4th of July Cabin Style (1 of 2)

As always we had an amazing trip to the cabin. Dad and I are having some technical trouble getting photos and video transferred from his computer to ours so there will be some more photos and videos to follow....

Amelia and EE ready to head out for the Allenspark 4th of July  parade.

Amelia was on a sugar high as we left the parade. In all our years at the cabin this was only the second time we've been at the cabin for the 4th. I'm kind of obsessed with the parade. It is SO small, mountain town that you can't help but love it. The parade consists of ten or eleven fire trucks, a flat bed with a band and some horses. I'm pretty sure there are more people in the parade than watching.....

Juliet is the second Evans great-grandbaby to get to wear the Mini Talking Bull onesie. We used to joke that Grandpa Don was Talking Bull as he was always long winded and full of it. Dad had a hat made for him with Talking Bull on it which proudly hangs at the cabin. I think this onesie will need to be passed around over the years for all Grandpa Don's great-grand babies to wear.

Ah, I love this shot of our little babe enjoying the mountain air in her daddy's hands.

Merrill is the family pie baker and helped Amelia make her first pie. Amelia's pie was a lovely strawberry concoction.

sisters

Popcorn has a long history of being eaten for dinner at the cabin. This year was no exception and we had a popcorn dinner night with all kinds of yummy toppings. I believe that Ginnie loves popcorn with M&Ms or at least I seem to recall her telling me that. Well we all know how much Amelia loves her M&Ms so i thought she would be SO excited to eat popcorn and M&Ms for dinner just like JuJu does. I filled her box up with M&Ms then added the popcorn. Right when the popcorn hit the box an EPIC meltdown started. I mean the little girl totally lost it because her M&Ms had been covered up. She recovered once Papa taught her the "proper" way to eat popcorn.

This may well be the last Evans family photo taken on the infamous bench as right after this photo was taken....

Yep, the bench fell apart under Mark and Juliet. Mark promised to rebuild it next summer.

Our vacation ended with one of "those" travel days. The highlights being:

1. Amelia having an upset stomach on the plane which resulted in a ridiculous diaper/clothing change in the airplane bathroom (I can't take the credit as Mark had the privilege of that parenting moment.) Thank goodness she had on a dress that hits at her knees so she could just go the rest of the way in just her dress. Yes, prepared moms would have had a change of clothes for both girls but who ever said I was well prepared?
2. After getting to our gate late and in general having four tired Langs we had to wait for a while for the luggage. While Mark patiently (okay, NONE of us were patient by this point) waited for luggage I hung with the girls. Two young ladies next to us started giggling and when I turned to look I realized they were laughing at my daughter who had her dress pulled up over her head and her diaper was laying on the Midway floor below her.
3. Southwest lost Juliet's carseat hence the long time waiting for luggage.....

 

The Second Child

I cannot say that I've counted but I'm pretty sure that by 4-months Amelia had a lot more pictures taken of her than Baby J has. Juliet does get her picture taken plenty!!! Here are a few snapshots of our almost 4-month old little lady. If you are feeling bad for Juliet (which I know you are not) we go to the cabin tomorrow where Papa will be sure to take plenty of pictures of his favorite youngest granddaughter.

She loves splashing in the bath. These ladies take after their daddy with their love of water. They also take after him with their feet but we will save that for another day.

The mandatory picture of dad and baby sleeping. Check out her super cute diaper cover. Thank you Nancy!

Photographs aren't the only thing Juliet has had less of than Amelia. She maybe gets the "recommended" daily tummy time twice a week. Then again we haven't read any parenting books this time around so who knows what they are recommending these days.

Last night we enjoyed Thursday night summer concert series in Lincoln Square. It was just one of "those" nights. See being a second child your parents forget they are supposed to be prepared when they take you places. It started with Juliet having an all too common diaper blow-out. Really it wouldn't have been that big of a deal had I had a change of clothes for her and more than one wipe. JuJu and Mark worked between napkins and a bottle of water to get Juliet clean while Amelia and I went to a local boutique to pick up a new onesie. During all that Mark's beer got spilt and Tom had to wait in line for 30 minutes to get him a new one. Thank god it wasn't my wine that got spilt. Next it started raining and we didn't have a single item of rain gear but luckily the rain didn't last long and the large tree we were next to protected us. We got home just in time for a freak storm to slam Chicago. JuJu and Poppy got home after the freak storm had taken down their power, knocked a tree from the golf course into their yard and blown out a window in their bedroom. Ha, all that aside we really DID have a great night and look forward to doing it again!

Now there are some advantages to being the baby sister as Juliet has had a personal stylist living with her since she was born. Rachel Zoe has nothing on Amelia!

Dance As Though No One Is Watching You

Amelia's daycare had their summer show tonight. It was a riot. Each class "danced" to a Beatles song and the girls in Amelia's class were told to wear dresses. When Merrill was coming up to Chicago after Juliet was born she wanted to bring something for Amelia who had recently gotten into dress-up. Merrill showed up with a fun dress to add to Amelia's dress-up clothes. Amelia insisted on wearing, "my pretty dress from EE" for her show.

This video is about what you would expect from 12 toddlers "dancing" on stage and a home video; most of them don't dance, a teacher blocks the kids (in her defense she was preventing a fall from stage), there were lots of confused faces, more jumping than dancing, a few tears, poor lighting and some shaky footage.

At the Christmas show Amelia spent most of the time standing in the back pretty unsure of the whole stage thing. Tonight it took her a bit to get warmed up but she found her move by the end of the song. Mark and I both smiled so much watching her that I decided it was worth sharing the whole video (and I promised the grandmas I would)....

Happy Father's Day

Whenever you ask Amelia what she wants to buy someone she says, "M&M's." This has been going on a while. So of course once I started talking about Father's Day, Amelia became very concerned about getting daddy M&M's for "Friday's Day." I told her on Friday that after her nap we would walk to the store and she could get daddy his present. Like all good daughters she took money out of her dad's wallet and off to the store we went. She cracked the cashier up by pulling out her money from her purse to pay. Mind you her purse is in the shape of a horse and covered in flowers (thank you Ginger!). On Saturday Mark got a much deserved guys day/night out at Wrigley Field. Father's Day morning he was treated to Amelia crying at 4am that she needed someone to sleep with her. He woke up a little tired and sore from sharing her toddler bed.

I seemed to have forgotten to take pictures of our day which we spent opening presents, eating biscuits and gravy, skyping with Papa and a pizza dinner with the Langs.

Amelia and Juliet are so blessed to have such an amazing daddy. I know that some day (probably well past the teen years) they will understand the love and dedication their dad has to them and how important his role is in their lives. I should know as I have an equally amazing dad!

Happy Father's Day to Mark, Papa, Poppy, Tomme and all the other amazing daddies we know!



Amelia arranged her money and M&M's no less than 20 times between the store (which is only a block away) and our home.



I wish her excitement to get home was due to being so happy to give daddy a gift but really she was full of ulterior motives. She rushed in the house and demanded, "daddy share M&M's!"



Georgia and Amelia were great during our Father's Day dinner and kept themselves busy telling secrets and playing with the bag of goodies JuJu showed up with.

Kansas Road Trip

We survived our first road trip as a family of four. Really the ten hour drive to and from Kansas was pretty uneventful in a good way. I whined a bit as sitting in between two car seats in the back of a Prius for ten hours is a bit cozy but it is better than listening to crying. Amelia stayed happy as long as we kept Sesame Street rolling and Juliet entertained herself by sleeping and occasionally smiling. Us girls were in Kansas nine days and Mark joined us for both weekends (and to drive us there and back). It was wonderful to spend so much time with mom as she is well on the road to recovery from her surgery. I'm sure she will be doing a lot of resting this week as she recovers from the constant chaos we brought into her home!

To all who hosted us, thank you! To all who we got to see, we wish we could have seen you more! To all those folks that we didn't get to see this trip, we miss you and don't know how even with nine days we didn't get to see everyone.

All loaded up and ready to head to the lake!

Keegan Vail, Amelia and Elise Cates enjoying food off the grill.

I am surprised Amelia isn't pink and green after all the watermelon she ate in Kansas!

GranAnn was a trooper and was happy to keep Juliet company in the shade while we chased Amelia around.

A "small" picnic in South Park. Between the four mamas there we had nine kiddos to keep our eyes on. The hit of the picnic was clearly the bubbles and LaSala size bag of Fruit Loops Sarah brought. Yes, Sarah brought Fruit Loops for her kid's picnic lunch :)

Only Sarah has the patience to teach these three little girls how to share bubbles.

Eric LaSala helping Amelia and Kendall Krier out.



Mark's idea of a lazy Saturday; a good book, sleeping baby and cold beer.



Amelia and Norah Meyer enjoying a diaper party

We almost got Amelia to smile for the camera......

"EE Merrill" (as Amelia started calling her) and Amelia sunning together.

Swimming makes for a very happy dad and oldest daughter!



Amelia loving being able to spend so much time running around GranAnn's yard.



I really try so hard to get pictures of the girls together. I'm doing a very poor job which is evident in that this is the best picture of the two of them from Kansas. Getting Juliet awake long enough for a picture is hard enough then to get Amelia happy and cooperative while Juliet is awake is nearly impossible.



If Juliet could talk she would have been saying, "Amelia are you STILL awake? We've been in the car for nine hours don't you think you could fall asleep at some point?" while we made our way home.

Amelia decided that, no, she didn't need to sleep on the car ride home. She FINALLY fell asleep when we were about 30 minutes from home. After a week of running around Kansas and being awake nearly all day she was exhausted when we got home. She curled up in a ball and fell asleep in the living room while we unloaded the car.

Visitors from Minnesota

This weekend brought us visitors from Minnesota. Mark's Aunt Gayle (Nana Gayle) and Uncle Greg came to Chicago for a "work". They spend four hours at a convention and five days playing with all the Langs. Sadly, we can go a couple of years without seeing the Backlund crew but we will get to see Gayle, Greg and the others in August when we head to Minnesota for a week of sitting by the lake!

Maybe watching Georgia ride her tricycle will teach Amelia that you actually are supposed to petal to get your tricycle to move. Amelia expects to be pushed...

Hyper Girls!

The Chicago Backlund girls with Nana Gayle.

After running around like a maniac with her cousins, eating three desserts (were her parents not watching her?) and leaving Georgia and Charlie's house an hour after bedtime our car ride home was pure meltdown. I'm talking once a year size meltdown.

Oh does Amelia love to ride the train and luckily for her Gayle and Greg were happy to go for a train ride with her. I think this may be the first picture taken of our family of four. It is a beauty with Amelia too cool to look at the camera and Juliet barely being visible.



Family picture round two at Pizza Art.



Daddy and Baby Girl #2!



If Juliet could talk she would be saying, "I LOVE guests because they all tell me how cute I am!"



Greg and Amelia enjoying the streets of Chicago.



Happy Mother's Day to Me

Spoiled is what I was this Mother's Day. The fresh cut flowers, orchid plant and Juliet charm additions to my charm necklace would have been plenty but to top it off Mark gave me a cleaning lady. Really I can't express how excited I am. We can't seem to keep up with the mess and know it will just get worse when I got back to work. Mark decided it would be a great dual Mother/Father's Day gift to us. I concur!

For my special day my family indulged me for a little retail therapy. I do love me a good shopping trip so we headed to Old Orchard which conveniently is outside and includes a play area and train. They play. I shop. It works well for everyone involved.

Finally we are getting a bit more al fresco dining weather so we enjoyed Frontera Grill outside for Mother's Day.

 

Juliet must have decided that if we weren't planning to share the guacamole with her that there was no reason to stay awake.



Amelia LOVES trains, the city buses, toy cars, etc. She talked about riding the train and getting to get a ticket for the rest of the day. Mark was thrilled that Amelia wasn't tall enough to go on her own so he got to go with her.

Not from Mother's Day. But it does show that Juliet has the ability to sleep outside of our arms.

 This video is also not specific to Mother's Day but was taken this morning. It teaches us a few lessons:

1. Taking a video while rocking a baby isn't the best idea.

2. We still struggle with getting videos to post in the correct direction.

3. Amelia is being brain washed. She used to sing this song the "proper" way as taught to her by her die hard Cubs fan father. She would proudly proclaim, "let me root, root, root for the CUBBIES" and at the end properly would yell, "GO CUBBIES." Now she sings, "let me root, root, root for the home team" and there is no cubbie love at the end. She claims her teachers told her the right way to sing it. We are 100% convinced it has to do with the fact that she spent Friday with Jenn. While Jenn is also a die hard Chicago baseball fan it happens to be for the other team....