Eight Great Months of Evangeline

Yesterday Evangeline turned eight months old. This past month was really exciting with a trip to the zoo, a lot of walks, her baptism and first Vacation Bible School, adventures with mommy and daddy, playdates with Arlen, Penny, Claire and James.

My favorite Evangeline face. She now has enough hair to put a clip in.

 She is going through a little separation anxiety and teething which means she is fussy a lot. I just try remember that things will be a lot worse when she is 13--and tell myself to be patient.

She says dadaddada, and mamamama. She also will wave and says something that resembles like "hi" or "bye." She still loves books, and the library--chewing on them, turning their pages and listening to mommy and daddy read (even if it is only a few pages of a book).

Shot of Evan and Mommy. She's been a little clingy this month.

She loves music and even attacks Greg's guitars. She loves when Greg plays music for her on the piano or guitar. Greg and Evan also play the piano together sometimes.

She loves the church nursery especially the "big kid" toys like the Cozy coup car. However, her favorite toys are my flip flops and the dog water bowl.

And yes, she already learned to drive...

She loves people, and thrives in social places like church and the library. She smiles at strangers, dogs, kids, and gets upset when they will not give her their attention. She tries to talk with whomever she hears talk. We're in for some challenges. 

Wylie is still not a fan of her, but she's getting faster and is fascinated by him. She'll catch him someday soon. We were worried about that, but she stole his toy the other day--Wylie only grunted in annoyance and left.

It is hard to get her to stay still. She is toddling around (holding onto things) and constantly bobbing her head back and forth to rhythms or music.

Evangeline also learned to standup alone unsupported (for a minute) and recently (the scariest new accomplishment) climb stairs. She loves to dance to music.

She still does not like baby food. Her favorite foods are zucchini bread, animal crackers and pork chops.

Despite all the challenges, we cannot imagine life without her. She is growing and learning so much and we look forward to what each day will bring for her.

Two Months

 

Trying out Sophie

She loves Christmas Trees, they lull her to sleep

I love this face, but who wouldn't

With her BFF James

Hobby Horse from Nana (a day coming soon that I will not have to hold her on the horse).

Just a few photos from the past month. We have been really bad about blogging, but Christmas was very busy. Evangeline is now two and a half months old. She is right on schedule development wise (or so the Parents as Teachers instructor said today.) She can hold her head up at 90 degrees, bat at things and is trying to grab things. She loves to look at photos of other babies and herself in the mirror. She weighs 13 pounds and 3 ounces and is wearing size 3 to 6 month clothing. She's about 25 inches long. I am so surprised how fast she is growing up. She smiles, coos and says "ah-rah" a lot. She loves animals with big eyes, and really loved Christmas trees during the Christmas season. I don't know what she'll do when we take ours down this weekend.

I love my little girl and I am so glad to have her as we go into 2012. She was the best Christmas gift I could have ever received.  I know I've said this before, but Greg and I are so lucky to have such awesome family and friends to support us this year. Evangeline does not know yet how much people love her, but I hope she figures it out.

In other news, today she got her first round of shots. She cried but I cried harder. She's been sore since we got home. She was brave.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to do better on this blog. I'd also like to get back to the weight I was at my wedding in 2006 so I can wear all the clothes I have not worn in awhile. I'd love to be a great professor when I start teaching on January 17, and I would like to get better at managing finances.

Three Weeks and Thriving

Evangeline had a great third week. It was marked by sleeping six hours most nights and rolling over (see the video below).

She loves story time with daddy which consists of the books Goodnight Moon and Daddy Kisses most nights. She still hates bathtime and getting her diaper changed (what baby does not).

This week Auntie Edge visited and made Evan two super cute hats. She also brought Evan her own Moosler stuffed animal. She and her boyfriend Chad also made Evan a toy box for her toys when she gets older.

At her two week pediatric appointment Friday Evan weighed 8 lbs and 7 oz. She is now almost 22 inches long (one more inch since the hospital). She is tracking things great and loves contrasting colors. Especially stripes and "happy round objects" like the eyes on her owl toy and the round yellow snail on her vibro chair.

We took our first trips out in public this week. We went to Orange Leaf twice, Sophia's for Auntie Edge's birthday, Babbo's Spaghetti House, downtown Columbia's shops (pictured above), church and Target. Next week family come to town on Wednesday for Thanksgiving! We are so blessed to have my parents, sisters, our friend Mike from Washington, DC and Greg's aunt, uncle and cousin joining us. We'll be sure to share photos.

Sorry this is so short but Mama has a lot going on this week. Good news is I will be teaching at Mizzou in the spring. I'm also working on Ph D applications and taking the GRE the week of Thanksgiving.

One more thing: some people wanted to know why we have password protected our blog. We just feel that Evangeline deserves a little privacy and as university professors we need to secure this site to provide her with that. That said, we would love to share this with friends and family so if you know someone who wants to read the blog just shoot us an email at theperreaultfamily@gmail.com and we'll grant them permission to read our posts.