Evan's Birthday

First here is a picture of Autumn.  Lately she has loved to dump out my hair clips and put them back in the container.  She is slowly tolerating letting me pin her hair back.  On Evan's birthday she asked me to put clips in.  She has about 5 in her hair right now.

On to Evan's birthday.  I love Evan's birthday.  He is like a little kid he loves his birthday.  This year I did a "jungle safari" scavenger hunt for him to find his gifts throughout the day.  For dinner he requested frozen pizza.  I'm not sure if I should be offended or grateful for this request.  The night before however we had some friends over and I made his new favorite, Green (chicken) Enchiladas.  

Looking for a gift in my closet

Autumn helping him open a gift

The final gift was tickets to see the play, "The Lion King" hence the jungle theme.  Unfortunately Evan's birthday was a bit of a let down this year.  I'm not sure if the excitement of the scavenger hunt early on in the day fizzed out or the fact that he missed Autumn's first swim lesson (he was truly sad about that) or the fact that he may have been a little home sick after video chatting with his family, but whatever the reason sometimes birthdays are just hard.

 

The birthday boy!  We realized I've spent almost a 1/4 of Evan's birthdays with him now (2 before we were married and five since we've been married).  Crazy right? Time flies when you're having fun.  I'm so glad Evan was born.  He is my best friend. He makes up for my weaknesses, he complements me.  I know understand the term, "better half."  He is perfect for me and I can't image life without him.

Some pictures are worth a thousand words

Autumn and I hung around the house today.  On days like today I often look at her after she is dressed and think, "who is your mother?"  You see it's cold here so I wanted Autumn to be warm.  I also wanted her to wear this dress which I find rather cute, but would not regularly be able to wear since it is cold out.  So I thought "hey, I'll put a long sleeve onesie under that dress and she will be just perfect.  Oh and look, poke-a-dots and poke-a-dots. Perfect."  Not perfect she looks like her dad dressed her.

Autumn's hair seems to be only growing in the front.  She also has two crowns so her hair just naturally falls in her eyes.  I think it drove my sister crazy when we went to visit because she kept putting clips in Autumn's hair.  Just recently Autumn has been tolerating hair accessories.  I did two ponies today.  It added to the "my daddy dressed me" look.

Autumn is becoming quite attached to her swaddle blankets.  I use to think parents imposed "security" blankets/stuffed animals on to their children.  And since I'm the middle child my parents just forgot to force me to be attached to some object.  I was so jealous of kids who carried around rags named "mushi."  I would pretend that my dolls were my security item, but then I'd forget about them, which defeats the purpose of a security item.  I don't have a real problem with her being attached to her blankets.  It is kinda cute.  My older sister still sleeps with her "doggie" even though she is married and has two kids of her own.  (She claims she stopped when she got married, but I saw her hanging around when I went to visit her.  She says her son was sleeping with it, whatever.)  I have however seen some unfortunate incidences with other's "security" items.  Like when my little sister lost "B" her blanket at one of my soccer games and was only left with "Blankie" the lesser blanket.  It was like a death in the family.  It was so sad, still is actually.  Whatever Autumn's disposition towards her blankets right now I think it is rather fun when she shows personality and makes choices for herself.  She doesn't usually have them out of her crib, but today was wash day.  Autumn kept pulling the blankets out of the wash piles and dragging them around the house.  She also likes to put them over her head and walk around like a ghost.  She thinks that is pretty hysterical.  Tonight, after the blankets were out of the dryer and I was folding the laundry, Autumn grabbed her blanket off the couch and put it in a small basket I was using for matchless socks.  She carried her blanket around in the basket for a good 20 minutes before I put her to bed.  Also very hysterical.

Ok so not quite a thousand words;)

SNOW

It snowed while we were North Carolina for Christmas.  I don't really like playing in snow so one day we went out to look at the snow.  Autumn wasn't too happy that I was making her wear gloves.

She was happy once she got one off.  Then she was sad again when she touched the snow with her bare hand.  She knows what she wants.

A few days later we went sledding with Evan.  I love that there are hills in our apartment complex because we don't have to suit up, sweat in the car driving to a hill, sled for a few minutes until we get cold, get snow all over the interior of the car and whine all the way home.  We sled for a bit then walked the 200 feet home.  And Autumn kept her gloves on the whole time.  I guess she learned her lesson.

 Autumn was not a fan of solo sledding.

 I'll keep practicing my action shots.

 Autumn much preferred to watch her dad sled.  She was all smiles and giggles watching her daddy.

She was content going down with dad.

Christmas Spirit

I had a really hard time this year getting into the "Christmas Spirit."  At first I attributed it to not having enough of my Christmas list checked off as I wanted before putting up the decorations.  Then I decided it was because in years past during the Christmas season I've worked with kids and they are a constant reminder of all things Santa.  I'm at home most of the day, almost every day with no one wishing me "Merry Christmas."  So Evan bought me my favorite Christmas CD, Christmas Portraits by the Carpenters.  I listened to that for almost 3 days straight and it helped.  But something was still off.  I didn't figure out what it really was until Christmas when I had a sudden feeling of relief.

I was worried about what people would think about me.  I didn't realize I cared that much about people's opinions of me until now.  I had off handily mentioned to Evan while we were browsing around a store one date night that I've always wanted a dSLR camera.  Well then I kept seeing Evan researching cameras on the internet and asking strangers we saw about their cameras.  I told him he shouldn't get me one,  because we couldn't  shouldn't afford it.  He played it off like, "yeah I know, but I just want to research the cameras so that when we do buy one I'll know what kind to get."  However whenever I tried to talk to him about a budget for Christmas he avoided the issue.  So I knew his number was going to be much higher than I was going to spend on him.  I was fairly certain Evan was going to buy me a very obviously expensive gift for Christmas.  What would people think when they found out that a "poor" residents wife got such an expensive gift?  What would they think of me?  Yup this is what I was so worried about.  This is why I was such a scrooge/grinch this Christmas season.

Well Christmas morning came and sure enough Evan had bought me a dSLR camera.  The first words out of my mouth were not "thank you" not "Wow! I've always wanted one of these."  They were, "you shouldn't have."  Then apparently I had a look of concern on my face (I've been told I need to work on my facial expressions-but that is another story), because then Evan said to me, "you're not worried about the money are you?"  So not only was I feeling bad because *gasp* what would people think, but now I made my husband feel bad because I wasn't grateful for his thoughtful gift.  After the presents were all opened I felt better.  Almost instant relief.  The Christmas spirit was back.  It was out in the open that my husband spoiled me.  

I decided that I wasn't going to let the opinions of others bother me.  I LOVED my gift.  Evan loved my gift and was excited for me.  I don't have to explain my finances to others or make excuses as to why a resident's wife has such a nice camera like, "well he got it on sale" or "this is a Christmas gift for the next 4 Christmases" (which you know is never true).  I have made it a point not to ask Evan how much he spent, because it doesn't matter.  I'm grateful for the laborious research Evan did and how he picked up on a "hint."  I'm very excited for some higher quality photos of my family.

THE FIRST PHOTO I TOOK WITH MY CAMERA!

Below a photo shoot with my not so willing, but still adorable, nephew REX.

Post Christmas: Just more pictures for Grandma

Rex playing with the bath "goo" we got him for Christmas

One of my favorite pictures of the week.  Alice loves the camera. work it girl

CHRISTMAS 2012

"Christmas is more fun when you have kids".  I hear this a lot.  I don't necessarily agree.  Since I've been married I've made Evan do "kid" things with me around Christmas time (really all the time).  Like going to Zoo lights the first year we were married or hiding his stocking on Christmas morning.  In fact having a child made Christmas morning a little more hectic.  For example, I had to feed Autumn breakfast while we were opening presents and before we were done opening gifts she needed a nap, so she didn't finish opening hers up, plus she didn't really care about what was going on.  Maybe we should say, "Christmas is more fun when you have a kid who believes in Santa and is SUPER excited they can't hardly sleep Christmas Eve, and are super grateful for all their spoiling."  Nevertheless I had a good time.

Waiting for Greg to wake up so we could see what Santa left.  Also Autumn LOVED Rex's closet with the self of shoes.  She carried around one of Alice's shoes practically all day.

Opening her stocking.

Rex and his super sweet Bow that Santa made for him.

The Norby's

The Bakers.  I'm not sure why Alice is upset, but this was a better picture of Heather.  Your welcome Heather.

Autumn loves this book.  It kept her occupied for awhile, until she needed her nap.

Autumn also really loved Greg's new hunting bucket chair that swiveled.

My favorite gift I got Evan this year was "Eggnog" glasses.  I etched our initials into the glass so that we can use them every year for our after gift toast (a Norby tradition).

The Bakers have Chinese food for dinner on Christmas day.  I think I may start this tradition.  So easy and low key. "Raw, Raw, Raw, Raw, Raw, Raw, Raw"

Autumn also liked Alice's tent

Opening presents after her nap.  Isn't Heather's tree beautiful.  I love the tulle, even cuter than the burlap that has been  trending on Pintrest.

Christmas is tough on little kids.

Evan and his family on Christmas night via Google chat.

All in all it was a great Christmas.  I'm glad we got to spend it with family.