Contained

"Oh hello! Welcome!"

Evelyn has discovered a great new fort. Habibti stopped using her crate several years ago, but we got it out when we were going to Michigan, and she was going to be staying elsewhere. She didn't end up using it, but Evelyn thinks it's the best hideout ever and spends a great deal of time in there. She particularly appreciates the door that opens and closes.

Correct

Ben took this great picture of Evelyn properly enjoying her new rocking chair from Grammie and Grandpa.

Not pictured: Evelyn standing on the chair, holding onto the back with one hand while she rocks violently and drops things off the side, emitting impressively warlike growls. She's a delicate, prim child all right!

Unbelievable

Every time I try to dry clothes on the line this summer, it rains. Yesterday we got home in sunny, not a cloud in the sky, hundred degree weather, and I put out the clothes. It proceeded to rain and thunder unbelievably hard while it was still sunny out! I really think I should start charging to go do laundry in drought areas.

Brief

Evelyn was not wildly cooperative about pictures with her great grandma, but I manged to capture a few successful moments.

Questionable

Listen, I'm not saying that parenthood has made us completely lose our minds, but it may not have made us any more respectable, either.

Pictured: How we entertain ourselves while Evelyn is napping.

Verdant

Michigan summer is beautiful... I miss it already!

Farm

Last Monday, Evelyn, Rebecca, Mom, Dad, and I went to the Chippewa Nature Center homestead farm. As soon as we got out of the car, Evelyn was excitedly pointing towards the sheep, ready to go see the animals.

Apparently, Aunt Rebecca and Evelyn both felt a bit skeptical about this sheep grazing outside the fence.

 So excited about the pigs. (And also horrifyingly enthusiastic about chewing on the splintered, mud-spattered fence.

Evelyn takes pig-farming seriously.

Inspecting the cows with Grandpa.

Cupcake

Evelyn tried out a pre-birthday cupcake in Michigan. It met with her approval.

The whole thing was painstakingly documented, of course.

Clover

I'm trying to learn how to be aware of aperture when I take pictures. Lots of them have not turned out at all. This one did, though.

Tall Ships

Last Friday we visited the Tall Ships celebration in Bay City.

Rebecca was suitably excited.

Meanwhile, I completely failed to get a picture of Evelyn in the backpack carrier.

Snacks

Evelyn enjoyed snack time with Grammie.

Back

We're back from Michigan, where Evelyn enjoyed spending time with a whole bunch of family members who think it's fun to have their faces pulled off by someone small and cute.

Look up

Foiled

We have a lot of bookshelves, and Evelyn thinks that pulling the books off of them is almost as fun as pulling on computer power cords or playing the the dog's water dish, so Ben and I have gotten pretty tired of telling her no and redirecting her. Today I finally googled ways to baby proof bookshelves, and a lot of the answers were unhelpful. Apparently tying bicycle inner tubes to the shelves is quite popular? Who keeps their old inner tubes around? Or are people buying new ones? They're not that cheap... Others were velcroing material over the shelf opening, but the youth in this house are pretty dexterous and strong-fingered, so that just sounded like creating a new fun activity to do before pulling all the books off... and also a ton of work for me.

Anyway, after a bit of digging, I found a few people using an approach that requires zero tools or materials. My kind of solution! You just cram the bottom shelves so full of books that even adults have trouble pulling them out. When Evelyn crawled over to try to get the books out after I'd finished, and couldn't, I may have uttered a smug "ha!" at her, because that's the always-graceful, supportive kind of mom that I am.

What I imagine Evelyn's bookshelf view is like. The other nice thing about this way of baby proofing is that it doesn't make the shelves look weird.

Ready to go

Evelyn is planning on travelling light when we go see her grandparents.

Different

I'm not saying that having a baby has changed absolutely every aspect of our lives, but I will say that Ben and I never felt the need to keep a duck and a pail in our bathtub before...

Summer afternoon

Evelyn and I try to go outside in the afternoon for at least a little while every day. If you stay in the shade, it's really not too bad.

The view from the shade is pretty enjoyable, especially when there's a good breeze.

Home

Just over a year ago, we moved to our house. Moving when you're almost nine months pregnant is pretty exciting, but we have loved being in more space with a yard and a park right out the back gate.

Veggies

The healthy part of the snacks for game night was unexpectedly attractive. I'm basically Martha Stewart.

Aquarium

Evelyn and I went with friends to the SeaLife Aquarium in Grapevine yesterday. The fish were right at her level!

Pretty tasty

I feel like often in the Venn diagram of our dinners, pretty and tasty only somewhat overlap, but I'm working making it more of a matching circle, so we consistently can eat pretty tasty food.

Cookies

Ben makes really good chocolate chip cookies, so it's unfortunate that I've realized that refined flour makes me feel pretty crummy. Time to figure out a new recipe so the baking can continue.

Ice cream

Evelyn celebrated the 4th by trying out ice cream for the first time with Aunt Yana.

4th of July

America isn't perfect...by a long shot, but I'm still really glad I live here and that Evelyn has as chance to grow up here. Happy Fourth of July!

Crater Lake

To continue my theme of wishing I were somewhere other than the heat of Texas, here's Crater Lake in Oregon. It's in the seventies all week there.

Eventually

When it gets this hot, I start thinking wistfully of fall weather. It will be here in only three short, blazingly hot months.

The trees in the park behind our house are pretty great in the fall.

Cool

With temperatures near a hundred degrees, Evelyn thinks staying cool is serious business, especially with the power out for a few hours yesterday afternoon.

Okay, maybe there was some fun involved as well.