Ahhhh, a 3 day weekend!

Life is great when you get a 3 days off work! We started out this Memorial Day weekend with surprise visitors. Jason's Aunt Lois and Uncle Neil were driving from Indiana to Williamsburg, VA, on Saturday and wanted to stop in when they were passing by our place. They got to meet Evan, after he woke up from a nap, and he was in a groggy mood initially. As they were heading out to get back on the road, Evan opened up and turned on the charm, laughing, talking, and smiling with Lois and Neil.

Evan is goofy! He is learning so much in the world and every day he shows us new things. He has really discovered his voice. He squeals in delight SOOO loudly! We encourage it, but gosh, there comes a time, late at night, when the padres have basically had enough. Bring on the headaches! It's cute though and it makes everyone laugh. Another of Evan's discovery is giving a "raspberry" with his mouth/lips. He sometimes creates bubbles while doing this. It's so cute!Here are some cute pictures of Evan with Daddy & Mommy:Daisy had a fun-filled weekend as well. She was a tired puppy and show Evan how to really use the Boppy pillow:

Our children got on the ground for some playtime. Evan has a new way to play with his toys while on his belly. Do you think he has enough toys to play with?Friends, Brendan and Maureen, came over yesterday to grill out. Jason made his famous ribs and pulled pork sandwiches. Dinner was complete with beer, draft cider, chips, baked beans, and pound cake with strawberries, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream; I'd say we ate pretty well. Jason and I both lost at poker. I guess we need to sharpen our skills a bit! Evan continued to delight everyone. He has a habit of spitting up all over Maureen, but held off last night. Evan decided to get Brendan instead!

Evan's playful ways

Evan's happy character and sweet personality are certainly shining through. He continues to roll over every day and squeals with delight doing this! He is a talker and will carry on an animated conversation with us each evening. Evan is constantly putting things in his mouth, including his hands and burp cloths...

Daisy better watch her toys!

A source of fun for Evan are his toes and feet. He is a great helper while changing his diaper as he'll lift his legs and feet up for us and proceed to lower them when we need to as well! We're waiting for him to suck on his toes!Another habit of Evan's is sucking on his lower lip. It is so adorable!
Grandma gave Evan a musical toy and he really enjoys listening to the songs and seeing the lights flash. Over the past few months he has taken to this toy a lot...
We hope you enjoy the many delights of Evan. We are constantly giving him hugs and kisses as he brings such joy to our lives.

Sign up now for Bears tickets

Evan went to his 4 month doctor's appointment today. His health checked out great! He is still battling a cold - for 2 weeks now. The doctor said don't be too alarmed or surprised if it lasts another 2 more weeks, as I am feeling sick again. Will this ever go away from the Mears household? Anyway, the ever anticipated weight and length...he weighs 19 pounds, 3 ounces (100th percentile) and is 26.5" long (95th percentile). So he is proportionally a big baby. The list is starting to form for season tickets to the Chicago Bears when Evan playing. Sign up now...

Daddy saw it!

Daddy finally saw Evan roll over last night! Evan's been rolling over since May 12, but wasn't letting Daddy see him, just Mommy and her coworkers. Well, last night after work he rolled from his back to his front (his favorite way to roll right now). I was so happy that Daddy got to see it!

Daisy has been in a very playful mood, as all her toys were strewn all over the family room last night. Here she is tuckered out (and kind of pouting as she wanted to play ball)...

Aunt Shelly!

Shelly, my friend from college, visited the Mears family this past weekend. It was a lot of fun! She got to meet Evan for the first time and he turned on the charm with smiles, laughs, and lots of spit-up. Shelly arrived Friday evening and we hung out at the house and ordered in Chinese food. Saturday morning, we took a much anticipated trip to Starbuck's for breakfast. Shelly LOVES Starbuck's! Later that day we headed to Georgetown to eat lunch and shop a bit. The weather cooperated and was really nice.

After battling the crowds in Georgetown, we wanted Shelly to experience Maggie Moo's ice cream. It's pretty sad when Jason, Evan, and I are regulars at an ice cream shop! The owner always asks about Evan, gets a good look at how much he is growing and inquires about his sleeping patterns. The ice cream at Maggie Moo's is very yummy! We introduced my mom to it when she visited, now we think every visitor should experience it. Jason and I have our favorites and always get the same thing:

Jason's order: Better Batter Cake Carnival - It has Better Batter ice cream, Twix, cookie dough and fudge. Here's a picture of it:

My order (and Evan's by default): Peanut butter ice cream, Reese's Pieces, and fudge. There's no picture because I made this combo up.

OK, enough about the scrumptious ice cream...we could eat it every day...(sigh)...

We rested for a tiny bit before dinner and headed to our favorite sushi restaurant in the area to share LOTS of sushi with Brendan and Maureen. It seems we did a lot of eating while Shelly was here, huh? Definitely! Sunday morning we woke up and headed to Starbuck's again! After eating our breakfast and leisurely reading the paper, we headed to a wonderful restaurant called Clyde's Tower Oaks Lodge for lunch. The atmosphere was amazing...lots of wood, a transplanted old barn, nature theme, and the restaurant was HUGE! It had 3 large rooms and an enormous bar. The food was pretty darn good as well. I think Jason and I will definitely be back. Then it was off to DC to do our own version of a driving tour of the monuments. All in all it was a great weekend. The weather was spectacular and both Evan and Daisy got spoiled by Aunt Shelly.

Daisy is waiting for her to come back and give her all that attention again...

Working on his PHD

We had to show everyone the onesie that Daddy bought Evan. It's very appropriate and quite funny!

If you can't read it, the onesie says, "I've got a PHD. Pretty Heavy Diaper" Even Evan is laughing...

Motherhood is great!

I just had my first "human" Mother's Day yesterday (I've had "canine" mother's days for 6 years prior) and it was great! Evan let me sleep for a straight 6 1/2 hours without waking for a feeding. I woke up at 5:30 am feeling quite refreshed, yes, even at that early hour. Evan slowly woke up soon thereafter but didn't fuss at all. He was playing by himself in his bouncy seat and was all smiles when I came to get him. Evan, Daisy, and I spent the morning playing and giggling. I've found that when I kiss or "get" Evan's neck, he smiles and laughs a lot. He also is becoming pretty ticklish on his sides and ribs. We had a lot of fun!
Daddy called later in the morning and told me that the closest he could get to breakfast in bed was a gift card to Krispy Kreme. YUM! So Evan and I headed out to the grocery to pick up a few items and off to Krispy Kreme for breakfast. Daddy sure knows what Mommy loves for breakfast! The rest of the day was spent leisurely hanging around the house with my children. It was great! Evan rolled over again and was in a happy mood all day.

We picked Jason up at the airport around 6:30 pm and after dropping off a coworker and feeding Evan, we headed out to eat at Gordon Biersch. Gordon Biersch is a great restaurant/

brewery that we had in Atlanta. They just opened a location in downtown Rockville, part of a revitalization project. It is yummy! And the portion sizes are pretty large. We're glad that this restaurant is opened and Moe's Southwest Grill is soon to follow! YEAH! We came home, put Evan to bed, and I got my gifts from Daddy and the children. We even got to bed early. What a great first Mother's Day!

For those that don't know, Jason was out of town from Tuesday through Sunday at a workshop in Albany, NY. Yes, that means I was a single mom for 6 days. What made it even more challenging was that Evan and I were taking care of Brendan and Maureen's bunny, Turkish, during that time because they were out of town. Let me just say that I have all the respect in the world for single moms. I don't know how they do it. Maybe they aren't used to having all the help in the beginning. Gosh, I was exhausted! From getting Evan to daycare in the morning, to getting me to work on time, working all day, picking up Evan, coming home and eating dinner, heading out to take care of Turkish, heading home to relax a bit, and then heading to bed. Phew! Add to it another cold - Evan is giving it back to me. It was tough! Now Jason is back home safe and everyone is thrilled. Sorry about my weird facial expression in this previous photo. I don't know...I just feel like it looks weird! Anyway, I survived a week without my husband's generous help and had a wonderful Mother's Day. Now we can settle back into life as we know it...until Daddy goes to another conference next month. Ahhhh, the life of a scientist!

Not a fluke

It's officially not a fluke! Evan rolled over AGAIN this morning! I'm so excited! Of course, I didn't catch it on video. But trust me, the camcorder is out and in the ready position. I want to capture this for everyone...

Milestone!

He did it! Evan rolled over for the first time today. I have mixed emotions about this. Yes, it's absolutely wonderful that he finally rolled over. But, Daddy missed it. I wished we could have witnessed this first milestone together. I took pictures and ran to get the video camera. Of course, Evan didn't roll again and just looked at the camcorder.

Here's what happened: I laid Evan on the bed so I could change my shirt as he decorated it with a fair amount of spit-up. He was on his back and, like always, rolled to his left side. For the past few weeks, he'd do this but his left arm would be in the way, and he'd just roll back. Well, maybe it was the bunched up comforter that assisted him, but he used his legs to prop his body up and pop! Out comes his left arm. He even turned his head 180 degrees to look at me. I was amazed and squealed with delight. That made Daisy very excited and she wanted to play with Evan even more. I sure wished Daddy could have seen it...

Here is Evan right after rolling over (not the clearest picture as I snapped it very quickly to capture the moment!)...

Big sister Daisy was excited for her little brother and wanted to play a lot!

The start of this Mother's Day weekend is going pretty well. What could be a greater present than your little baby accomplishing a milestone right in front of your eyes! Daddy, hurry home!

The linebacker swan finds his fingers!

Evan's past few days have been pretty eventful. We've been working on his tummy time after work and he's doing great! His neck muscles are strengthening nicely and he can lift his head pretty well. Actually, he tries to lift his head and feet at the same time...he's doing the swan pose in yoga/pilates!

We have been trying to leave Evan in tummy time for longer. Since he's getting older, he is becoming more tolerable to being by himself. When he was really young, he always wanted to be held. I think daycare is definitely helping him be less dependant. One evening this week, while waiting for Daddy to come home and letting Mommy get some dishes done, Evan found his fingers! He actually didn't find his thumb, he found his index finger and proceeded to suck it until it was pretty red! I let him suck on it for a good 10-15 minutes, then saw the color and decided it was enough. I tried to show Evan his thumb and how he can suck on that if he wants, but he wasn't having any of it! Index finger it is...

Some of you may remember that I got sick with a nasty cold over Easter and battled my illness during my last week of maternity leave and first week back to work. Well, it never fails, I gave my cold to Jason. He's been struggling with it for a few weeks and now it's a family affair! Evan had a stuffy nose a few weeks ago, but it wasn't really bad. Well, it's back and with a vengance. He was pretty nasally the past few nights, and developed a chest cough last night. The pediatric nurse wanted Evan to be seen by a doctor today. Turns out to be a basic cold...no ear infection...yeah!

Drum roll, please......they got a weight on the future Bears linebacker....and he weighs....a whopping...18 pounds, 11 ounces!!!! Yes, and he's only 3 1/2 months old! He goes in for his 4 month check up later this month so we'll see how much more weight he puts on. Guess the Graco Snugride car seat isn't going to last the "average" 6 months for the Mears household. Actually, I'm going out this weekend to buy the convertible car seat. Ahhh, parenthood is great!

Weekday vs. weekend...no difference

Oh my...it's Saturday morning at 6 am. The whole family is awake. Someone, I won't mention names here, doesn't know it's the weekend and is awake and eager to play. He gave me a huge smile this morning. How can I resist? I keep trying to teach him that on Saturdays and Sundays we can sleep in and don't have to get up at 6 am. Not today! Even Daisy was ready to go!

This week was good but pretty uneventful. Evan's evening and night sleeping habits are getting better...I only had to get up once each night this week for a feeding. Evan would fall fast asleep after getting a full tummy. He's started reaching at our faces. I can't tell you how many times Evan has gotten Mommy's nose! It is interesting to see him discover the world in little ways, like grabbing my nose, or ears, or eyes.