March 1

March 1st was beauuuuuutiful this year in Williamsburg! Sunny, high 70s, no humidity... it was perfect. Evelyn and I loved having a deck, back yard and big area in the front to run around and enjoy the day. Evie is happiest when she can be outside and I am so enjoying letting her run around our new place! Here are a few pictures from our delightful March 1st (btw - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Aunt Nancy!! :))
We enjoyed a delightful picnic lunch out on the deck:

Evie thought taking her chair outside and putting it on the deck was so cool. :)
After her nap we planted some pansies out front. We were a little dirty when all was said and done, but we had a wonderful time. Things like planting flowers and painting your toe nails so you can wear sandals again are quite a bit harder with a 15 month old, but also way more fun. :)
Water break.


Later we decided it was time for an orange snack (Evie's current favorite fruit). She wanted to sit in a chair outside for this snack. :) I was supposed to sit in the other chair to eat my snack too. :) Uncle Aaron gave us these camp chairs for our wedding and Evie is very happy that she is tall enough to climb in and out of them by herself now. :)

This morning Evie and I had our first pretend tea party with her new doll table and chairs. :) I can't get the pictures off my other camera for some reason, but as soon as I do, I'll share. :)

The silence :)

I feel that I have been awful at sharing pictures of Evie and our life (which is, in large part, Evie ;)) so far this year! There is a good reason though (besides being pregnant). We just moved this past weekend to a new townhouse. Pictures will be coming soon but we love just it! The size, little yard, location and everything are perfect. We do miss our old Mt. Vernon neighbors though!! My mom and all three sisters came down for five days to help us with the move and they along with Nathan's folks and many of our wonderful Williamsburg friends helped our move go so quickly and smoothly! We are so thankful for everyone!

I was so busy on Saturday that I didn't get any moving pictures and then I got THE WORST FLU EVER on Saturday night/Sunday. Soooo I've been recovering and we have yet to take any new pictures in our home. A few highlights though:

• A Dishwasher!!
• A garbage disposal!
• A separate laundry room and (large) pantry – no more sharing!!
• A shed for all Nathan’s tools (and yes, he’s already built a work bench :))
• 2.5 baths
• A fenced in back yard
• A lovely neighborhood
• We still have a pool AND we're close to the river beach
• And Evie’s favorite: Four ceiling fans!! She is not happy unless all four are on all the time. :p During the summer this will be great. On cooler days however….. :)

I did just find this one picture of the front that we took when we were originally looking at the townhouse. I love the red front door and big glass storm door. Evelyn has enjoyed being able to look outside all the time!

Girls Retreat!

This last weekend was the annual d-group spring retreat. Every year Annette and I plan a retreat at a secret location for the d-group girls. It's a great time of bonding and a chance to go deeper than we do on a normal weekly basis. This year the secret location was a farm house 30-40 minutes outside of Charlottesville. The house was beautiful and the property amazing. The perfect place for a retreat! (here's the listing if you'd like to see it: http://www.flipkey.com/charlottesville-vacation-rentals/p308939/)

Since we were going to be gone the whole weekend I didn't want to leave Nathan and Evie. And I couldn't really bring Evie alone and still be able to participate in the weekend. So this year Nathan and Evie came along. I loved having them there. Evelyn LOVED it. She loved having hundreds of acres to run around on, a new house to explore, lots of girls to play with, and a slide, sticks and rocks all just outside the door! :) She and Nathan spent several hours exploring while Annette and I took the girls into Charlottesville on Saturday. Here are some picture from their fun. :)

First, the slide. Slides are Evelyn's current favorite thing. She can climb up and go down them all by herself. She especially likes when they have little platforms at the top like this one had. :) (sorry about the picture quality - they're all from Nathan's phone.)
She found a frisbee in the yard and for a while she hauled that up with her and then sent it down ahead of her. She'd slide down and grab it again.

Sticks and fires. We wanted a bonfire Saturday night but there wasn't tons of wood when we arrived. Nathan collected a nice pile for us and built this beautiful fire. She loved watching Daddy chop the wood and then helping build the fire. Whenever Nathan was chopping and a piece would fly particularly high in the air, Evie would grab a stick and toss it up too. :) Don't worry, she stayed 15-20 feet away from where he was chopping to watch. :) On weekends she is totally Nathan's little shadow and this weekend was no exception. :)
Picture of the rest of the retreat will be coming once I get copies. ;)

Big Sister Prep

Evie is growing up so quickly. It's so hard to believe! She is getting ready to be a big sister I think. :) Besides helping with dishes and learning to play with playdough - not eat it - she's also been getting into some other big girl things.

1) Bikes. We were at Dicks the other day and she LOVED their collection of little girl bikes. She felt *quite* fancy sitting up there by herself!
 
She couldn't decide which was her favorite. Can you spot her there in the very middle?
We did actually find her a tiny bike at Goodwill for $5 (as opposed to $49.99 on sale!) that will be perfect for learning on. It's not quite a pretty and princess-y, it's actually blue and green and rather boyish - but maybe it can be an incentive... once she can ride a two wheeler she can go pick out a pink bike. ;)
2) Shoes. Evie cannot get enough of shoes. Here she is in my slippers, but she is soooo into shoes these days - her shoes, my shoes, Nathan's shoes, any shoes. She does not like ours put away in the closet. When I try to clean up our room she gets very distraught, runs to the closet and pulls them all out and lines them up like she likes them. :) Some of daddy's, especially the ones with the shoe trees in them, are very heavy and she gets quite frustrated if they're too big and heavy for her! :) For a while she was carrying her shoes all over the house and losing one of each pair. Since then we've tried to only let her carry around the ones she's outgrown or keep a close eye on where they fall. ;) Tiny shoes are harder to find than daddy's!

3) Cell phones and iphones/ipod touches. I'm hate to disappoint Evelyn, but I afraid it will be MANY years until she gets one of these of her own. Until then she contents herself with playing games on Nathan's phone and re-programing mine (she somehow completely re-programed my phone and kicked it off Verizon's network. It took Verizon over an hour to figure out what happened to it!) Playing with my phone is now another supervised only activity. ;)

4) Big girl bed? Is she maybe getting ready for a big girl bed??? She likes ours, but she'll probably stay in her crib for another year or so. :)


However, she IS still quite attached to her baby bouncy seat. She sits in it almost every day to bounce, ready or play with toys. I think we'll keep an eye out for another one so she and baby can both have little seats. ;)

Shopping for our girls :)

Since we now know that our baby is a little girl, we've been wanting to pick out a few outfits for her like we did with Evie. Nathan has been swamped at work and I really haven't seen him since the ultrasound (he's been getting home at 9...10... or 1:15am). The big case ended yesterday though so he went in late to work this morning and we got some family time!! We decided to do a little shopping. :)
Something soft and yellow for Baby Girl #2 (btw - she does have a name... but will remain secret until her birth ;)):

And something matching for Evie and her little sister! (btw - sorry these are sideways - I can't get them to rotate)

We love shopping for our girls! It was so hard to limit ourselves to just these few things! :)
We can't wait to have both little girls here with us! My good friend, Danielle, just had her baby this morning! I'm hoping to go visit tonight! I know being back in our hospital holding a tiny baby (well, not that tiny, he's 8.5!) is going to make me even more excited!!

It's a...

GIRL!!!

We had our 20 week ultrasound this morning and found out that Baby Mortier #2 is another little girl!
Baby Girl 2:

It was fun to take Evelyn with us to the ultrasound this time too. She thought it was very interesting, especially when they turned on the sound and she could here the heartbeat. :) For lunch she celebrated with a big bowl of yogurt...

...and spent some time studying her picture of her little sister!
She's already practicing being a big helper when the baby comes. :)

Ohio: Christmas Day!

Christmas morning was exciting as always. It started extra early for us with Evie thinking that 5:30 was a good time to wake up and start the celebrations!!! Thankfully Grandpa was just as excited and woke up too so he and Evie could play while Nathan and I went back to bed. ;)
This year also had a dramatic twist to it. :) First, Katie got a CAR in her STOCKING!!! Biggest stocking gift I've ever seen! ;)

The rest of us were equally spoiled, just not quite as dramatically. Evie got several cars as well, just much smaller than Aunt Katie's. ;)

The second dramatic event wasn't quite as exciting and was not documented by any pictures... Mom made a gorgeous Christmas breakfast for us which included multiple quiches. One, however, in a pyrex dish got set on an oven burner that got turned on! Right when my mom picked it up to try to save it, it *exploded* everywhere. Shards of glass in her mouth, in her face, on her clothes, in the rest of the food, all over the entire kitchen. The glass was so hot that it melted the rug in front of the sink and the floor wherever it landed. It could have been awful, but, God was so good and my mom only ended up with a few small cuts on her face - none in her eyes, none in her mouth and no burns. Anyway, be very careful with pyrex, it explodes!
After church the opening began. :)
Evie thought it was all very exciting, but despite all the cool things she opened, her Chic-fil-e balloon and the bows from the presents were her fav!
  
Not even Aunt Emily's new ipod touch could rival her bows... or snack time with Aunt Car!  
After all the opening we had worked up an appetite and enjoyed quite the feast!

Chris, Kate, Alana and Drew arrived Christmas night and we had Christmas all over again with them.
I just love these pictures of Lana opening her stocking and her present from Aunt Emily (Tangled, of course!!).

Drew Man was quite into his presents too. :)
Kate and I got each other the exact same Ann Taylor shirt - just different colors! :)
Such a fun and full day to celebrate Christ's birth and goodness to us with our family!