Last Minute Getaway

Last week was so stressful for Joel and I that we decided to get away for 24 hours. We went over to Vilano Beach and stayed at the Hampton right on the water. It was wonderful. Sometimes just removing yourself from the situations at hand and giving your mind a rest can help you see so much more clearly. We enjoyed every minute of our family time and Evan enjoyed every minute of his beach time. Here are a few pictures from Friday and Saturday....

Cookies

Evan and I baked cookies on Sunday afternoon! I let him pull a chair up to the counter and help with every part possible. He was very excited and kept saying "cookies, cookies." We made a bigger mess than what I would normally make doing it myself...but we had a lot fun.


I had on an apron so Evan wanted one too...



MMM...Cookie batter.

Hopefully he'll turn out to be a good cook like his daddy!

Conversation about Babies....

Evan: Kelly have baby in belly?

Jen: yes that's right, Kelly has a baby in her belly.

Evan: Nae-Nae have baby in belly?

Jen: Yes, Renae has a baby in her belly.

Evan: Chris have baby in belly?

Jen: (lots of laughter because Chris is Renae's husband)
no honey, Chris doesn't have a baby in his belly.

Playing with Friends

Evan had three slumber parties this week! Owen stayed the night with us on Sunday night so Tori and Ryan could go out to celebrate Dental School and Florida Boards being completely over. Then Monday night Megan spent the night with us. Kelly & Kevin just had a normal work day on Tuesday but Megan's Nanny was out of town so Evan and I filled in for her on Tuesday. Then Evan stayed at Owen's house on Tuesday night to give ME a break from kids. It sure felt odd for Joel and I to leave our house at 9:30pm for Taco Bell and Super WalMart! I kept thinking that I left Evan and home sleeping!

"Hmm...Where could Evan be?"

Riding the brooms...

All Ready for bed...

"Cheese!"

"Knees!"

I got really brave and let Evan and Megan paint! They loved it!



For some reason they thought it was hilarious to sit "underneath" the shelf.


And I guess Evan wants to be a plumber when he grows up...

Pickles

I forgot to mention that Joel and I canned 12 pints of pickles a couple weekends ago. It was a lot of fun...and SO much easier than I thought it was going to be. We just combined a few recipes from the internet and I called my mom about 4 times.

Evan's Imagination

Evan's imagination amazes me every day. He's always coming up with something new to pretend.

He loves to pretend that he is fishing. He first did this in Illinois at my friend Margie's house. He sat inside the circle of a hula-hoop and starting fishing. After this incident my dad gave him a real fishing lesson:


Since then he's been fishing out of the laundry basket, catching "big fish" and then eating them. I finally made him some paper fish to catch!

One day last week, Evan took a place mat off of the table and put it on the floor. He then put his cereal bowl and milk on the place mat. He said, "mommy picnic?" Who could resist that? I have no idea where he came up with the idea but it sure was cute!


He has also created his own water spout. He sees me get water out of the spout in the fridge so one day he went over to a safety lock on a cupboard and made a water sound while holding his cup under the lock. Now when we have picnics he knows where to go to get the pretend-water.


On Sunday morning Evan was playing with a little rubber Easter Bunny who's arms and legs move all around. He put the bunny on the couch and told him "hold still, change diaper."

Who knows what he'll come up with next!