have it happen naturally at home, or if it didn't happen on it's own in a couple of weeks I could take some medicine to make it happen. With school starting the next week, I decided to go for the D&C, and was scheduled for that Friday. I was terrified though. This was the first time that I have ever been admitted to the hospital besides when Evelyn was born. Everyone at the surgical center was so nice, and tried really hard to make my visit as pleasant as they could, considering the circumstances. I would say that overall, it was a positive experience. I have been having a pretty hard time since then, though. I have tried to see the tender mercies from my Heavenly Father in this situation, and I know they are there, but it's pretty hard to focus on them a lot of the time. My post-op appointment is on September 10, so I will give an update with next month's post.

School started for Ben and I on August 25. We were both pretty excited. I was mostly excited to be busy again and have something to take my mind off of the not so great stuff going on in our lives. We were really fortunate to work out trading off babysitting with our neighbor across the circle. She watches Evelyn while I am on campus Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I watch two of her kids while she is at work on Tuesday and Thursday. I also watch another friend of mine's two little boys on Tuesdays and Thursdays for pay. So between taking twelve credits of classes and having five kids age 4 and under two days a week I'm keeping pretty busy. I only have three semesters until I graduate; I do my student teaching next fall. I'm pretty excited to be so close to finishing! Ben is taking cool engineering and math courses that I don't even know the titles for, and a Business German class and an Advanced German Grammar class. He is minoring in both German and Math. I think he's a wee bit nuts, but I'm proud of him for accomplishing so much. :)

First Day of School!

Ben started "volunteering" at a lab on campus called the Unmanned Arial Vehicle (UAV) Lab, where they build drones that survey the land and do all sorts of cool things for the Water Research department, which funds the lab. He is loving it, and will eventually be put on the payroll, which is totally awesome! It means he won't have to work at Sam's Club anymore and he will be doing something that gives him experience in his future career!

When we moved into our house, the property manager told us we would have lots of creepy crawly neighbors like snakes and frogs. Up until now, we hadn't seen any. I mean, I hear frogs at night but I've never seen one. The other day I had the kids I am watching over and they were out drawing with chalk on the driveway while I was doing dishes. They called to me through the open window, "Jessica! There is a snake!" I looked out and there was this tiny little garter snake on the driveway, trying to get warm. The little three year old boy, Wyatt, climbed up onto our lawn chair to get away from it. I went outside and picked it up, and then they weren't afraid to get near it. I told them it wouldn't hurt them, and they had fun touching it a little. Evelyn was taking a nap when all of this happened, and I wanted her to see the snake, so I put it in a dish until she woke up. She tried to squeeze it's little head off and when I stopped her she wanted nothing more to do with it. She loved playing with a worm a few days before, however.

This last weekend Evelyn and I took a road trip to Southern Utah to go to the Iron County Fair and meet up with some of my friends from high school. We left here on Friday, and didn't come back until Tuesday. I was a little nervous about traveling alone with her, but she was a champ in the car! On the way home we only stopped once in Nephi for lunch!

We loved hanging out with family over the weekend! Evelyn LOVED my mom's dogs. She was so hilarious when she interacted with them. There was one time where she chased Maya, my mom's itty bitty chihuahua around the recliner for about ten minutes!

Chilling with Maggie

One morning over the weekend, I was in the bathroom doing my hair and then I came out to find that Evelyn had climbed on the kitchen table, ripped open the bag of chips and was eating them, and had dumped the salt all over the table and was drawing in it with her toes. This was the first, of many I'm sure, toddler messes we will have in our household. :)

Troublemaker!

On Monday, we went to the Labor Day parade and met up with some of my girlfriends from high school. It was so good to see them and to meet their kids! Evelyn loved the parade, especially the marching bands. She was mesmerized when they came by! My mom was riding the 4-H float and Evelyn got a kick out of seeing Grandma on the float. She played so hard during the parade though that she didn't even make it back to the car to go home.. :)

Sleepy Girl!

Evelyn had her first corn on the cob over the weekend and loved it!

On Sunday, we went down to my Dad's and in the morning and then to Ben's parents' in the afternoon. We had so much fun spending time with everyone! Evelyn loves her Uncle Kyler and Aunts Semaya and Lexi. I loved watching them play together. :)

Off To Church!

Evelyn loved Maya, but Maya wanted nothing to do with Evelyn. These next few pictures look super precious (and they are), but Maya was hating every minute of it!

On Saturday, we went to Cedar to check out Uncle Josh's new apartment. Evelyn had lots of fun on Josh's skateboard and running around his apartment and getting into things she shouldn't. ;)

Skater Girl

Lunch in Nephi on the way home

Before I left for Parowan on Friday, I got a flat tire on my car on the way home from school. But I had already planned on driving Ben's car for the weekend. I thought it wasn't going to be a big deal because all Ben would have to do in order to drive my car was change the tire. But when he went to do it, he found out that one of the bolt things had broken off, so he was without a car for the entire weekend, and we are still only driving one car. He has some really good friends who offered to take him to and from work all weekend, and he was able to spend time with Jay on Monday. They went hiking in the wind caves up Logan Canyon and had a good time catching up. 

Here are some other random pictures from this month!

The Big O-N-E!

Evelyn is one year old! I can't believe it. Some days I feel like she was just born a little while ago, but then other times I feel like Evelyn has been in our family forever! There have been a lot of crazy things going on this last month, and she has handled them like a champ!

We moved into a new place ( a post devoted to that move will come later), and I was worried about her adjusting to leaving the only home she has ever known and making a new place our home. But she was amazing! The first night in our house she slept like a rock, and has loved living here ever since. 

She is so stinking smart, and loves to imitate us. 

She now signs "more," "all done," "eat," "milk," and sometimes "please." 

She can say "hi," buh-bye dada," 'nigh" (for "night-night"), "ka-ka" (for cracker), "up," "mama" (although she doesn't say my name unless she is upset), and "dada" (she definitely calls Ben Dada).

Speaking of dada, Evelyn LOVES her dad! He is probably her favorite person in the whole world, and she lights up every time he comes home from work. 

She loves making us laugh. She will do something silly, or cute, or naughty, or smart, or anything else that makes us laugh. When she sees us laughing at her, she does the thing again, and often times even more exaggerated than the first time she did it. Just to get more giggles out of us. 

If it is even possible, she gets more obsessed with my phone as time goes by. She has figured out how to pickpocket me when my phone is in my back pocket. I wanted to get a picture of her doing it so I tricked her by taking my phone out of it's case and just putting the case in my pocket. I caught her in the act, and there is a picture below to prove it. 

She now only nurses once a day, right before bed at night. 

We have started feeding her grown up food for at least dinner every night, and sometimes lunch. She still eats baby cereal and baby food for breakfast. She loves food, and I don't think she has turned down a single thing we have given her to try.

I think she is trying to cut out her morning nap, which means she will only be taking one nap a day in the afternoon.

She now has five teeth: three on the bottom, and two on top (she barely cut her second top one yesterday).

She is wearing size 3 diapers, 12 month clothes, and size 3 shoes. 

Her hemangioma has made drastic improvements just in the past month. (see pictures!)

We have a backyard at our new place and she loves loves loves it! We got a video of her reaction the first time we let her loose in the yard. :)

She likes to open the drawers in the kitchen and string washcloths and hand towels all over the house. She also likes to put other objects in the drawers around the house. I think Ben found the tv remote in his dresser the other day. :P

She tries to climb on EVERYTHING.

Quite often if I am sitting on the floor she will come sit on my lap and snuggle for a little while. The other day we watched Sesame Street together for about 20 minutes. 

She loves to get out and about and run errands with me. 

This last weekend we had a good chunk of our family come up for Evelyn's party. She had a blast having so many friends to play with all weekend! (I think she got a little spoiled with attention, but she wasn't really making any messes so I can't complain). Aunt Andi quickly became her favorite person that came to visit. It was so cute to watch the two of them play!

Evelyn's party on Saturday was a huge success, and I couldn't have pulled it off without the amazing help of all of my family, especially my mom. She is the best! We had lots of friends and family come to the party and they gave Evelyn really generous gifts. We are so blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives!

We went to the doctor for her one year checkup on Monday, and as per usual, the Dr. was really impressed with her! She is really healthy, kinda skinny, and pretty tall for her age. He was also surprised that she has been walking for three months, and surprised at the size of her vocabulary.

Height: 30 in. ~ 79th percentile

Weight: 19 lbs. 3 oz. ~ 20th percentile

Head circumference: 17.7 in. ~ 48th percentile 

Photo dump, yay! (And these are only a fraction of the pictures that were taken this month, but I only have so much patience with our slow phone-tethering internet capabilities.) :)

FYI: I won't be doing an update on just Evelyn each month anymore. Instead, I am going to do my best to do an update on our whole family at the end of each month, starting in August. :)

Evelyn: 11 Months

Evelyn is almost one year old!

She is probably the most hilarious person I have ever met in my entire life. She makes us bust a gut practically every day. 

She loves to imitate us. The past little while we have been praying to bless her food before she eats. I take her little hands and help her "fold" her arms, and then I pray. Most of the time, she still has her arms folded when I'm done praying (I make it very brief). The past few days, though, when I say "it's time to pray!" She tries to fold her own arms! And tonight at dinner she did it all by herself. I didn't even have to say "it's time to pray!"

She also imitates words and sounds that we say. A lot of the time I can understand that she is trying to say what I have just said. This morning she was trying to say "applesauce." I recorded it in the last video. And it may not sound like anything to anyone else, but it sure sounds like "applesauce" to me!

Evelyn is obsessed with my phone. Anytime she sees it she gets really happy, but then when she realizes I am not going to give it to her she screams and throws a fit!

She climbs, or tries to climb, anything she can get her little legs up onto. It kind of drives me crazy! Lately it has been the kitchen chairs, and I'm terrified she is going to fall and crack her head on the floor. We have boxes piled up all over our apartment for the move in a couple of weeks and she tries to climb on them all the time!

She knows not only the sign, but what the words "all done" mean. I say and sign it a lot during the day. The one time I know for sure she understands me is when I'm done changing her diaper. I sign and/or say "all done" and she rolls over and is running away before I can stand up myself. 

She loves to be outside, and tries to escape very often. She gets really mad whenever the front door gets shut. I would leave it open but she can push the screen door open and climb up the concrete steps (I'm surprised I haven't had a panic attack yet). 

Her Aunt Andi gave her a cute teddy bear at the baby shower, and it has turned out to be her favorite stuffed animal out of all the ones that she has. She sleeps with it now, and often she will go find it, and just love on it and carry it around with her. It is extremely adorable. :)

She has started to get more cuddly lately. Sometimes she will just come love on me. Or if I'm holding her she will wrap her arms around my neck and lay her head on my shoulder. I LOVE it when she does this.

Ben lays on the floor to play with her quite often and she loves to sit on him. 

She loves piggy back rides! I just need to figure out how to teach her to hold on better. 

She is a smarty pants, and we don't know what we would do without her!

Evelyn: Ten Months

Evelyn can now stand up all by herself really well, and prefers walking to crawling. 

She likes to bounce to music! (see video below)

She is really in to making messes. She likes to pull the clothes out of her dresser, dishes out of the cupboards, and newspaper out of the newspaper box. 

She still has about 0% stranger danger. She loves people!

She is learning the art of tantrum throwing. It hasn't escalated to throwing herself on the floor and screaming yet, but she definitely fake cries/whines when she isn't getting her way. Mostly this is when I take something away from her that she shouldn't have, or when I don't share my food with her.

That being said, she is a total mooch! She loves to eat whatever we are eating. 

I am trying to teach her a little sign language. I haven't had much success yet though. The signs I am working on the most right now are "more," "all done," (she totally understands this one) "please," and "thank you."

She loves to play chase. I will crawl around after her saying "I'm gonna get you!" and she squeals and giggles as she practically runs across the room. 

She has started to climb things. It's kind of scary. 

I've been meaning to put this on here for a while, but I keep forgetting: she loves the vacuum! She gets so excited when I pull it out. It makes her jump every time I turn it on, but then she follows me around and gets in the way wherever I am vacuuming because she wants to play with it!

I have a piano app on my phone and she loves to play it. 

She still loves her books, and has loved one to death. :( Oh and she took a bite out of one of her cardboard books at church last week! :0

She talks a LOT. Pretty much all day she jibber jabbers. I wish I knew what she was saying!

She is a total ham. She likes to show off. :)

I've been putting medicine that her doctor gave us on her hemangioma on her forehead, and it is working! It's getting less and less red and more skin color every day.

Today was my last day of work, so for the next few months I get to stay home with her all day! I'm so excited!