Merritt Island

Last weekend we were invited to spend some time with our good friends Ryan, Tori, and Owen. Ryan's parents have an awesome condo right on the Indian River on Merritt Island. It was SO relaxing and such a great time spent with friends. We ate lots of good food (Thanks Tori for cooking!), enjoyed the pool, and even went to Cocoa Beach on the 4th of July. The little boys had fun playing together and Evan has been talking about Owen ever since we left on Sunday!

This was our view from the balcony....


That bay is where I sat in a kayak for the first time! I gotta tell ya, my legs were shaking when I got in....but it ended up being really easy. I'm not sure that I'm ready for white-water-rafting though.


Joel, Ryan, and Owen took Evan on his first boat ride...



Evan and Owen enjoyed the big bathtub...

We went across the bridge to the city of Cocoa for a little bit on Friday afternoon. It was SO hot! You can see Owen eyeing the splash park from Ryan's shoulders.

And Joel and Evan went for a walk on the boardwalk...


Saturday morning was the trip to Cocoa Beach. We all did our share of skim-boarding and boogie-boarding. The conclusion was that Joel could boogie-board, Ryan could skim-board and you don't even want to see the embarrassing pictures of Tori and I trying to skim-board! Here are some of Evan and Owen instead...



Saturday evening we let Owen and Evan throw snap-pops (Joel's official name for the things that come in a little box of sawdust, you throw them and they pop on the ground). Evan loved them and just kept asking for more. We should have gotten more of those rather than all the sparklers. It was a little windy so they were hard to light. Here is a "snap-pop" picture but all the sparkler pictures are on Tori's camera. I'll have to post one later.



It seems like Tori and I are always the ones taking the pictures and never get to be in the pictures so here is our "Happy Fourth of July" picture that we took of ourselves....


Thank you Ryan and Tori for an awesome weekend! We can't wait to do it again!

Singing

Yesterday morning after breakfast, Evan wanted to sing. This is what I could catch on video...

A Big Week!

I think this blog could actually be 4 different blogs but I'm going to try to cram it all into one!

"Fireman Hat and Tomatoes"
I found a fireman hat at a garage sale last weekend and brought it home for Evan. He's been wearing it all around the house since I gave it to him. I can hardly get him to take it off for naptime. A couple days ago he was pretending with it and this is what he came up with...



"Evan's First Movie"
Yesterday morning it was storming and pouring down rain and I didn't feel like sitting home all morning. I remembered that our movie theater offers free kids movies throughout the summer so I thought Evan and I would try it out. Charlotte's Web was playing...what a perfect first movie for Evan. He immediately loved the idea of the "big tv" and wanted to know where the remote was. He also had fun talking to the "big kids" around us. Although the gradeschool boys in front of us did asked me to tell Evan "to stop staring" at them and that it was "kind creepy." I explained to them that this was his first movie and he was watching them to see how they behaved during the show.

I fully expected Evan to last the first 15 minutes and then we would go find something else to do. I was wrong. We were there for just about the entire movie....1 hour and 40 minutes. He loved the animals and kept asking where the "big red barn" went. He talked about it all day and I think we'll try to go to another one next week!

"Plain White T's"
Joel and I went out last night! We heard that the Plain White T's were playing downtown so we found a babysitter and had a little date night. There were 3 opening bands that we'd never heard of and then the T's played. They were a lot of fun and very entertaining. I definitely prefer their sing-songy "Delilah" and "1,2,3,4" songs over the more "poppy" songs but it was fun to get out of the house and do something that we hardly ever do anymore....listen to live music.





"Big Boy Bed"
Evan has always had a daybed in his room in addition to his crib. A few weeks ago he started asking to take his naps in it. We let him do a few naps in the "big boy bed" and then he started asking to sleep in it at night. We really had no intentions of switching from his crib until he tried to climb out but it seemed to happen naturally and now he's been sleeping in his "big boy bed" for 2 weeks. We took the crib down this week and it was kind of sad....our little boy is growing up fast!

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...