Evan is growing up so fast

For Halloween we had Lauren, Clint and Lily over for dinner and to check out the kids in costume -- even Evan was in costume as a pumpkin. Speaking of pumpkins -- we will not show you our pumpkin as it never got carved! Evan and Lily had a lot of fun -- see how Mike can handle TWO kids. If you did not know already Mike is TRULY amazing and a spectacular father. You should see Evan's excitement when Mike gets home from work -- they are quite the pair.

Last week we did a one night trip over to Newport as there was a cancellation at the place we stay every year for Mike's birthday (next month we celebrate that with four nights at the beach!). These condos are great as we can cook in the full kitchen and then head out the front door and take a walk on the beach --no need to drive once we get there. It turns out that this year the bait fish are so plentiful that the brown pelicans have not migrated south yet. This is resulting in the highest numbers ever recorded in Oregon. Evan loved to watch groups of up to 50 lumber into to the sky as we slowly approached.

We now have two days we nanny share with Lauren and Lily. From 9 am to 2 PM on Tuesday and Friday Evan spends time with Lily and Fran. I will probably go to work both days so that is all done for the week and it is just another mile further south to my office. Fran, the nanny, is so good with the babies. She saw how much Evan hated taking the bottle (we struggle with this) so she gave him the breastmilk in a sippy cup! Now why didn't we think of that as he LOVES cups and is good with his sippy cup with just a little tipping of the cup upwards to get fluid to run to the opening. Then yesterday I made him a rice cereal slurry and he drank it from a coffee mug - WOW!

Yesterday we used the Burley Solo bike trailer for the first time for the half-mile trip down the street to Lauren's in the rain (yes it has a rain cover). Evan seemed to like it and if you know me at all then you know I loved it! Mike covered the trailer with flashing lights as safety is a must and please know we only ride on quiet residential streets. I can now drop Evan and the trailer at Lauren's then bike on to my office. So exciting!

I plan to sign with Evan (thank you to Uncle George and Carol for the super book!). The book recommends using signs for things your baby is motivated by - so far the list is milk, bath, daddy, mommy, cat, outside, light and fan. It may be some time before the signs come back to us but how fun and useful this might be as a friend got up to 40-50 signs before her daughter started to speak.

Favorite things, judged by how much he wiggles his legs and makes cute noises: baths (full body and almost screaming so this is the #1 favorite item), going outside and pulling the switches on the ceiling fan.

Last night was a record breaker! Evan went down at 8:30 PM, fed at 5 AM and slept until 7:30 AM. This is great!!! So our plan is to implement a nap lenght restriction program to see if he will sleep more at night as he can take some long naps (esp. compared to what other moms tell me about their babies naps).