The One with Valentine's Day 2012

Valentine's this year was very low key. We've never been very big on celebrating holidays/anniversaries. I really hope to change that! What's the next holiday... President's Day? St. Patrick's Day? Let's go all out! Chris miraculously had the day off and while I was getting ready he made me this ultra sexy card...

"You are the deoxygenated return venous blood flow from systemic circulation that enters my right atrium..." And then on the inside it says, "Without you my heart would be empty." What a catch!

I did some work and then made a batch of Valentine brownies.

I spy a little boy who is always by my side...

All chopped up and ready to go!

I met up with a bunch of other mommies/kids from our ward and we ate treats and let the munchkins run around. 

Yes, we're baby making machines :)

In just a few years Fox will be in school and I'll get to help him make his Valentines! I so live vicariously through my child.

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The One with Fox at 16 Months

Fox posts trump all holidays :) Today he's 16 months old (and baby in utero is 16 weeks!) Here are our done at home stats - official ones coming after his well-baby appointment on Thursday.

 Length: 33.5" (90-95%) 

 Weight: 24 pounds (25-50%) 

 Head circumference: 19.5" (90-95%)

Fox has added a few words to his vocabulary and tricks to his 'act' in the last month!


Words he says:
Bye (buh)
Dog
Buzz! (as in Buzz Lightyear)
Wow!
Yeah!
No! (not a fan of this one...)
Oh no!
Uh oh!
One Two (meaning he wants to play "3, 2, 1" and have us run him around like Uncle Jay)
Shoes (still sounds like "eesh")

Fox is a facial copycat and likes to mimic any face that we make at him. He squints his eyes when we do so, puckers his lips up to his nose, throws his head back and laughs like a cornball, sticks his tongue out, blows bubbles, blows raspberries, presses his forefinger against his lips and says, "Shhhh!" and more. I'm trying to get pictures of these tricks but whenever I have the camera out he just wants to grab it.

Fox found my belly button and loves it for some weird reason. I tell him, "Your brother or sister is in there!" and sometimes he'll rest his head on my stomach like he does to soft things like pillows and Rachel the cat. Maybe on some level he knows his sibling is in there. Precious.

Fox is such a little helper! Three instances:
1) Every day for the past 16 months he's been glued to my hip as I've performed my morning routine which includes feeding our plethora of animals. Now he grabs the hay bag from the shelf, reaches in, grabs a handful, and throws it in Chandler the rabbit's cage. Then he grabs Chandler's pellet bowl and hands it to me.
2) I'll hand him a piece of garbage and say, "Throw this away!" and he'll take it into the kitchen and throw it in the trash. This could come in handy :)
3) When we're putting our groceries away, namely water bottles, he grabs one and hands it to us to put in the fridge, then gets another one and hands it to us, and another one, and another one, etc, until they're all put away! He loves to be told "Thank you!" and praised for his hard work.

I turn my attention elsewhere for two seconds and I come back to find that a tornado has swept through Fox's room:

I give up trying to stay on top of his messes early in the morning and then clean it all up before he goes to bed.

Yesterday I was emptying the dishwasher and then discovered Fox had somehow crawled into the bathtub.

He's a climber!

Fox and his Daddy have such a special bond.

No on can make Fox laugh like Chris can. They read together, play together, rough-house together. It's the perfect relationship between father and son. Every day when Chris comes home from a long day of school, Fox lights up and instantly becomes happy.


Fox ate his first popsicle. He liked it for the first 3/4 and then gave me the rest.

We have zero storage in our apartment so we've kept all the big baby things out and assembled in Fox's room. Recently he rediscovered his bouncer. 

Then:

Now:

He's a funny guy who likes what he likes and there's no rhyme or reason behind it.


I think we're about done with the standard Fox in his chair on his monthly birthday photo. He hasn't quite cooperated the last few months.

We love this guy and his enthusiastic personality! It's so fun to watch him learn new things and discover the world and figure everything out. Every day he becomes more "grown up" and it's so exciting to watch him turn into a little human being with thoughts and feelings and desires of his own.

We love you Fox!

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The One When I Dip, You Dip, We Dip

Fox is a picky eater. I don't know where he gets it from. Ahem cough cough...

I read about my friend Lyndsey's baby boy dipping everything in ketchup, so what the heck, maybe it would work for Fox too. 

I'm happy to say it works like a charm!
Chris squirted a pile o' sauce on Fox's plate one night at dinner, showed him how to dip dip dip, and just like that Fox was a pro dipper!

He dips everything in ketchup now. And I mean everything. Even his bottle. Which he then drinks. 

It's funny the things you learn and try when raising your first child.

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The One with True Birds

A couple weeks ago Heather from True Birds contacted me via etsy and asked to do a trade - some of my calendars for one of her ultra cool necklaces. 

Turns out the necklace I wanted had a bit of tarnish on it so she let me pick two! Bonus! With my li'l sister's help (cuz she's the ultimate fashionista in our family) I picked a heart locket and mini harmonica necklace:

The harmonica really plays!

And the heart locket opens! I'm gonna put a picture of Fox and baby #2 in it stat!

In addition to really cool jewelry, True Birds also makes stunning headbands for all occasions.

Consider me True Birds' newest #1 fan!

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The One with a Contagion

Forgive the lack of posts lately. We've got our own mild form of Contagion going on in the Evans household. (Did you see that movie? I had horrible nightmares because of it...) We're a house full of sneezing, wheezing, coughing, hacking, boogery, snot rags taking over, no-end-in-sight sickies. Achoo!

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The One with Red Hair

I had a mid-pregnancy crisis yesterday and felt the urge to change my look. So I hopped in the car, drove to the corner grocery store, bought two boxes of red hair dye, and a couple hours later I'm a red-head! It's definitely not a natural red, nobody is born with this color, but I can now say I've successfully crossed off #6 on my "27 before 27" bucket list: get an extreme hair cut or color. 

I'm sure it'll fade back to it's natural mousy-brown color in just a couple washes, but it'll be fun while it lasts!

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The One with Jane or Clark?

I added a new poll on the left side of my blog - guess baby #2's gender!

Is it a Jane?

Or a Clark?

I so badly want to go to one of those early ultrasound places and find out TODAY! But, I'm really trying to work on my patience so we'll just have to wait another 5 weeks or so until the big official ultrasound. My next regular appointment is on the 22nd, I'll be nearly 18 weeks then, so maybe my OB will be able to see or not see something then. 

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The One with I Think It's Time...

I think it's time for his first haircut, yes or no?

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The One with Lazy Days

- After pretty much lying horizontal for 10 weeks straight and then standing on my feet for 3 days straight at CHA, my legs are literally sore. Yeah. I'm out of shape. What else is new? As soon as I'm done bearing all our children I'll get into shape...

- On my last day of CHA I was planning on walking around and taking a bunch of pictures and then when I took out my camera to get started I realized I left my SD card in my computer at home. #fail. I seems like lots of other scrappers have blogged about it though so I'm living vicariously through their photos.

- I've really liked the first three seasons of the show Fringe. But this season? So lost. Oh so confused. J.J. Abrams is good at confounding his audience. Well on the way to this... (don't blast me Eric!):

- Is anyone going to watch The River? I'm a big Paranormal Activity fan (same producer or something) so hopefully this show is as good as the movies.

- Speaking of scary movies and shows, I'm going to see Woman in Black Saturday night. I hope it's scary! The movie poster is pretty freaky...

I have a hard time picturing Daniel Radcliffe being great in anything besides Harry Potter, so we'll see how this goes!

- Poor Mr. Fox is sick yet again. This is the third time in less than a month he's had a cold. He gets so cranky and ornery when he's not feeling well. It seems we may have found a replacement for Toy Story (can I get an amen?) - Lady and the Tramp. Fox LOVES dogs so it only makes sense he'd like this movie. Milk, snuggles, and a good movie will help get him through this ailment once again.

- Whelp. I've got a lot of schtuff to catch up on and things to create and a baby to tend to! So TTFN!

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The One with CHA Winter 2012

I've been a busy girl the past couple of days: I've been working at the Amy Tangerine booth at American Crafts at CHA Winter 2012 in Anaheim! Chris is so nice to take time off school to stay at home and watch Fox. Let me tell you, coming home and having Fox run into my arms and give me the world's biggest hug is the happiest feeling in the world. My life is complete :) I've loved getting to meet some of my blog readers in real life and meet new people. Scrappers are awesome. 

Walking into the Convention Center.

Half of American Crafts. There's also the Studio Calico booth, the Pebbles booth, and the Crate Paper Booth. Next, they're buying Google :)

The Amy Tangerine: Sketchbook booth where I've been workin'!

Me'n'Amy.

The Dear Lizzy booth.

So much eye candy!

SWAG

Me'n'Lizzy.

The Studio Calico booth. Say hi to Greg!

Kelly Purkey's awesome map project.

The layouts at the Studio Calico booth are a.m.a.z.i.n.g. So much talent on their team! Here's just a sampling:


Then my homegirls Alisha and Nichole came to chat! Oh how I miss them!

I haven't had a chance to walk around the entire show yet. Hopefully tomorrow cuz I'm sure there's TONS to see!

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The One with January 2012 American Crafts Layouts

I saw Amy the other day and and she had a set of her awesome new Amy Tangerine - Sketchbook papers. When she asked if I'd like to create a sample for her CHA booth I didn't think twice - heck yeah! So here's what I made (which I'm also counting as my two monthly postings for American Crafts):

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

Journaling says: The day after Chris got home from his 2-year mission to the Philippines I flew out to Colorado to see him. Two years was over at last - oh how I had missed him! We picked up right where we left off and life was good. That same week the very first annual Evans family reunion took place. I even wore an official Evans t-shirt when we weren't even engaged! Good thing it all worked out :) We spent a wonderful week up in the Rocky Mountains at Grand Lake. It was so beautiful and peaceful and the perfect way to get to know each other again.

How to: Punch a 3" square from each of the 24 patterned papers in the new Amy Tangerine Sketchbook line by American Crafts. Cut each square in half along the diagonal. Arrange the triangles in a chevron pattern and leave a larger gap between the top sets. Trim any excess paper hanging off the edges. Sew along the chevrons using a different color of thread for each stripe. Add a pink glitter foam letter sticker Thickers title in the large gap. Write journaling on the top triangular section. Trim a photo into a triangle and glue it to the bottom triangular section. Place a blue striped heart sticker at the top of the photo. Cut a scalloped border from patterned paper and adhere it along the top left and bottom right corners; draw an "x" with a black pen on each scallop.

Supplies: Cardstock, patterned paper, stickers (heart, letters), pen, adhesive, paper cutter: American Crafts; Square punch: Marvy Uchida; Sewing machine: Brother; Thread: Coats & Clarks

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KISSES

Journaling says: One of my favorite "tricks" that we've taught Fox is to give me kisses on demand. Not just any kiss - big, wide, open-mouthed kisses! I'll pick him up, hold him close to my face and say, "Give me a kiss!" and he'll lean in for the kill. It's so precious and makes me laugh so hard. It's been fun to teach Fox things and see him figure life out. 

How to: Drop India ink across a gray cardstock background and set it aside to dry. Trim flowers from a variety of patterned papers from the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook line by American Crafts. Adhere a square photo to the center of the layout using foam squares then tuck and layer all the flowers under and around the photo using different levels of adhesive. Cut out a frame from the Paige's Portraits paper (this deserves a post of its own!) and tuck it under the photo; write "kisses" on the frame with a black pen for the title. Glue a sequin to most of the flower centers. Adhere a photo corner to each corner (made with a square punch and trimmed in four pieces). Sew borders around the layout using four different colors of thread. Write journaling around the inner most border.

Supplies: Cardstock, patterned paper, pen, adhesive, paper cutter: American Crafts; Sequins: Berger Beads; India ink: Artworks; Square punch: Marvy Uchida; Sewing machine: Brother; Thread: Coats & Clark

CHA-bound tomorrow!

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The One with the 2nd Trimester!

Today marks a big day in pregnancy numero dos: hello second trimester!
Say goodbye to morning all day sickness!
Bye bye fatigue and headaches!
Soon my muffin top will start looking like an actual preggo belly!
Here's to the next 14 weeks!

And yes we're doing week-by-week photos again. I love looking at the ones of Fox so I figure, what they hey, we'll keep the tradition going!

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