Evie and Friends

With my dislocated shoulder I can't type a whole lot, but I wanted to share some of these pictures of Evelyn and her friends. :)

A few weeks ago Jackson, Connor and Sam came over for dinner. The piano was a hit, even for the parents since the boys were gentle and careful.

Evie was a little miffed that she was getting left out...
And so she figured out a way to get in as well. :) 
These boys are quite patient and loving towards Evelyn and very aware that she is a baby and they are big kids and there are distinct things that they can do and she can't. For example, they were *very* worried that Evie was trying to crawl up on this window seat with them. I don't think they quite realized that there was no way she was going to actually get up. ;)
Poor Evelyn desperately wants to be grown up as you can see by her desire to climb everything and be tall...

Read the Grinch in Latin...

txt Aunt Katie...

and play with Nathan's remote control car.


Don't worry, not all of Evelyn's friends are boys. Last week we spent a day and a half with Amy and Kate, two of her big girl friends. Amy and Kate have an amazing baby baby grand piano that Evie was fascinated with once Amy showed it to her. Evie took it very seriously.
Amy and Kate are hilarious and had me laughing the whole time we were there. Amy did inform me that I was her favorite of all the princesses, which made me feel quite good. :) After her rest one day Amy's room was quite the disaster. She informed me that babies like Evie could only clean up baby messes. Medium girls like her could only clean up medium messes, and big messes (like her room) needed the help of big people, so please please would I help her with her room. I did of course, but she was a little miffed that baby Evie didn't help at all, not even with the small messy areas. This is what Evie did the whole time. :p

Evelyn hopefully realizes that she won't be able to get away with lounging while I clean up for much longer... ;)
Kate spent all one lunch perusing the paper instead of eating her lunch. She wasn't interested really in the food I made her so she went and got the paper and went through it page by page.
Evelyn has such sweet older friends and we're so thankful for them all!

Ok, so this ended up being a lot of typing. Off to take some meds and rest my shoulder. :)

Evelyn Ruth

Here are just a few pictures of Evie from a few weeks ago...
Evelyn learned over the summer just how much fun it is to pull all her books off the shelf. We're still working on putting them back on. :) I am glad though that she likes to take them off and flip through them!

This is what our house looks like at least once a day... :) I'm resorting to just one big clean up before Daddy comes home. ;)

Evelyn loves our piano!

Diaper change escapee!!
 
Our little climbing monkey :)

We love our baby girl!!

Richmond Day

Last month we had a free Saturday and decided to head to Richmond and do some exploring. We had heard good things about the White House of the Confederacy and Museum of the Confederacy (ie - that they weren't Confederate shrines) and we decided to check them out. It's kind of funny - they're squished right in the middle of Richmond between highways, hospitals and other random buildings. After a few minutes driving around, however, we managed to track them down. :)

Although the house tour guide was a little funny about Evie going on the tour, he was good and the house was very interesting. The Jefferson Davis apparently didn't believe in stifling their children's' natural, "creative" tendencies and so didn't believe in discipline. It sounds like they were quite the bad kids! Their house was beautiful, even if it sounds like it was a bit dysfunctional in real life.
No pictures were allowed inside, but here we are outside.
Out back...

In the front... not quite as grand (or white) as the real White House.
The museum of the confederacy was mostly interesting because of all the actual items they had. Here I am in front of Robert E Lee's tent - everything in it was really his...
And here is the sword and uniform he wore to the surrender at Appomattox!
Evelyn and Nathan liked the cannon best. :)

The Virginia Capitol is not far from the Museums so we walked over there next.

Cool buildings on our way over...
The capitol is a very large and beautiful building, originally designed by Thomas Jefferson. It was hard to get it all in one picture, but here are my attempts (there is a main, Greek temple looking building with large wing additions on either side).
This statue of George Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon is said to be the most realistic statue that we have. Houdon came over from France and took extremely detailed notes, sketches and castes - he even covered GW's face with oil, stuck feathers in his nose so he could breathe, and made a complete plaster of his face!

Here is the exact place R.E. Lee stood to accept command of the Army of Northern Virginia.
We also enjoyed touring the different rooms and chambers.

Aunt Emily and Aunt Caroline came to visit!

After our trip to Ohio, Emily and Caroline came back with me to spend a week with us. We had so. much. fun!! The week included shopping, CW, reading, relaxing, the beach, playing with Evie, eating good food, Sweet Frog, celebrating Caroline's birthday and much more! It was so good to spend so much sister time together. Here are just some of the pictures from our adventures. :)

The day after we got here we headed to Virginia Beach!! Nathan's parents were able to come with us which was fun. :) Nathan, Car, Grandma and Grandpa Mortier and I spent quite a bit of time in the waves. With the exception of one wave which knocked us all over, smashed into the ground and filled our mouths with salt, the waves weren't too big and great to play in.

Emily and Evelyn preferred the shore most of the time. :)
Chillin' after getting ice cream at Dairy Queen...
And of course it's not a trip to VA Beach without a picture with Neptune!!
Emily and Caroline were able to get a great deal on annual CW passes (guess you'll just have to come back lots!!! :)) so we spent a lot of time down there.

Evie preferred the horses to the hats...

We all toured the palace again - we always enjoy going through it. The entry will all the weapons and the ballroom are our favs.

Another day we headed to Maymont for to have a picnic and enjoy the beautiful house, grounds and animals.

A lot of my fav pictures from Maymont are on Car and Em's cameras, so you'll have to visit Em's FB page for more. :)
Oh and Nana, here is a picture of Evie looking beautiful in her white dress you gave her!
Thank you for coming to visit, Aunt Em and Aunt Car Car! Evelyn was quite despondent the day after you left. :) You're welcome back any time! :)