Love Letter to Everly: Two Years

… I love that you are still a momma’s girl through and through; in my not-so-humble opinion you are always happiest when you spot me across a room

… I love watching you interact with your big sister Emma; especially watching you learn to play together

… I love that you nursed up a storm for 21 months; it was an amazing, incredible experience for both of us that created the strongest bond a momma and daughter can share and allowed for lots of baby snuggles

… I love that we still look so much alike, maybe even more so than in year one; it never gets old being told that we are twinsies

… I love the way you scrunch your nose when you smile, it really shows off your cheek dimple that we love and adore

… I love that your open mouthed kisses from year one turned into the perfectly pursed lip kiss followed by the sweetest kissing noise in year two (and still always on the lips!)

… I love that we moved you to your room and to your own bed according to your own schedule; you are now the best little sleeper!

… I love the way you learned your colors; slow and in your own time (and I will never forget the way you used to call every color ‘bloo’)
,,, I love the way your eyes light up when you are excited (especially if cinnamon rolls are in your future)

… I love the way you dance; it is so energetic and full of life; when you bow and say ‘tank tyou’ afterwards my heart melts into a thousand pieces

… I love your introverted personality; you are shy and cautious. I just love watching you study your environment around you, taking everything in and reacting on your own timeline

… I love watching you warm up to your extended family this year; the way you run up to Nonni, the way you always ask about ‘George’ and ‘Papa’, the way you let grandma fix your hair

… I love hearing you talk and specifically the phrases that you have learned this year; in particular, ‘ay nay nay’ (another one), ‘ha ha’ (monkey), ‘here you go’,  ‘lolly’ (elephant) and ‘padipillar’ (caterpillar) are a few of my favorites

… I love the way you hold all of the baby dolls/stuffed animals that you can manage in your small chubby hands at all times

… I love that you are not happy in the morning until you have had your breakfast; I am the same way so I fully understand this :)

… I love your bedhead in the morning followed by how pretty it looks after a simple brush; you have gorgeous light brown hair with a single curl in the back

… I love that you let Emma treat you like her baby; changing diapers, holding hands, crawling on the ground, saying ‘goo goo’- you two are hilarious together

… I love the way you say boom after every high five you give

… I love your big toothy smile; as someone who just started out with one tooth on her first birthday you have come a long way now having 7 teeth + 4 molars

… I love the way that you call your pajamas ‘ho ho’s’ because your favorite ones to wear have Santa Claus on them

… I love witnessing the joy on your face when you are pushed in a swing; I wish I could bottle up the happiness it brings you

… I love the way you tell Bailey ‘no’ or ‘mine’ as soon as he comes around when you have food in your hands

… I love how you are always dressed so cute ;)

… I love that after a bit of hesitation the first few weeks of summer, you started to embrace the pool and gain confidence to swim by yourself (with your puddle jumper)

… I love how sweet your ‘no’s’ are; it is almost impossibly hard to be mad at you when you say ‘no’ even if it is to a diaper change :)
... I love that you went pee pee in the potty the night before you turned two! You are such a big girl and you make us so proud
... I love watching you explore at the zoo; you get just as excited when you spot that giant cardboard 'lollie' (elephant) as you do when you spot the real deal

… I love the way you kiss your daddy goodnight every single night and the way you call him your best friend

… I love that you have the sweetest demeanor; you are gentle, you share nicely, you always go second in line without a fuss, you don’t like to see others cry (I can’t emphasize it enough, you are just the sweetest little girl!)

… I love that you made it through year 2 with no sick doctor visits and no antibiotics!!

… I love that you call Emma, ‘Nah-mi’, it is something special that just the two of you share

… I love that you were never attached to a bottle or a pap-pap, it meant that we didn’t have to wean you from any of those things in year two ;)

… I love how happy and excited you get (even to this day) so show off your knowledge of body parts

… I love that you are my mocc wearing baby; I know this will change from year 2 – 3, so I am relishing it while we are still in the moment

… I love that you are my baby girl and I get to love you forever and ever

Everly Grace Through the Months (Year Two)

Birthdays are my thing. I get all sappy and emotional. I love reflecting on the past year of their life. And I just love love love celebrating the person that they are becoming. In my post yesterday, you saw the quote I picked out for Everly this year and I think it suits her perfectly. She is so totally different than any of us, but over the last year we have really embraced her for who she is. The backup quote was “I’m so tired, my tired is tired.” (also from Winnie the Pooh) to remind us that Ev's never slept through the night until she was 21 months old :).  Below is a look at Ev's each month during year two! I also went back and chose one of my favorite parts of each monthly post so I would have this to reflect back on. And if you are in the reading mood, I linked each one of hr monthly posts :).

13 Months: "… gives the best, sloppiest open mouthed kisses.  Open mouthed kisses are my favorite favorite thing about the transitioning to toddler stage :)"

14 Months: "… thinks it’s the funniest game to run away from her bedtime diaper changes; I typically oblige her and let her run around naked squealing as she attempts to evade my grasps.  Emma does not help this situation because she also runs around squealing “Everleah soooo funny, he so naked”."

15 Months: "… is still breastfeeding like crazy.  She will take only about four ounces of milk from Wes during the day.  She is still so attached and her favorite time to nurse is at night.  I feel like I need to wean her to solve her sleeping problems and have a new resolve to do this every morning.  Then, at night, I just nurse her. And nurse her and nurse her and nurse her.  I just can’t quite her quite yet."

16 Months: "… has the sweetest roar when asked what noise a lion makes; she opens her mouth up in an ‘O’ shape and belts out a meek “roar”."

17 Months: "… still has the softest, squishiest baby skin.  Her thighs are just so squeezable and kissable- I love it!"  

18 Months: "… has the most adorable run. When she runs she just flails her right arm back and forth, back and forth, keeping her left arm straight.  Austin pointed this out to me and I just cannot help but stop, and be mesmerized by the cuteness when she runs."

19 Months: "… in regards to talking, said ‘uve you’ (love you) for the first time this month! This is one of my favorite things to hear my babies say! She said it the first night of vacation and all of us were so proud of our little girl and we think she was pretty proud of herself too! Lots of love for this baby of ours!"

20 Months: "… likes to hold ‘all the things’ in her hands. This girl will load up her hands/toy car/ laundry hamper with all of her ‘treasures’ and carry/tote them about. While most of the time this is endearing, it can be quite difficult to make sure she keeps up with two baby dolls, her sunglasses and her bowl of chex mix as we cart her through Target."

21 Months: "… sleeps in her crib, in her very own room, all through the night, until 5:30 in the morning!!! I just can’t adequately express how happy this makes me, I am just so so so proud of me, daddy and baby girl; we had a first tough week, but that is all it took to get our girl used to her bed and sleeping through the night :).  As a bonus, she actually takes naps in her crib. Unreal, right?!?"

22 Months: "… is officially weaned (right after she turned 21 months old).  This has been a much easier transition for both of us than I originally thought."

23 Months: "… is slowly, but surely, coming out of her shell. It is so completely unique and at times humbling to parent someone so different than yourself, but I have come to completely love and embrace that she is on the shyer side and takes a while to warm up to new situations. I think there is a lot we can learn from Everly’s personality- the way she studies things, the way she sees the world and when she is ready the way she embraces new experiences and the people around her."

24 Months: "… is starting to do imaginative play back and forth with Emma on a daily basis. I just love to watch their relationship grow and develop- my favorite things I have witnessed are the use of pretend money (Emma is always telling Everly that the items in her shop cost five dollars and Ev’s reaches into her pretend pocket to grab the money and places it in her hands), riding pretend horses side by side on the couch, listening to Emma read Everly a fake (or sometimes real) story book, playing princess in their new house (Ev’s is always the baby and Emma is always the mommy)."

Can you even believe how much she changed over the past year?!?!  Oh, sweet Everly Grace, you are the perfect bookend to our family. Thank you for being you. So excited to see what year three holds for you.

TWO!!

“The things that make me different are the things that make me, me.” Winnie the Pooh

Happy Birthday Austin :)

On July 5th, we had everyone over that could attend for Austin's birthday party! It was a bit early because her birthday weekend this year coincided with Ally's wedding, but we still wanted to get a chance to celebrate her. Craig, Theo, Ally and Travis were out of town so it was a small (but fun!) bunch.  Austin, I am going to go ahead and apologize up front with the overwhelming number of pictures of my girls at your birthday party ;).

The birthday girl! 

Emma has been loving riding on our backs, in particular daddy's back, affectionately referring to us as mommy whale and daddy whale ;).

Everly decided she wanted to give the paddle board a whirl and while she was uncertain at first, she really came to love it.

Off she went.

To a whole pile of people.  It's a shame this girl gets no attention :).

Her pool smile is my favorite (combine that with a high pony and froggy legs and I am smitten).

Me and my biggest girl!

After a nice long swim, we headed back inside for lunch and cake. My parents had picked up some pizza and we inhaled it; swimming makes us hungry! Aust had chosen some kind of peach dump cake for dessert and my mom did a great job at whipping it up. I however did not do a great job at finding candles; out of all the birthday parties that I host- I could only come up with one candle.

As you can imagine, Emma was right there ready to help Austin blow out her candle.

Party guests :).

And to wrap up- the girl that shares a birthday month with Austin and loves to wear party hats.

Happy Birthday Austin! We love you :).

Ice Cream Cubes

Emma has been asking for 'ice cream cube' cereal for awhile now.  At first I could not figure out what she was talking about (for example, she calls Eggo waffles pancakes, even though she knows they are waffles) so I hoisted her up and let her show me what she wanted in the pantry. At first I was thinking 'oh, I bet she means she just wants the marshmallow part...great...', but after some frustration on both ends, we figured out that she doesn't like the Lucky Charms marshmallows and just wants the cereal. Which to this day she still refers to as 'ice cream cubes'. 

Moooooo

This post could have been titled '7.11.14: Part 2'; if you want to see Part 1 you can click here.  However, this year the two days did not coincide, they were just very close together :).  On 7/11, we spent a very hot morning at the zoo splash park, ventured out into the zoo and back to the splash park to cool off so needless to say, three hours of activities had us parched and we headed straight to 711 for free slurpees. Which Everly affectionately calls 'blurpees'.  I might or might not have asked her to repeat what she was drinking no less than 100 times just so I could hear that sweet voice again.

Doesn't she look all grown up and like she knows how to take a 'blurpee' down, here.

I tried to get a picture of the two of them together, but I will let this picture of Emma indicate how that all went down :).

A few days later, we headed to Chick-fil-a dressed like cows so we could be a part of Cow Appreciation Day! My mom met us there and despite it being chaotic, we had the very best time :). You may or may not remember that we have a full cow costume for one of the girls to wear- Emma was the lucky one ;).

Everly's outfit was a bit more subdued- white dress with black spots (or what I like to think of as dressing like a cow while still in style).  Evsie's was so excited when she spotted the cow that we had to head right over! Her fear here does not adequately show how enthused she actually was!

My mom was such a sport and when up and down the playground with the girls several times this night!

After we played for a bit, we took an ice cream break :).

And Everly spotted the cow again :). Love love loved her pigtails this day!

We even got a family picture with the cow!

And one that included Nonni too :).

We wrapped up the night with some forced kisses and more playground time with our cow :).

Pizza Making Girls

About once a month or so we have pizza at Bobbob's house on Sunday nights. We love the quality time that we get to spend with Bobbob and Colleen and treasure the chance to get to see our kiddos run around their great-grandfather's house :). On this particular Sunday, Colleen had purchased all of the ingredients to make their own pizza and the girls just adored this experience.

Bobbob helped Emma and Colleen and daddy helped Ev's.

She sprinkled on the cheese piece by piece in total Eberleah style.

They had quite the audience :).

Then it was time for toppings!

Love seeing these sweet girls in the kitchen; while I do let them in on nearly every baking activity, they have never helped make dinner so it was quite the treat for them.

We asked Emma to take a picture with Bobbob when her pizza was complete,

and then we asked Ev's for a picture and the differences cracked me up. Emma is still very much so in a 'no photos, please' stage while Ev's was more than happy to show her pizza off. Her hands!!

I just love her and her toothy smile.

While the pizza was cooking, my dad took the girls outside to collect tomatoes and Emma came back with quite the haul.

The finished product, which we devoured.

We topped off dinner with ice cream.

Then the craziness ensued- my mom was their 'neigh neigh' and gave them rides all over the living room.

And at point, she was worn out so the neigh neigh went to sleep. I know this is horribly blurry and dark, but I have never laughed so hard as when I laughed at my mom pretending to be a sleeping neigh neigh. The girls hit the jackpot with her as their Nonni :).

We wrapped up the evening with story time led by Emma. I am sure you can imagine how that went ;).

It is safe to say that we were big fans of the pizza making experience at Bobbob's :).