No...No...No!

"No."  "Evie, no."  "Evie...no."  "Uh uh."  "No, no."  "No...we don't do that."  "No, that's the dogs' toy."  "Josie!  No!  Put it down, that's Evie's!"  "No!  Stop licking!" (That is a phrase that can be applied to dogs and baby alike.)  "No!  That's not your food!"  (Apply that to dogs and cat, but soon to be applied to baby as well.  Can't wait.)  "No, that's not not a chew toy."  (Nope, this one is applicable only to Evie.  She feels that all drawer pulls are teethers.  I have turned around for one second and when I look again, I see her face slammed up against the entertainment center chomping away at the knob, drool flooding from her mouth.)  It seems that "no" comes out of my mouth more than I ever thought possible.  I'm thinking of throwing a "Nein!" in there just to change it up a bit.  

Now that Evie is mobile, all bets are off.  It is non-stop chasing from the time she gets up until she goes to bed.  She loves electrical cords, the dogs' toy basket and the litter box (which she hasn't made it to...yet).  She also seems to have a real affinity for any and all electronics.  And that new entertainment center Darin & I bought...yeah...the electronics are open, not covered by any glass.  So far she's managed to turn the volume up, turn the DVR off and turn the DVD player on.  Not too shabby for an 8 month old.  Wonder what she'll be able to do at 2 years.

The other day I wanted to shout from the mountain tops about my triumph of getting the lawn mowed and the house cleaned in one day.  However, there are very few people who would understand what an accomplishment that is.  So, instead, I decided to celebrate by sitting on the couch at 9pm and paint my nails.  I think I made a good choice.  Although a better one may have been to just go to bed.  Ha!

Evie is sure keeping all of us on our toes, that's for sure.  The dogs continue to be very tolerant of her and Josie continues to lay on the floor with her, although it is for much shorter amounts of time now as Evie thinks a wagging tail is fair game.  And she really loves her paws, for some reason.  Louie isn't nearly as impressed with Evie's new mobility, especially since as soon as Evie sees him she takes off after him.  He likes to spend his days doing as he pleases...and apparently running from a baby who is screaming in delight after him isn't as he pleases.  Can't imagine why not.

Evie is now pulling herself up also, so walking around furniture is probably in our near future and then we'll really be off to the races.  Lord help all of us.

"Nein!"  I like the sound of that.  Better start practicing.

I feel I need to explain that we know this is a very bad spot for the litter box and it was not originally there.  However, Louie is having some health problems, so we're making life as easy as possible for him.  And way more difficult for us.  Wow, do we love our pets.  

Videos & Pictures

I've been slacking.  I admit it.  And, I'm going to continue to slack for awhile longer and just fill this blog post with pictures and videos of my sweet baby girl.  She's changed so much in the last month, I'm constantly amazed.  Right after getting back from Minnesota she started rolling everywhere.  Soon after, she started creeping and then full out army crawling.  And now, she's crawling for real!  She is also obsessed with her own voice, so that hasn't changed a whole lot, except now she's louder.  Definitely my child.  She has said "Da da" a couple times, but that's it.  She is also more in love with the dogs and really in love with Louie, the cat.  I think her new obsession with him is due to the fact that 1) he actually comes out of hiding now when she's around 2) he's little and 3) he doesn't lick her.  She may love the dogs, but getting licked on the face gets real old, real quick, even when you're almost 8 months old!  If only Louie would sit still or on the floor within her reach, maybe she would give Josie a break.

Anyway, here ya go!  And I know that you probably don't want to watch a million videos of Evie.  So, I will suggest watching the one of her giggling in the jumperoo and the last, most recent one, of her crawling.

Laying in the grass, waiting for mom to get done weeding the flower bed.

My little firecracker.
July 4th

First time sitting in the highchair at a restaurant.
This is about 2 minutes before she cracked her forehead on the table.
Parents of the year.

What?!  Are you telling me this door stop isn't a toy?