Crazy life

It is summer, and life is crazy! We have been keeping very busy and this has made for me to not really make time for blogging. Sorry about that. Lots of fun things going on, like grad parties, cousin's baby's birthdays, going to the zoo, visiting college friends, going to the fair, moving sister. Then at home, we have a crazy toddler who does no want to be alone ever (so having sleeping issues), picky about her food, loves her new little flip-flops from grandma Chris, but who also wants to go on the potty a lot, so almost potty training herself. We have also been spending some time going to nieces and nephew baseball games. So we have been busy! :) We have not even really used our pool much lately! how sad is that! :(  But I do have some pictures and things to blog about so I hope to get some of that up soon, stay tuned! We are going up north to our cabin soon too, so there will be lots of good pictures from that in the future...

On another note, I think I figured out my plan for my career so that is great, doing some research and networking for that, working on my CV and making future plans! Things will probably get crazy in the near future, but that is our life and we love it! Secretly I think Mike is a change and jumping-off-a-cliff junkie... he loves this kind of stuff. If you haven't figured it out Mike and I are kind of fly-by-the-seat of our pants people. We kind of randomly decide something, stubbornly make our collective mind up, and determinedly make it happen in a very short span of time (grad school, house, puppy, baby are all examples)... just how we operate. It has treated us well so far (we love our life), so we are thinking we will be fine in the future! :) You can always expect great and exciting things from the Schilters! :)

Goof ball!

Our Evelyn is a very silly fun little girl and she has a sense of humor, or maybe mommy and daddy just like laughing at her! :) Hope you enjoy seeing this silly girl too! :)



Uncle Mark teaching Evelyn to wear a spoon on her nose!



Crawling behind the couch!

 

Middle of summer, wearing winter boots with no pants, standing on the kitchen chair drinking apple juice?!? really?!?



Common for her to not wear pants... she is learning she can take them off! She loves, LOVES shoes, here she is wearing mine and walking around in them!



Had to go show daddy how she was wearing mommy's shoes!! silly!



Parenting awesomeness...

So I have been thinking lately, as each day it seems as though Evelyn is bigger (tear) and getting more and more personality, she has these amazing little quirks about her. Evelyn is very much like her mommy and daddy. Many of the qualities that I love about Mike, I also don't like about Mike, if that makes sense... I know I have many qualities that my family has always been frustrated with, and now Mike gets to deal with those fun things. Qualities such as stubbornness, strong minded, determined, knowing (mostly) what you want, lack of patience, these are all qualities I have (Mike too mostly) and I see them shinning brighter than ever in Evelyn everyday! But now we have made this little person, and WOW, she is so much like us! I sometime feel awe-stricken... it truly is amazing to be a parent. There is this cloud of pressure, like wow I have to raise a person, not only make sure they are healthy but good, kind, fair, successful... and I feel like parents are a really key part of what makes a good person. But at the same time, the amount of love I feel for this little girl, (I really feel like my chest could burst sometimes because of the amount of love) I feel like it is false sense of security cause how could anything go wrong if you love someone so much.

I know there are different styles of parenting, and methods to follow, or books to read, but Mike and I take a very 'natural' approach. We kind of go off our instincts. We are fortunate to have great parents and we can use our experiences and their teachings to guide us in raising Evelyn, add a huge dose of love, sprinkles of laughter and dashes of fun and large amounts of understanding and limitless forgiving and I feel like our recipe is working pretty well! :)

On that note, I feel like Evelyn has been having some separation issues as of late. At home she wants to be by Mike and I at all times, which is fine and understandable. When we drop her off at the sitters for the day, lately she has been very clingy to me and cries, this just breaks my heart, I know she loves it there, and she will be fine just 5 mins after we leave, but I am sad to leave her too! Additionally just this week she has started to not want to fall asleep on her own in her crib (very unusual for her), she has needed to be either in my arms rocking her or laying next to Mike or I in our bed. I feel like I have other parent's voices in my head or other things I have heard or read that say 'don't do that', 'they need sleep on their own', 'it is a bad habit'; and I do see that side of things, but Mike and I can both not stand listening to our little girl be so upset (she cries really hard if we try to let her 'cry it out', which is not a good method for Mike and I, plus she now screams 'mommy' which breaks my heart). So if I have to rock her to sleep every night for a few weeks till this separation anxiety faze passes, or if I have to do it regularly, so be it, I will take any extra cuddle time 'cause babies don't keep'. And if I have to share my bed sometimes with a cuddly cute little girl, that isn't so bad, there could be worst things, frankly I feel pretty blessed, and I want her to want to be by me as long as she wants to! Life is good, and parenting is awesome! :)



Our little snuggle bug, she is becoming more of a snuggler, and we don't complain! :)



Yes we let her sleep in our bed sometimes, but look at how cute she is, how could you not! :)



It is not like we don't share with Indy... here our baby and fur-baby are sleeping in while mommy and daddy get ready for work!



Friends!

Evelyn (and Mike and I too), love to have visitors! Our new pool gives us another reason for people to come hang out. We are fortunate to have so many friends and family members that have little ones, (and bigger kids) who can play with Evelyn! She loves all her playmates. Here are some pictures of recent visitors! :)



Our Friend's little guy Ean came for a visit and Evelyn and Indy were really excited!



Isn't Ean just the cutest! what a handsome boy, and a ham for the camera!



Evelyn needs to help feed the 'baby' he is almost as big as her! hahaha!

 

Giving Ean rides on her little bus thingy, he is just loving it! :)



'Cousin' Nina and her parents came to visit, look at these beauties!



Evelyn trying to give hugs!



Evelyn tends to get a bit jealous and we are working on sharing, but Nina still had a good time with all our toys!



1 and 1/2 years old!

So our adorable little Evelyn turned 1 and 1/2 on the 30th of June! :) We didn't do anything special, but it is pretty cool to have a one and a half year old! :) She had her 18 month appointment on July 3rd. She is weighing in a whopping 22 lbs (14%ile)! She is 31.75 inches (50%ile) and her head is 40%ile. She is just small, I used to be worried about it a lot, but am over it, I think she is amazing! She doesn't need any more shots till 2014! That is really exciting since she knew this last appointment what the needle the nurse was holding was... that was sad for mommy and daddy too!

She has really started to talk a lot more. She is mimicking everything, and our peekaboo app of farm animals is a new favorite (she loves to say cow and duck). When the dog comes up on this app she doesn't say dog, she says 'Indy!' how cute is that right?!? Any kid app recommendations are very much appreciated, I get a lot of free ones, but they are not all good! :) I like to say 'hi baby' to her (she is my baby) and then she will just be like an echo saying 'hi baby, hi baby, hi baby' it is super cute. Recently she was naughty so I told her that she was, and scolded her, well she proceeded to get all sad (over dramatic) and say 'mommy naughty!' It was really funny! :) She has also used the potty a number of times, we are seriously thinking about potty training but then also know we are really busy in the summer so not sure how it will work... So we are playing that by ear, right now she isn't very interested in it. She loves to run around and is really quite fast for such a shortie! :) Also she finally has some hair, so mommy likes to put it in pig tails!! :)

So lately in Evelyn's world is a lot of 'mommy' type behavior. She loves to take care of her baby dolls, help take care of babies at the sitter or when friends babies come to visit. She also loves, I means loves/ borderline obsessed, with being outside. Wants to walk Indy all the time! If mommy or daddy steps outside without her, she has a meltdown. So yeah she also has started tantrums. She really loves Indy, petting him (sometimes needs to be reminded to be 'nice') walking him, feeding him, playing fetch (even though she kind of chucks it at him), and she has even started to try and ride him! She is silly! :)  She is a very head-strong little girl and knows what she wants, when she wants it. She has also grown to be more of a cuddler especially in the morning and before bed. We even let her come into bed with us sometimes in the morning so we can all get a little more sleep, and I don't mind the cuddle time with my baby who keeps getting less baby-ish! :(  Evelyn also has a love for her blankies. We have 4 little blankies that we put her to sleep with, and she loves them all, but one home-made one from a lady my mom knows is her favorite one... it is fleece with little ribbon loops around the edge. She loves it and loves to say 'blankie'. Lately she also has been finding anything around the house (mainly wash cloths or burp rags) to be her babies blankies! :) She is just the cutest and is so much fun right now, we love just hanging out with our awesome 1 and 1/2 year old! :)



Trying to hide in mommy and daddy's room!



Love that I can put pig tails in! The whole hair is difficult, I usually just do the top half.



BEAUTIFUL baby!



Such a little character! So silly!



Loves to point these days!

 

Water Bugs!

Well it is official, Michael and I have turned our amazing little girl into a water bug just like us! :) Not surprised? Well I was a bit worried that she wouldn't love being in the water as much as we do and that we would have to take turns swimming and we couldn't swim together as much anymore, but alas, my fears are for naught! :) My fear started with our new pool and it seemed like Evelyn wanted to be out running on the grass more than in the water... what I think might have caused this in the beginning was the hose water in the pool was quite cooler (she did shiver one time in the water! oops!). Now that it is so bloody hot outside the pool water, and lake water for that matter, is pretty warm, so her skinny little body (all full of 22 lbs) won't start shivering anymore! :) So on July 3rd we went to Mike's aunt and uncle's house on the lake. Turns out Evelyn might have been in the water just as much as Mike and I!! :) It was great and she learned how to 'jump' of the pier, even though it is more like a step off! :)  She goes 'set' and points her finger  (as in "ready set jump") and jumps, but she makes sure mommy or daddy are right there to catch her. This was a blast and she got all worn out from the evening of swimming.

Then on the 4th (after sleeping until 8:20 am new record!) we went to my brother and sister in law's house to swim by them. In the morning we asked Evelyn if she wanted to go swimming and she immediately did her yes head nod all excitedly. Well Mike and I made a big mistake, cause she wanted to go swimming immediately, not wait while we packed up and made our dish to pass! She proceeded to try and get her own swim diaper on (over the regular diaper) and kept whinning and saying 'suit' with an exaggerated 's'! :) Oops! Guess we have now learned only mention swimming shortly before we actually swim! :) The day was great, really hot but we stayed in the water a lot or could escape to the air conditioning in the house if we needed! :)

To bad we had to go back to work today and the short fun little 4th celebration came to a screeching halt! We will just recover from all the fun tonight! :)

Sorry no pictures... I tend to be swimming too... maybe I should get a waterproof camera for all our water fun!? :)