All I Want(ed) For Christmas Is...

my two front teeth.

Miss Eva will settle for those teeth in the new year instead. As you know, we've been on the lookout for teeth for a while now and have been tricked a couple of times, certain there was something there, but then nothing showed up. Well, a couple of days ago, we felt teeth!! Or at least a tooth! :)

You'll have to take our word for it, since getting a picture at this point is next to impossible. Miss Eva barely lets us sneak our finger in to feel those teeth and promptly closes her mouth as tight as possible when she sees us headed in her direction.

Have a fun, safe new year's eve. We'll see you in 2010, new teeth and all!

Christmas

Eva's first Christmas was wonderful! She got to meet some new cousins and aunt and uncle from Georgia. It was so much fun to have them share Christmas with us. There was just a little bit of snow and a whole lot of cold. Of course, lots of good food and sweet treats and a whole lot of commotion. Eva wasn't completely sure what she needed to do to get to her presents, but did tear a bit of wrapping (and tried to eat some as well!) and had a blast with her new toys. What a lucky little girl to have so many people who love her!!

We hope you had a very merry and blessed Christmas.

Oh, Deer

This has been the scene in our front yard quite a bit this Christmas season. The real deer that live in our neighborhood stop by to visit the oddly white and lit up decorative deer. It's a funny sight.

We're so excited to celebrate Eva's 1st Christmas in a few days. It will be fun to watch her take in all of the sights and sounds.

Yay, Eva!

Miss Eva is so proud of herself these days. She's really starting to master the art of clapping. So, we cheer for everything and Eva claps right along. We'll certainly be doing some cheering once we finally get some temperatures higher than the single digits. Though, the cold and snow certainly do help get us even more in the Christmas spirit.



(sorry for the sideways view for the first few seconds :)

Holiday Fun

We're really getting in the holiday spirit here. We hope you have as much fun with this as we did!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Thanksgiving

Boy, we had such a nice Thanksgiving! We certainly have a lot to be thankful for this year.

We enjoyed a beautiful day with family and friends and roasting marshmallows outside at the firepit :) Eva enjoyed lots of arms and hugs and kisses and pumpkin puree and sweet potatoes... and a few sleepless nights. We're thinking that maybe, just maybe, some teeth are finally coming in and that's the reason for the fussy nights, as she's not usually a fussy girl. We're hoping to see something popping up soon

While we were playing games, Eva was "playing" with a cousin.

Look who's excited for her first Thanksgiving. Although she won't be able to have pumpkin pie this year, she sure does enjoy pumpkin puree!

Bed Head

This is what our sweet girl looked like this morning, and many mornings. To be quite honest, her hair sometimes looks like a modified version of this during the day if she's decided to pull her barrette out.

"Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all." -- James Brown

Now we're just waiting for those teeth, Miss Eva!!

Prematurity

Today is Prematurity Awareness Day.

The March of Dimes is "banding together" to fight for preemies. This is Eva's band.

543,000 babies are born too early every year.

Over 45,000 U.S. babies will be born preterm just this November.

Staggering numbers, aren't they?

We surely never expected to be part of those numbers. Sometimes it all seems very surreal as we continue this journey with our sweet Eva Grace. But we know we are blessed.


Today, please say a prayer for all those little ones in the NICU. And pray for their families too.

You have made a difference in the life of our preemie. And for that we are thankful.

Too Cute for Words

Halloween

We're just now getting around to posting some pics of Eva in her Halloween costume. It's been a busy week. One of the things we did is visit the doctor for Eva's 9 month check-up. She's 17 pounds 3 ounces and 27 3/4 inches long.

We actually only have a few pictures of Eva in her costume. The first one here is while we were waiting at our neighbors' door. They wanted to see her in her costume, so we walked around the block (it was an unusually beautiful and warm Halloween here) and she fell asleep in the stroller. She did wake up later, though, and we did get some cute shots. Although she was only in it for a while, she was the sweetest flower around!

Carving

We carved our jack-o-lantern tonight. Calvin and I have always carved pumpkins since we've been married; we would each carve our own pumpkin. This year, though, we took turns carving and holding Eva and did just one pumpkin. We had a lot of fun.

Here's Miss Eva experiencing "pumpkin guts" for the first time. Watch how quick she is to get the goods in her mouth!

And here are our two pumpkins after we had finished. Guess who was ready for bed?!

We are looking forward to tomorrow and dressing Eva in her costume. Pics to come...

Have a fun, safe Halloween!!

9 Months

Miss Eva is nine months old today. It's incredible how fast that time has gone.

Every day is something new. She makes the best sounds and giggles. We'll try to post some video of Eva's conversations soon. She's getting stronger, too and is working on sitting. Each day we fall a little more in love with her. It's so sweet to see her eyes light up and her great big smile every evening when Calvin gets home from work. She hears the garage door open and then close and knows daddy is about to walk in the door.

Pink x 2

My mom saved some of my special dresses from when I was a little girl and now we've got a box of goodies to rummage through and take a trip down memory lane. I couldn't resist taking a picture of Eva in the same little pink dress I wore in my 5 month picture. My grandma made this dress for me and it's still in really good condition. Miss Eva wore it all day after we took this picture. :)

Eva Sara

Fall

Can't believe how quickly time flies. How has it already been more than a week since our last post?

We've been busy getting ready for fall. Our garden is now long gone, thanks to the freeze last week. The fall decorations are going up and the trees are golden and beautiful. We took a drive up to the mountains this past weekend to take in the fall colors, but were a couple of weeks too late. We did see some golden leaves, but many trees were already bare and those that weren't, were definitely past their prime. Many peaks off in the distance already have some snow on them and we could definitely feel the chill in the air as we took a walk in the mountains.

Here's Miss Eva after we got back to the car. Can you tell she doesn't mind wearing a hat?!

Jeepers Creepers

Eva's got great peepers!!

Preemies are very prone to an eye disorder called retinopathy of prematurity or ROP. The smaller/earlier a baby is the more likely she is to develop it. While Eva was in the hospital she was screened at one month and then again at two months. The first time they checked her the blood vessels in the retina were not mature (but then, neither was anything else) but those developed just fine and she never showed any symptoms of ROP.

The eye doctor is amazing and it was so interesting to watch him check Eva's little eyes. It was very different than when she was so tiny and unable to really "participate" in the exam and respond to what he was doing. Anyway, today's visit was a follow-up to make sure her eyes were still doing well, and they are! She's such an amazing little miracle!!

Check Up

Miss Eva went to the doctor today, just for a check up. The doctor was pleased with how she is doing. Eva weighs 16 pounds and is 27 inches long. She's in the 20th percentile for weight and the 75th for length!! She's a long girl, for sure. We know from which side of the family those genes come! The doctor also checked for teeth while we were there. Eva has been drooling like crazy for a while and we keep checking, but no sign of teeth yet. We could be in for a soggy few months.

While Eva was playing this evening, she found her mirror on her play mat and picked it up and then proceeded to admire herself for a few minutes. It was so fun to watch her figure out how to do that.

Are You Ready...

For some football?! Eva is! We just hope the regular season is better for the Broncos than the pre-season was.

a serious fan or seriously tired of taking pictures?!

At First Sight

One year ago today we got our first glimpse of the little person who would change our world. It was love at first sight.

Hard to believe this is the amazing little girl we've got one year later. Oh, how we love you, Eva Grace!!

Laying Low

We've had a fairly quiet week after our fun-filled weekend. We've just been enjoying the super nice weather and can definitely tell that fall is just around the corner.

Have we mentioned that Miss Eva has been sleeping through the night for the past 3 weeks or so?! It's been so nice and I hope I didn't just jinx it!! :) She's generally a pretty good sleeper and could hardly wait for naptime as I took this picture.

Long Weekends

Aren't long weekends just the best?! They really don't come around often enough, though. Here are some pics from our fun weekend.

We started out visiting some truly great sand dunes. The weather was just right; warm enough, but not too hot.


Miss Eva feeling the sand in her toes and the wind in her hair.

Now, this is a sandbox!! Next time we'll be sure to take a shovel and bucket.

Daddy and a very tired Eva, the next day, about 100 miles down the road. Only in Colorado can you be dressed for the beach one day and wearing a sweater the next. As we headed west we got a preview of the fall colors. Definitely a fun weekend!!

Sitting Pretty

Miss Eva has really started to like her Bumbo seat. She likes being in on the action this way and does a really good job of sitting up and holding her head up. She's just sitting so lady-like in this shot, but she often has a toy or two that she's playing with. One of our favorite times to use the Bumbo is when we have dinner; it's nice to have her join us then.

Gimme, Gimme

Gimme a hug! And, really, while you're at it, you might as well plant a kiss on my sweet face, too.

Getting it Figured Out

We're really enjoying watching Eva learn to do so many new things. It seems from one day to the next she's learned something new. Her personality is really starting to come out. She has such an amazingly sweet disposition.

step one -- concentration

step two--success!

Where is Eva?

Peek

A

Boo!

The Best Medicine

"...when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies." --J.M. Barrie

Nibbles

While Miss Eva waited for daddy to bring her bedtime bottle, she just couldn't wait any longer, and poor Monkey got nibbled on. You can see her eyes following daddy as he walked in the room, just as this picture was snapped.

Eva's really starting to figure out that she can put most things (especially those tasty hands) into her mouth. It's so funny to hear her "slurp" on her hands; such a lot of noise for a little girl!

Baptism

Eva Grace was baptized last Saturday evening. We were so blessed to have family with us to celebrate this special occasion. We were also fortunate to have some of Calvin's family from Wisconsin who were here on vacation join in the beautiful day.

It was a really nice ceremony and Eva did not even cry when the water was poured over her head. Actually, her pacifier fell in the bowl of holy water and the priest said she now had a "blessed binky." :)

You can just see Eva's head and fingers here.

She was simply beautiful!

A Little Touch of Sunshine

Thought we could use a bit of sunshine on this cool (57 degrees as I type this at 4:00 in the afternoon at the end of JULY!!), dreary, rainy day (ok, really, it's been most of the week). This is a couple of days after Eva's six month check up where she weighed in at 13 pounds, 4 ounces and measured 25.5 inches. Will post pictures soon of Eva's BIG DAY, last Saturday!

Six Months!

Sunday afternoon nap

Changes

From one night...

To the next...

Yep, Miss Eva moved from the bassinet to her big girl crib on Wednesday night. She was just getting too big to be comfortable in the bassinet, and now she's got plenty of room in her crib. We think she's adjusted easier than we have. Even though she's just across the hall, we still have the monitor on in our room.

We just continue to be amazed at the changes we see in Eva every day.

4th of July -- belated

Since last time we posted, Miss Eva has been quite busy. She celebrated her first 4th of July at Nana and Gramps'. It was her first overnight trip and first long-ish car trip. She did really well and by the second night, Miss Eva slept from about 10:00 until 5:30!! Due to a rain delay, the fireworks were quite late but they obviously didn't seem to bother Eva one bit.

Eva and cousins on her first 4th of July

5 Months (plus a few days)

Here she is, our 5 month old, 12 pound, 24 inch Miss Eva. That means she's doubled her weight since she came home and has grown 10 inches since she was born!

Yay, me!!!

Yummm, hands!