This morning Eva said "Breakfast".  

She is so sweet.  She was standing at the sliding glass door when she saw Trevin and Allison come through the gate this morning.  She immedieately pointed at him and starting saying, "Baby! Baby!" over and over happily.  She gave him a kiss too.

We have two sets of baby ducks in our neighborhood right now.  We fed them on our walk this morning.

She put this on her head herself and wandered around.

Beach day!

Pretty in Pink.

Lunch with a girlfriend.

Forgot to rotate!

Signing "eat" - she wanted some of the duck food, bread.

Pictures

Communicating and Obedience

Eva has been saying her words more clearly!  She has said:

• Chicken
  
• Moe to ee pee = More To Eat please as she signs 
  
• O's = Cheerio's
  
• tedin = Trevin (the little boy I watch)
  
• Baddy = Daddy
  
• Mommy
  
• mi = milk
  
• Hi (she had said this as her first word at 3 or 4 months once, but is saying it again now)
  
• Ball
• "Mommy read me" (she held up a book to me)

Eva recently woke up crying in the middle of the night. Justin went to her and held her as she cried, he asked her, "what's wrong baby?"  She did sign language for milk, said, "mommy" 

and stopped crying.  She wait patiently until I came into the room!

Today when Trevin's mommy came to pick him up he was in the living room and Eva, Allison (Trevin's mommy) and I were standing in the dining room.  Allison asked Eva, "Where's Trevin?"  She walked past us, walked into the living room and stood next to Trevin.

New things she can do

• Puts her books back on the bookshelf when its time to clean up
  
• She takes a drink from her sippie cup and carefully puts it back on the table
  
• Puts her magnets back on the fridge, magnatized side against the fridge
  
• Makes a fishy face :)
  
• Throws her diapers away 
  
• Brushes her teeth (we're still working on getting her to not throw it into the sink when she's done though)
  
• More successful with a fork than before
  
• She loves to open and close doors!  Especially the front door.  If someone is leaving and we are saying our final goodbye's Eva shuts the door on them!  Haha!

Social Girl

• Gives kisses on her own initiative to mommy and daddy
  
• She waves at almost everyone.  if they don't wave to her she stares them down until they do.  Sometimes I just get their attention for her so she can then wave
  
• She clearly has favorite books now!  She will grab one or two off her shelf herself more than any of the others.  She'll thoughtfully look for it and then select!
  
• She picks a book, brings it to me and then flops onto my lap to look at it with me!  I love it!
  
• She sings along with me and on her own.
  
• Often claps in time with the music for short spurts
  
• She tried to kick her mall like a soccer ball today
• She asks for her naps! Lucky me!

You Can Now Subscribe to Our Blog

Some friends recently asked me if we still had Eva's blog, and it made me realize not everyone checks it without knowing it was updated.  Now it is set up that you can subscribe to be notified for any new posts or comments.  Just use the link on the left below our picture.  It works via third-party providers - you get a free account with them, they watch our blog and notify you of the updates.  If you already have a google or yahoo account, it should be easy.  But by all means - sign up so you can get e-mail notifications instead of checking back every day only to find out that we've been lazy.  Let us know how it works out too!

Some Fun Videos

Here are some videos we finally got around to uploading.  The first one is of me calling Eva on the cell phone and then her calling me back!  The second is of Eva opening her rocking horse that she got for her birthday from Grandpa Glenn.  Enjoy!

Update

Eva has been really growing.  She loves to wander around the house searching for the cat.  She does  sign language for milk, bird, eat, more, please, airplane and all done.  When she sees that she is being caught doing something that she's not suppose to she stops, turns and happily blows kisses to cover it up :).  She makes us so happy.

I'm Climbing Now!

I went straight from walking to climbing! This weekend Daddy was playing with me and I decided to climb up my little chair. At first I was a little scared, but Daddy held my hand and I stood up on the chair! After the third time, I decided to let Daddy catch me when I jumped off! Then the fifth time, I realized I could reach my crib and tried to climb it - but Daddy stopped me! Oh well. Pretty soon I will be Spider-Eva!!!!

My Baby

Eva started saying "shh" tday :) and "no".

Kisses

Eva has been giving us kisses for a couple weeks now, but this morning at breakfast she blew Justin a kiss!  She even made the smooch sound!  Unlike other times when she does something new and only does it once, she has been doing this all morning!  YAYAYAYAY!  

Each time I lay her down for a nap or for bed before I leave the room I blow her two kisses.  That way if I am playing with her as I walk away she knows that i am not coming back in once she sees the two kisses from the door.  Well for her morning nap, less than 5 minutes ago she blew me kisses and even stood there with a kissy face waiting for me to come back and give her one.  Which of course I did! 

This is the best.  Hugs and Kisses are the two things I have been anticipating most! 

I Got Opinions...

Eva is displaying her opninions all the time.  She can tell us when she is thirsty, hungry and is all done without having to cry. 

She goes to her book shelf and looks  at the books for a minute.  Then she selects the 3 sesame street beginning books (which are not grouped together on the shelf).  Then she will sit down and look through them, show me or just walk around with it.  Then she will return to the shelf and select another set of similar books - which again, are not together but she knows they are alike.

She has been wanting a more big girl toothbrush.  So we walked to Publix to get her one last night.  We saw some cute ones but showed her a single kind, but in three different colors - green, blue and pink.  We held them up for her to choose.  she grabbed the pink with her right hand and blue with her left and leaned back to look at them.  She then proceeded to hand me the pink one and hold on to the blue.  Very calmly and very decidedly.

Obviously she has opinions about food too.  But we all know how that goes :).

New Adventure

Eva and I have a new little buddy around the house.  I started my neighbor's little boy, Trevin.  He is 3 months old.  It has been physically and mentally more tiring than one, as I am sure you know.  But!  I am really enjoying it.  I instantly became more organized.  It all seemed very natural.  The extra money every month will be nice,  it keeps me home with my precious angel and it is good practice for when we actually do have another!  Eva is handling it well.  She seems to be a little more independant which is good, but hard for me to let go.

Check out our buddy.

Family Visit!

My Aunt Norma and Uncle Ron surprised us yesterday with a quick visit.  They live in Utah and were visiting Ron's brother Murt in Orlando.  It was wonderful to see them.  They are such good kind people.   I was so glad that Justin and Eva could meet them!

Dipping fries in ketchup, no one needed to show her how to do that!

This is the kissy face, but she usually sticks out her chin a little more

At The Playground

Slipping Through My fingers

Eva is growing so fast. Everyday she does several new things.  New stuff:

• She gives kisses.  She started last week by smiling with her teeth and sticking out her chin with her eyes closed and would stay that way until kissed

• This week she puckers up with her chin up for kisses

• She loves to stick her fingers up our noses and laugh hysterically

• Some things she says, 

"There she is" during peek-a-boo

"Its good"  When done reading a book and setting it down to search for bigger and better things

"OK"

"Want one" offering a french fry to a friend

"no" 

"more"

• Typically I bribe her to eat a jar of baby food by placing a cheerio on top of the food on the spoon so she will be motivated to eat the cheerio or a piece of chicken (she loves meat!).  Many times she will manage to only eat the cheerio or chicken completely dodging the rest of the food on the spoon.  Well as of late she has taken to putting the cheerio or meat on the spoon herself and then eating it.  If it is really sweet (apples and oatmeal) she will be 2 to 3 cheerioes and then takes the spoon full.

• She started using crayons this weekend!  Most of the drawing is us guiding her and showing her to do it but hey!  She is taking the crayons and eating the tips!

• She walks in every direction, forwards, backwards and side to side.  She still gets tipsy, but she catches herself from falling 80% of the time.

• She is a little chatter box.  Trying to tell me what she thinks.

• She loves admiring herself in the mirror as if she were posing fora professional photoshoot.