Her Favorite Spot

The day she started crawling was also the day she started pulling herself up.  I couldn't believe it.  This girl has strong, strong legs and quite a bit of determination, too.  She's been pulling up on things ever since that day and she likes doing that just as much as playing with her toys.

This is her favorite spot in the house to pull herself up to.  It's the windowsill in our living room, the one with the best view of Sam when he plays in the backyard.  When he goes out there in the morning, she speed-crawls right over to the window, often with a baby toy in her hand, and pulls herself up to see what he's up to.  I usually open the window and they sit there and chat.   She'll hang out there with him for the longest time.  She sure does love Brother...

Playing

I realized the other day if I scoot way back into the laundry room I have a new and somewhat wider view of the living room, as opposed to being backed up against the couch, so I camped out in there for a while and just watched her play.  She's all over the place now - and

fast

!  She loves to talk to her toys, too, in her deep little voice, and while it sounds serious and sometimes loud, you can tell she's having lots of fun.  I wonder what she's saying?

Doin' the Sno Cone

We met up with our Lens Baby friends this week for sno cones at Bahama Bucks.  Sno cones have changed it seems - these were not the sno cones I remember eating when I was little!  The ice was shaved and really soft and the flavoring was pretty yummy (as it should be at three bucks a pop).  There were lots of fun flavor options, but Sam and I played it safe this time and ordered just cherry and orange.

Sam was very into his sno cone at first, eating it with the same serious "I've-got-a-job-to-do" look on his face he always has when eating.  But soon, the party music playing from the speakers took ahold of him, as music often does, and he jumped up on the bench to dance some of that sno cone syrup right out!  His friend Carter joined him and they made quite the dancing pair, although their moves were very different.  Carter's dance was really happy and chipper and his moves were quick; it was like watching someone dance on tv while holding down the fast-forward button.  I'm thinking his root beer sno-cone played a large part in that!  Sam's dance moves on the other hand, were a little slower, groovier, moodier if you will.  Think John Travolta in Pulp Fiction.  Sam's moves matched his mood perfectly.  Interesting, seeing as they were dancing to the same songs.  And entertaining for sure!

Teacher Sam

That's what we're instructed to call him when he gets out his chair, posters and pointer.  Sam's been very interested in the solar system for a while, particularly the order of the planets, their colors and whether they are hot or cold.  Having taught third grade for so long I have quite a few little nuggets of interesting information about the solar system and he soaks it up like a sponge.  Every once in a while I'll tell him something about space that's a little surprising and he'll argue with me, but that's just for the sake of arguing, which he likes to do even more than learn about space.  We drew a picture of the solar system the other day and as soon as we were finished he decided Evelyn needed to learn all about the planets, too.  Out the pointer came, along with a couple of chairs, and a classroom was built.  She wasn't a bad student, but she certainly wasn't

engaged

in the lecture.  Teacher Sam doesn't mind.  As long as he has the floor, he's happy.

Won't Be Long

Caught Evelyn standing up in her pack-n-play and had to grab some quick shots.  She pulled herself up in her crib a few days ago, too.  We didn't expect to see her pull up so soon, at just eight months old.  Pretty impressive!  We know it won't be long before she's standing on her own and taking those first steps.  Walking is definitely just around the corner....

As soon as she pulled up, I thought of these pictures of Sam pulling up for the first time in the same pack-n-play back in January of 2010...at 10 1/2 months old!

Curious

It's fun to watch her entertain herself, playing with her toys, practicing her crawling, making funny faces.  

She's a very curious little girl, that's for sure.   

Evie at Eight Months

Evelyn Mae you are eight months today, and quite a challenge to photograph in a chair!  I knew this was going to be an issue this month since you are super-mobile.  Actually, I'm impressed we got what we did.  I kept lunging forward every time you moved, afraid you were going to dive head-first off the rocker.  Needless to say this was the shortest monthly shoot we've had and I suspect it's only going to get worse from here on out.  Just look at how proud you are that you're standing up on your knees, right on the edge of the rocker, of course.   Such a daredevil!

Measurements - 

weight - 21 lbs - 90% again, according to online growth charts

length - tall!

head - growing lots of pretty blonde hair!

Clothes - You're wearing both your 6-12 month and 12-18 month outfits.

Diapers - holding steady at a size three

Feedings - You're now eating about four or five times a day for a total of about thirty-five minutes a day.  You eat around 4, 10, 2, 6, and 10 or 11.  Once or twice a day you eat cereal and/or fruit.  This month you finished your apples, pears, carrots and sweet potatoes, along with rice cereal and oatmeal. 

Sleeping -  You're still taking a morning nap and an afternoon nap, and often you take a third nap right before dinner.  I bet next month we'll drop down to two naps a day.

And just as I suspected, you started crawling this month, July 6th to be exact.  And you pulled up this month for the first time, 

on the same day 

to be exact!  You pulled up to the windowsill in Gram and Pops' room.  You wanted to look out at the trees!  You've been pulling yourself up to the couch, the chairs and our windows over and over ever since.  And you are crawling fast now, following Sam wherever he goes.

You checked a couple more fun firsts off your list this month - you went to the zoo for the first time and to get there we took the DART train.  You

loved

the train!  We went to Granny Nell's for the 4th of July and you swam in the big pool for the first time.  It was a little cold at first, which made you fuss.  Then Mommy put you in your raft, which made you fuss some more.  Then Wayne came over and talked to you about noodles and you became very relaxed and hung out in your baby floatie for a long, long time.  You went with Daddy and Sam and I to Addison airport and watched the planes take off and land, one of which was a noisy jet that didn't seem to bother you a bit.

You also started babbling this past month.  Sam used to say "buh-buh-buh".  You like to say "rah-rah-rah".  You love to wave hi and bye-bye now, too.  At first it was just to Daddy, but now you wave to Mommy, too.  It's more of a one-armed flap than a wave with your wrist, but we know what you're trying to do.  Right before you turned eight months you pulled yourself up in your crib and now that's how I find you each time I come in to get you in the morning or after a nap.  You always grab on to the bars and cry, hoping I'll rescue you from baby jail!

I love this photo of you.  You bite your bottom lip all the time and it just makes your cheeks poofier.

You are simply adorable.

Your official eight month chair photo.

Look at you grow, pretty girl!  

And here's Brother's eight month chair photo:

Such a Lady

Evie has the most ladylike sitting pose.  She very rarely sits with both legs in front of her.  The minute I put her down she snaps her legs to one side, they way we girls do when we're sitting on the floor in a skirt or something.  It doesn't look comfortable to me, but she'll sit and play like this for long stretches at a time.

Addison It Was

It was Friday and Brian had the day off.  Knowing a couple weeks in advance that he wouldn't have to work this day we had planned a Family Fun Day.  Brian's last day at PIC was the day before and he wasn't supposed to start his new job at FlexJet until Monday.  That meant one day off, so Family Fun Day was officially on the calendar.

When we woke up that morning the plan was to head out to Lake Ray Roberts for some sand and sun, then over to downtown Denton for some lunch.  After looking at the forecasted temps for the day we decided to scrap the beach and go the opposite direction - down to Addison Airport to check out the Cavanaugh Flight Museum.  Brian had a couple of passes and it seemed like a great day to try it out.  It took some convincing to get Sam out of beach-mode and into airplane-mode, but eventually he was on board - so Addison it was!

The museum was great and Sam really enjoyed looking at all the cool airplanes.  Of course we had a most-knowledgable tour guide which made it even more fun!  There were lots of airplanes to look at and a helicopter that Sam could crawl around in.  We just strolled from hangar to hangar looking high and low at all the planes on display.  We even got to see a yellow bi-plane taxi to the runway!

Brian had a great surprise for Sam after the museum - he parked the car at the end of the runway and Sam had a (Sonic) picnic lunch in the back of the car while watching the planes take off and land.  Brian and I ordered something from Sonic, too, but we didn't eat much of our lunch.  While we were in the museum, Brian got a phone call from PlaneSmart, a company right there at Addison Airport that he had interviewed with a couple weeks prior and really,

really

liked.  So he spent his lunchtime talking on the phone and I spent my lunchtime pacing back and forth, trying to figure out what they were talking about by watching Brian (from far away - totally pointless).  By the time he was off the phone and filled me in on what was going on - an offer from PlaneSmart! - we were too hyped-up to eat much lunch or watch the airplanes so we headed home to plan an immediate, child-free celebration dinner-date.  

And on Monday, Brian started work at his

new

, new job - and Addison it was! 

Beach Babies

We met up last week with some of our Lens Baby friends for a day at the "beach".  If our California family had been with us they might have felt "beach" was a bit of a misnomer.  It's more like a small stretch of sand, or a large sandbox if you will, alongside Lake Lewisville.  But having not yet seen the real-deal, this little pseudo-beach was plenty exciting for my two!  It's pretty nice to have something like this smack-dab in the middle of North Texas, about twenty minutes from our house in fact!

We decided to meet here to let the kids play in the sand and water while we practiced shooting full sun, mid-day, when the sun's light is overhead and at its harshest.  As it turned out, the weather was partly-cloudy, but that was good too, as it kept us cooler (or less miserable) than we would have been otherwise.  

This was Sam's first time swimming here.  He took a minute to scope it all out, then jumped right in with the rest of the kids.  It was the perfect little spot for him to swim on his own and I was able to watch him from the shore.

This one loved the beach, too!  I wasn't sure how she'd do in the sand, but it didn't seem to faze her a bit.  I plopped her down and she played and played.  Finding this red bucket was pretty neat, too.

Evie's made her first friend, another little baby in our playgroup named Evie (pronounced Eee-vie), who is just a couple months older than she is.  She smiles whenever she sees her new friend which just cracks me up.  They had a great time at the beach, both of them watching the big kids swim while they stuffed fistfuls of sand in their mouths.  I promise my baby's not sunburned, despite her looking like a sweaty, pink Easter ham that's just been pulled from the oven.  It appears she's going to flush just as easily as her brother.  Boo.

Oh my, look at those rolls!  Is there anything cuter?  She had a great time exploring the wet sand, dry sand and rocks on the beach.  I was impressed with how well she handled all these new textures.

Eventually we had to head home for a nap, but we'll definitely go back someday this summer.  Just waiting for the forecasted highs to dip below 100!

Practice on Perfect

Evie and I left the boys at home the other night so we could go out with some photographer friends and practice shooting at sunset with backlighting.  I love shooting backlit, but it's challenging.  My shots that night weren't perfect, but my model sure was!  It was fun going out at night, just the two of us.  Thanks to Daddy for doing the dirty work at home, getting a crabby big brother fed and in bed.  The Straka girls had a good time out with our friends. :) 

The Niagra

I love these photos.  Love them.  I wasn't planning on photographing Sam that day, and I certainly wasn't prepared to capture these since I never in a million years would've thought he'd go on something like this.   Some are blurry or too warm or too cool, all of them too tedious an edit to be done very well, but I'm so glad I have them.  They crack me up each time I look at them.

This was one hundred percent his idea.  The three of us had popped over to the soccer field next to our house where our neighborhood had set up a little pre-Fourth of July celebration.  There were sno cones and bounce houses and these blow-up water slides.  It was hotter than you-know-what so we planned on having a quick sno cone in the shade and trying a bounce house for a second before heading home.  As we were walking back to the house we passed this slide.  It was the biggest by far (and called "The Niagra") and go figure - he begged to go on it.  I couldn't believe he wanted to try it; he's never been one to go for things like this.  We had just been at Jack Carter Pool the week before and he was terrified of trying the baby slide that wasn't even as tall me.  Where all this courage came from, I don't know.

As we headed home to put on his suit and sunscreen I thought for sure he was going to change his mind.  But he didn't!  He hopped right in line and slid down over and over and over again.  He looked so little in line with all the big kids and the ladder to the top of the slide just dwarfed him.  Every time he'd get to the top he would disappear around the corner and I never knew when his little body was going to come flying down the shoot!  I had to stand pretty far back and only had my wide-angle; I can't believe I caught the expressions I did!  He looked absolutely terrified going down, but once he reached the bottom, he was grinning every time.  It's so wrong of me to laugh at these pictures of him scared out of his mind - but I do!

Daddy

As busy as Daddy is, working hard for our family, he always has time for us.  We love you!