It´s so fun...

... having cousins! And they´re all boys too. They´ll probably be coming up with all kinds of mischief while growing up. This Tuesday I finally had a chance to take a picture of Evan and his cousins - together. The little boy in the middle is Evan´s younger cousin Silas. Their birthday is almost exactly one year apart. The big boy on the far right is Evan´s older cousin Milo. He will turn three this winter. So far that´s the only cousins Evan has and probably will have for a while to come. The three of them play so nicely together, especially Milo and Evan. Silas is too young to play along with most of the things that Evan and Milo do. One of their all time favorites is playing with Evan´s wooden train set. But sometimes they will go over and sit down with Silas and play with him for a little while. We are very much looking forward to having Evan be the older brother himself. He´ll make a fantastic older brother! He already is a fantastic little boy! Click here for a few more pictures of the three. Have fun!

Checking on cars...

... has become a routine for Evan. We told him that he needed to look for cars when we first started going out on a lot of walks with him. He usually does really well with it. I had a chance to tape him at his best yesterday afternoon when him and me went on a little walk. When he first sees the tractor he really wants to cross the street. I remind him to check for cars, and he does. First he looks left, then right. He sees a car to the right, so he points it out to me, the way he always does. Then he waits for the car to pass by. He does so great with this, and we are very proud of him! Have a good day!

Like father, like son!

When I saw the look Evan had on his face on this picture I knew I had to find the one of Charles at Christmas in 1982. I can´t believe how much they look alike. They are about the same age on the pictures, and they definitely have the same look on their face. I was always hoping that my little boy would look like his father when he was a little boy. How lucky am I!?!

And here is another one of Evan having fun with his Puky. He loves driving through all puddles, and he will do it over and over and over and over....! I think you get the idea! He even got his grandpa and grandma to jump into and run through the puddle that day. He really is irresistable!

And here´s the layout...

... I came up with to document how well our little guy did with his first helmet. It´s a simple one. I wanted to keep the focus on the pictures which I really really like. That and I wanted to make sure I got it scrapped before new pics would start piling up. I know I´d never get to it otherewise! Anyway, here it is:

brand new helmet
Fonts used in this layout: Arial, Wendy Medium and Tempus Sans ITC.
















And here is one I made a long time ago, but never published on my blog yet. The pictures were taken in spring when Evan first discovered the outside water faucet.

100% silly boy
Credits:

Overlay: Summer Driggs Happy Daze kit.
Background: design by dani Cabana Boy Papers
Stamp: modified from Shabby Princess' Silly Boy: NutNut kit

Fonts used in this layout:

TopSecret
SM_coarsisM
Rub This!
Arial

Journaling reads:

Evan, you and I usually try and hang out with your dad downstairs while he's tilling the garden. You love exploring the dirt. You have had so much fun doing so for a while now. Lately you have begun venturing out to see what else there is
to discover. This morning you managed to find something that held your complete attention until it was time for your nap. You found the outside water faucet!

Since you had loved having a water faucet available at your level when we were at the animal park, I figured you might have fun if I turned it on for you. You had already been trying to turn it on by yourself for a while now, but so far it was simply too cold out to let you play with water. It didn't take you long to figure out how to turn the water up so that more water would come out. You then got busy figuring out all the things to do with a dribble of water, a bucket and a shovel! More than once did we have to change your sopping wet clothes for a dry set, but that's only a little price to pay for what you get - an afternoon full of fun and an entire new world opened up to you!

Have fun everyone!

And I thought it would be hard...

... to convince that little boy that his helmet is the coolest. I was so wrong! When the helmet arrived in the mail yesterday, Evan was the first to open the package and put on his helmet. He liked it so much that he wanted to try it out right away by going on a walk with his Puky! So we did and here are the pictures. Evan´s grandma came along as well. Of course we had been talking it up and pointing it out on other kids for weeks before we got it, but still! Evan is the best!

Evan and Milo ...

... always have fun together. Yesterday we were on a walk along a bike path. We brought his little, oh-so-loved, Puky Wutsch! He had a lot of fun with it, and so did Milo. For the most part at least. At first Milo would run circles around Evan as Evan drove his Puky Wutsch down the path. Later, Milo decided to become a little more involved by pushing and pulling Evan along. Evan seemed to be okay with this. It wasn´t until a little bit later that Milo decided that he also wanted to ride on the Puky Wutsch. From that point there was a bit of competition as to who got to ride the Puky Wutsch when. A couple of things we wanted to point out for you: On the movie you can see Evan wearing red shoe covers. Those are actually made to protect little people´s shoes as they ride around on any type of ride-on vehicle. Because the ride-on vehicles for his age group are very low to the ground, little kids tend to drag their feet on the ground as the drive and push. Evan wore down two pairs of shoes before we decided to give these a try. Luckily he seemed to be okay with wearing them! At the beginning of the video you see Evan picking a flower. This is something he does a lot. Charles has told him that his mommy likes flowers when the first flowers started blooming in spring! Ever since then Evan has constantly gone out of his way to pick lots of flowers for me! We usually get enough to make a bouquet out of every day! I am so lucky!!! Because Charles taught him to get me flowers, every flower is also from him! At some point during the movie you can see Evan holding his finger up to his mouth and going "sshhh". We had told him to listen for some sirenes, and so he did. When he goes "daa-daa-daa-daa" he is actually imitating the sirenes. He loves doing that. Also note how he finds that tiny puddle and steps right into it. He is such a little boy! Click here for some more pictures. The people on the photos are my brother and his family, and my mom and step-dad. The little boy playing with Evan is his cousin Milo and the little guy in the stroller is his other cousin Silas. Unfortunately, both the video and the pictures are bad quality. Sorry about that. Have fun!

The newest addition...

...to Evan´s toys is a bobby car trailer. His grandparents brought one over for him the other day. He was excited about the trailer, but wary to actually use the bobby car with the trailer being attached to it. After getting on and off a bunch of times he realized that even though the trailer was following him around it was not doing anything but that. He started having a blast, driving round after round going from his room through the hallway, the dining room, living room to the balcony and from there to a new round starting at his room.

After a bit we put up some of his huge building blocks in the middle of his room and he drove around them forever, having the best of times chasing me and my camera. He thought it was the funnest game I ever invented, even though all I was doing is trying to take a picture of him enjoying himself.

Also, take a look at what he has in his trailer! Can you actually see the grapes? We always like to let him pick his own fruit at the store and the last time we went he picked grapes. He loves having some in a snack cup for him to munch on and since it is fruit we let him. There is also a little Lego plane in there. It used to be mine or my brothers when we were little. Ever since we went to the airport in order to prepare him for the move, he loves playing with his planes. He´ll fly them around the house making engine noises the whole time. He is so very cute! We love that little guy! Have fun!