The small things....

I don't want to forget.

When he drops something he says "Oopsie Otter"

Drumming his cute little fingers on a book while "reading" it to me and thinking out loud!

Asking for a "wink" before bed because he's thirsty.

What's better than this??

Combine 2 of Evan's favorite things...Fire Engines and Santa!

We did this last year too and this year it was even better.  Evan got so excited (so did the adults) when Santa came around and then came INSIDE his house for a visit!!  He was very eager to sit with Santa and give him his list.

Evan and his best buddy...SANTA!!

All the kids got in the picture...and Franklin's butt!!!

Santa on the scene!!

I guess he must have been a really good boy this year!!  Evan is truly into the Christmas spirit.  He's really cute when we read stories of Christmas and he points out the Three Kings and yells out BETHLEHEM!!!  We do an advent calendar every day and "Big Rig" the elf spies on him for Santa!!  We even let Evan pick out some lights for the bushes out front and a little light up reindeer.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Charity is good for the soul.

Most recently I met this AMAZING photographer through a friend of mine.  She was doing sessions to benefit the Frederick Rescue Mission who bring aide to the homeless and working poor.

I was privileged to be a part of such an important effort.  Tanya is completely selfless and I was honored to have met her.

Here is a link to her blog and our session.  The pictures are something I will cherish forever.  They really highlight such a fabulous point in Evan's life.  I'll never forget it.  She captured Evan's personality perfectly!

Click here for the link to the photo session!

Twick or Tweet!!!

I think it's official.  Evan loves Halloween.  But he loves all the spooky scary stuff about Halloween!  He told me next year he wants to be something "Spooky".  We spend the night playing ghost and scaring each other.

Evan had so much fun this year handing out candy...we never did go trick or treating!  But believe me he still got a TON of candy!

Pablo handing out candy!  Now that's cute!

What's he up to?  

Who's this little stinker??? Addy Ligi stopped by to trick or treat!! 

Evans 4th Backyardigans Bashtacular Birthday!!!

Evan had a super AWESOME Birthday at The Little Gym.  Which is still one of his favorite places.  This year is a special Bonus, because our very own Danielle now works at TLG!  AND she teaches Evan's class!  So you can imagine how much he loves that!  (so does she)

This was THE best Birthday party Evan has ever had.  Danielle made it really special of course!  The theme was.....you guessed it....Backyardigans.  Evan even insisted on wearing his Pablo costume..although it didn't last long and he got hot.  I can't wait for him to see these "Backyardigan" posts when he's older and wayyy too cool for it!!

We really had a great time with all of of Evan's buddies.  It makes you realize how lucky you are when you look around the room and see all the really wonderful people in Evan's life! Evan and I both value  your friendships so much! Thank you for spending Evan's 4th Birthday with us!

LOVED his Backyardigans Cupcake Cake!

Cheesin with Danielle!

Evan and Danielle

Goofing off waiting for his friends to arrive!

Jamie and Evan horsing around! Evan LOVES Jamie!

Getting this party started!!

Evan's Birthday Friends!  Thank you!!!

Evan and Mommy

Breakfast with the Backyardigans

Well, Evan has been in love with the Backyardigans for quite a while.  He is going to be Pablo for Halloween (a costume he wears almost daily), he just had an awesome Backyardigans Bashtacular (pictures coming soon) and this morning he had Breakfast with Pablo and Uniqua!!!

I couldn't resist getting these pictures up right away.  Evan just loves any character in a big fuzzy suit!!
He may get that from his Mommy?  :)  Evan was so funny that I think even the characters were getting a kick out of how excited he was.  Waking up at the crack of dawn was definitely worth it to see how happy Evan was.  Although, we had a close call when he walked by the room where Uniqua was taking a break and had taken her head off!! YIKES!! :)

This was the FIRST time Evan saw Pablo in PERSON!!  

Yeah, the excitement didn't fade!

He found UNIQUA!!!!

The characters were so cute and were clowning around with Evan A LOT!!

One happy little guy!

Family Picture in Corolla, NC

I know it's a little out of order.  But I just now received this picture.  We love the Whalehead Club in Corolla.  This year we had a great vacation in Corolla.  Of course for 4 years in a row, the Outer Banks have not disappointed!  And the bonus this year?  It only rained ONE day!!!  The day Hurricane Earl came through.  And we had a ball during that!  Hey, you gotta make the best out of every situation.


I consider myself very lucky to be able to spend the time with these crazy people!  :)

Chris, Jim, Evan, Me, Koren and Jesse at the Whalehead Club in Corolla, NC  2010

Happy 4th Birthday Evan

We are the luckiest family in the world and can't wait to spend this day with you!! Love you so much!

On this day 4 years ago you completed our family and my life.  It's not enough to say you are my whole world.  I love spending my days with you and being a Mom to you is the best job I could ever have.  You can make me laugh out loud or slow down to just watch you play.  Believe me, I am trying to savor every moment.  And remember the sound of your voice and the way you look at me when you say "Mom play wif me"  :)

I'm having some technical problems tonight so here is a link to just some of Evan's 4th Birthday pictures!!

Evan is growing so fast, everything they say is true about that.  I promise to get some pictures uploaded here by the end of the weekend!! We have a lot of festivities planned for the little man!!

Evan's First Day of Pre-School-Junior Year!

I know these posts will be out of order.  I promise the rest of our vacation to Corolla is on its way!  However, I couldn't resist getting these pictures posted.

Evan missed the 1st week of Pre-school due to our vacation...I don't think it will set him back too much on his academics!  Evan is going to the same Pre-School he went to for a few months at the end of last school year.  So dropping off was no problem. He is actually in the same room and has one of the teachers he had last year.  Needless to say he was pretty excited. 

We are lucky that his Pre-School is near Baker Park so we can stop there before or after school.  This morning we stopped to visit the ducks on the way to his first day of school!  This first picture was taken in front of our house before we left. 

Evan being Evan!! :)

I didn't want him to wear this pair of shoes for his first day, but guess who won? 

Evan's light up flame shoes!! He loves these shoes!!

Thee next 2 are just him goofing off in the car while I get gas.

Ducks...hey what other caption do you want?

Cute Cute Cute

I really love this picture of him. 

Imitating this duck below!

This next set of pictures is quite funny.  Evan has a really unique personality and I think these show it really well!  I love that now he is talking and lecturing me!

My hypothesis is...

Do I need to review??

And in closing....

Did you get any of that???

Standing outside of his room! 

He calls out "This is my ROOOOM"

Evan's teacher glad to see him back in class!!  He really loves her too!

Kiracofe Corolla Update

Hello to EVERYONE!!  We are doing just fine down here in Corolla, NC!!  Earl has passed through and we had a great time partying with him!!  We took some pictures and will post them soon.  The sun should be out by 5:00 and the sunset should be spectacular. 

As usual...Corolla doesn't disappoint!!  I think every year it gets better.

All Koren needs is an Umbrella drink!

Some of the hard rain from Earl.

It's raining? 

And of course I still have beach pictures from BEFORE Earl visited!! I hope to get a lot more pictures posted.  This was just to let everyone know we stayed in Corolla and continue to enjoy our vacation!

Corolla 2010...the Beginning

Hey everyone! Thought I would make a post and give an update on our drive down, the house and first couple days of our vacation. Well, for the 4th year we have had excellent weather for the drive down. Last year we stopped a few days earlier in Williamsburg and visited Busch Gardens. This year we didn't do that but did stop at Grave Digger's Dungeon on the way down! This year Evan attended his first ever Monster Jam and Grave Digger is his favorite!  And to top it off the original driver Dennis Anderson was there signing autographs.  We didn't tell Evan about this stop so it was a delightful surprise for him!  What made it even sweeter was his brother met us there too!  Could it get better??

YESSS!! They offered Monster Truck rides!!!  

Evan after his Monster Truck Ride!!

Evan giving the thumbs up with Dennis Anderson!

Of course Evan had to give Dennis his signature Fist Pump!!

 

Dennis signed Evan's Grave Digger shirt he got at the Monster Jam earlier this year!

Evan in the big cool chair...looking cute of course! He was a happy boy!

So after we toured the grounds which were really cool and you got to see the garage where they assemble all the Grave Diggers for racing! It was awesome.  But it was time to hit the road and make our way north again to Corolla.  After this Evan fell asleep in the car on the drive up.

I love seeing this sign!

We arrived at the house safe and SOUND!  This year we stayed on the Soundside for the first time.  We usually stay Oceanside.  However, since we prefer to go to the 4x4 beach anyway we tried something different.  What a SOUND DECISION that was!!  So far we love it!  The view is spectacular, we've seen Osprey, snakes, Herons, Egrets, frogs, giant spiders!!!  It's been amazing!  The sunsets just can't be beat!   And we think we may have found our house.  We've been staying in a different house nearly every year to find "the one".  This may be it!  It has laundry on EVERY floor!!  I would love that at home.  Koren and Jesse don't arrive until Thursday night and they have 3 bedrooms to choose from!  Evan likes the fact that he has his very own play room!  The first day we spent the evening in the pool and settling in. Of course we are saving our ceremonial first night's dinner of Enchiladas for when Koren and Jesse arrive!

The view out of the back of the house.  Really...crazy beautiful!

So that would end the journey down and our first day!  We love it here in Corolla.  As I type this, on Tuesday August 31st, Earl is threatening us! In 2008 we were here for Hurricane Hannah  and we hope we can ride this one out too! Even if they do evacuate us we would probably would just go to Chris's house and then come back to Corolla after the storm passes.  Yesterday we went to the beach and today Evan and I explored the resort beach/pool and got in our pool with Chris.  I'll add some more pictures soon!

We'll keep you posted!!  Literally! 

Where have I been?

Never have I realized it more than in the past week that I should have been blogging more these past few months. I guess I'll try to start at the beginning. I'd been slacking off on blogging because it seems as if everyone is on Facebook. At the end of the day I really felt like it was just repetitive and tedious.



Then last week my hard drive on my Mac decided to go south in a big big way! Leaving me back on my PC. BUT, I didn't back up and lost a TON of pictures. Yes, no need to lecture me, I have thoroughly beat my self up about it.



Which leads me back to why I should have been blogging. There are some pictures like our recent family trip to Steamtown National Park that are gone forever. And it really got me thinking as to why I began his blog wayyy back when I was pregnant with the little bean. My goal then and is now to document his life so that he and others can look at it later and have a record some interesting parts of his life. Who cares if nobody is looking at it now? I want him and his family to have it later. Evan, my dear, I'm sorry that I got lazy and stopped making posts! Here and now I'm committing to do a better job. My goal is the same. It's not to be professional or somehow really WOW anyone else but Evan. When I go back and look at the posts before he was born it really zaps you back to that moment in time. Can you imagine when he's 16 and looking at all of this? I hope we can share a lot of laughs and a few "MOM why did you post that????"!!!!!





Since I really can't post any pictures...I'll give you a little update on how our summer went and where it's going!





We went to Maui in June for 2 weeks. I did post a link to some pictures and NO we didn't lose those!! It was simply a fabulous trip. We went hiking, saw volcanoes, flew in a helicopter, took a a private SUV tour of the Road to Hana, swam, laid on the beach, I went to the Spa and we just had blast all around! I would like to get some more pictures up of that trip and will try to do that.





Our next trip was to Jacksonville, North Carolina to welcome Evan's Brother Chris home from his deployment to Afghanistan. There are pictures of that too, and I'll post some of those soon. That experience was like no other. Evan really loves his brother and sister. The three of them have a special relationship. I look forward to watching it grow through the years. That trip really made me realize what an awesome family I have. Evan is lucky too, to have a brother and sister like Chris and Koren. Trips and experiences like this really bring about all the good there is in family. Welcome Home Chris and thank you for doing your part...AGAIN!!




/>Just a few weeks after Chris got home we had a pending trip scheduled to visit Steamtown National Park and tickets to attend the Scranton Minor League Baseball teams home game. All of us went! Jim, Me, Evan, Koren, Jesse and Chris! And we all drove up together in my new obsession!! My husband bought me a 2011 Toyota Sienna Limited for my Birthday! I absolutely adore this car! So we packed up the "Shark" (my nickname) and went on a road trip. The game was so much fun even if it was a feeder team to the Yankees! And anyone with kids, especially boys, should put Steamtown on a "must do" list! It's an amazing place. We took a 2 hour train ride and Evan was overjoyed! Sadly, though, unless the Geek Squad saves me these pictures and video are gone forever. :( I guess we'll just have to go back!!





Evan continues to attend the Little Gym and loves it! So do I! Evan has been going since he was about 1 year old. He did Sports Camp this summer too. He's registered this fall to attend the Sports Skills Class there. We also signed him up for his 1st T-ball team! Look for those pictures late this fall. Sure to be a hit! (yes...I'm funny)





Evan will start his first full year of Pre-School this year and we are both excited. Well, maybe just me! But he is going back to the same school as last year and he really did love it there. He's going to go 3 afternoons a week. This summer Evan's speech just flourished. He really opened the flood gates while we were in Hawaii...not sure what it was but the boy was just inspired. We just started back with Speech Therapy with his amazing therapist today. It's an amazing thing to hear him express himself and be able to finally tell me he loves me. And when I asked him the other day was he glad he could now talk and tell me stuff he said "Yes, I don't wanna be like a baby anymore, I'm a big boy". His best buddies are Jamie, Owen, Thomas, and McKenzie. Although he loves playing with my friend Stacy's 3 girls and Mrs. Davis's Abby!! Who wouldn't?? Evan seems to be making friends more and more now that he can really talk with them! Never mind how charming and funny he is. And cute...really cute!!





Our next big adventure begins this weekend when we take off to our annual 2 week retreat! Corolla, NC in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We first went there in 2007 because we didn't want to go on a vacation that required us to fly with a baby! Well, we found a piece of paradise in Corolla. Next year will probably be our last year to enjoy the quietness of the off-season. Evan starts Kindergarten in 2012! But we will enjoy it for 2 more years


Previous Years Pictures:
2007
2008
2009



Let's see, I think that brings us up to date! Enough anyway! You can still comment here on the blog, which I always thought was a cool way for Evan to see what people thought about him! Who knows if Facebook will be around forever, but this blog will be.





If you've made it this far...Congratulations!

>

Look for some pictures soon!!



Love,
Mindy