Spring has Arrived!

The warm weather leaves us making a trip to our neighborhood park every free moment we have. She grinned the whole way to the park this afternoon while riding on Dada's shoulders. Why is this picture so special? Well Ms. Amelia did not stop moving all weekend except to to look at her big book of "100 first words" for approximately 5 minutes. From chasing around her feline friends Bruce and Gus Klein, taking mouthwash off the shelves at Target, demanding to eat a banana at Trader Joe's and walking her way around Chicago (she doesn't get along with her stroller) she was way too busy for relaxing.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider is sung in house about 30 times a day. Here is Amelia showing, "out came the sun and dried up all the rain."

Amelia continues to excel in the arts. She is getting close to actually getting paint on the paper.

Well of course Amelia is way too young to dye Easter eggs but we don't always make the smartest parenting choices. She took the first egg we gave her and plopped it in the blue dye. Things were going along smoothly. Then she proceeded to look at the egg dripping in blue dye and yell, "ball" as she threw it across the room.

This is what happened with the second and last egg........

California Girl

Ah, we had an amazing vacation to Palm Desert last week. Mark and I agree that we appreciated this vacation more than any other. As our lives have gotten busier we are so grateful for special moments together as a family.

It was blissful to be able to spend so much time with Amelia, Mark, Grandma G, Poppy and Papa in such a beautiful setting. My body finally gave into the stress and busy schedule of the past couple of months and I just couldn't get enough sleep. Between lots of toddler giggles, good sleep, fresh air workouts and wine shared with family I am feeling rejuvenated. Mark and I even pulled ourselves away from Amelia for a nice dinner. It was decadent to be able to go to have a cocktail before dinner, select a non-child friendly restaurant, take our time ordering, savor wine and not have to clean-up the floor before we left.

Amelia-No-Naps-Lang had such a great time in California that she couldn't be bothered with naps. Really, between (two) four hour flights and four full days in California she napped a grand total of two and a half hours. The girl typically logs four hours per day. I think her favorite parts of our vacation were running around the patio chasing balloons and bubbles, riding in the golf cart with Poppy, spitting water at Papa during dinner (yes, in a restaurant and no, Amelia was NOT the instigator), dancing to a mariachi band with Grandma Ginnie, working the putting green and cheering on her favorite team with Grandma and Grandpa!

I am already yearning for the warm California sun on my face and desert stars. Lucky for us Amelia has three grandparents in the desert southwest that can’t get enough of her. I don't foresee any of the grandparents flying by themselves with Ms. Wiggleworm so they are stuck hosting Mark and I until Amelia is old enough to get herself there.

Amelia the Artist

Amelia's sitter Jenn e-mailed me these pictures at work today. Any stress I was feeling totally went out the window the moment I saw these. This was Amelia's first pass at painting and clearly the girl has talent. Nurturing her artistic gifts is of course not the only way Amelia knows how to make a mess. Here she is loving on a chocolate chip cupcake. This was taken just moments after Amelia and her partner-in-chaos aka Cousin Georgia managed to cover our home in grilled cheese and bananas.

no one likes a complainer.....

So there I was in a cab coming home from work tonight complaining to myself about anything and everything; I've been working way too many hours, I miss Amelia, this Lake Shore Drive traffic sucks, this Chicago weather blows, I wish I could afford the time and money to go on a big shopping trip, etc, etc. Then all of a sudden the cab driver cranked up Bad Romance (that's right I dig Lady Gaga) and slowly I started to feel better. Then I got to thinking about how I recently read an article about complaining and why, you just shouldn't do it. Does anyone want to listen to a complainer? Um, no. I mean what do I even have to complain about anyway? Um, nothing especially considering the devistation in Haiti which our home has been so humbled by.

I'm not complaining here, just making a statement (can I do that?). I have really been struggling with my work life balance over the past month or so. Even though the balance has not been ideal we have still had plenty of laughter as a family over the last few weeks! My deadline is out the door so like it it or not my family is going to be stuck with more of my time.

We love lazy weekend mornings in our home! PJ's, coffee, the newspaper and of course our girl who is a total morning gal.

Frankly I can't recall if it is an Evans or Kaiser tradition to have popcorn for dinner. If I had to guess I would put money on my dad's grandma as the one who served popcorn and apples for dinner every Sunday. However I also feel like I have memories of my Grandma Kaiser serving her share of popcorn. Regardless I was raised believing that popcorn is a perfectly acceptable dinner. For the first time I shared a popcorn dinner with Amelia. She must be an Evans/Kaiser as she kept stuffing her face with it. After our meal (yeah good timing) I did research on when you are "supposed" to feed a baby popcorn and apparently many people believe popcorn is a totally no-no for little tykes. Hm, just another day where I am disqualified from winning a parenting award.

This is a view I see a lot of Amelia wanting mommy to pick her up. Not sure if you caught her shirt covered in water but the reason for that is; Amelia has decided she loves trying to drink water from a glass. It doesn't always go so well.

We have to be quick about getting things in and out of the refrigerator or the entire cheese drawer ends up on the floor. I must not be doing everything wrong as a mom because at least she pulls out the cheese and not the champagne and/or wine.....

Most people use utensils to eat spaghetti but then again most people aren't toddlers.

Cheers!!!

This year we realized that we have a tradition of spending New Years with the Meyers and Moddrells. This year was no exception. Instead of our usual classy dinner party take out pizza and bakery cupcakes were the menu this year. Seriously it was the easiest party we have ever hosted and should do it that casual more often.

Amelia got to stay up past her bedtime so she could spend some QT with Uncle Meyer. She even showed off her new pj's GranAnn gave her for Christmas as she knew her favorite Andy's would love them. Finally Amelia has pj's that aren't incredibly baggy on her. Our little stick just doesn't seem to fit into pj's well. Here new ones are nice and trim and show off her lovely figure and her greatest feature her milk gut.

Our little girl, who every night chugs a bottle of milk and then can't get into her crib fast enough was not having bedtime last night. She knew there was a party and needed to be a part of it. So at 10:30pm she was happy as a clam eating a slice of pizza and entertaining the party.

Yep, those are cans of champagne. Hey, they looked cute in the store and you can take a girl out of Kansas/Nebraska but you can't take Kansas/Nebraska out of the girl!

A Very Merry Christmas!

Oh, the holidays are the best; all the family time, visits from out of town family, no work, lots of great food, good red wine paid for by Papa. Really the list could keep going. Here are some highlights from Christmas 09:

I fully expected to spend all of our meals calmly asking Amelia to sit down in her highchair. When all else fails she gets her way and runs around under the table as we eat. What I wasn't expecting was that I would also have to tell Papa to politely sit at the table and eat his Christmas dinner.
Oh when all else fails Grandma G, fishies and a bottle always make Amelia happy!

Darn right, I am rocking my cobbler apron. Grandma Kaiser was on to something with her cobbler apron obsession. They rock. I mean how great to be able to carry around your cell phone, camera, lip gloss, kleenex, etc and not lose a beat in the kitchen? Speaking of kleenex I think I also inherited Grandma Kaiser's tissue habit. I literally find them in every pocket no matter what I'm wearing. I could never figure out why Grandma ALWAYS had kleenex in everything and now here I am. Can I blame it on having a teething baby whose nose is always running?

We had a grilled rack of lamb for Christmas dinner. Oh the joys of grilling in December in Chicago. I think it was about 10 degrees and the snow was just starting to fall.

Grandma Ginnie and I tried SO hard to get a picture of Amelia in her so cute Christmas dress but she wasn't having it. This was the best we could do.

Why is at that Evans' holidays always end with a dance party of some sort? At least this Christmas no one ended up in a swimming pool fully clothed.... Auntie M and Papa did end up soaking wet when they decided to turn the whirlpool jets on while bathing Amelia. The problem was that without a full tub the jets blew water all over the bathroom. Poor Amelia might not have much hope.....

Holiday Photo Shoot

Tis the season for holiday photos. I subjected Amelia to a few photo shoots last weekend. Frankly she was way too busy to be bothered with me.

Waving at the cars, buses and people passing by is a favorite past time, which must be an urban baby thing.
Why have toys when you have a cabinet full of spices? At the end of the day we literally find spices all over the place from the dishwasher, other cabinets and empty boxes. Amelia will be a lot of help preparing our Christmas meal.

Good lord it is hard to get her with out something in her mouth.

Harder than getting her to cooperate without something in her mouth is getting her to cooperate when daddy isn't in the room. Here she was very impatiently waiting for him to be done with the delivery men. Standing at the top of the stairs yelling, "DADA" was more pressing than posing for the camera.

Yeah, I finally got one that is a keeper!!!