Family time

I love my family. I am really excited about the upcoming holiday season. However, just because I'm looking forward to it does not mean it will be easy. Actually I know it will be one of the hardest. The decisions that have to be made, the family who I love who we won't get to see, and the travel arrangements will all add to my stresses.

I have to decide where to go for each Holiday. I grieve inside because as much as I love both sets of families, I want more for them to love and be attached to Evelyn. Its weird that I want to see them but I REALLY just want them to see her. I don't know how better to explain. I want Evelyn to grow attached to her extended family. We live so far from everyone I'm scared this will be a challenge. Thanksgiving has always been the holiday we spend with my family, but a large portion of my family and Ben's will be in central Texas making it the most favorable choice. However convenient this might be it means Evelyn and I will not get to see my sister, and probably not my parents. This breaks my heart. Hopefully God willing my dad is working by the holiday's and they won't be able to travel, but even if they can travel my sister will not be able to leave her retail job. sigh!

I also am aware of how difficult it is to travel with a baby. I don't think I want to travel for both Christmas and Thanksgiving. But to see everyone I believe we are not going to have a choice. I plan on spending the majority of Evelyn' future Christmas' at our house. I want to establish family traditions of our very own. Again this makes me super bummed that we live in a city all alone and so far from all our family.

Evelyn is doing a great job holding her head up, however she hates tummy time. We (well I) am working on spending more minutes each day encouraging fun times on tummy. She unintintually had some fun with a ball last night. She and her super strong latch grabbed our new toy and she was flailing it around. It was cute to watch.

Saturday morning Evelyn and I participated in a walk for Alzheimers event. My friend and neighbor had a team and raised over $1300.00 dollars to help the effort. It was a nice way to wrap up our week visiting grandpa and remembering grandma Evelyn. The weather has been great. I love fall.

I'll end this post with a few pictures from our walk.

Her Smile

 

Evelyn's smile melts my heart. Each time I see it, and her many diferent smiles I thank God for my baby. I am blessed beyond words.

 I love Evelyn Rose.

8 weeks.

Evelyn will be 8 weeks old this week. 10 lbs 12 oz , 21 3/4 inches

Our lives are slowly getting into a rhythm. She has started sleeping more at night and on a good schedule during the day. She usually sleeps from 9:30/10 PM until one feeding between 3-4 AM then sleeps until almost 7. Then we wake up, she poops and practices being a ninja for 45 min or so and then we go back to sleep until 9- 10. So I am feeling much more rested. She had all her two month shots Friday and we got an updated weight and height. She is growing so quickly. Still in the 50%. Just perfect!

We are loving fall. So glad it arrived. Evelyn loves to be outside, she sleeps outside while I read in the cool afternoons. We went to the Red River Revel here in Shreveport. It is an art and music festival. I didn't get any pictures either time we went. It will be in town for another week, so hopefully I can capture a picture of her at her first festival. She was great just hung out in her stroller.

I fall more and more in love with this girl everyday. I am melted by her smiles. Being a mom is a amazing. Sometimes I feel handicapped by her neediness, while others I feel like the queen. She has the best smile in the whole world. Yesterday she was napping in her crib, she woke up and cried out so I went to check on her and she just threw her hands up and her face lit up with the biggest smile when she saw me. I wanted to pick her up and cheer with joy. But instead I controlled my urge and just rubbed her and said "shhhh" then left her to fall asleep again. Speaking of leaving her alone. I am so lucky that Evelyn is so independent. She has no problem hanging out alone, or putting her self to sleep. I usually soothe her by rocking, walking our bouncing then lay her down. She squirms and squirms quietly until she is asleep. I'm pretty sure she actually prefers to fall asleep not being held. It's the fastest path to sleep. Only in the evenings around 7-8 PM do we have trouble. I don't know if it is sleepiness or just evening colic.

Ben was able to finally find the time to paint our newly remodeled garage. It has needed to be done for quite some time. We have truly been really busy with baby, company, or vacations since my dad re-built it this summer. It looks awesome. I am so excited to be able to look outside MY door at such a masterpiece. Now we ( i mean he) needs to get the inside clean and organized with built in cabinets and shelves. We have already started to utilize the loft storage space. This was really the main purpose for the rebuild. Our old house as i'm sure most old houses lack closet space. And baby takes up more room than the rest of us. Which is why I'm looking forward to using our large living space finally.(I am still in the process of converting it) It won't feel so wasted. Plus it will leave our den open for Evelyn. It will become her play room. I am stressed about this redecorating, but plan to have it set up by Christmas. I will post pictures of progress when I have more to share than ideas. :)

 I know this is a picture of outside, but the colors are really inspiring. I am thinking green and purple. Is it too Barny??? I worry only that these colors do not exist anywhere else in our house? However I don't want this room to be like the rest.of our house.
 I also like these colors.

Our next adventure:

Evelyn will ride her first airplane in 10 days. We are flying to Houston where we will meet up with my mom and then continue our flight into Omaha, NE. I am so excited about this trip, I believe it will go smoothly.  I can't wait to show Evelyn off to my dad's family. She was named after my grandma from there who passed away 2009. I think I have a plan of what I'm going to bring. I haven't started packing yet. I probably should at least start laying things out and watching weather patterns for Omaha.


Here are a few more pictures of my dear sweet baby for anybody who isn't completly sick of seeing her. :)