March 24, 2007

Playtime

Evelyn likes to help Jillian play with things, and she's slowly learning to share. Jillian is almost 5 months old, nearly ready for solid foods. Ben and I don't know where the time has gone. They grow so fast!

Evelyn's favorite toy the last few days, her old toy bucket. She likes it better than what it held apparently.

Jillian is almost rolling over, she's a lot better at scooting all over the floor on her back. She was completely on her little floor pad before this picture was taken, and somehow wormed her way off. She's a happy kid, but definitely a momma's girl.

Barbecue

We had a barbecue this last weekend with some of our friends with girls the same age as Evelyn. Dan (behind the tree) was chasing them all around it, and they thought it was a great race track. Maggie is 3 weeks older than Evelyn, and Grasen a month younger. It's been a lot of fun having them so close in age. If they were all in nursery together, I think Evelyn would actually stay the whole time.

Kristan, Ashley and I are standing in the next pic, it got a little nippy outside, but the weather was still great for being March. This was taken after I had calmed Jilly bean down from her 'Mommy abandoned me' scare. I went up to the apartment to get some water, and left her with Kristan and Ashley. A few minutes later, Ben was rushing her upstairs, Jillian screaming at the top of her lungs, like she'd had a limb chopped off. She stopped as soon as I had her again. Wow, Momma's girl of the year award right there!

Evelyn thought covering Graysen in a blanket was an awesome idea. 

Evelyn has a thing for hair, some of you may know about it. Maggie has lots of hair and pigtails quite often, and Evelyn can't quite help but touch it. She doesn't ever pull it, for which I am grateful, but I can't help but wonder if she'll be a hair stylist when she grows up. 

March 18, 2007

Bom dia!

Hello from sunny Provo, UT. We decided to do this blog thing to keep up with what everyone's doing. Seems like an okay thing! This is our most current family picture, as of December 2006. Jillian is now 4 1/2 months old, and Evelyn is 20 months old. And the handsome guy on the right is Ben.

This shot was really taken in front of a gray trailer. Our good friend Chad Lanenga, who is excellent in the Photoshop department, made it look like we were in Bermuda. I wish we had been! Someday, it will happen. The clothes were a baby gift from Ben's Aunt Debbie, who frequently visits Hawaii. Jilly's only 2 weeks old in this shot.

Sisters


Evelyn and Jillian (or jelly bean) on a slow Sunday morning. We speculate they will look a lot alike when Jillian is older. Evelyn is a good big sister who likes to give Jillian hugs and will help mom take care of her. Jillian likes to watch Evelyn and laughs at her quite a bit. We love our little girls!

January

 We spent a little time after Christmas at the Cluffs, but no too much time, mostly because the main bathroom of the house looked like this:

 Under total remodel. The kitchen was set to begin shortly as well, so we didn't hang around too long. 

Ben slept on the couch downstairs while the girls crashed in bed with me. 

 Back in the apartment, Evelyn was learning that she could see Grandma on the computer and talk to her. 

 Carrying around a tool of some sort and wearing her potato head glasses. She had a glasses fetish at this point in time. 

 Wrapping some baby doll up in her high chair. 

 Both girls napping again, on me again. This looks like a Sunday, maybe on the last one where we attended 8 am church. I hope we never had 8 am church again. 9 am is bad enough.

 Uncle Dan sent Evelyn a little sitting sofa. She liked it, and  would sit and drink her milk in it or read books in it. 

 In Mommy's sunglasses. 

 I caught Evelyn  unbuttoning Jilly's sleeper one evening, I think she thought Jilly needed a diaper change. 

 Jilly was hitting that really cute stage I love, between 3 and 6 months. 

 I was working on a quilt, and Evelyn thought she'd be helpful. Or she was just going to start on her own project. 

I propped Jilly up for a picture, and took her binky out. This is like her binky face or something. She loved being wrapped up. 

We decided to bless Jilly over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, but Jilly had other plans. Evelyn brought home a wicked cold from nursery, and shared it with all of us. We were all coming through it okay, and then Jilly decided she simply wasn't going to eat anymore. No matter what I did, she refused to nurse for over 12 hours. I finally took her into the urgent care, not wanting her to get too dehydrated, and after the pediatrician watched me try and fail repeatedly to get her to nurse, she referred me to the pediatric unit in the hospital to see what they would say. She was dehydrated, and had a bit of a fever, so they decided to hook her up to an I.V. and watch her overnight. In the morning she still didn't want to nurse, so they called in a respiratory therapist to suction her nasal cavity out, to see if that was the trouble. It did the trick, once they got the really thick, deep boogers out, she could breathe to nurse again. All the family was down to see her get blessed, so they all came to the hospital instead to bless her there.

  Nate and Michelle 

 Evelyn was happy to see Jill. 

 Grandpa Cluff

 And Mommy. 

 The Cluffs will always find some way to goof off. 

 Grandpa and Grandma Gibbons stuck around for a few days until Jilly was out of the hospital. It was about 2.5 days, not long. 

 Grandma Cluff

I did a lot of dozing in this chair, and hand quilting. I was glad to have something to do to relieve the boredom. Jilly was sleeping and eating, and sleeping some more. It turned out she had a cold virus very  similar to RSV, one that sends many kids to urgent care and E.R.s each winter. It was one of the worst colds I've ever had. No wonder Jilly couldn't breathe. I will add that Evelyn was not sent to nursery for the remainder of the winter. We had gotten all the illness I wanted by this point. 

Christmas

 Jilly and cousin Jaren were born just a few weeks apart, and since Jaren's blessing was to occur over the holidays, the Gibbons clan came together for Christmas at Grandma Hill's house. Evelyn's hair was finally getting long enough (and she was no longer ripping it out), to keep a little pony-tail in.

 Evelyn loved having another little buddy to run around with. Though I don't know how much Kaden loved it.

 We were just getting Evelyn accustomed to snow, and she liked it until she got cold. Or I got cold.

 Aunt Heather was nice enough to take her out and play with her in the snow.

 We went to the Southeast corner of Idaho for Jaren's blessing. It was colder and snowier than Grandma Hills house, but we all had fun talking together and letting the kids run around. We stayed in Tyler's Grandma's old house, which was more than large enough for all of us. I will always remember the batch of mint-chocolate chip brownies I made and ate that ended up making Jilly wake up every hour during the night. She wasn't cranky about it, just awake. All I could think was that it had to be the caffeine in the chocolate.

 I was trying to help Evelyn figure out that you could keep reaching in and finding surprises in the stocking. She was happy picking one and running away.

 Daddy helped her open a present, and soon she was wanting to help everyone rip the paper off their gifts.

 Jilly getting really smiley for Grandma Gibbons. She had a clogged tear duct in her left eye until she was 3 or 4 months old, so that eye was a little gunky in several pictures we have.

Grandma made this car seat cover, which we used quite a bit in the cold and windy winter. I like how Jilly's face is peeping out. After we finished up Christmas here, we headed to western Idaho to visit the Cluffs.

First part of December

A picture Daddy took before he headed out to school one morning - I was tired! When Evelyn was a newborn, I would sleep in until 10 am or later sometimes. That luxury was now gone with Evelyn waking up around 7:30 most mornings. 

 So I could often be found on the couch napping, or trying to while Evelyn was napping or otherwise occupied. 

 Evelyn started carrying stuff around almost constantly at this age. A phone was a favorite item, and anything with a handle worked well too. 

 A cute face where you can see the brown of her eyes starting to develop. They'd been slate gray for so long, I thought they were going to stay that way. 

 Getting ready to brave the cold. 

 Ben got creative one night and built a fort so Evelyn would have somewhere to focus her energy. I can't remember what I would do all day to keep her entertained during the winter. She didn't have much stamina to be out in the snow and cold for too long. 

 She enjoyed it. 

 Talking to Grandma Cluff (I think). She liked to wear the headphones, just like Daddy. 

 Hanging out with Jillian. 

 One of Jilly's first smiles while awake, though I think it was still a spontaneous smile. We hadn't done anything to elicit the smile. 

 Helping Mommy again. Never-ending piles of dishes. 

 Evelyn's first experience with snow. She lasted about 15 minutes before getting cold and wanting to go in the house. It being night outside probably didn't help either. 

 A cute baby face, finally cleared of baby acne and oil. She was starting to interact just a bit by this time. 

Evelyn got this doll high chair as a gift from one of Ben's friends, and she was convinced it was for her to sit in. See the baby doll in the background? She wasn't about to let the doll sit in there. I think she eventually ended up breaking it.