Evie's 1st Birthday!

Way behind, I know.

Oh, my sweet Evie. How has a year passed so quickly? I still like to mentally walk through everything we did the day you were born. Breakfast at BBB (well, technically in the car because they lost our order), haircut for Sullivan at La Rousse, doctor's appointment in Tupelo, our decision to go ahead and break my water at the hospital to get things going, lunch at Steele's in Tupelo (fried catfish), arriving at a packed hospital and waiting for hours in triage for a delivery room, watching the clock after breaking my water to make sure labor was well under way before my doctor came to check on me, watching tree house masters during most of labor, crazy labor pains and tons of pressure in my rectum area, Enchanted on the tv during delivery, nurses on the phone telling the doctor one more push and I'd be done, everyone scrambling to set up/catch the baby while I was pushing those last few times, you, beautiful you, in my arms and on my chest. I can still feel the flood of relief, and love, and emotion at finally having you in my arms. My sweet Evie. You are such a blessing to me and our family and this world. May you never doubt that.

We spent Evie's first Christmas at home, but drove the day after Christmas down to the Coast. Her Nanna hosted a lunch birthday party at her home, and it was wonderful! Evie DID NOT smash her cake and wanted pretty much nothing to do with it. I guess I should have gotten chocolate, because she inhaled an andes mint chocolate cookie half that Santa left on Christmas.

At 12 months, Evie is blowing kisses with the back of her hand and lots of sound affects! MmmmWahhh!!! She received 2 baby dolls and a doll stroller for Christmas, and she loves to carry her babies around and hug them and push them in the stroller. She also likes to try out their pacifiers! She is all about a ball these days and wants someone to roll a ball back and forth with her. She has started doing what Sullivan calls "the adorable thing" which is basically a hug. She comes and lays her head on your leg, the dog, the cat, the baby doll, the whatever! It really is adorable, and even more so when Sullivan calls out, "Mom, she's doing the adorable thing again!". She also loves to read books at night, and will often just sit on the floor and read/jibber jabber to herself as she flips the pages. Her current favorites are Pout Pout Fish, Bedtime Kiss for Little Fish, Barnyard Buddies, or any of the books that have different textures to feel.

Food is touch and go. Some days she likes baby food, some days she shakes her head no. She absolutely, DOES NOT like milk. I have tried different percentage cow's milks, unsweetened almond milk, sweetened almond milk, formula, even chocolate milk. Nada. I never in a million years imagined the joy and accomplishment of breastfeeding would be so hard for HER to quit. I took for granted that she would just like milk and switch with no problems. HA! So, I'm still pumping during the day for her and nursing at night. This is my last go round, so trying to savor it anyway.

Evie can definitely understand so much of what we say to her now. She will retrieve items you ask her for and respond to questions with a shake of the head when appropriate. She's so happy most of the time (except when fighting new teeth or ears), and will typically play happily where ever we are. She loves to hang in our bathroom while we get ready and turn on (and off, and on, and off, and on) the water in our bathtub.

She loves her brother so much. She calls for him first thing in the morning, and gets to incredibly excited whenever he walks in the room. He is so protective of her, and typically, very inclusive. I think he enjoys having someone to boss around, and she sits patiently and enjoys it.

Evie - 11 months old!

I'm soooo behind on this post! It's been on my to-do list, but always gets pushed back. Since her 1st birthday is only 9 days away, I figured I'd better get something out!

Where to begin? She started walking and there was no stopping her after that. She went from a hesitant few to following her brother everywhere.

She loves to say Uh-Oh when she drops something. She also loves to purposely drop stuff and say Uh-Oh. She also says "dank do" when she hands you something. It's adorable. She understands lots of words, but I can't think of other things she's saying right now.

Evie gets the biggest kick out of rolling a ball back and forth with her brother. It makes me so happy that he enjoys playing with her as much as she does with him! They play with her toys and then switch and play trucks.

Evie hasn't been crazy about her fruit and veggie combo baby food recently. She likes the meat combinations and finger foods. SOOO opposite her brother! Don't remember if I mentioned last month, but she's still drinking water from a sippy cup like nobody's business. Doesn't balk if we switch types of cups... once again, couldn't be more different from her brother. She drinks 3, 4 oz bottles at school each day. She is still nursing and our bedtime routine involves turning on her ocean noise machine, her crib aquarium, and nursing and rocking. She's been sleeping much better lately. We put the bumpers back in her bed and she's slept pretty good since. Don't know if it's a more secure feel or just a coincidence, but I'll take it.

Evie also went on her first cruise to Mexico since her 10 month post. it was definitely not a relaxing/adult trip, but we had a great time. She was well behaved and Sullivan absolutely LOVED it. He never wanted to leave the camp carnival area.

We spent Thanksgiving with Daniel's Mom, my Mom, Freddie, and all of his family at their cabin. We had a great time!

Sullivan- 5 years old!

On Paradise Beach with his new, birthday snake. 

My sweet boy is 5 years old! We celebrated his actual birthday in Cozumel, Mexico and on a Carnival cruise! We had a construction themed party with his friends the next weekend.

It's not a party without TMNT masks and glow sticks!

Spending some of his birthday money in the arcade.

It is so hard to believe it's been 5 years since he was born. I still remember his birth like it was yesterday. He is growing so fast, and I love watching him change. He is so curious, and talkative, and silly, and moody, and helpful, and sensitive. 

His favorite things to eat these days are: Sonic or Wendy's cheeseburgers, Chick fil a nuggets with Polynesian sauce, scrambled eggs, craisin and apple oatmeal, cereal bars (still, but i found some with better ingredients), pears, mini corn dogs, spoonfuls of peanut butter, carrot or celery sticks with ranch, butter toast, dried fruit, yogurt, Kefir smoothie, and pancakes. He is a bottomless pit and seems to always be hungry! He wants a snack as soon as we get home from school and eats constantly until bedtime! 

His best friends that he talks about constantly are Jackson, Andrew, Carson, Colton, Alex, Max, and Robert. They love to pretend they are different players from the Ole Miss Football team and throw the football around. Sullivan is always Laquon Treadwell. One a side note, when he was telling me whom he would like to invite to his party, he included Mr. I'tavius and Laquon Treadwell. I managed to get an invitation to both of them, but needless to say, they were both home visiting family during their off weekend. :)

Sullivan goes to bed around 8 pm each night and gets up about 7 am most days. He's recently started wanting his closet light on while he sleeps. I think he picked this habit up from a friend, but we haven't broken him of it yet. He will inevitably want a drink of water at bedtime, so we usually go ahead and bring a full cup of water to him before reading.  He LOVES to read books before bed. Taking bedtime reading away is a very effective punishment, but not one I like to use. We usually read 3 books at bedtime, and he likes to save the longest book for last. If he's not in his bath when I read to Evie at bedtime, he always wants to join in and pick or read books with us. If he IS in the bath during this time, he will frequently call out that he wants to read those books when he gets out. I LOVE that he loves to read books. I feel like my job is done on that one!!!

Sullivan has a great memory and most days immediately starts sharing what he's learned at school as soon as he gets in the car. The exception to this is days when he doesn't take a nap at school. Oh Lordy, will he be in a mood on the days he's worn out! It's best to leave him alone on those car rides home! I love when he gets so excited about something that he's learned. He really is a little sponge!

I'm so blessed to be his mother. We are very much alike in temperament, which means we often butt heads, but I sure do love that boy! He's the best big brother and son.

Evie - 10 Months

Happy face.

Serious face.

At Evie's 9 1/2 month check up, she was 22 lbs and 29 1/2 inches. She's in like the 93rd percentile for height and 84th for weight. I do believe she may get some of her Daddy's height! She's currently wearing 12 and 18 month clothes. The pjs in the picture above are 18 months and she fills them out completely! I actually had to send my Mom to the outlet malls to get her some fall/winter 18 month clothes.

We've had a rough month of illness and injury in the Martin house. Evie had some kind of virus that gave her sores in her throat and a non-stop fever for five days. She didn't want to eat any baby food during this time, but still nursed, thankfully. We kept her dosed with tylenol or motrin, but her fever never actually went away until the fifth day. Daniel and I took turns taking off or working from home to keep her out of daycare the entire week. The next Monday, we had to take Sullivan to urgent care because he got a tire tread wire in his hand from the recycled tire mulch on his school playground. He was very brave and didn't make a peep when the Dr. pulled it from his hand. Never a good sign when the school calls, but it was pretty shocking when they said "Sullivan has a piece of mulch going through his hand". I immediately pictured something terrible, and was glad to see it was just a piece of wire through fatty part of his hand. Still not fun, but much better than what my "mom brain" can imagine. The next week, we were back at the Pediatrician on Monday with Evie- this time a hand, foot, and mouth diagnosis. I actually didn't realize she had any spots on hands and feet, but she had suddenly gotten terrible excema on her back and back of her legs. Apparently, her weakened immune system had caused that to flair up, but the Dr. immediately spotted the sores in her throat (again), and spots on hands and feet. Evie never had fever with this virus, but didn't want to eat much baby food. Thankfully, my Mom came to town to keep her while she was out of daycare. Maternity leave wiped all my sick days out, so staying home was difficult.

Besides illness, Evie has mastered opening cabinets and drawers (only the "safe" non-babyproofed ones). She loves turning on the bathtub water in our bathroom while we get ready for work in the morning. She actually turned it off one day when I asked her to, but that was probably a fluke! She's begun clapping her hands properly and loves to do it for patty cake. She raises her hands and bounces/dances when Daniel turns the music up at home. She's learned to whine and fuss out of impatience when she's ready to get down from her high chair or be picked up. I DO NOT want to encourage that behavior, but have no idea how to prevent it. Telling her to be patient doesn't have much effect yet!!! Besides the whining, Evie is also babbling A LOT. I love listening to her talking to us in the car each day and first thing in the morning.  She LOVES the pets and wants to pet them and feed them constantly. They put up with her as well since she is a good source of dropped food!

Speaking of mornings (in the bed with us), sleep still sux. It was starting to improve as I enforced her staying in her bed rather than coming in to the bed with us, but I think she's teething again, so that's gone out the window. The sleep sux either way, but going to her room every hour is harder on me than having her in the bed waking to nurse every hour. One day, one day, we shall sleep through the night again. I hope.

Evie is eating more and more finger foods. I still struggle coming up with things to give her, but she gets some fresh fruits, breads, carrots, pasta, etc when we have it. Otherwise, she still eats a good bit of fruit/yogurt in the mornings and baby food for the other meals. She has 3 breastmilk bottles as school most days.

Sullivan has been doing so good with his reading. He's read to his class, to me and Daniel, and to Evie. He still easily gets frustrated if he comes to a word he doesn't know or can't easily sound out, but we are working through it. The funniest thing was Anna trying to spell out something so the kids wouldn't understand at dinner one night, and Sullivan just burst out with the word she spelled. That trick won't work around him any longer!

My moody boy.

Giving Sophie some love.

We had a tornado warning a few weeks ago. I tried to leave work early enough to get the kids and get home before the worst hit, but instead, I ended up in the car as the warning sirens went off. I was going to get Sullivan first, so I spent the warning at Willie Price with the kids, teachers, staff in the rest of the building, and I'Tavious Mathers. I don't worry as much about Sullivan during bad weather since they are on the bottom floor/basement of a sturdy brick building. Evie's daycare is a metal building that always makes me nervous in bad weather. I had decided at the last minute to get Sullivan first so I wouldn't have to double back, but that ended up biting me. Thankfully, Daniel was able to run to the daycare to at least stay with Evie during the warning until I could come get her and take both kids home. It's frustrating to have a storm shelter at home and have my family stuck everywhere but there during bad weather. Alls well that ends well this time, thank goodness.

We spent a lovely fall weekend at the cabin the weekend after Bebe and Fred Daddy's birthdays. We had a cookout with my grandparents and Anna and Julia. It was nice to see more of my family and enjoy some relaxing at the cabin. My uncle made an interesting deer camera discovery while we were there, but I didn't get to see the images myself. My Mom did see the images...I'll let you guess what showed up on them. I'll expound on this more as I investigate further.

Evie- 9 months!

9 months old and showing off her teeth!

Whoever pushed fast forward on life, cut it out! My kiddos are growing entirely too fast.

Evie has been a busy girl over the last month! She's had 4 new teeth break through (the 4 top center teeth) to add to the 2 bottom teeth she had last month. She really likes to show them off when she smiles.

She is still pulling up and cruising, but has now started letting go and standing on her own for a few seconds. I usually jump to catch her anticipating a fall, which then startles her and makes her fall.

Sleep has been bad. She has the perpetual runny nose junk, which, combined with teething, means she has been up about 4 times a night most nights.  The last two nights have been better in that I didn't have to get up to nurse her back to sleep until around 3am. Every little bit of uninterrupted sleep helps! She usually only takes one decent nap at daycare and then maybe another short cat nap. She goes down easily at night, but just can't put herself back to sleep. I will eventually get back to "sleep training", but as long as she's pulling on ears and teething, I just want to give her any comfort I can.

She has started saying "Momma" and "Dada" although indiscriminately. She has a really loud "sound" that she makes first thing in the morning, and I"m pretty sure that's her calling for Sullivan. If they both end up in the bed or in our room first thing in the morning, they crack each other up. I am so lucky that they love each other so much.

gazing adoringly at big brother

As for food, Evie usually has yogurt mixed with fruit for breakfast, baby food veggie and meat at lunch, and baby food meat/veggie and fruit and/or yogurt for dinner. She starts most meals with some kind of organic puffy thing. I've been giving her bites of all kinds of foods, and she likes most of them.  She loved cheese sticks, panera french toast bagel, George's chocolate milkshake, cheesy mexican chicken casserole, and scrambled eggs. She DID NOT like cheese grits. As soon as she felt the texture she promptly spit them out.  She has three or four 4 oz bottles of breastmilk at daycare each day. She will also nurse before bedtime (6:30 or 7:00), and then several times through out the night/early morning. Although it's very demanding, I'm happy to still be able to breastfeed her. I'm trying to savor every experience since she's growing so fast. It will be nice to have that time back during the day when we are done though!

Some of Evie's favorite things are: playing peek-a-boo (she covers her face with towel or whatever and waits for you to say "Where's Evie?!", "dancing" to twinkle twinkle little star, playing and laughing with her "friend" Martin at daycare, her barnyard themed books that let her touch different textures (these are about the only books she will sit still for), patty cake (she claps her hands one on top of the other instead of palms together), her "quack quack" duck in the bath, and anything involving her brother.

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As for her brother, Sullivan is doing great! He's had a much better year, and I'm so thankful! He doesn't dread school and has started reading books to us again. He loves getting to interact with the Ole Miss football players that come to his school each week. "Mr. I'Tavius" Mathers comes each Monday. Sullivan and Daniel went to the game last weekend, and he got to get high fives from the players after the game and got a towel from one of them. Luckily, his show and tell letter the next week was "T", so he brought the towel (after it had been washed) to show to his class. Sullivan wears Laquon Treadwell's number (1) on his Ole Miss jerseys, so he was excited to get to see him.

Sullivan's first official soccer season just ended. They did great, and really looked like a team by the last game. His last game was on his Aunt Sherri's birthday, and he scored 3 or 4 goals for her! I didn't know they were "for her" until his teachers told me the next day that he had told them he was going to score for her. His team got to play and exhibition game during half time of the Ole Miss Women's Soccer game last Sunday. It was kind of just chaotic ball chasing and falling down, but fun anyway. I think Daniel enjoyed "coaching" this season, so maybe he'll do it again in the Spring.

One funny/scary thing Sullivan did last week involved luggage keys and a light socket! Daniel, Evie, and I were in our bathroom getting ready when Sullivan came back there with a weird look on his face. He showed Daniel his black finger, but did not want Daniel to go him his room. Needless to say, he had stuck the luggage keys in the light socket and shocked himself. He told me, "I was really brave when it hurt my finger"....umm, ok, you are lucky you didn't kill yourself or burn the house down! I told him I was going to have to write this story in his baby book, but he told me, "you don't have to write everything I do down". I think he was more than a little embarrassed.

Exhibition game...warm up?

Are we the Lions or the Land Sharks?

Working on a game plan with his best friend, Jackson

Pre-game "which goal is ours?" exercise is VERY important!