18 Months!

A simple shower, that's all I ask for. I sneak into the bathroom while Eva is distracted, turn on the water. Before too long I hear the pitter patter, door pushing open. Then "Mom-meeeeeeeeeeeee!!" Then toys, coloring books, crayons come splashing into the tub. Then the curtain is flung open and fully clothed Eva is trying to climb in. So I strip her down, pull her in, try to finish rinsing off while she plays with the shampoo bottles. Then she turns and looks up to the rack hanging from the shower head and sticks up her little hand declaring there is something she wants in that direction. The soap. No, just wait. I'm almost done. "Mom-meeeeeeeeeeee!" I relent. She sit and rubs soap on herself for a bit, sneaks a bite when I'm not looking. She's happy, I'm happy. Shower is about over, must get soap out of her hand and baby rinsed off. Colossal battle ensues. Finally pry slippery soap out of her grasp. Kicking and screaming she reaches up to rub her eyes. Now she's screaming from soap in her eyes. I'm prying hands away from her face, spraying water in her face, she's squirming to get face out of water, I'm laughing my head off because somehow I knew this was going to end badly. This is life with a one-and-a-half-year-old and I'm still learning the ropes.

Yorktown

Here's a couple pics my brother-in-law took of Eva about a month ago. I just love the way it captures her eye color and her little personality. I've got to get myself a DSLR.

A few weeks ago on our way down to Raleigh to see the baby blessings we met our friends Carrie and Corey at Yorktown, VA. Not much was open so I didn't get into the history of it but we had fun walking around on the beach and trying to keep Eva from running into the water.

On your mark! Get set!

I put this picture up to show off possibly my favorite element of my wardrobe. I heart this coat with all love. I get tons of compliments on it and it fits perfectly. I'll see it on others and think, "what a great coat" until I realize it's the same style. The coats go on sale this time of year at Nordstrom for about $50 so if you're in the market for a new one, check it out. They have tons of different colors.

Picky, picky. Thanks for all the great pics, Carrie!

And how cute is this, really? Snapped on my camera phone a couple weeks back.

How Does She?

I just can't get enough of this kid.

Let's take a closer look.

I know this is sad but 3 years into marriage and I'm already running out of Valentine's Day ideas. Devin's cousin, Missy, has this great website called How Does She? that has all sorts of cute ideas for just about anything. I saw this card and just about died laughing. Devin did too. It was really easy to make. You just start out making a heart out of paper, cut the point off, then use the pattern to make the card. Then glue paper, lace, ribbon, whatever you want to make the design. I heard they also make great sugar cookies for bachelorette party favors. :) (Sorry if this offends anyone but I had a request for this post!)

The front:

The back: (yes, that is a bum tatoo)
And here's pics from my recent Girls Night Out. I thought it would be kind of fun to play the do you know game. Maybe you know someone in the pics? Besides the girl in the big marshmallow.

And last but not least, I wanted to document Eva's new obsession with wearing glasses and goggles. It is usually accompanied by the grandpa face where she pulls her bottom lip up over her top. She also loves crayons and counting from two to three.

November Rewind

I was going through old pictures and found a bunch that didn't make it to the blog in all my leaving-for-Christmas-in-the-West fury. So here ya go! Blogger is driving me crazy and won't let me move my pics around so sorry they are out of order. Let me know if anyone is having this problem and how to solve it...

Richmond City tree-lighting with Mommy and favorite doggie hat.

Laughing at Daddy.

Playing with trash.

Tree-lighting with Daddy.

First time feeding herself and giving up on the spoon.

Temper tantrum!!!

Snow-mageddon

Last weekend we were completely snowed in under 18 inches of snow. Businesses shut down, church was cancelled, roads piled high with snow. Since we couldn't go anywhere for 2 days we tried our best to keep occupied in the house. We let Eva play outside where she mostly just rolled around and ate the snow. We watched movies, had a Michael Buble dance-off, dug our car out of the snow with a broom and basically just enjoyed a weekend with nowhere to go. I had plenty of time to read and so I finished Hunger Games and the sequel Catching Fire. The first book was an absolute nail-biter. If you read the summary you'll think it's totally crazy but I think this book is going to catch on like the Twilight series so you may as well be the early-adopter.

After a weekend shut in, Eva came down with a nasty cough so I was pretty much on house arrest for the next week. She's starting to come out of it and what's in the forecast for this weekend??? 20 more inches of snow!! It is coming down hard out there but I'm going crazy from being cooped up so I'm not going to let that ruin my GNO tonight to see Dear John.

So this brings me to my parenting question of the week. What to do with the binky?? It has been a good friend to me this past year and a half. It is always there for me when I need to quiet a fussy baby or put her to sleep. Eva only uses it when she goes to bed and I'm grateful b/c I can just stick her in her crib with her blankie and binky and shut the door and my job is done. But weeks like these make me hate that thing. She's been so congested and can't breathe through her nose well. But of course she still has to suck the dang binky so she ends up trying to suck snot through her nose all night and waking up every half hour. I would like to wean her but I'm not really sure how. I tried snipping the end and she just got mad at it and chucked it. I guess I could just take it away and let her cry herself to sleep for a few days but I really think it will just be awful. It kind of happened like that this week b/c she threw her binky out and I let her cry for 45 minutes, then she slept for 45 minutes, then she got up and was on a rampage for about an hour, throwing toys, trying to knock stuff over, crying and screaming... It was wild. So I'm a bit afraid of that option but I worry that the longer she has it, the harder it will be to break her of it. Or is there any harm with her sleeping with it and should I just let her have it as long as she wants it. Any ideas??