Happy Belated Pre-Thanksgiving!

Yes, I know. Thanksgiving was ages ago, so of course anything Pre-Thanksgiving is like looking back to something from The Land Before Time. Now here we are, only 4 hours away from 2008, and how, HOW, gentle people, can I possibly deprive you of pictures that have been sitting on my hard drive for over a month before the clock rings 12:00 midnight and then my hard drive wipes out? In fact, all computers will crash and all communication, public utilities and government infrastructure on the Earth as we know it will self-destruct because computers don't know what to do when it becomes January 1, 2008.... oh wait. That was Y2K in 2000 and nothing happened.

Then consider these pictures as a belated pre-Thanksgiving present. Happy belated pre-Thanksgiving, everyone!

One morning, Tim stayed home later than usual to file some reports from home. After a delicious breakfast of oatmeal and yogurt, Evie joined him to try to delete the stuff he had just written.


It's cold here. That's why a puppy hat makes sense. It's really a pity that they don't make puppy hats for adults, too.


Alert: There is a story behind these pictures of a car. So one day during the time of pre-Thanksgiving, I was driving around town in my worn-out 1994 Altima that I only paid $8,500 for back in 1999 and had over 143,000 miles on it, when my car began to shake violently. I mean, really shaking and it didn't matter if I was rolling or sitting at a light. I felt like I was being made into a milkshake. I started to get a little nervous. About an hour later, I discovered I could no longer accelerate beyond 40 mph. I called Tim and told him I was witnessing the death of my beloved car. On Saturday, Tim was out jogging and passed this car for sale on a dealer's lot. On Monday, we went in after work for a test drive. On Tuesday, I was driving to work in our 2004 Subaru Outback. We traded in the Altima at the time of sale and the dealership very graciously gave us $400 for my milk-shake dying car.

In this picture, you can see that the length of the car almost matches the length of our itsy-bitsy backyard.

Okay, this picture is kinda cheating because this picture is actually taken during the time of Thanksgiving while we were in Tennessee. But you can never get tired of Evie with Food On Her Face pictures. This time, it is Evie a la Banana.

Bathroom Business

Warning: This post contains graphic details about poop and pee. If you are even slightly squeamish, I would like to invite you to spend your next five minutes staring out the window and think of beautiful flowers and sunshine.

I know we are behind on posting, but I just HAD to post this latest event.

This past Saturday, we were returning from a lovely jaunt up to New York City. Dad had been in town to visit us and we were returning him to NYC and spent some time with Grandma and Aunty Kay. We had a wonderful time, ate a quick dinner before we left and then drove home to try to catch the end of the Tennessee vs. LSU game.

At some point after we got off the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I began to sense a strangeness in the air, as if something was off. I discovered it was a strange smell, but thought maybe it's the Chinese food that Grandma gave us to take home, it could be leaking. No worries, we are only 20 minutes from home.

When we got home, we quickly learned that the strange smell was coming from Evie's diaper. When we got inside the house and extracted Evie from the car seat, we discovered that her diaper had burst its banks and she had leaked all over her jeans and the car seat. When I got her upstairs for a bath, I discovered something more deadly.

After I took off her jeans began and lifted up her onsie, I discovered that Evie had had a massive poosplosion that had exploded up her back and had left long strips of poop stuck to the inside of her onsie. Since I did not want to wipe poop into my daughter's hair and face, I began to remove the strips of poop with toilet paper and tossed them into the toilet.

Then I took off Evie's diaper, which she immediately stepped in. Now she had poop on her foot, which she planted onto the bathmat. While I held her over my knee to wipe the explosive poop from her butt and foot, poop fell from somehwere off her body onto the bathroom floor, smearing. My knee landed in the poop on the bathmat. There were flecks of poop on the toilet seat and Evie was trying to wriggle out of my hands. I felt like I was laying in poop. I began to laugh because I was afraid I might throw up.

After I had removed poop from my baby, I stood a naked Evie next to the tub so she could watch the water filling her bath and I could finish wiping up the poop from the floor and the toilet seat. I looked up at her in time to see her peeing directly onto the bathmat, making two little pools of pee. I started to laugh harder. Her face had a look of wonder, "Where is this liquid coming from?" I began to snort hysterically with laughter when Evie leaned over and used her little index finger to swirl the pools of pee on the bathmat.

At this time, I would just like to add another item to the "Things They Did Not Tell New Mothers" List. Item #72: They did not tell us that we would be so intimately acquainted with our child's bathroom business. Perhaps if They had shared this precious bit of information with us, we would have thought differently about babies and their bodily functions. And folks, we are not even to toilet training yet. Please continue to pray for us.

What's Hot, What's Not

Ms. Pat said that Evie's face is showing the "wisdom of discovery." Indeed. She is also showing the understanding of preferences, and readily exhibits her frustration if you cannot deliver "enh, enh" quickly enough. Here is a current list of What's Hot and What's Not in Evie's world.

What's Hot: Cooked peas; must not be cold. (very tasty with cubes of cheese and chunks of bread.)
What's Not: Cheerios.

What's Hot: Putting food in her own mouth.
What's Not: Anyone else putting food in her mouth (however, there are exceptions if the food is truly tasty).

What's Hot: Walking, with the aid of taller people.
What's Not: Crawling.

What's Hot: Pictures of cats lounging around.
What's Not: Smokey lounging around.



for Smokey: What's Hot--being outside. What's Not--Being forced into a family pictures.

Baby Day Out

Recently, the mommies of my church had a Baby Day Out at my house. Actually, there were supposed to be three mommies, but Keima called me the night before to say that Sebalah was sick. So it ended up being an Evie and Harmony playdate.

Car seats are much more interesting that the twenty baby toys laying on the floor.

Both babies are crawling now; it was SO HARD to get a picture of the two of them sitting still!




When they found Harmony's bib in her diaper bag and began to argue over who could hold it, Jennette and I decided that their playdate was over. Time for naps!

Children's Festival

We took Evie to the Mainline Children's Festival, an annual event at one of our partner churches. It is pretty much a pre-Halloween festival for the kiddies. Here are some pictures from the Festival.

When we arrived, there was a children's concert going on. Evie loved the music and singing! She and Tim were clapping their hands to the music.

Then we got ready for the Halloween Parade. All the kids in costumes were lining up.

A close up of our Ladybug during the Parade.

The Halloween Parade was basically a short walk around the church with drummers and singers and people handing out candy along the way. We were at the front of the parade.

She seemed more interested in being outside and listening to the drumming than anything else.

Later on, Elmo arrived! But Evie was distracted by something else.

Tim was showing Evie the fire engine when I took a picture of her wingspan.

The festival was lots of fun and we wore her out. She ended up falling asleep during a very loud concert. When she woke up, we had dinner at a local farmers market and Tim and I had chicken dumplings, Thai tofu and Chinese veggies. She was supposed to be eating baby food, but after a taste of the Thai tofu, it was over. She refused to have anything but the Thai flavored tofu. She ate three cubes of it by herself! Of course, she knows what tastes best: Thai tofu is much better than baby creamed corn...

Flight of the Ladybug

Here's a sneak peek of the recent bug infestation at our house. We are hoping it will clear up by Halloween night, as well as deliver us a lot of candy.

Evie and Helen

Evie and I spent an afternoon recently with my good friend Helen. Evie showed off some of the skills she learned while being a work baby at my office.

She can answer phones.

She can type very well and very fast.

In fact, she can answer phones and type at the same time--multi-tasking!

With a resume like that, who wouldn't want to hire her?

A Visit from Grammy

In mid-September, we had a special visit from Tim's mom, known affectionately as Grammy to everyone else in outer-internet-space. Her visit was extra-special because she came right when I was still broken in the foot and Evie started to speed up her mobility skills.

They read books together. One of Evie's favorite things to do is to read books. She likes looking at the pictures, hearing you talk about the story, and will help you turn the pages.

The took walks together (it was a bit chilly for a few days while Grammy was here).


She started to cruise while Grammy was here, too. Here, she shows off how she can walk along the couch.

Evie gives pointers to her mommy on how to walk properly. That huge thing is a boot on my broken foot.



My, how she has grown! That little play mat used to be her favorite all-time toy, and now she has outgrown it by leaps and bounds. Grammy, we had a great time, please visit again soon!

Ocean City Weekend

We had a mini-family vacation in the middle of August when my BFFs (best friends forever) Angie and Beckie came to the Philly/New Jersey area. It was Evie's first time meeting my girlfriends, and Angie's girls. Fun fun fun!

Angie came over with Emma (2 y.o. peanut pie) and Ellie (at the time 8 month old munchkin). Ellie and Evie side by side. Neither of them were really crawling at the time. Isn't Ellie adorable?!

These next pics crack me up. Everyone is sitting around reading Evie's favorite book.

Evie looks back as if to say "Who are they and why are they playing with my stuff?"

"Again, who is she and why is she hogging my sippy cup?"

Evie practices assertiveness. They ended up playing and sharing nicely.

The next day, in Ocean City.

Me and my BFFs: me, Angie, her Emma, and Beckie on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ.

On the beach! Evie loved the waves rolling in, and would wave her hands at the water.

However she was not very excited about the cool Atlantic waters rolling up on her feet.

My favorite picture of the summer.

She liked being up in Tim's arms, with her feet out of the water.

Happy Day at the beach!

What We Did on Our Summer Vacation...

Well, for us, summer has just ended. Really. We had a high of 80 degrees today (it's mid-October!)...so summer for us is still lingering around but the leaves are finally starting to change colors and make their beautiful descent to the ground. For us to rake and bag. *sigh*

Meanwhile, after you have finished looking around at the leaves on your ground, look at these pics of what we did over our summer. by the way, our computer was fixed by the marvelous Sean, our new official Mac Repair Man! Three Cheers for Sean!

Bathtime has gotten an upgrade this summer--now she is in the big girl seat.

At the beginning of the summer, she was not crawling, but trying very hard (she's wearing a headband that looks like it is eating her head)

By Labor Day, she had taken her first crawling step. Within two days, she was moving around the house.

...and had developed a love relationship with Smokey's things, even his food.

Another cute bath picture.

Nap times are getting harder since she learned to stand up on her own.

Which means exploration and fun for her!

"Look ma, one hand!"


These last four pics of a recent Daddy Day, when Evie and Tim hung out. The weather had cooled a little, so she had on a sweatshirt and little hat as they were getting ready to go out.


She is also very talkative--lots of babby babble, we are waiting to hear her first words. Maybe it will be "Smokey, stop it!"

Yes, she is usually this happy and smiling this much!

She's our little pocket of sunshine! We had a wonderful summer.