3 months old

last friday, november 4, evan turned 3 months old. he is still the best little boy! i love him so much. i told him today, i'm not sure even eternity is enough time with him, he's so beautiful and sweet (not that i'm biased). here are some of his highlights this month-

he is great at standing and he loves it! he can bend his knees and bounce up and down while he stands.

he is officially in 3-6 months tops and pj's but still in 0-3 pants.

he is officially in size 2 diapers.

he eats 6oz at every feeding.

he has slept through the night a few times but, it's still not a regular thing.

books are his favorite thing. if he's upset (which is rarely) he will calm down with a book. he can stare at the same page for a very long time, it's cute.

he took his first plane ride and he rocked it!

he smiles ALL the time! it's the best. it's big and crooked and i love it!

he laughs now- so cute.

he has rolled over multiple times. i have caught it on film, i will have to post it soon.

since he didn't have a doctors appointment, i am not sure how much weight he has gained or how much taller he is. i will take some informal measurements soon, like tomorrow. if you haven't met the man, you're missing out! come by anytime!!

look at that face!! i love him so much! 

i wish i knew how to rotate a picture on blogger. i guess i should just do it in iphoto before i upload them.

travels lately

so where have i been? obviously not on blogger. evan and i have been traveling america! first we went to l.a.- no, not los angeles, lower alabama, mobile to be specific. we went so that all of my mom's family could meet the little man. they threw us a shower and i got to see so many people! my mom's cousin took evan's first professional pictures while we were there too. it was a great trip.

me and evan, brittany and ryland, jaime and jamison (2 of my 2nd cousins and their boys) 

this is a special picture. you can barely see it but in the background, in the brown frame, there is this same picture in the same place (in front of my aunt's fireplace) when i was 2 months old with my mom, grammye, and her mom, who just passed away a year ago.

from mobile, we drove to hilton head to visit with katie for a couple of days. that was a LONG drive, but worth it to see katie. we went around to a lot of thrift stores (HHI is THE place for thrift store shopping) and then headed back to seneca. my dad came that weekend and katie came up too. we all went to upperstate to see matt's last band competition of the season. his band did well, but did not make state. it was a major growing year for him and the band though and i am super proud of all they accomplished.

so then we were home for a week before departing again. this time, on plane! SO MUCH BETTER! evan was perfect! seriously. no crying, just happy or sleeping or eating a bottle. his new love is books and they keep him occupied for a long time. katie and i flew with him from charlotte to NYC to visit my parents for a week. and it only took about 2 hours to get there. flying is by no means my favorite activity but i sure do love the convenience of it.

of course we arrived right after the biggest snow storm in october in recorded history. most of it had melted by the time we had landed but there was still plenty around to see. i had not been to my parents house and they've lived there for 10 months now. it was so nice! we hung out at the house the first day and ate at the italian deli/meat market that is literally next door to my parents. it was delicious! that day was also halloween. we went out that night to sushi mikes- a wonderful sushi restaurant in my parents town. katie bought evan a dinosaur hat that he wore as his "costume".

ak and her dino boy.

the next day we went to my dad's job. it just opened so we shopped around while he worked, but only after he showed evan off. they have a model in his office that cost 1/2 a million dollars (i can't even wrap my head around that kind of money) and we thought it would be fun to take evan's picture in it like he was a giant baby. we were right- it was a lot of fun!

 taking over the center!

 chatting with someone walking on the sidewalk.

at poppa's job with a hard hat on.

the third day katie and i went into the city while mimi got her evan time. we basically just window shopped times square, 5th avenue, and soho but we had such a great time! if your siblings aren't your best friend, i'm sorry. we ate at the star light diner, where aspiring broadway stars are the waiters and they sing during your meal. not only was it super entertaining but my meal was absolutely yummy! we ended the night by eating italian food and then seeing "anything goes". it was great! but the next night was the best- katie and i saw "how to succeed in business without really trying" starring daniel radcliffe (yes, harry potter himself) and john laroquette and we sat in the 4th row center! our uncle's friend is the trombone player in the pit so he got us tickets. OMG- not only is that show awesome (so funny and just so good) but i was feet away from daniel radcliffe! we had an amazing time.

in front of "anything goes. we didn't take one in front of h2s for some reason.

both of my trips were so great. i love my family and love getting to spend time with them. next trip is in 2 weeks to visit matt's family and my "extended family" (best friends from... forever and their families) in ky. i can't wait for evan to meet more people who love him and i cannot wait to reunite with my long lost loves (aka, the bbhc).

children

last night i watched a portion of the second session of general conference. this is the only session i haven't already seen and of course, i really regret waiting so long to watch it! i watched elder neil l. anderson's talk titled "children". here is the link. you don't need to be a mormon to enjoy this talk, you simply need to be a person, any person. you don't need to be a parent to appreciate these words. we are all children therefore we can all learn from and enjoy these words from a living apostle of God. so, mormon or not, if you read my blog, i challenge you to take a few extra minutes today to read, listen to, or watch the talk too.

here is a picture of Elder Neil L. Anderson, a true apostle of God on the earth today, of that I am sure.

daddy's girl

fergye is the sweetest little pup you'll ever meet. she will let anyone hold her and is like a rag doll when you do, you can hold her like a baby. but usually she is our little independent pup, until this past week. i have caught her 3 different times being a serious daddy's girl. 

example a:

she seriously looks like she owns him in this picture. it's a little scary.

example b:

this one is just pitiful. what a little baby.

example c:

i dont think this one needs any comments other than i just about died laughing taking this picture. this is truly out of control.

2 month old evan

tuesday, october 4, evan turned 2 months old. what a sweetie boy we have! he really is the best. he is now only waking up once at night, usually sometime between 2 and 4. he smiles all the time, especially right when he wakes up from a good sleep. he eats 5oz every 2 hours during the day. he weighs 13lbs, 14oz (90%) and is 24 inches long (also 90%). he rolled over for the first time on wednesday! i'm hoping he does it again soon and i can capture it no film. his favorite toy is his little ball that has a rattle thing inside of it. he loves to do wheels on the bus. he has finally started playing with the toys on his car seat and will stare at himself in his monkey mirror. he has made the bug on his mat play it's music a few times (you have to pull it for it to sound). he holds his head up really well but sometimes, he's still a little bobbler, which is so cute! i love him so much!!!

1 night, 2 wreaths

after the scarecrow fest on saturday, katie and i went to anderson to buy supplies for a craft. if you know us, you know we love to craft! we both wanted to make a halloween wreath and decided to do the fabric scrap kind of wreath so we headed to hancock fabrics to pick out our fabrics, because we don't have a bunch of fabric scraps and what scraps i do have are still in a box somewhere in the craft room (which is NOTHING but boxes right now and incredibly daunting). while we were there, we saw a lot of pretty fabric way on sale that looked super fall so we bought the supplies to make a thanksgiving wreath too!

then we went to the mecca of crafting- hobby lobby. i could (and have) spend hours and lots of money in that wonderful store. but we held back and only bought some cute little add ons for our wreaths. next door was a dollar tree and we thought we would be able to find some kind of frame for the wreath there. we looked all around and decided to buy glow sticks and tape them together to make the frame. sounds like a good and cheap idea right? wrong. once we got home, we realized how flimsy they would be so we decided to attach wire and tape them all the way around. this took a lot of time and well... here is how "sturdy" they were-

so we took all the fabric off and started over. but this time we weren't sure what we going to use as the frame. then katie said "i think i probably have something in my car that would work". for those of you who don't know katie her car is... um.... less than clean and contains a menagerie of things in it. lo and behold, she had a broken african drum in her trunk that could not be fixed which had 2 perfect and crazy strong rings on it. so that solved half of our problems and we made our halloween wreaths first (since they need to be on our doors NOW!)

so what about 2 more rings to make our thanksgiving wreaths? well what better than taking apart a lampshade that got broken in the move and using the top and bottom rings? problem solved! of course the top ring had the whole peace sign look to it to hold the bulb and shade in place but, katie decided to use it any way. 

so in the end, we each had 2 wreaths! and lots of laughs in between. and a few depressing moments, namely when carolina lost when they should have had 2 seconds left to at least tie the game... but that's another rant entirely. we had a great evening and by 11pm when we finally finished we were pooped. and learned that next time, we will spend the $3 at hobby lobby for the wreath frame.

scarecrow fest

katie came for the weekend! we had such a great time. i wish she lived a million times closer, like next door, but we still have seen her a lot so far- like the past 2 weekends in a row and she's coming back in 3, yay!

we started our saturday by going to the keowee river scarecrowfest. it's only in its second year so it was a little less than amazing but still a great time. it had a lot for kids so in a couple of years it will be even more fun for us to attend. we had the option of either walking to the event from the parking or taking a hayride. we decided to walk there- not the best decision. it was through the woods on a dirt path. we were literally off-roading with the stroller. we had to double team it up a hill it was so steep.

a fishing scarecrow in the creek on our path 

evidence of the off-roading 

he couldn't have cared less 

once we finally made it up the hill, we arrived at the festivities. we looked at all the booths for a while which were really great, there just weren't enough of them. katie and i bought evan an awesome little piece of monster art for his room. whenever his room is completely finished i'll post pictures of it and you can see it. we ate lunch there at the little pig bbq trailer. it was delicious! best bbq i've ever had.

evan with his ak after lunch- look at that smile! 

she's in love

after lunch we took some pictures of some of the scarecrows there. 1st: katie with mother nature (side note: we called one of girls camp directors mother nature behind her back because we couldn't stand her, gosh teenagers are awful!)

 2nd: the nutcracker and a balerina, so beautifully positioned in front of the port-a-potties

3rd: the man and me with the mr. and mrs.

so after our experience getting there, we opted to take the hayride back. it was fun! and i promise we pulled the shade down over evan, we just wanted a picture. we rode to the exit, took a photo all together, and left. we had a great time!