Crazy how much can change in just a few years! Happy Easter from our little family!
Family Picture 2017
17 Monday Apr 2017
17 Monday Apr 2017
Crazy how much can change in just a few years! Happy Easter from our little family!
29 Wednesday Mar 2017
Before I get into the pictures, which is probably what most everyone coming here actually wants, I want to document a few other things, primarily for me to look back at in the future.
I continue my dumpster-diving adventures, and out of the 6 dressers (or acting dressers), 3 were rescued from our dumpster, one was free from a friend, and the other two were thrifted or consignment. However, possibly the nicest piece of furniture we own is one of the dressers we “rescued”! Sorry, I’m slightly proud of free storage. 😀
I’ve decided that I am so lazy, cheap, and introverted that I am gradually becoming more and more “crunchy”. I had started noticing that my teeth were getting very sensitive and was concerned by some darkish spots and a possible crack or cavity on one of my wisdom teeth. I’m not particularly surprised by this. Oral hygiene hasn’t always made it to the top of my to-do list since motherhood. So, this past week, I got worried about it enough that I decided to try oil-pulling again. I tried it a while back and could. not. stand it! But I read a tip to add essential oils to the coconut oil. I was actually able to swish it for 10+ minutes with a couple drops of thieves added to it! So, I’ve been doing that daily, and ordered and started using THIS remineralizing toothpaste, and I made up another batch of THIS mouthwash. I’ve not been at it too long, but I’m actually really loving the results so far! I’m currently trying to think of a good recipe for coconut oil that will include immune boosters, stay solid at room temperature (preferred so I can throw it in my bag when we leave to go places, but not 100% necessary), and be something Ryan (and eventually Gloriana) will believe to be a good treat. If you’ve got something that fits that bill, shoot it over to me! 😉
And now, on to the pictures!
This little miss is 9, coming up on 10 months, now, and I really just can’t believe it! She is experimenting with getting up on her knees and trying the stereotypical crawl, but her preferred method is still the army crawl. And she is getting fast!
I’ve actually started suspecting that she’s trying to talk too! Still no teeth, but she’s been extremely cranky (for her) lately, so we’re hopeful that they’ll pop through before too much longer, especially since she’s finally starting to take an interest in food.
This guy. Crazy and frustrating as ever, but we’re making progress, and I’m really looking forward to the weather being consistently warm enough to take him out to burn some of his excessive energy.
We were very happy to be outside last week!
They’re relationship is so fun (and scary) to watch. Now that Gloriana is definitely mobile, I think Ryan believes she can be his wrestling buddy. We’re continually working on his understanding of “gentle”. 😛
He is forever cracking us up these days! Some of his common Ryanisms:
16 Thursday Mar 2017
About a month ago, we spent a while working in the guest room and fully transformed it into Ryan’s room. He’s been in there pretty consistently ever since!
Also sometime around then, we had a big snow. Ryan was thrilled, and I was excited that I’d noted the location of his snow gear when we had cleaned up his room.
She’s almost 8 months in this picture. Now she’s just a couple days away from 9!
Yeah, Ryan enjoyed it. I’m not as convinced about Levi though. 😉
The smolder… I’m 99% confident he was asking about “de boys?”
A boy and his stick.
A drooly girl and her Baymax hat!
He was setting up his soldiers into two opposing lines.
8 months old exactly here.
I feel like this one really illustrates life with these two fairly well… 😛
❤ Tired after a long day at the church building doing various things (smoking meat, cleaning, decorating, setting up) for Grace and Micah’s wedding the next day!
And she’s finally sitting up confidently on her own now. And army crawling all over the place!
And I’ll end with one from today. It’s been a busy month with far more going on than I’ve even alluded to here. Thankful for the approaching weekend, and some normalcy this week. 🙂
02 Thursday Feb 2017
Some of these are edited duplicates of ones I’ve posted before, but I wanted to go on and include them here.
Lol! I love this one. Still not entirely happy with the edit, but it’s such a hilarious picture!
After editing this one, I will warn everyone not to stare into her eyes too long here; it starts to get almost creepy… When viewed briefly however, it’s definitely good for a laugh.
I’m sure I have way more pictures of this girlie than I do of Ryan, but how could I not?! She smiles, and it’s crazy ADORABLE!
Also, dat hair tho…
These two. Oh, my word.
That moment when his expression just says it all…
But hers just say “Do I smell bacon?!” (Disclaimer: No, the baby has not had bacon; we’re waiting for the teeth to appear – they seem to be fashionably late in this one – before introducing her to the finer things.)
“Bacon?! FOOD! Outside?… Squirrel!”
“They said I had to go potty again! I went last night! This is totally unreasonable…”
Oh, no, that’s not trouble waiting to happen at all!
That tongue…!
13 Friday Jan 2017
Or, too many pictures of my kids’ expressions. Unedited, because I don’t feel like doing that right now. 😛
That tongue…
It’s official. They’re dorks.
Can’t imagine where they get it… lol!
He was trying so hard to let her play with him.
And she was rather happy about it.
Until she got tired, anyway.
14 Wednesday Dec 2016
I found another folder that I had forgotten about, so I’ll put a few of the better ones up here while waiting to post about our grand adventure! 😉
Oh, take me back!
08 Thursday Dec 2016
We’d just gotten back home from Florida after a very long, almost 17 hours on the road in one day. We were all SO tired of being in the car! And yet, somehow, we still decided to head back out, less than a week later, to go to Tennessee for Thanksgiving.
I’m actually really glad we did, but I can tell you we’re all still sick of the car (brought home even more by the 2 hours we drove to Andrew Peterson’s “Behold the Lamb of God” concert last night. A concert which, if you get the chance, you should try to go to; it was awesome, and the more I think about it, the more awesome it was!).
It was wonderful to see my family again, as well as to have the Thanksgiving food I grew up with. Just hadn’t quite realized how much I’d missed dressing and giblet gravy! So, naturally, after gorging ourselves on the amazing food (Oh, that smoked turkey!!!), we decided to have wood-fired pizza in the evening! I’m still not sure how we managed to eat, but that pizza was delicious, and the experience was SO. MUCH. FUN! I can’t wait to go back down and do it again!
The oven was amazing!
And we all spent the evening out on my family’s new deck, which is AWESOME!
The pizza night wasn’t planned, so they were thrown together with random ingredients. They were so good though!
Grammy Evelyn spent the night on Thanksgiving, and it was so nice to have a chance to catch up some! Also, my family now has a fire pit to make the deck even more awesome!
So cool!
Saturday Sam and Paul constructed a box for the back of the suburban. It’s been pretty great so far!
And, of course, Ryan couldn’t be there without playing around on the 4-wheeler.
P.S. The day of adventure from our Florida trip is all written up and laid out. Just need to do a bit more editing before it gets posted. I thought I’d go on and put this one up in the meantime though.
02 Friday Dec 2016
So, the Evans clan spent the week before Thanksgiving in Florida, on St. George Island, and it was fantastic! I really can’t wait to go back!!!
There were a ton of shells the first day on the beach. Didn’t see them to quite this extent the rest of the week.
Oh, yeah. He had fun. Until he came down with a fever the next to the last day there. 😦
We rented a couple of kayaks, and they were so much fun! So glad we did!
❤
Ryan did really well with the water. He liked it coming to about his knees, but would then run back up, and continue with his more important work of digging. I was fine with this; I didn’t have to worry about him around the water. 🙂
The off-season beach life… TAKE ME BACK!
Not the greatest picture, but I had to include it. I’m not sure I know anyone else who would actually take boffers to the beach. Love my family!
See? The WHOLE beach to ourselves. It was amazing!
It was chilly the first couple of days we were there, especially in the mornings, but the water was too captivating to stay in side!
❤
Shot looking down from our third floor balcony.
Gloriana had me up earlier than I would have liked on vacation, but I did get to see a couple of beautiful sunrises!
— And here I skip a day of adventure which deserves a post of its own, and involves rather more story-telling than I have time or inspiration for at the moment. —
Morning walks on the beach, coffee in hand, were one of my favorite things. One morning Sam and I saw the dolphins playing about 25 yards out. It was amazing to watch!
He loved running up and down the beach as we walked slowly along behind him.
A couple of the days were really still, and the water was amazingly clear. I actually braved the water (without a kayak) those days. The other days were breezy enough for me not to want to get too wet.
❤ my dork!
The last full day came with the biggest swells we’d seen all week. They had a lot of fun playing in them. Sam and I were dealing with a sick moose, but we made it down to watch a couple times, and Sam went out when Ryan was napping in the afternoon.
I may have preferred the calmer, clearer days, but the wind did make for some picturesque waves!
Looking down to the beach from our balcony.
Postcard worthy.
Our lovely rental, Sea Rose.
I’m ready to go back. Can we please go back?!
01 Thursday Dec 2016
Let’s see… Since my last post in the first week of SEPTEMBER (!!! So much for my once a month goal…), a lot has happened. Gloriana passed 3, 4 and 5 months. She is getting heavy, can almost sit up, rolls over easily (and then gets mad until she rolls herself back over), and is teething like CRAZY. Ryan’s vocabulary is improving by the day, and he’s to that amusing stage where he says things that in theory mean the same as what he actually means, for example: yesterday I went Christmas shopping, and I told him I was going to drop him off with “The kids.” Ever since then, he’s been telling me that I “put him down with the boys.” Can’t believe he’s going to be three in less than 2 weeks! Sam got a new (his old?) job at SMI, and he’s loving it! I’m so glad; it’s a much better fit for him! I had my 26th birthday, which struck me as incredibly weird – not bad, just weird – being closer to 30 than 20 or something. I’m still taking everything day by day, and I’m very much enjoying my life these days.
We had an awesome Reformation Day event where one of the families hosted the church, and the whole day was full of games, dancing, food, and fellowship. We’ve been to TN a couple times. Once for my amazing friend, Tricia Ann’s wedding. For that trip, Ryan, Gloriana, and I rode down with Daddy and stayed the whole week before, and Sam came down the day before the wedding. That was a strange week, to be away from him for so long. Ryan was desperate for some daddy-time when we got back home! The other trip was this past weekend, for Thanksgiving, but I’m getting ahead of myself. A couple weeks before Thanksgiving the whole Evans clan headed down to St. George Island, Florida for some much needed rest, relaxation, and family time! We had SO much fun, and have already started planning next year’s trip! 😀
We’ve not been great about taking a lot of pictures, but we’re going to keep trying to do better. Moments around the holidays always tend to remind me that next year’s events may look very different, and I want to remember all the good times.
With that, I’ll end this post, since that teething baby has me typing one handed at the moment. Hoping to get another post up with a few pictures from our FL trip, ones that don’t require much, if any, commentary. 🙂
06 Tuesday Sep 2016
Creative title, eh? 😉
Our first destination! We carpooled with friends from church, and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Shedd Aquarium.
It was Melinda’s idea for all of us to go for her birthday! An excellent idea; I hope she had as lovely a time as we did! We got to the aquarium a few minutes before it opened, and, by the look of the lines when we left shortly after lunch, I’m sure glad we did!
Ryan enjoyed watching the fish. In one section they had it set up so you could touch lake sturgeon, and I’m pretty sure that was his favorite part. He’s been talking about it quite a bit since we left that area!
Reflections!
I enjoyed this tank. Those tiny, blue fish were captivating.
Spider crabs. Those things were HUGE!
A very big snapper!
“It was dark.”
Ryan enjoyed all the turtles; so did I.
Y’all know I had to. 😀
The skyline was fascinating!
So we got a family picture. (Gloriana was in the ergo most of the day, and did wonderfully!)
Such a skyline, on such a lake! It was beautiful to visit!
After exploring the aquarium, we walked to The Bean. On the way, we passed this beautiful fountain.
Streets like this always fascinate me!
The scale of the big city had this country girl staring up and feeling a bit of vertigo!
Obligatory Bean picture.
The architecture…!
More skyline interest. I was intrigued by the way the old and the new were all there, mixed and mingled in a way that made the city feel unique, new, and historic all at the same time (as it is, I suppose).
We rested in the shade around The Bean before Justin drove us around some of downtown (where I gawked at the gorgeous buildings, but didn’t take any pictures), and to our final destination: dinner at Connie’s Pizza. I finally got to try real, Chicago-style, deep dish pizza!!! It was really good! Unfortunately, I was so hot and dehydrated by the time we got there, that I mostly filled up on water, and couldn’t eat much pizza. That just means we’ll have to go back. 😉
I had a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to go back sometime (sooner than later please?)! I want to explore some of the museums and restaurants, and go back to The Bean (for a keychain, from the shop I didn’t realize was there), and see the amazing buildings again! Maybe we can find somewhere to go up and look down and out over the city; that would be cool!