Roger

Evan has a new friend, his name is Roger. What we do know about Roger is that he has brown hair and is taller than Evan. What we didn't know until just the other day is that he is also imaginary.

The other night Jake and I got to officially "meet" Roger. He "came over" to play about 10 times the other night. About every other minute we could hear Evan say "ding dong" and then announce that Roger was here. They would play for a minute or so and then Evan would look at his video watch (yes, also imaginary) and say that it was time for Roger to go home. Before we knew it, Roger was at the door again for another play date. This went on for close to an hour.

I don't recall having an imaginary friend as a child so I find this really fascinating and kind of fun. Evan will talk and play with him as if he were really there and he even formally introduced us to him. Evan called Roger in from the other room and said "Roger, come here I would like you to meet my mom and dad." It was really cute. I can only hope that he will be this polite when we get to meet one of his real friends!

Vacation - Evan's Perspective

Evan received a V-tech digital camera for his birthday and had a blast taking pictures of our vacation. Here are a few of my favorites:

Evan's birthday cake

Daddy (with elephant ears - or possibly being attacked by one)

Evan's feet (this shot was intentional)



Evan trying to take a picture of the inside of his mouth

A cup



A table in our cabin

A blurry toy car

Zachary

Zachary climbing on a table on the screened in porch



Pop pop

Grammy

more feet!

Evan insisted on taking a picture of my back at the fair

The Clydesdale's

The largest pig litter (with a beautiful frame hand selected by Evan)

The second largest litter of pigs

Zachary testing out farm equipment

An alligator eating Pop pop (Evan thought this was hilarious)

This was just a small selection of the over 200 pictures Evan took while we were on vacation. There were close to 20 of the nightlight in the boys room alone. I personally really enjoyed looking at our vacation from Evan's perspective. It was interesting to see what grabbed our little guy's attention.

Vacation

We visited Mt. Sterling, Ohio this year for our family vacation and stayed at the Deer Creek Resort. We left on Evan's birthday so we spent our first evening celebrating, opening presents and eating cake (a chocolate WALL-E cake by request).

The next day we had a picnic on the beach and the boys experienced their first canoe ride with their Uncle Matt and Pop pop. I think they really enjoyed themselves. Zachary seemed so relaxed I thought he was going to take a nap right there in the canoe.

Evan and Zach also got their first fishing lesson from Pop pop. No one caught anything that day but they had fun trying.

At the park where we were fishing there was this really cool tree. I asked Evan to get inside the hole so that I could take a picture and I just loved this shot of him "emerging" from the tree.

We stayed at the lake for 3 days then my parents came back with us to Indiana and we topped off our vacation by heading to the state fair. We had a great time looking at all the animals and especially eating all the deep fried fair food.

Evan and Zachary both had their first pony ride.

Evan is 4!!

Evan turned 4 on August 16th. I am finding it hard to believe that my little boy, my first born, is 4 years old! He has been changing so much in the past couple of months and it's hard not to notice that he is officially exiting toddler hood and entering into little boy land.

Evan is full of energy and has a zeal for life that is hard to miss. He finds great joy in the simple things and has a laugh that is definitely contagious. Recently he has shown us that he loves to kid and is quickly picking up on the sarcasm that is famous in our family.

The morning after his birthday Evan woke up and asked me if he was 3 now that his birthday was over. No, dear son, you get to spend a whole year as a 4 year old and we are looking forward to all the many things this year will bring. We love you so much Evan!

Show and Tell

Today was Evan and Zachary's first Show and Tell at school. Well, actually it was really only Zachary's first. For Evan, this just happened to be the first time I remembered to send something with him to show. His class has been doing Show and Tell for the past year and not once did I remember...Oops! Better late than never right?

Evan wanted to show off his new Transformer that he received from his cousin Noah and Zachary chose a rubber whale that his Aunt Mackenzie let him borrow the last time we visited. They were both so excited to share their "treasures" with their friends at school. Evan started showing one of the teachers the moment he walked in the door.

Since they were both so excited to "show and tell" I was hoping that they would give me a great play by play of how their first experience went. Instead, they both got in the car and told me that they had done nothing at school that day. So, I am assuming that they were both more excited to bring their favorite toys to school than they were with the actual showing and telling.

Kiss my...

So the other night while the boys and I were watching "So You Think You Can Dance" (my all time favorite show) Zachary and Evan were showing off their dancing skills (really just running and spinning) when Zach did an amazing rolling spin move off the couch and fell on his bottom. Of course the floor was covered in a blanket of about 100 assorted cars and planes leaving him a great big pain in his...uh hem, you know what. Zachary promptly came over to me and requested that I make it all better. He crawled up into my lap, stood up, turned around, bent over and said "Mommy, kiss my butt. Please, kiss my butt."

Evan, who loves a good bodily function joke, picked up on the humor of the situation right away and joined his brother in asking me to kiss his butt as well. I really thought I was going to get away without these kind of comments from my kids until at least their teenage years.

Playing Catch-up

Things have been pretty busy around here between swim lessons, work, festivals, deck building etc. I wanted to post a picture last weekend of the progress on the deck but unfortunately did not get around to it. So, here is what it looked like last Sunday.

It was not completed as Jake had hoped but, we had a lot of fun anyway hanging out at the Fishers Freedom Festival with the kids.

Zach had so much fun he barely made it in the door of our house and literally fell asleep in the entryway.

After much needed naps we all headed down to the parade with our friends Josh and Mandy and their kids Jacob and Avrey.

As if the festival and parade were not enough, the kids stayed up late to watch fireworks from our backyard. The boys had fun catching fireflies and throwing (and stomping) on poppers before the fireworks started. It was a very full day!

Jake got working on the deck this past weekend and finally got it finished! We are so happy with how it turned out and have been eating most of our dinners out there. We love it!! Now all he has to do is fix the landscaping :) Never a dull moment!

This past Monday marked the second week of swim lessons and we finally got some pictures.

Whew!