Everett is One!

Everett turned 1 on September 15. He is such a loved little boy that he had TWO parties! The first in Wichita at Grandma Jenese's house and the second at home. Both parties had a similar construction theme. 

Cake in Wichita

Baby Cake #1

Ryan's construction crew.

Everett's present from Grandma Jenese. He likes to use it as a jungle gym.

 Party #2 in Shawnee

Unfortunately on his actual birthday Everett came down with a fever so we had to post-pone his party to the following Sunday. He didn't seem to notice. We did get in a birthday meal at Fritz's and ice cream before the fever.

First birthday sundae!

Birthday cake #2!

Pretty Baby

So it has been said Everett has beautiful hair.

It has also been said (by Ryan) that Everett and I have the same haircut.

Everett is going to keep this glorious head of hair until at least his First Birthday. Then we'll see.

*Note: Ryan did have blond hair as a baby that later turned dark. We'll see if Everett can hold onto this beautiful blond locks.

He Crawls!! (a month ago)

This is one of the posts meant just for me to remember dates. Thanks for your patience. :)

Everett began crawling around July 15. Here's a video of his achievement. (It's really large and I'm not sure how to scale it down on here. Any suggestions would be appreciated.)

Fan Fest 2012 - All Star Game

In July, Kansas City hosted the 2012 All Star Game. Other than Billy getting snubbed for the Home Run Derby it was a pretty awesome event. We caught most of it on TV, but we did checkout the Fan Fest in person. I'm glad Everett can say he attended part of the festivities. 

Everett trying really hard to NOT TOUCH the World Series trophy. The security guard was not impressed.

Where's the Mills? Ryan and Everett with the 2012 Kansas City Royals. I want one of these in my front yard.

 

Everett showing the scouts his batting stance. That is a miniature Louisville Slugger bat with Everett's name on it.This might be my favorite picture of Ryan and Everett so far.

Ryan's Christmas present?

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

So this is a little late, but I figure cute pictures don't have an expiration date.

For Memorial Day 2012 we made the short trek to Wichita. We spent a day swimming in Grandma Jenese's pool and a day in Harper, KS, where Ryan's uncle and cousins live. Everett got to meet some Mills relatives for the first time and loved it. He looks a lot like the Mills bunch so I think he felt at home right away. It was also his first time swimming and except for the chilly water also loved it.

Everett and cousin Kaidyn enjoying the warmer kiddie pool.

Evidence it is impossible to get two babies to look at the camera at the same time.

Sweet, sweet Baby Cousin Emma.

Proud Grandpa Roger with  cousins Charli (far left) and Ava.

Three generations of awesome.

Happy Birthday Lily Lou

I remember when you looked like this...

And now you look like this...

Happy birthday to my beautiful Lily Louise. You have always been an awesome niece, but now you are an awesome cousin to Everett. Love you!

What a week!

So this happened...

 

Monday morning at about 5:15 am the giant tree in front of our house was struck by lightning. If you were in Johnson County you probably heard/felt it. 

Everett's window is on the second story in this picture. He had woken at 5 am, very unusual for him, so I was rocking him back to sleep in his room. (Insert Halleluiah Chorus here.) With no warning there was an alien-abduction-like bright flash and a sonic-boom-sounding, thunder clap. All the smoke detectors and car alarms went off.

I'm grateful and and believe it was a gift from God that I was holding Everett when the lightning struck. It is hard for me to think about the fear both of us would have experienced if he would have been alone upstairs.

It took Ryan and I about 5 minutes to actually determine what had happened. Brave Ryan went outside to check it out and quickly figured out the tree had been struck since it was missing about 75% of its bark. No people, pets or property was harmed. And the tree stayed standing.

However, the tree begin falling at 3 am on Thursday morning. First one giant branch, then the next followed about 4 am. My nerves were shot, but still nothing hit the house. 

We had all the branches cut down yesterday afternoon, so today we have a giant totem pole in our front yard. It will all be gone on Saturday. We will miss you 100-year-old tree. 

In awesome news...

Everett turns 9 months old today and has a tooth! I'll recap his 9 month milestones in my next post when my anxiety level returns to normal. 

Even though it has probably been the 2nd toughest week since Everett was born, Ryan and I have a lot to be thankful for this Friday. We are blessed.

 

Waking a Sleeping Baby

This morning Everett was extra sleepy. So sleepy I finally had to wake him up at 7 so I could get to work on time. Usually I'm rushing to get ready before his 6:30 wake up call. I recorded this sweet, sleeping baby so I can remember this when I'm dragging a 16 year old out of bed.

Picture of the sweet sleeping baby.



Video of baby boy waking up.

Fishing on a Sunday

Everett had his first family fishing trip on Sunday (May 20) at Shawnee Mission Park. He caught a little perch with Ryan's help. The pesky perch stole many a worm from our hooks, but all around it was a really great day.

Besides fishing, Everett spent the day playing on the picnic blanket, eating O's, and napping. He sure loved fishing with his Daddy while watching the baby geese and sailboats on the lake.

Everett had to get a nap out of the way early in the expedition.

Ryan's first fish was this big bass. Very impressive.

Everett enjoyed watching Daddy string the new fishing poles and put worms on the hooks.

Big E being super cute.

The worm company's slogan: Our worms catch fish or die trying.
I thought that was pretty clever.

Uh oh! Where'd the worm go?
This kid eats everything, but I'm pretty sure he didn't eat any worms this trip.

Everett was really interested in the fish we caught. I never did let him touch it though. Yucky.

Everett helping Daddy fish.

They actually caught a fish as I was taking these pictures.

The scenery was beautiful and my company was the best. Great day!

8 Months Old

Big E turns eight months old today. He is changing by the week. He now:

• sits unaided without falling over
• waves his hand (he hasn't put this together with waving to someone yet)
• rolls over both ways
• sleeps on his belly 50% of the time
• is crazy about his Daddy, his Daddy's picture and his Daddy's voice
• goes to the nursery during church
• is lunging forward to get toys
• can sit and play by himself for long stretches of time
• looks at books by himself
• giggles uncontrollably when Cousin Lily plays peek-a-boo
• eats the big kid food for lunch at daycare
• almost has Cheerios mastered

For Mother's Day Everett gave me a card, gift certificate and breakfast. He also made me a key chain and a gift box with his chubby hand print at daycare.

And now adorable pictures (Please excuse the quality.These are taken on my phone because it is always handy.)

Everett loves his puppies.

Almost ready for the big tub.

Everett has adopted Eli's way of looking at the world.

Everett explaining to the dogs that we don't chew on teddy bears.

First Art Project

Everett's class at La Petite created a flower-baby garden. The teachers dipped Everett's feet in finger paint to create the petals on his flower. As you can tell he is quite proud of his creation.

Everett sitting in the garden.

Notice his Digger outfit. He's quite the Nascar fan now.

First Royals Game

Everett attended his first Royals game on Sunday (April 22).

Despite the cold, the horrible Royals start and a few loud cheers that scared the crap out of him, I think Everett had a good time. He was also incredibly adorable in his Alex Gordon t-shirt and Royals ball cap.

Thanks to Victoria for these two awesome Royals pic.

Also, we signed Big E up for the Royal's Blue Crew. We got all this for $20!

I can wait

Just waiting patiently for my bath.

And it Begins

My friend Katie and I spent most of our high school years telling "remember when..." stories. Since the purpose of this blog is to record the big and little moments in our lives I thought "Remember When..." would make an appropriate title (plus I love Chris Farley. who knows that reference?). The main purpose of this blog is to record Everett's cuteness, his firsts and other random happenings. I chose to start now, when he is 6 months old, instead of as a newborn because frankly he didn't do much the first six months. :) However, now he is a short, chubby, smiley, giggly, awesome baby that is screaming to have a blog written about him. So, to get us started here is his 6 month picture. As you can tell taking his monthly pictures is getting more difficult.

I guess Everett felt Royals teddy needed to cover up.

And my personal favorite.

I'd like to thank Victoria for pushing me to start this blog with this post.

THAT was awesome.