There's a double meaning in that....

Evelyn has been finding great humor in words that have double meanings. This morning she came running into my room laughing and laughing and she said, "Mom come see this crazy show! Dey just said (she pauses with a big grin) Eggplant!"

And later on in the morning....
Evelyn says "I want to go swing dancing! "
I say "Well we'll have to go find you a good ol' fashioned Barn Dance won't we?"
Evelyn laughs hysterically picturing a barn dancing.
"Barn Dance! Barn Dance! Barns don't dance, we don't go to a Barn Dance, we just go swing dancing!"
I ask her, How do you go swing dancing?
"I don't know , maybe you need special sticks or whatever to protect you your arms to go swing dancing." And I will come out with a different guy, I will go swing dancing wif a different guy. Maybe a different man, .... maybe M (aunt Marita) M is a lady. But you need special sticks for swing dancing."
What do you need special sticks for?
"Dey make you go really fast. Come on Mom, lets dance."

This's and That's

Oh that I had a tape recorder running all the time to catch all the things Evelyn comes up with!!!

- This morning she came out and told me, " Mom, my horse is a little bit different than Newt. He has blue and white stripes and is really huge."

-Bedtime Prayers: " ...God bless my Papa in Mexico, God bless my Birfday next Sunday, God Bless my Birfday cookies, God bless my wiggles, and I can wiggle all my fingers see? Amen."
Last night she prayed for all her fishies- we have no fish. She also prayed, "God Bless my flowers and keep them safe."

-Evelyn was telling Daddy about what she had done one evening while he was away. She told him she got to have a lollipop and that she was sucking on it, and it was so good, then she said, "and I just licked my chops!"

-Her latest phrase lately has been "Don't worry...." "Don't worry Mom, I will help you"

- Since moving to her "big girl bed" she has been getting up "all by herself" and coming into our room... at 4:30 AM!" She gets up out of bed and opens her bedroom door, walks out and then turns around to pull the door closed behind her exactly like I do after I have tucked her in and turn to blow her one more kiss before closing the door. Then she comes in our room and stands next to me and says as brightly and happily as if it's 9:30 in the morning, " I waked up! All by myself! I waked up!"

Officially a Tradition

We have gone to The Beach House, the only one Evelyn has ever known, for 3 years in a row now around the time of her birthday. It's the house of a dear family friend of my Moms in Rockaway Beach, about 15 minutes north of Tillamook. They have been gracious enough to lend us the key and we have created a host of unforgettable memories there. We learned recently that we may not be able to escape to our "happy place" much longer as some of the family members who partially own the place are considering moving there permanently. So with each additional stay we are more grateful for the time spent together on the beautiful Oregon Coast.

The first year we took her, Evelyn had just turned 1 year old. She was not yet walking, but had just started crawling and learned to climb the stairs at the beach house. She was not a big fan of touching the sand or feeling the wind in her face.


We were able to return to the beach almost a year later in February of 2008, just weeks before Evelyn turned 2. Both Grandma's joined us on the trip a few days after we had arrived. Evelyn enjoyed her first ice cream cone at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, an important milestone in my book. :)


We weren't expecting to be able to go to the beach this time, but were excited when the chance came along. And so, for the third year in a row we escaped to the beach just weeks before Evelyn turns 3 this year. Evelyn is now a pro at beach bumming and knows which sand castle buckets work the best and how to make Drip castles if her fingers can stand the cold. She loves running on the sand and chasing her shadow. She loves writing in the sand with her finger and looking for treasures. She knows, like I do, that she LOVES the BEACH!!!

My Little Helper

Evelyn has been wanting to be more and more involved in getting dinner ready and being my "helper." So I have been giving Evelyn the silverware basket and letting her put away the silverware. From the looks of it, I need to sit down and work with her on sorting and putting all the tops and bottoms together but at least she is a happy and enthusiastic little helper, and I got dinner together. So we had a messy, but happy ending. I can untangle all the forks later....

Winter Zoo visit

We went up to the zoo on Monday. It was great, we practically had the place to ourselves. Evelyn is no longer terrified of the enormous stuffed bears in front of the Zoo store, you can see her embracing her newest friends. Their fur gets really warm from the sun, even when it's not at all warm. You can see by the bare spot on the Black bears belly, that Evelyn is not the first small person to snuggle up.
We took our time in all the exhibits. I had a really cool experience with one of the Chimps this visit. We were the only ones in with the chimps for a short time and one of them kept looking right at me and wagging it's head, so I leaned closer in and copied him (like any self respecting Speech Therapist would! Imitation is the first form of communication-ha). He immediately turned his head like he was shy but then did it again. We played this sort of peek-a-boo game for about 10 minutes, it was pretty cool. Evelyn even recognized that we were playing.


We finally got some great face time with the new baby elephant. He's about 6 months old now, was born in August 2008. We were the only ones down on this end with the little guy. So sweet!

As Requested. Boris Karaoke

This is a VIDEO of Evelyn singing a small part of Baa Baa Black Sheep as Boris would sing it. Evelyn is unusually smiley in this rendition but you get the picture. Usually she has a fantastic sneer on her face as she is picturing Boris the grumpy ol' cat singing. She was in the middle of jumping on her trampoline and wanted to get back to it.

Introducing ....

I'd like to introduce you to our newest and most popular topic of conversation.... his name is Boris. Boris is an imaginary cat, courtesy of Gramma Claire. Boris is the brother of Rascally Cat, who found his way into Evelyns Christmas stocking this year. Rascally Cat also has two sisters, Murial and Mabel. Murial is very sleek and likes to keep her coat shiny and clean and hates her feet to get dirty. Mabel is nervous and forgetful, and very jumpy. Murial and Mabel are very rarely mentioned, only when they get tangled up in some calamity with Boris. Rascally Cat also has been put on the back burner and is only mentioned alongside Boris. Rascally Cat is a raggedy rascal who is always getting himself into trouble and getting his long raggedy tail caught in things. However, Rascally Cat has a brother - a lazy, fat old cat named Boris with a surly disposition. He likes to eat nothing but stinky old fish and has paws the size of baseball mitts. He sits on his rug by his food dish and rarely leaves because he doesn't want to share his fish. He doesn't like anything unless it tastes like fish. Boris was supposed to be only a side kick, a supporting character for Rascally Cat but we underestimated Evelyn's love for naughtiness and Boris is very naughty!

Well, what a thing Gramma has started! Now, Evelyn starts her sentences with Boris. "Boris, he tried to jump on the table!" Evelyn tells her one lined stories with great enthusiasm and every single sentence is the greatest punch line. She screams (literally) with laughter over Boris. All you need say is one word to Evelyn, "FISH" and it will send her into hysterics. She sees Gramma and wastes no time in telling her, "Gramma, tell me a story about Boris" and waits in wrapped attention while Gramma comes up with Boris's latest CRAZY antic. Evelyn also quickly discovered, to her great delight, that Gramma is not the ONLY one who can come up with a good Boris story, so she hits up everyone she knows for a Boris story, even though many of our friends and people at church do not yet know of our make believe, naughty friend Boris.... and I am left to explain about this fat ol' cat who loves stinky fish. It can be a little awkward.

Boris pops up in everything and gets into everything. After Evelyn had stitches in her ear, Boris tried to sneak into the doctors office, and hilarity ensued. Boris has tried to sneak into school, the mall, church.... anywhere Evelyn has been really. He lately has been trying to sneak Birthday cupcakes but spits them out because they don't taste like Fish... and much hilarity ensues. Evelyn get herself so worked up, laughing so hard that I have had to ban Boris from the bedroom! No Boris stories before bedtime, because then she lays in bed telling herself Boris stories and doesn't go to sleep.

So if you run into Evelyn and she greets you with an un-intelligible on slot of giggles with the word Boris mixed in, you will know that her dear, naughty fat ol' cat Boris is up to no good again and Evelyn just wants to tell you about it.

R.I.P dear crib

It' s official. Evelyn has managed to kill her crib. Jumped it to death. She cracked one of the main supporting METAL brackets last night, while jumping herself to sleep. She had already destroyed one of the hinges that holds the adjustable side, Andy had to secure it with a screw. That was almost a year ago...
the poor crib did it's best but had had enough and could not take any more abuse. Her poor mattress is barely holding on to life. It's a lumpy, disheveled thing; not half the proud mattress it used to be. But it is currently lying on the floor acting as Evelyn's "new, big girl bed." For now.
Evelyn is actually quite thrilled with the whole idea and was not sad in the least. New found freedoms and independence. "look, I can do it all by myself!" she ran to her "new"bed and lay down. Maybe we should have retired the crib months ago, who's to tell what the right timing is. But it's a mark in time just the same, another "milestone" to remind me I no longer have a baby but a beautiful "big girl." She's out of her crib.
What will she do next? I've noticed that I am holding onto the "baby" less and looking forward to what's to come more. She shows us such joy and laughter everyday, it's exciting to see the next stage. So rest in peace, dear crib. You served us well and took more of a pounding than was ever intended.
Sweet dreams, sweet Evelyn.....

make-ed

We went down to our neighborhood park the other day. I was scoping out the place to see if there were any other dogs off leash as we were pulling up. Evelyn saw something else. She calls out, "look Mom! Dat guy is make-ed, why is he make-ed Mom?" There were a group of guys playing basketball and one guy was going shirtless. Evelyn had never seen such a thing and thought it was hysterical, as far as she was concerned he was naked. She said, "look at dat crazy guy, he forgot to put on his clothes, he's make-ed!"