a little of this, a little of that...

On Father's Day Jonathon started his day off on the right foot with his favorite...corn pops. I wish I had time to do a little more than just push the new box of cereal in his direction and say "Happy Father's Day", but we were running late for church...as usual.

He opened his present in the car on the way to church because Maddie couldn't wait much longer to give it to him. It was a "Tap Out" shirt--showing out support in his interests and hobbies. :) Thankfully it was more laid back after church and we were able to enjoy a great dinner and two kinds of his favorite cookies...


To Jonathon--You are such an amazing dad. Our kids are so lucky to have a father like you. I love how you just like to be with Maddie and Lyndon and hang out with them. I love the enthusiasm you have for life and the desire you have to share that with me and the kids. I love how gentle and kind you are with them but also how you can play hard and wrestle the energy right out of them. I love how you take any opportunity you can to teach them. I love being able to leave the kids with you for a week knowing that they are in the most capable and loving hands. I love being on this roller coaster we calling parenting with you. (I just wish we could go one more actual roller coasters. :) ) I love you.


And to my own Dad--I can still remember always wanting to sit by you during church (and not just because you always had candy in your suit coat pockets). I remember listening with you to all your "oldies" music on "Solid Gold Saturday Night"..."634-5789...Solid Gold Saturday Night"! I remember going with you to help get wood during the summers and holding the "measuring stick" for each log you had to cut and feeling like I was your best pal and so important. I remember my volleyball game in high school when you yelled at the ref for making a bad call against me. I remember how proud you were of me when I got my Young Woman medallion and how good I felt. I remember how you taught Heather and I the precise way to go up and down looking for and pulling weeds and how much I hated it but what a great work ethic you instilled in us. I remember the ice skating rink you made for us in our backyard. I remember playing Nintendo with you into the wee hours of the morning trying to figure out how to bump that turtle just so to get 100's of lives and when we finally did it how cool I felt to have done that with my Dad.
These are just a few things that I'll never forget and just a few things that still make you an amazing Dad. I love you.





We did a little craft project this week...bags made out of cereal boxes. It was fun. Maddie LOVES bags and stuffing her treasures in them so this was right up her ally. Lyndon enjoyed the thought of it. I think.



Maddie (and Lyndon of course copied her) HAD to mix all the colors together. Being the OCD painter that I am, I didn't want her to mix the colors, I wanted them all in their original beauty. (I know, it's a sickness. ) So to discourage her from mixing them all together I said, "If you mix ALL the colors it will turn yucky brown." to which she replied, "oooh good, I LIKE brown!" I never seem to win with her. FYI: I took a deep breath and just let her go at it. Who am i to say that unmixed colors are more beautiful. It's all in the eye of the beholder, right?

Lyndon didn't last too long with the project. He soon found other interests elsewhere. I look over to find him doing this:

If you can't tell with my blurry picture, he is trying to plug some ear buds into the holes on our shelves. I love watching his mind work. :) He got a little frustrated after no music was heard so I helped him find the I-Pod and listen to some real music.

meanwhile...

Yeah, she quickly switched to finger painting, er hand painting I guess you could say. Looks like were done with that.

They enjoyed their lunch outside while I cleaned up the hand painting...

We've been swimming a few times this last week. Here Maddie was "styling" Jonathon's hair. I thought she did a pretty darn goo job!

I'm not very good at doing the self portrait holding your own camera. After about 6 shots that like this:

We finally got something slightly decent...

More "Maddie and Lyndon isms" to come. This is what has been keeping me extra busy lately. But I love it!

in love

There was nothing we could say or do to convince Maddie to go up and sing "I'm so Glad When Daddy Comes Home" with the other primary kids. I even walked her to the front of the chapel but she wouldn't stay. I knew Jonathon was dissapointed not to see her up there but I didn't know just how much it meant to him until he shared his thoughts with me later today.

"I've been looking forward to seeing my kids sing to me on Father's Day since I was 14.", he said.

he melts my heart.

Best toy EVER.

Without reservation Maddie has one toy that is hands down, the best toy we've ever gotten her. It was by far the most expensive and has been the hardest to maintain/contain but it has taught her social, cognitive, and motor skills. It's improved her social and emotional developement. And has taught her to be less selfish and more loving. It can also keep her entertained for hours on end.

What is the amazing toy?







Lyndon.




They're best friends and the worst enemies. I love watching it all play out.

Hello!

What did you do at 9:00 tonight?

We had ice cream cones. outside. on the back porch.

I asked Maddie to turn around so I could take her picture. Her reply...

"Um, I'm a little busy right now, Mom."

so help me...

Lyndon is our bug watcher. He protects us.

doesn't this just make you want to run to Sonic right now? ...or get the kid a wet wipe?

The kids LOVE to chase and scare each other. (we like it too. except for the high pitched scream they both have on impact.)

Maddie just jumped out to scare Lyndon.

(excuse our ghetto cabinets. When we first moved in we were super motivated so we sanded and restained our top cabinets a darker color. They look great. But unknown to us at the time, sanding and staining is time consuming...and it sucks. So THREE YEARS later we are FINALLY getting around to the bottom cabinets. Pathetically we've only gone so far as to take 2 drawers off. Who knows, we'll most likely finish it just in time to sell the house. FYI: we have no plans to move any time soon.)

Here's a Wednesday night confession for ya...I was too lazy too put the kids in the bathtub to wash off the ice cream so I just wiped off their bodies with a wet wipe.

okay, one more confession...I was also too lazy/tired/tuckered out (choose the excuse) Saturday night to bath the kids for church the next morning so before I put their church clothes on I rubbed them down with fragrant baby lotion. They smelled clean. (that's what matters, right)

Sunday we had an awesome BBQ at our friends house. Maddie and Lyndon had been in separate parts of the house doing their own things for about 20 minutes or so. Lyndon was with us in the family room when Maddie came in. Here was their interaction :

Maddie: "Lyndon, how are you? I missed you!"

Lyndon: "ya-ya, hi ya-ya!" (he calls Maddie "ya-ya")

Then they ran to each other with open arms and gave one another a tight embrace. It warmed my heart.

Lyndon came into the computer room saying over and over, "tanks, Mom! oh, tanks!" (thanks) As he got closer to me I saw what he was thanking me for. It was a picture of my friend, Mallory, who Lyndon adores. He held up the picture and said, "Mawee, oh, Mawee." I haven't broken the news that Mallory will be going off to college soon. I think I'll make her do the honors.

Some of our friends invited us to watch "Bolt" on a big screen outside in their neighborhood. It was a lot of fun. The kids were quite entertained throughout the entire movie. But toward the end Lyndon felt the need to go explore other people's blankets and chairs. He quickly made friends with this woman who was just about the kindest person I have ever met. In about 5 seconds Lyndon had made himself right at home sitting next to her on her fold out chair, putting his arm around her etc. We knew he had her completely wrapped around his finger when she kindly asked the group in front of her if they move over because Lyndon wanted to sit on their Dora seat and it was too short to see over them. (I'm pretty sure this kid is gonna run for office sometime in his life.) Then the next thing we know this sweet lady has the Dora seat...with Lyndon in it...sitting on her lap just so he would be able to enjoy the Dora seat AND see the movie.

I wish I had half of his charisma.

Yesterday at the pool it was almost time to leave so I said to Maddie,

"We're going to leave in about 5 minutes but we can come back again. Won't that be cool?"

To which she replied,

"Um, it would be even more cool if we just stayed actually."

oh boy.

Some of Lyndon's favorite words are

"Cool!" and "Hoppy!" (happy)

Just about everything is "cool" and when he's really psyched about something or just plain elated he says "hoppy", in kind of a deep voice.

Like tonight when the woman was handing me the ice cream cones through the drive through window, I heard Lyndon in the back seat..."hoppy." "ha ha hoppy."

or

when he wakes up after an especially great nap he'll hug me and say, "hoppy."

Some of Maddie's favorite saying lately have been...

"I crack myself up!" and "silly you" or "silly you, Mom."

It was a proud moment when we heard Maddie singing along to one of Jonathon's songs as we were driving. (they're extremely catchy...just you wait.)

So Jonathon and I went to a Round Rock Express game last Friday evening. We had a blast. I took our point and shoot and actually got some pictures of us. I'm always the one behind the camera so we don't have many of us. Here we are trying to do that thing the "kids" do these days...you know hold it out yourself and take a self portrait. (yeah, I realize that made me sound pretty old.) It took Jonathon and I about 8 tried to get a decent picture. It takes some practice to know where to hold the camera. :)

We were right in the front. ahhhh, it was a perfect view.

However...

We had to be aware of this:

Except, to out surprise this guy...#6 on our team, had a case of the butter fingers. During WARM-UP, before the game even started, old #6 missed a ball and it came FLYING like a bullet out of a gun straight toward us. I'd like to say that I took no thought of myself and shielded my dear husband from the bullet...uh, ball, but no. I'm a coward. My first instinct was to look out for myself and duck. Luckily, I have a selfless husband and he made sure the ball was no where near me. I owe ya one, sweetie. :)

Right after Jonathon grabbed the ball some idiots from the stand yelled, "throw it back!" But good old #6 sheepishly motioned for Jonathon to keep it. It was the least he could do for just about impaling us.

Here's #6 in action...

I liked the way the team was lined up in the dug out leaning on the fence. It was very "A league of Their Own" esque. uh, expect for the fact that it was men leaning on the fence. anyways...

One blurry picture taken by our new friends who sat next to us. They had been married for 30 years and were from Katy, TX. :)

The killer ball. (and handsome hero.)

One last thing...

Literally 3 minutes before I took this picture Maddie was downstairs pleading her case that she "wasn't tired" and was ready to get up from her nap and "play quietly".

I wasn't buying it.

Look how well I know her. :)

and yes, like me, she sleeps with her eyes partially opened.

fresh animal, anyone?

Jonathon and I were sitting on the floor in the hall while Maddie was "cooking" something up in her pretend kitchen in the playroom. After a while she comes over to us carrying a large tray with various food items to share. She poured us each a glass of "grape juice" then stood up and just as sweet as ever asked,

"How about some fresh animals?"

uh, what? Did she just say ANIMALS? Before I knew what was coming next she very carefully comes walking around the corner carrying...THIS:

sure enough, it was some fresh animals...all baked nicely in a mini muffin pan.

I couldn't catch my breath. The laughing just went on and on. When I heard her say, "Don't laugh Mom, it's just some animals I cooked up."...that's when I think I just about peed my pants.

Where does she come up with this?

This poor little chicken looks like he's begging me to save him.
Obviously there's no vegetarians in this house. I guess we even eat unicorn.

Advice from a concerned older sister to a sugar-a-holic little brother:

Maddie: "Lyndon, too much sugar is not nutritious and makes your tummy hurt."

Oh, how wise.

One of Lyndon's favorite phrases is "HEBY". (heavy) He's constantly picking things up or pushing something saying, "dats HEBY", "Heby", "oooh it's HEBY" I think it makes him feel strong and cool. Like, check me out, I'm strong, I can pick up this HEBY toy!

We took the kids to the park this week to fly their kite. I was really impressed with how well they did. They both were able to keep the kite in the air. Seeing both of them run like mad just to keep the kite afloat was probably a highlight for me.

Last but not least, Jonathon and I got to go on a date Friday night. It's sooooo nice to be able to just hang out together without having that feeling like we really should be home so he can work on the record. I felt FREE!! We went to Austin Park and Play. (I think that's the name of it.) They have a rock wall, mini golf, go-carts, batting cages, lazer tag...and more! :) Just the place for us. This was actually my first time in the batting cages and I really liked it. i think I was inspired by my photo shoot at Dell Diamond baseball field! :) I was knockin' those balls out of the park...okay not really but I still felt really cool. We even won enough tickets to get THESE amazing friendship bracelets. I wear mine with love and honor. :)

(yes, we know how pale we are, no need to point it out. :) We pretty much dip Maddie and Lyndon in sunscreen. Poor kids, they never had a chance.)

Our baby's 2!!

(Photo by Gina Adams)

We'll folks, our little Lyndon is officially a 2 year old. My how time flies. He was literally the PERFECT baby. He slept through the night from day 1, he only cried if he REALLY needed something and he brought so much love and happiness into our home.



...not a lot has changed in 2 years.



He still sleeps through the night, he's still pretty darn perfect and he still brings so much love and happiness in our home. How did we get so lucky?



Here's what makes Lyndon...well, Lyndon:

• He loves balls. basketball, baseball, soccer ball---if it's round and he can throw it or kick it, he likes it.


• He's always watching and mimicking Maddie. He loves her so much. Whatever Maddie touches is gold.


• He's a boy in love with his silky blanket. I won't be surprised if we have to tear it from his fingers when he goes off to college.


• His favorite colors are green and blue.


• He's not one to turn away from a good tea party,princess party or dress-up session.


• He's a stranger to no one and a friend to everyone.


• He's a little boy who's motivated by candy.


• He gives the best squeezes and hugs.


• last, but not least, he's the fastest 2 year old this side of the Mississippi. Seriously. He can be all the way to the back of Target even before I can pull a cart out. Fun.

He has a fun-filled birthday. It all started with presents as soon as he woke up. (how could a day go wrong when you start it with gifts?) A HUGE thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Evans and Grandma and Grandpa Perkes for the gifts. They were a huge hit. We really appreciate it.

Should I be proud or ashamed that he knows what this is? (and obviously pumped about it.)

Hummm, there's Lyndon playing with his cars, obviously not the one shooting the ball. ... so who could that be?

Jonathon.

He likes the new hoop as much, if not more, than Lyndon. (okay, I like it too.) We all played with the basketball hoop A LOT that day. Lyndon would send his race cars down the track and then go shoot a couple baskets, back and forth, back and forth. He was in heaven.

Ball cupcakes.

Madaline urged me to make "Chuck E. Cheese holding a guitar and dancing" cupcakes. Uh...okay... Sadly I had to break the news that her Mommy isn't THAT talented and that she had to be stuck with balls. ( I think she wanted actual mini animal-tronics on there. You know, like the one at the actual restaurant) Doesn't hurt to ask I suppose.

cutie pie.

We had to relight and sing to him several times. Hey, it was his day.

He got to end the day with going to the Park to see the weekly firework show at the Dell Diamond field. Perfect end to the perfect day.

We love you so much, Lyndon!

(I had a fun photoshoot on Saturday. Click here to see some pictures from it!)

He's done it folks

What do you get when you add:

talent + commitment + mental anguish + loss of sleep + calloused fingers + an aching back + discouragement+ 2,600 hours of work?

anyone? anyone?

I'll tell ya...

One amazingly catchy, remarkably captivating and astoundingly unforgettable RECORD!

I know what you're thinking...blah, blah blah, of course I'M going to say it's just that wonderful but only because he's my husband. Rest assured, that's not the case. I am just so darn proud (and frankly a little in awe) that my husband has produced such an outstanding piece of music. There is no doubt in my mind that this record is going to go amazing places...and take us right along with it.

I know you are all on the edge of your seats waiting to hear the final product so keep your eyes and ears open for when we announce the release date. Don't worry, you won't have to wait too much longer.

This is what Jonathon has been staring at for the past 8 months 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Notice the black screen on the right. This has been his way of making sure each and every detail of each song was completed. As he would complete say, the guitar parts or the vocals he would black out the square for that particular song. Just seeing that the WHOLE chart is blacked out is such an amazing feeling. It's been a long time coming...


I want Jonathon to know how amazing I think he is. Not just because he's finally completed this goal but also because of how much he loves us and for the man that he is. This is his dream... to be a musician, to create, record and perform. But his even bigger dream is to give me, Maddie and Lyndon the best life possible. His passion is to make us happy. He is my best friend and true love. I'm the luckiest girl in the world because somehow, I scored Jonathon Evans. Oh yeah, AND he won us 724 tickets at Chuck E. Cheeses yesterday. My hero.