Call Me!

Our daughter is now 18 months and 19 days old and I'm realizing that I pretty much have NO say in the speed at which she grows up. It's easy to say, "She's growing up so fast!" "Time just flies by when they're _______ old!" "You blink and then she's married!" I say PHOOEY.

Evie June is growing up at the perfect speed and we're enjoying her moment by moment. Although...

when she starts exhibiting behavior and skills that shouldn't be seeing until she's like, TWELVE, I have to be on my guard a little. If you saw the last blog video, Evie's gotten the eye rolling bit down pat. NOW she's moving into that pre-pre-pre-pre-teen obsession with the phone.



The calculator is a PHONE.
The key chain door unlocker is a PHONE.
Her baby monitor is a PHONE.
A banana is a PHONE (I'm partially responsible for that one.)

And it's a very good day for Evie when she can snag one of our unsupervised cellphones, flips it open and begins pushing buttons. She's called Jen's mom a few times, only to share some heavy breathing with her.

The girl loves the phone. This is actually a good thing for me for 2 reasons. ONE, there is that slim chance that she'll grow tired of it by the time she's twelve and TWO, I've got about 10 years to figure out a good way to handle the phone situation.

Until then, if the phone rings and you hear "HAHWO" followed by either gibberish or heavy breathing, just say hi to my daughter, remind her to ask mama or dada to make long distance calls first and for heavens sake, don't give her your work number.



Buh bye,
Jimmy

. . . and Sometimes Y

Evie June is hooked on phonics! In an effort to get her to say her own name (still no luck there), Jimmy started some casual training on vowells. Notice in the clips below how Evie June nails the sounds on her first try. But mom and dad are silly and wierd and insist on her doing it again. Check her reactions and lack of enthusiasm when asked to repeat herself. They might be even more fun than her first success.



And Happy Birthday to Jimmy! He's 34 today. And he knows ALL the letters, sounds, and EVEN the consonant blends!
Jen

Take a Hike!

Almost daily, one of us says something like this: "We should blog." Then we argue about whose turn it is or wondering why we don't just write shorter posts more often. And then we veg out and watch an episode of Dr. Who on Netflix or I work on the new draft or JImmy works on house building stuff. There are a million things we want to share with you--Evie's fancy dancing, her fierce matching skills, her growing vocabulary and her amazing baby doll mothering instincts. But those will have to wait for future posts.

On Saturday, Jimmy and I celebrated our tenth anniversary. The years have been strangely full but also have flown past. We spent our special day with Evie June hiking in the Mount Baker National Forest, about an hour's drive from home. It wasn't Hawaii, or the solo trip to NY (or maybe Mexico) we're still planning to mark the occassion, but it was a perfect day. Jimmy and I met in similiar circumstances: we were working as wilderness guides at a camp in NC. Actually, the very first day we met we were painting the interior of one of the camp buildings, but that would have been sort of a lousy, fumey way to spend the special day.

And considering this is the way Evie geared up for our big outing, I really don't think gallons of paint and rollers would have been a good idea.


We were able to convince her that a utility belt and rainboots weren't the best hiking attire, but she was insistent about bringing her best pal George. Here he is on belay.



Evie's favorite moments were when she actually got to test her own hiking legs and leave the backpack. Here she takes a rest on the perfect-height-for-sitting trail edge.

And here she learns from the master about the perfect way to throw rocks into water at sub-apline Anderson Lake.


But there was one really big rock even Evie June couldn't throw--dormant volcano Mount Baker at 10,781 feet. We can actually see the tip of Mount Baker from the valley where we live. Jimmy has a long standing habit of pointing it out and shouting "Baker!" when it peeks out at us. Evie June has adopted the practice, pointing at the snowy peak from her car seat and shrieking "da-DA!" Everything cool is dada these days. Smurfy, eh?


On the way out, we paused for a family photo . . .


. . . and a diaper change on the truck tailgate. Evie June checks the field guide to learn what leaves NOT to wipe her bottom with.


The drive home was just as spectacular as the hike. Don't you want to come visit RIGHT NOW?



Evie June might even let you play with George.

Jen

PS: Check out Evie's rock throwing! The first is her lesson with Jimmy on Saturday, the second is at our Church picnic on Sunday at Sammish Island. She's a pro.