Things I Want to Remember

My final installment.

 

About our crazy, sweet, hilarious Evie.

 

 

Evie is at a great age. She is talking like a maniac. She never shuts up, and it is mostly hilarious. Her favorite phrases are "Why?" and "I don't know." The first is her response to every single thing I say to her, and the second is her response every time I ask her a question.

 

Things I want to remember about Evie at age (almost!) TWO.

 

Every night at bedtime, we read I Love You Stinky Face. When we get to to green alien from Mars, his mom writes him a note that says "Bon Appetit," and Evie yells out "Appetit!!!" every time. Hilariously. She's so pleased with herself when she says it, too. Like she knows how predictably funny she is.

 

Right before I put her in the crib, I hold her for a second and either rub her back or pat her back. Whatever I do, she does the same to me. If I forget, she starts to do one so that I'll join in. It's about the sweetest thing ever. She also thinks the proper respone to a cough is "Bless you." Every time she coughs, she says "Bless you, Evie" to herself. Matt went in to check on her the other night because she was coughing, and he said she was mumbling "Bless you, Evie" in her sleep. It does not get more adorable than that.

She HATES to be left out of anything. If there is any action, Evie needs to be in on it. As I type this, she is dancing her little butt off while Annie and Kate play Just Dance Kids. She is loving it. Matt and I joke that if Annie is the daughter to throw a party while we're gone, Kate's the daughter who will attend but know it's a bad idea, and Evie is the daughter who will be swinging from the chandelier when we get home. She is nuts and is not deterred from any amount of fun or activity by her inconvenient age and size (as compared to her sisters).

The world revolves around her. In her own mind. Do not dare think otherwise.

Just One More

It snowed quite a bit while we were in Cleveland, so we took advantage and went out to build a snowman. Which actually turned out to a lot (grown) people throwing snow and tacklling each other. Also good times!

 

Getting their snow man ready.

Owen and Beckett.

Beckett did not annoy every person at my parents' house every moment of the four days we were there. Not at all.

Carrot noses.

Snowman masterpiece.

Snowball fight!

Emma and Owen:sibling love.

 

Cleveland Christmas: Paternal Version

The next day, after Annie and I took a quick trip to Urgent Care for her poor, feverd, sick little self, we went to Ralls' house for the day to celebrate Christmas with them. It was a busy, full, fun day!

 

Christmas chaos. Extreme gifting. Take your pick.

Me and Pa.

Adam and Ed.

Laura, Mallory and GG.

There are a lot of us now!

Great Grandpa Ralls sporting the maize and blue! Ha!

I'm sorry, Laura. But you do make this look good!

(Also, those glasses are super fun! They make the tree lights or candle flames look like winter shapes!)

Madelyn and Pa.

Kate, Madelyn and Ella singing for money :)

Annie and Eve slept the majority of the time we were there, so they missed out on all the lucrative entertaining.

 

Cleveland Christmases: Maternal Version

We drove to Cleveland on Christmas Day and spent the day with my family. More gifts, more food, more wonderful Christmas!

 

 

Evie, her Bitty Baby and Grandpa

 

 

  

Emma and Evie. Emma, if you see this, Evie is screaming your name at our house right now. "I see Emma!! Emma! I see Emma!!" I think she had fun with you :)

 

My parents cleaned up a little spot in the basement for the kids and hung their hammock. Also a huge hit. (With kids and adults!)

This is Liam, Annie, Kate and Uncle Jack

 

Kate and Uncle Jack

 

 

 

Merry Christmas!

After Julie and Dan's, we commenced our happy tradition of putting together and wrapping the girls gifts. This year, we firmly stuck to the rul ethat each girl receive three gifts. It was good enough for Baby Jesus, so it's good enough for us. I thought it would be difficult not to go crazy, but it wasn't. I actually found myself to be much more thoughtful about what I bought them. They also got one gift from Mom and Dad. My brother admitted that he thought our Christmas morning was going to be lame and our tree was going to look sad, but that it didn't it at all. And I agree. It was perfect!

Santa came!

Kate got a tea set. She loves to have tea parties with her little buddy Mae, so it was great!

A basketball for Annie! She started a little basketball league yesterday, which will be a post all its own, but she was super excited!

A soccer ball. It's all Evie asked Santa for :)

The beloved and much desired American Girl doll!

The girls and their dolls.

Christmas morning playtime.

Of all the gifts, this was the best for a reaction. It's a Lalaloopsy doll. Her mouth dropped open and she yelled "Loopy!" Even as I type this, she is sitting next to me yelling "Evie! Loopy! Evie! Loopy!" She loves this creepy doll!

 

Definitely a successful Christmas morning for our spoiled girls!

Christmas Eve

We followed our Christmas tradition we started a few years ago with attending the children's mass at our church and then overeating at the Debrah's before getting ready for Santa.

 

Annie

Kate

Three crazies

Evie. Of course.

We opeend a few presents Christmas Eve, too. The girls all got Disney pajamas from Uncle Matt, and they were thrilled, especially Evie. She is obsessed with Minnie Mouse lately.

At Debrah's, Jul's dad read all the kids Twas the Night Before Christmas. That's my girls, Jul's boys Steve and Drew and Jul's nieces and nephew.

Evie got a Minnie Mouse doll for Julie and Dan. Again with the happiness.

We got Hex Bugs for Steve, and while they are super fun just on their own, there were a LOT of college and graduate degrees trying to figure out how to set up the arena so it looked like the box. A lot of higher education wasted because we never did figure out the double decker. Good thing Steve was happy with a different arrangment!

 

 

Uncle Matt Comes For Christmas

Uncle Matt came to town a few days before Christmas. He was assaulted by our dog and our children pretty much every waking second of his visit, and he was a very good sport about it. We did bribe him with a lot of Michigan craft beers, so all in all I think it was quite successful!

 

Uncle Matt got involved with a lot of crafts during his visit. He started with paper snowflakes.

 

Daddy did this one :)

Evie made a lot of cute faces.

No actual beer was consumed by any children.

But they did start to act like this in short order...

They made him drag them around the house.

 

Uncle Matt proved to be a much, much better gingerbread house maker than Mom or Dad. They looked on the Internet at ideas, and he let them put pretty much whatever they wanted on it. They absolutely loved it!

We hit up a bnch of brewery restuarants for a kind of progressive dinner with the kiddos. And we wished Jackie a Merry Christmas in the process!

 

Thanks for your great visit Matt! Come again any time! If you can stand it :)

 

Christmas Cookies

We had our annual cookie making extravaganza again this year. Matt joined in this time, as did Evie, which was great news for me, maybe not so much for him. :) The girls were really excited, and their cookies were gorgeous as usual.

 

Blogger and I are in such a fight. It will not turn this photo.

But our cute little cupcake still looks good!

Being super "helpful" rolling out the dough.

My three little bakers.

 

Evie was excited to frost her own cookie all on her own. Yikes.

Sorry Evie, but this whole situation got tossed as soon as you went to bed :)

Christmas chaos in the kitchen!