red juice

I sometimes make smoothies when we have strawberries. I used to make them A LOT but we got tired of them so I've just been using the strawberries on my oatmeal. Now I'm kinda tired of that. But anyway, Noah asked for red juice, which is a smoothie. He enjoys them so much he tries to get every last drop out of the cup by inverting it on his face. He had a big cup this day and you can see the outline of the top of the cup on his face with the remnants of smoothie.

Nice.
Terry has discovered that putting Evie on his shoulders sometimes calms her fussiness. Too bad she moved and is all blurry but you get the idea.

the unveiling

Due to Noah's short attention span and Terry's busy schedule, I just received my Mother's Day gift last week. I'm not complaining, I just think it's kind of funny. Noah would drag out all these markers and supplies and draw in this book that I didn't know what was and wasn't supposed to know (I never peeked...ever). I got tired of cleaning up my own gift! So now I finally get to see what it is. Ta da!

So these are Noah's drawings from this year. Terry had this great idea that we could keep using this book every year to measure his artistic progression - see how good he gets as the years go by. So maybe we'll do that, if we remember.

My favorite part is the first paragraph, "Happy Mother's Day Eva! Wow! Sorry I'm so late w/Noah and I's project - I'm sure Evie would have contributed too, but , well, yeah, she's still learning to look LEFT =)" HA! Poor little Evie, she's getting there though. I think her ears are more even due to the wedge sleeping. She still doesn't really like to look left, but I'd like to think she's looking forward more and more. That's forward progression!

And yes, Noah and Evie did sign their names...with Daddy's help.

too many raindrops, run run run!

Yesterday it downpoured here. There was even some hail. Me and Noah went out in the garage to watch but ended up running out to the gutter and jumping in to the running water. It was fun!

Poor little robin. She was taking refuge under Terry's Blazer. I just thought it was kind of funny. She's probably worrying about her kids up in some tree. =)

a good night but sad morning

Here we are doing the corny take-your-own-picture-which-unfortunately-didn't-turn-out-so-well thing in front of Ruby Tuesday where we had dinner at for our anniversary last night. Afterwards we went to Indiana Jones at the theater and almost had the place to ourselves...except for about 6 other people. We really liked the movie and only thought it was over the top when they went down 3 huge waterfalls and survived. Ha. Couldn't quite escape G-burg though as we ran into some high schoolers afterwards in the lobby. I made Terry blush joking about staying for another movie with the kids accompanied by my pump in the back row...and sound effects. Then we shared some really really rich Cold Stone Giardelli chocolate ice cream. Yum. Came home to find the baby crying and ready for bed.

Here's what Evie did while we were almost gone - modeled the blanket my mom made for her.
Okay, now we're definately gone and Noah and Evie, or mostly Noah, are enjoying an afternoon video.
Evie ready for bed.

So, I think we all enjoyed my parents visit and I was definately sad to see them go this morning. Back to doing my own dishes and letting Evie cry. Ho hum.

hanging out

My dad has found that after a long nap on her back, Evie likes to have a back scratch. Here he is giving her one...and making a silly face.

Normal face. Evie looks a little concerned.

Noah is cleaning his pool with the car washing brush.
Daddy is attempting to find just the right position for Evie to be comfy in. Hasn't found it yet.
So he decides to eat her head. At least she's no longer crying. She's looking at me like I'm weird but look at the face her daddy's making!

do you know what this means?

Yesterday my mom and I decided to test drive Evie with a bottle. I had never tried before and had my doubts b/c she doesn't like a pacifier that much - just to help get her to sleep. But she took it right away and did really well!

Happy extended 4th anniversary Terry and Eva! You get to have dinner AND see a movie thanks to this! North Platte here we come!

I'm getting used to messes

This is too funny and hopefully Terry won't be too embarassed...and if he is you'll never know b/c I'll have to erase this post. I was sitting here on our laptop chatting with a youth group kid on facebook when Noah comes over with his legs well apart and walking real slow says, "Very careful." I was immediately concerned and said "Why are you being careful? Did you poop?" I checked his pants and sure enough, a deposit had been made. I took him to the potty and sit him on it and he says over and over "too late, too late." HA! He'll get it one of these days, right?

visits

My parent's have been here since Friday and it's been nice having some company while Terry is at work, someone to hold Evie while I make dinner so I don't have to listen to the crying (Evie likes to be held A LOT), someone to help out around the house, someone to make Noah sit on the potty so I can feed Evie or make dinner or fold laundry or whatever.
For instance, my dad mowed the lawn for Terry since this week is VBS and he's much more busy (didn't really get his day off). I was drawn outside b/c Noah was pulling all the little blossoms off the front bush and I thought the pile he was making would make a cute picture.

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His conquering pile...of flowers

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Coming to get mommy.

car wash

Saturday heralded the second youth group fundraising car wash that Terry organized. They washed 25 cars and I don't know how much they made but the money will go towards the Challenge trip that's in a week. They're going to Salt Lake City for the E-Free church's national conference. Terry and I have both been to the conference as students with our home church so it'll be fun for him to go again. Perhaps I can go next year. =(
It was fun to think back to last year when the car wash was one of the first events he did with the kids. The first three photos are from last year. Look how little Noah is! And still he wanted to help.

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Here is Lindsay, the pastor's daughter, that we've got to know over this last year.

Father and son hanging out after the car wash - see how Noah imitates everything Terry does, even reading the paper. =)
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These are pictures from this year's car wash. Here is Lindsay again but this time with Evie!

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Noah only wanted to play at the end this year. He and his daddy had a water fight. Terry was a good sport and let Noah spray him with the hose.

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He might have gotten himself as well.

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Evie hanging out with Lindsay again.

ambi-turner

My little Evie is so funny. Actually this is a little disturbing for me... Apparently she is trying to fit into the movie Zoolander like a previous post described. In the movie Derek is ashamed to be a super model that's an ambi-turner - he can only turn left at the end of the run way (or is it right? i can't remember but it's one of the two).
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Evie is the same, except it's with her head. She likes to look one way and one way only. She looks to the right, her right, constantly, even when she sleeps. In this first photo, you can see her doing it. There's a toy on her chest b/c I've been rattling it in front of her face trying to get her to track to the left and follow it with her head. The worst part is her head is flattening out behind her ear from this habit. Yes, her ears are no longer even when you look from the top of her head down. So we're trying to fix it. I've got this wedge sleeper thing that I put next to her right ear when I lay her down. She doesn't like it, just like she doesn't like it when she's sitting up and I move her head to the left. We'll keep trucking though and hope she doesn't need one of those head molding helmets.
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There's a shot of the wedge next to her head. Yeah, and the boy in his underwear...didn't want to wear anything else yesterday. =)

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Too cute. He likes to make faces when the camera comes out. Says,"CHEESE!"

Evie likes her mommy.

Smiley, cooing baby. 9 weeks.

recent weather

It's been raining and storming a lot here (thundering right now). When we drove back into town last Tuesday from home there were two huge cottonwood trees tipped over into the lake. They had been just on the edge of the water and due to erosion and and the rain, they just fell over. I wanted to get a shot of it but it was removed before I recovered from the flu.

Also as an insight into my own selfishness... The huge storms with tornados and hail are interrupting regularly scheduled programming. One such example was last Thursday, the evening of the much anticipated LOST finale. Yes, I am a Lostie and proud of it. So there were 6 tornados running through a neighboring town and the ABC network were of course covering it. I was upset that they were interrupting my show. I was slightly appeased when they announced that they had received many phone calls about the finale and to rest assured b/c they would re-aire it in full. At least I'm not the only selfish one out there.

So with all of this rain, our lawn was in great need of a mow but we couldn't get to it until Saturday - a week and a half since it was last done. Terry had to raise the height of the mower and do it again Tuesday evening. We'll have to keep doing it twice a week. Here are a few pictures of us enjoying the long grass.
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You can see our rhubarb there in the back of us - tons.

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There in the middle is the patch that we planted grass on (formerly a garden from the previous pastor...a terrible place for one)

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My feet.

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Me and Noah's feet...and of course his mower.

Dog Juice

Noah might not care if he has a wet or messy diaper, but as we have recently discovered, he does not care to have wet pants or shorts. Two days ago we decided to try a day w/o diapers since he was showing no signs of ever "wanting" to be potty trained. He had two successful potty pee pee's in the morning but after that didn't want to try again and endured the wet pants. We were back to diapers again yesterday. But today we tried again with new resources: Dog Juice...otherwise known as Mug Root Beer (Noah calls pop juice b/c that's how we explained it to him at first and now it's stuck). This is Noah's favorite pop b/c of the picture of a dog on the label. So, with the aid of Dog Juice, he's had a successful day so far! We can't bribe forever, but hopefully this will help him get the idea. I'm so proud of my little man.
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Noah is enjoying his new big boy underpants I got him. Bob the Builder.

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He's swishing the dog juice around his mouth.

Now that I am unsick I thought I better get these up from our trip home last weekend. Just like in here, there was a lot of rain and flooding. The little creek that runs through Terry's families ranch was very swollen...like I've never seen it before (but Jerry said it's been up to the bridge before). In this first photo you can see how high it is. Usually it's just a little ribbon of water in the spring and dry in the summer. Noah really enjoyed throwing rocks in it. It made me a little sad b/c it reminded me of how we used to live out there (just further down the road) and Noah and I would walk down to the creek to throw in rocks... Ahhhh.

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This is the creek running over the bridge at the grandparent's house (not pictured - that one is the house Jerry and Alice lived in when they first got married in '72)

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Another favorite past time of Noah's: riding the four-wheeler with Grampa.

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Now we're throwing and skipping rocks into one of the formerly dry stock ponds.

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Wow! This is what all of the ponds looked like. I mean, they used to be cracking dry. The rain was GREAT.