More time with the cousins

The cousins from California Ryan and Lily met us at the park right in our neighborhood. Scout came and they ran him ragged with the Chuck-it. Ryan was a little nervous about the dog at first but then figured it out and mastered his "Drop it Scout" command. Lily and Evelyn chased the dog while he was running away but as soon as he turned around with the ball in his mouth Lily would turn and sprint back to her Daddy. Lily and Evelyn also enjoyed their own personal "Octopus" ride courtesy of Uncle Cory. We wrapped up the morning by taking a trip to 7-11 for Slurpee's and then headed for a much needed very long nap. Yay for naps! Evelyn has been hit and miss on the nap lately so I was overjoyed today when she was down from 1:00pm - 4:30. I even got to take out my scrapbooking stuff and made a cool explosion box. Yay for Mommy time, yay for naps. We ended the day with a BBQ over at Papa and Granny's house and more fun and crashes with the cousins. The day was not complete with out Papa and Granny's famous chocolate ice cream. The kids all got huge bowls of it, with seconds followed by about an hour of running around in the back yard and then a fun bath with the cousins. A good time was had by all.

The last picture here is actually a VIDEO clip of Cory giving the girlies a ride.

Killin' me softly with your "danks"

Something very subtle has changed about Evelyn in the last day or so but it's killing me because it's one more 'big kid' thing she is doing. Up until now she said "Dank (thank) you Mommy" or "Dank you Mom" unsolicited and for almost everything. Now, suddenly the "Dank you" is gone and has been replaced by "Danks" (Thanks). She still Thanks me all the time and it is sweet but it's not the same, it's not the sweet little "Dank-you" that I LOVED to hear her say. Like I said, it's very subtle, something I alone have probably noticed and am sad about but nevertheless as a Mom it's another thing I have to let go of and accept that my baby girl is getting to be, as she tells me now, a "big girl."

Oregon State Fair

We had a really fun day with Gramma Claire. We decided on a whim this morning that it would be a good day to go the Oregon State Fair and let Evelyn see the animals and other fun things. So we packed another picnic lunch (you guessed it, PB &J, do you see a theme here?) and headed south to Salem, the State capital and where the fairgrounds are.

It was a PERFECT day to be at the fair, not hot but bright and sunny. First thing we saw were the cows. Evelyn was captivated. One lady who had livestock on display was really nice and let Evelyn walk into the stall area and pet the cow, whose name was "COOKIE." Evelyn took to the cow like it was a big dog laying down and when she tried to lay on it's haunches the cow decided she better show this little kid just what exactly she was- meaning a 400+lb cow. That' s when I jumped in really fast and pulled her back a bit. And we moved on.
We easily spent the next hour (if not longer no one wore a watch) in the sheep barn. There were two little girls who had their sheep out on a leash and let Evelyn touch, pet, hug and tried to get her to kiss their sheep. Evelyn was game. She loved digging her fingers into their wool. She jumped a bit when the bigger sheep, Snowflake, let out a loud BAAAAA directly in her face but then quickly decided it was very funny.

We walked up and down the aisles and looked at all the different breeds and talked about their different colors.Evelyn was very excited when she saw the "chocolate 'sleep' (this was a tongue twister for her, she couldn't quite say SHeep after saying chocolate) They were, as you may guess, chocolate brown sheep with thick woolly coats. We sat and watched some of the judging and the whole time Evelyn told us she wanted to go to the "Sheep show" meaning she wanted to keep walking the stalls. We easily could have gone home from there and her day would have been complete.

Next we went and saw a Momma Sow and her 10 piglets. They were truly pungent piglets and Evelyn wasted no time in telling us so. She said, "Dey are Stinky pigs, I'm gonna scrub em up. I scrub em and scrub em till dey all clean." I'll mention here that at the end of our day, on the way to the car, we stopped to see the piglets one more time because we could see they were nursing. As Evelyn was leaning over the fence who should come stand next to her and Gramma Claire but Senator Gordon Smith. Evelyn looked at him and said, "dose pigs are stinky!" and he said back to her, "why yes they are" If she ever runs for President one day she can claim she has been politically active since the age of 2.

From there we went and saw the chicken house, the horses, the miniature horses and donkeys and ate lunch while watching various competitions in the horse arena. The Champion of Champions in the Gypsy horse category was allowed to showcase after winning to the song I'm too sexy for the catwalk as we watched his long, long hair flow while he ran. Wacky.
I was a bit apprehensive about the whole fair scene with Evelyn, but was pleasantly surprised. We had a fantastic day and it leaves me with a very wholesome all American feeling. The reason for this is that we went in the morning and stayed in the livestock exhibits for the most part and avoided the whole ride, fair games section. But nonetheless, it was a great fair.

one more from today

So tonight after dinner we decided to go run off the last bit of steam by going to the Clackamas Town Center so the Cory's could take a look at all the new remodelling that's gone on. Ryan has been riding with us in his booster seat so there is room for everyone between just two cars. Evelyn loves having him in the car with her, they are so cute together talking and making each other laugh. I asked Ryan if he knew we had a doggy at our house and Evelyn took off from there. She said in her little sweet voice, "yeah, his name is Scout. His name is Scout, he's a black lab Ryan. He's our dog, he's just a black lab. And he licks me! (in a half laughing talk)" All the while she was wagging her index finger at him and nodding her head slightly. It was SO CUTE!

Fun with Cousins from Down South

The Cory's and their two Ryan, 4 and Lily,2 came up from California for a visit so we have had more fun with more cousins. We were treated to a trip to the Children's Museum by Papa and Granny who just became Grandparent members which means we get to go anytime we want as grandchildren. THANK YOU Papa and Granny, we will definately take you up on the pass!

This is a great place to go on a rainy Oregon morning like to today. They have a water room, a digging pit, a tree house, a fully equiped grocery store, face painting, a clay studio.... the list goes on and on.

Evelyn, Ryan and Lily each went in their own directions for most of the morning but we did run into each other now and then. They all 3 loved the grocery store. Evelyn mainly bought fruit and veggies and carefully examined each before placing them in her basket and she only tried tasting a few!

They also had fun in the Clay studio pounding the clay as hard as they wanted and making squishable snowmen.

Playing all morning worked up some good appetites and so we headed down the road to the Elephant park and had a wonderful picnic lunch prepared by Granny's loving hands. Then we hit the playground. Evelyn calls this park the sandbox park because it has a huge sand pit to dig in. She was also brave enough today to go down the big blue slide for the first time. Another great day with great cousins.

Fun with our Cousins up North

Evelyn and I took the Amtrak train last Wednesday up to Tacoma where our cousins picked us up and took us to Puyallup for a few short days of fun. When we got there it was pouring down rain and by the time we left the weather had done a complete 180 and felt like summer again. We have had a week filled with animals starting at the Portland zoo with Daddy before we left and ending at the Point Defiance zoo in Tacoma. We went to Northwest Trek wildlife reserve park on Thursday which is an awesome way to see animals of the Northwest up close. We rode the Trek Tram and got to see the herds of Bison and Elk and we were really lucky to see the very elusive Moose as well. If any of these pictures look familiar to regular peekers of mine and Debs blog it's because I forgot my camera and have had to rely on Debs eye, nice camera and the miracle of email attachments. Thanks Deb, nice job staying behind the lens. :)

Friday we were all happy to see the sun return to us and we headed for the beach at Point Defiance in Tacoma. We packed a picnic PB&J lunch (which had become a daily occurrence) and took off our shoes... briefly. This was not a white sand, bury your toes kind of beach. It was very rocky and very cold water, very cold.

But there were plenty of treasures to be found just the same. After filling our buckets with treasures of white rocks, sticks, and small broken shells we headed two minutes up the road to the Point Defiance zoo where the only animals we saw were dressed in pocka-dot bathing suits and running through the lilly pad water play pad. The girls had a great time, Evelyn could be heard above all the other kids squealing as the water went up her shorts, and up her nose. The big cousins quickly discovered it was funny to entice Evelyn over to one of the holes to look down to see what was down there only to be sprayed in the face by the intermittent fountains.

After a thorough soaking we dried off the girls and went to the Carousel house. Evelyn, naturally, chose to ride on the doggy, a husky who she said looked like Gramma Claires neighbors dog Lucky. After 3 ups and 2 downs she very adamantly wanted off and held onto the waist strap as a leash the rest of the ride. To top the day off we stopped at Dairy Queen and treated ourselves to ice cream, much of which ended up on little chins and fingers but did nothing to stop Evelyn from totally sacking out and snoring her way home.... until we turned off the van. How did she nap on the trip you ask? This was it.

We had such a great time with our cousins and wish it could have been longer but we will look forward to our next fun adventure in the near future. We love you girlies too!

A Blog Borrowed from Andy

Something tells me...... It's all happening at the zoo. Taking advantage of the suddenly cooler weather and the just as sudden lack of work, we drove up to the zoo yesterday as a sort of last hooray before the girls' train trip up to Tacoma. We had a short-ish itenerary for the afternoon, designed to get Evelyn home before the window of opportunity for a nap slammed shut. Polar bears, penguins, zoo train (to get Evelyn ready for the big train today), lunch, and home. Surprisingly, it actually turned out that way. Conrad and Yugyan were the only two polar bears out and about while we were there and they were having a rather lazy morning, so it didn't take long for Evelyn to lose interest. Evelyn and I headed over to see the penguins after that, while Mommy answered the call of nature. Appropriately, the penguins were answering that call as well when Evelyn and I showed up. Like all of them. At once. It was bizarre. OK, maybe three or four of them within a few seconds of each other, but it was still weird and it left me wondering if penguins have some sort of group-bowel instinct. "Oh look at that silly penguin, Evelyn - he pooped...whoa, take it easy guys! You gotta swim in that water!" Or something like that. Evelyn was more fixated on the lone penguin that was perched right next to the glass, itching itself constantly, anyway. We didn't linger long after Brigetta arrived. Kind of an odd place, the penguin cave.
We headed over to the zoo train station next where Evelyn handed her own ticket to the lady at the gate, said "Thankoo," and squeezed in between us in the forward car. The Washington Park Zoo train meanders through some pretty scenic stuff on it's way to the rose test gardens, itself a very scenic place. At the first crossing on the way out of the zoo, Evelyn immediately picked up on all the waving that was going on, and didn't let it go until the round trip was well and truly over. Nobody to wave at while we wind through the trees? No problem - just wave at the people behind you. Wave at them every 30 seconds, in fact, because everybody likes being waved at by a terrifically cute little girl. On the return trip, she did manage to fit in some snuggle time with Daddy - something that Daddy was unaware he had needed so badly. For just a few exceedingly precious minutes, she curled up in my lap and we watched the trees go by.

up at the Crack of dawn

We woke up this morning at the literal "crack of dawn." Evelyn had started fussing and wanted to snuggle with mommy out in the rocking chair. It wasn't quite 7 am and we had the first cloudy, cool weather we've had in over a week of VERY hot days, so I was hoping that I might be able to keep it quiet and lay Evelyn back down to sleep-in a little. Mother Nature had a different plan for the morning because as I was pouring Evelyn a little smoothie to ward off hunger pangs the sky opened up with a huge CRACK boom boom right over our heads, which made poor Scout go crazy and that settled it, we were up. It thundered and rolled off and on all morning and we got some good heavy rain as well. It was a pajama day and we all just releshed the cool air coming in from open doors. Evelyn got a kick out of trying to "touch" the rain by putting her hand out until another clap of thunder sent her running back inside. She was laying on the couch using Scout as a neck pillow and she looked at us and said, "I'm at home wif my mommy and daddy." and then "I'm 'snugglin' wif my STout-pup." That about sums up our morning, a much appreciated grey, rainy morning with the whole family snug as a bug in a rug.

Hide and seek

Evelyn's version of hide and go seek is as follows: inform Daddy by pointing at him and saying " I gonna find you" and then she proceeds to put the sheet on Daddy's head for him. Then she runs out through the kitchen into the living room and stands in the far corner saying "I gonna find Daddy." Sometimes she counts to ten "1,2,3, 4,5,6" (forget about getting to ten, she has to find her Daddy) and takes off back through the living room, around the corner into the kitchen and into the back room where she and Scout enthusiastically pull off the sheet. All to repeat with the same amount of excitement and peals of laughter. This is what makes Sunday evenings priceless, I just can't help saying, "holy crap she's cute!"

Evelyn has been going through such a growth spurt in all areas. She is SO tall, she has gotten better at running (I no longer wince and turn away in fear of her falling while she runs towards me), she has taken off with talking as well. We went over to Russ and Judy's and haven't been there as much as we usually are during the school year and Evelyn suddenly is a full head and shoulders above the dining room table. It doen't register how much she has grown until I see her in comparison to things that haven't grown, like the dining room table.... so anyway here is a list of things Evelyn has said lately:

Evelyn came running around the corner and let out her biggest, longest roar and then asked laughing "Did I scare you guys?"

"No Mom, I don't (s)ink so" - since when does she call me Mom? what happened to momma, mommy

Her new responce to something she really is excited about "I do, I do, I do"

We have an ABC book with Disney characters. She gets such a kick out of Princess Jasmine and Aladin under L for LOVE. She puts her head to the side and says "and they just love each other" laughs and says it again and again.

.... oh this is so annoying! She has been cracking me up lately and I sit down here at the computer and draw a complete blank! Grrrr well I'll have to keep a running tab... more later!

A good summer day

Jennifer came from Oklahoma and Evelyn was instantly smitten. Jenn let Evelyn play beauty shop this morning and put mousse in her hair and brush it for her. SHe even let Evelyn hold the hair dryer which was a huge hit but not as much as the mousse. She would squirt just a small dab in Evelyn's hand and Evelyn would quickly put it in her hair and say" I need more."

We had a great time just hanging out and going to our neighborhood park with Scout. Evelyn showed Jenn how fast she can run and how high she can climb. And then, sadly, we had to say good-bye and drive Jenn out to Gresham where she was to be in a wedding party for her friend for the rest of her trip. It was great to have her for at least one night, and next trip will have to be longer!!! Love ya Jenn

After we dropped Jenn off we drove home and Evelyn uncharacteristically fell asleep in the car for her one and only nap of the day which lasted a whopping 28 minutes. But it was better than nothing and she still had a great afternoon. This picture looks so much like I did as a little girl I even spotted it. Minus the curly pony tails. Her hair cracked me up, it curled itself into two perfect rolls and they bounced up and down when she ran.