9 months old!

I can hardly believe that Everly is already nine months old!

Evy is now crawling everywhere!  She moves from room to room a lot quicker than you expect.  Time to get a gate at the top of the stairs!  I love putting her in skirts and dresses, but they tend to get in her way, so we tuck them in in the back to help her get around.  

 

 She still prefers to stand rather than crawl.  She pulls up on furniture, toys, my legs, anything she can get a good grip on!  She only uses crawling as a means to get to the next piece of furniture to cruise around.  A few times she has decided to just stand up all by herself without pulling up.  Then she will stand there in a wide stance trying to balance.  She stands on her own for a few seconds at a time.  I am thinking she will probably be walking in the next month.  The older kids all walked fairly early too, so it will not be a surprise.

 

Besides eating flowers ;)  she is eating lots of foods.  She loves most fruits and veggies and all kinds finger foods.  She still doesn't really like a bottle, but will drink from a sippy cup .  She would rather drink from a straw though, so we have a toddler cup with a built in straw that she mostly uses.  She doesn't really love juice, which is fine with me, so she mostly drinks water, or occasionally soy milk.  She is most definitely allergic to dairy, just like the rest of the kids.

Evy is our most talkative baby at this age.  She babbles and squeals all day long and she looks like she really thinks she is having a conversation with me.  I love it.  She really seems to listen to what I am saying to her, so I talk to her all day long.  Its nice because I can pretty much talk to myself all the time and no one thinks I'm crazy ;)  She loves to give me great big smiles and laughs at me a lot.  She will sit there and clap at everything I do.  It is like having my own personal fan club following me around all day.  She claps for herself as well, when she figures something out.  It is so cute!  She is so much fun, but also very intense.  She is definitely my most difficult baby.  She is very moody and hard to distract.  She is determined to get exactly what she wants!  

She is still pretty shy with other adults, but she has finally warmed up to Dave.  That has been a huge relief!  She finally has realized that daddy is a lot of fun and wants him to carry her around and play with her.  She cries when he leaves the room now.  

She loves other babies and little kids.  When she sees them she starts clapping and squealing and tries to get their attention.  At church there are lots of babies and sometimes she tries to yell across the chapel to her friends.  One friend in particular is also very chatty and will start squealing back.  It is fun to see their little friendship blossoming!

I don't know her most recent stats, but we have an appointment on Friday so I will add that in then.

We mostly call her Evy, but she has many nicknames.  I occasionally do call her by her full name, Everly, but often I call her Ev, Ever or Evers.  We also call her baby, cutey baby,  or tooty baby.  My grandmother goes by her nickname, Tudie, and now I can see where that must have come from.  For some reason Tooty baby is a natural term of endearment for me to use on Evy. 

Sometimes I do get confused and start to call her Ady, but I correct it right away and end up saying Avy.  I try hard not to mix up their names, but it just happens sometimes.

She knows her name and looks at me when I call to her.  She definitely know who mommy and daddy are and will look at the right person when you say it.  She mostly knows who the older kids are by name as well. 

 We sure love this little girl!  Every day I look at her and I am in awe.  I feel so lucky to have her in our family and to be her mother.  Even though things can be hard and she is very challenging, I would not want it any other way.  I feel so blessed to have her to love and to be loved by her. ♥

8 Months Old

Evy is now 8 months old!  I can hardly believe it!  

She is not quite crawling yet, but she will rock on hands and knees and then scream to be picked up.  She would much rather pull up on furniture and play upright.  She is still learning the importance of hanging on to the furniture once she is up though.  She has had a few bad falls but she is getting good at sticking out her bottom so she lands a little more slowly.  

 

She will actually tolerate bathes now and enjoys splashing.

She is very vocal and loves to squeal and laugh.  She gives high 5's, waves, claps, dances and does "What's up?!" by putting her little hand way up high and waiting for you to say What's Up Evy?

She likes to play games with us.  She plays "Where's Evy?", "How Big is Evy?", Giddy Up Horsey and she loves to hang upside down and flip over.  She is a daring little thrill seeker!  

She loves attention and making people smile and she is very chatty. 

She mostly says "A Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba", but she also says "Mmm-ma", or "Wa".

She  loves to sit in the little rocking chairs on the front porch.  She loves to anything that involves being outside, really.  She wants to swing and ride in the stroller all the time!

We sure love this cute girl and we are so thrilled to have her in our family.  She is so sweet!

Toothless

In March Tayden finally lost those two wiggly teeth. He was very excited! He didn't lose any teeth until close to the end of first grade, so he had been waiting a while!

Tutu cute!

When I was taking pictures of Ady in her tutu that I made she happened to do the same thing she had done in a tutu as a toddler.  I thought it was so cute I wanted to share the comparison. :)

September 2008

September 2005

A lot has changed in 3 years, but Ady is still our fun, sweet girl and we love her more and more each day.

Ady is Growing Up So Fast!

Last week Ady went to a Birthday Party for her friend Macie and had a wonderful time.  (I borrowed this picture from the party off of Macie's family's Blog) It was a Princess Tea Party.  They all dressed in their princess dresses and had a cute little Tea Party and Danced to a Princess Dance DVD. It was really cute!  All these sweet little friends of Ady's are getting so big!!  I can't believe they are all turning 4!

At the party Macie's mom showed us how Macie is now writing her name.  I hadn't tried with Ady in a while, but the last time we had she wouldn't even try to write letters, just scribble then say that the scribble was her name.  It frustrated her, so I didn't push her too hard.  The night after the party we tried again to get her to write her name and she did it on the first try!  Now she is writing it everywhere!  She was excited to be able to write it at church, since her teacher always spells it wrong.

Sometimes it seems like they just grow up over night!  Ady has matured a lot in the last few months.  She is more independent and she is accepting my answer more when I have to say no to her.  She is doing a great job picking up after herself.  She is even wearing big girl underwear and staying dry all night!  A few months ago I thought we would never get to this point.  She has been such a stubborn little cutey, but lately she is so much easier.  I love having her home with me all day.  I am glad we have a few more years to enjoy each other before she is off to Kindergarten!!

Bye Bye Curls

 

Ady had her first Haircut this week.  It was getting so long and looked beautiful, but she doesnt like to wear it up  and it always got in her way.  One morning it was particularly snarly, so I jokingly said to Ady, "Why don't we just cut it so it won't get so snarly?" and she said "OK!" and asked if she was sure and she gave a big grin and said "Let's cut it!"  She was very patient and let me do it without any complaints.  I was the one cutting and no one else was home, so regrettably I didnt get any pictures of the actual process, but I did save some of the baby curls for her scrapbook.

 Now her hair isnt curly anymore.  It isn't flat straight, either, but it doesnt have those nice ringlets that it used to have.  It falls nicely though, so I am happy with it.  As soon as we were done I thought she looked like a friend of Kyler's, Hadyn, and as soon as Kyler got home from school he said "You look like Hadyn now, Ady!" That's ok though, because Hadyn is a very cute girl. :)

 When I let Ady look in the mirror after it was all done she gasped and then smiled really big and said "I look like an even BIGGER girl now!!!"

(These pictures aren't the greatest.  She has been sick and her eyes look so tired!)

Bye Bye Nursery!

Ady has now officially moved on from her Nursery class at church. She was sad to leave her wonderful teacher (pictured above on the last Sunday in December, this teacher really was so great, I was sad that Ady would have to leave her too). I thought Ady would have a harder time than she did on the first Sunday in her new class. Two of her little friends also moved up, so that helped Ady feel reassured. The three little girls acted so grown up and sat so quietly in Primary. I was really impressed. Ady still misses her old teacher, but she is adjusting ok and has her two good friends with her. I can't believe how quickly the time goes by. It seems like only a few months ago that Kyler left Nursery and moved up to Sunbeams, and now Ady is a Sunbeam!

Kyler also had a big change. He had a wonderful teacher for CTR 7 also (pictured above) and had to move up. He is now a CTR 8. His new teacher is excellent as well and happens to be a teacher that he has had at church two times before, in Nursery and in the second half of the year in Sunbeams. She is a really sweet lady that used to be our neighbor before both of us moved away from each other (the taxes were so high on that street!). She always brings fun treats and gives out loaves of homemade bread to everyone at church. Kyler was happy to have her again as a teacher, but nervous because he is now in the Senior Primary. (they move up a year early here because the Junior Primary is so much larger than the Senior Primary). He is the youngest kid in Senior Primary and only he and one other girl are only in first grade and beginner readers. The other kids all read very well. The first week he was asked to read two verses out loud and did an excellent job. I was so proud of him. He felt self conscious though, because he thought the whispers he was hearing were snickers at him, but actually people were all really impressed with how well he could read and were whispering "Is he only in first grade?!?" After I told him that people were impressed he felt a lot better and now loves to go to Senior Primary. I can't believe how grown up and mature he is getting to be.

Tayden moved up to a new class (CTR 6) also but kept the same teacher. She hasn't been there a lot, but was excited to be able to be with his class again, so I am hoping she will be more consistent this year. His friends have been with him since nursery though and they all get along really well. The girls on the two ends and the other boy are all from the same family (triplets) and are his BEST friends. He loves to play with them. The other girl in their class is also sweet and has been in their class since they were babies. The are a good class and I am excited to see them continue to grow and learn together.

I am still the Primary Chorister and I love it. I was a little burned out at the end of last year after all the new songs we had to learn, but I have renewed energy for this year. The new list of songs has given me new ideas and I am excited to have so many new kids in Senior Primary to be my soloists for the program. So far they are all doing a great job learning "I Am a Child of God" in Spanish.

Dave is still the Young Men's President and busy with all the scouting and activities that that involves, but he really enjoys the group of young men that he teaches and the other leaders that work with him, so he is still happy to be doing all the work it takes.

Articles of Faith

For the last few months the kids have been working very hard learning The Articles of Faith. For those of you who aren't members of our church, the Articles of Faith are thirteen statements of our beliefs. We started teaching them the kids in order to prepare Kyler for Baptism. In our church kids are old enough to be baptized when they turn eight. Kyler will be 8 in a little over a year, so with 13 Articles of Faith to learn, we thought we should get started. I didn't really expect Tayden and Ady to learn them as well, but we taught them to all the kids, one each month. Ady and Tayden learned the first one so easily that we decided to reward the kids each time we all get one memorized. So far they have learned the first four and we almost have the fifth one down. Some of the rewards they have earned are a new movie (Ratatouille), going to Chuck E Cheese, getting a new game, etc. Last month we recorded them saying the first three, but the videos were saved on Dave's computer so this is the first chance I have had to post them. Enjoy :)

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7784343046994299607]

It took so long for that one to upload that I decided to just post that one for now.

More later.

Bigger

On the way from church yesterday, Ady was looking very sad in the back seat. I asked her what was wrong and she told me

"I wish I was like you and Daddy."

"You are sweety. You are just like me and Daddy," I replied.

"No!. I want to be JUST like you and Daddy!"

"You are honey."

"No I'm not! I want to be big like you and Daddy!"

"You are a big girl Ady! And did you know that you are getting bigger everyday?"

"Not big enough. I want to be bigger"

So I decided to try to change the subject and tell her how wonderful she is and how much I love her. She wouldn't let me. She pouted all the way home. When we got inside we told Daddy and the boys about our conversation. (They had beat us home. Dave has meetings before church so we drive separately.) Dave took the same approach I had and told her how big she is and what a good girl she is and we love her. That wasn't what she wanted, but she was pouting less. She reasserted her desire.

"I want to be BIGGER!"

So Kyler said "I will help you!" and picked her up. I thought that would be a disaster and she would scream, but it was perfect! She laughed and cheered and was so happy to be "bigger".

She let him pick her up and carry her around for a long time. They were both giggling and having so much fun. It is so nice when the kids get along! So often she just screams at Kyler and he pesters her. Tayden and Ady usually get along, but sometimes she gets mad at the boys so quickly. They play more rough than she wants to.

It was a refreshing change. There wasn't much fighting at all yesterday. I love to see the kids getting along so well and having fun together. Its the reason I wanted to have them close together in age. I never had that sibling comradery and I always longed for it. As an adult my sister and I finally have some of it, but as kids we didn't. As the kids get older I am seeing it more and more.

I hope it will continue and that they can always be Best Friends.

He did it!!

Kyler has been trying so hard to learn to tie his shoes and actually have them stay tied.  He got very creative trying to get them to stay, and we had to untangle a lot of crazy knots, but he has finally mastered it.  I can now feel confident letting him tie them himself, even when we are in a hurry.

Finally!

Sometime about a year ago, Ady stopped letting me put anything in her hair at all. It falls in her face and she gets food in it, and yet that is less bothersome to her than having to wear a barrette or a ponytail. Once in a while, she would be inspired by some other little girl's cute hairdo(usually her friend Morgan) and get my hopes up while she let me try to put her hair up. Then my dreams of a ponytailed girl would be dashed in about 1 minute. Either she would decide it wasn't worth it at all and it would never get up into the ponytial or clip, or she would let me go as far as putting it up (which usually was difficult due to all her wiggling) and then she would look in the mirror, laugh and say how cute it is then grab the hairclip or hair band and take it out and give it back to me. So I gave up for a while.

Now suddenly school has started for the boys and she wants to be just like mommy. She wants to wear the same type and color of clothes as I am wearing and she wants the same amount and type of jewelry. She even wants her hair to be just like mine! Then when we are both dressed exactly the same she gets so excited and declares "I can't wait to show daddy! He will be so happy to see me!" :)

It is so cute and I am thrilled that I can put her hair up out of her face, even if it does mean I have to wear my hair the exact same way. I will gladly don pigtails if it will mean she will wear them. She looks so Cute and grown up with her hair up. Yesterday I gave both of us french braids. Unfortunately I was feeling ill and I didnt think to take a picture. I will be sure to next time :)

Here are some more pictures of her hair up.