Spring Break is Here!

It has been a wonderful week. Evelyn is fitting in very nicely in our happy lives, and we are hoping that by the time she figures out that not all people are active and fun she is sufficiently ingrained so as to continue this sort of lifestyle.

Also, I realized the other day that Evelyn is introducing a whole new set of words into my vocabulary. These are words that I never thought I would use on a regular basis, but to my utmost dismay, I think that I am now. Some of the words I am talking about are as follows:

Cutie

Outfit

Onesie

Adorable

Sleepy Time

Poopy

Tummy Time

Anyway, I guess it is official that I am a dad now. Hopefully I don't get too weird.

On Saturday we went hiking at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Spring has come to Cleveland and it is time to start getting outside again. We went to a waterfall, and to two separate lakes. Evelyn seems to like the little front carrier we have and we are hoping to do some extended overnight backpacking trips this summer. Also, we took her to her first movie at a theatre and she did great.

This next week is my spring break so we have a lot of fun activities planned. Hopefully we'll have a lot to write about next Sunday. For now, here are some pictures of this week.

Here's Evelyn in her "outside clothes." She looks pretty chubby because she has pajamas on underneath to stay warm. I think it's very stylish.

Here are some pictures of our day at Cuyahoga Valley.

Here she is in her "creamsicle outfit" that she went to church in this week.

We think she looks like a turtle when she burps.

Eva is a good baby!

So we're finally figuring out this whole baby thing and we are learning that it does not necessarily mean that our whole life style has to change. Admittedly, Eva is a very good baby who doesn't cause too much trouble, and we are able to do more or less the same sorts of things we did without her. It just takes a little more planning.

Since everyone who is reading this is much more interested in Eva than in us (we're just boring adults), I'll start this post talking about her. First of all, she is growing a lot! We had her one month check-up this week (has it already been a month?) and she is growing at twice the normal rate. This growth is not in fat either, since her weight is not too abnormal, but she is very long- like a worm.

Also, she seems to be satisfied that we are well trained in responding to her needs and she doesn't have to drill us so much any more. That must be why she has spread out her feedings to every 4 hours (instead of every two) and why she has started to sleep through the night. At first we were a little worried, being first time parents and all, that this was a bad omen. The doctor just told us to count our blessings though. Like I said, she is a very good baby.

Now about us. As we have been getting used to having a baby, we have spent a lot of time watching movies that we checked out from the library. Thankfully, we were also able to have some "us" time this week. Our friends, the Cowdens, approached us and offered to babysit for a night while we went out, and we had a nice dinner and were able to talk about things besides Evelyn (although she did wiggle her way into the conversation quite frequently). Also, we went out on a date yesterday and just brought her along. We went to Eggshelland and to the movie "The Great Debaters," and had fun at both.

Anyway, I realize that nobody likes reading long blogs and they just want pictures, so here are the goods...

Ev started drinking from a bottle this week. This means that now I can feed her, which I actually really enjoy. Also, it means that Rachel has some freedom because Eva can now be babysat. Because of this, Rachel will be able to return to work soon, which she is looking forward to.

Here's Eva in her Sunday best. She is starting to learn to just deal with the fact that we are going to take a lot of pictures.

This was taken after her bath. She hates taking baths- hence the look of terrified betrayal on her face.

Here she is in her swing. She is growing quite fond of this toy.

If anyone actually read the blog (instead of just browsing the pictures) then they are probably wondering what in the world Eggshelland is. Well, there is this older couple here in Cleveland who decorate their lawn with eggshells every Easter. They've been doing this for the last 50 years! They handpaint every egg, and then put them all together to make larger pictures. This would be a lot of work, considering the fact that the whole thing usually uses around fifty thousand eggs! The one this year (above) was limited to "just" 6,500 eggs, because of the snow due to an early Easter. Usually it looks more like the picture below, which was last year's display.

Pretty cool!

Progress

It has been a fun process learning how to breastfeed while covered up. With both sets of parents here for three weeks I had plenty of time to practice. I think these pictures effectively show my progress. I am pretty proud of the cover up in the second picture. My mom and I made it together while she was here. I love eyelet material but I have never had a reason to use it. The cover up is made out of yellow eyelet (flowers) fabric with purple edging.

The final picture is the first one of a series that I am taking with Evelyn. I decided to post this one on both blogs. The link to my pregnancy pictures will now have pictures of Evelyn that I will take monthly. This first picture was taken at two weeks (I have procrastinated putting it on here...) and the rest will be taken monthly starting tomorrow! Wow, she is already one month old!

There is another new post below if you haven't seen it yet.

Lucky

I am loving being a new mom! Logan is really enjoying his time with Evelyn as well. Today in church he looked at me and asked "why didn't we have one of these sooner?" Then he asked "Can we have another one now?" That, too, will be an exciting day.

Evelyn has had a crazy week. On Thursday and Friday she had her first growth spurt. She ate practically non stop and was awake both days except for a one hour nap. I did some research on the internet and found out that babies can either become very sleepy or very awake when they have a growth spurt. Eva is definately the wide awake variety. Her eating and sleeping patterns returned to normal and predictable on Saturday. It is very easy to predict when she needs to eat. One morning she ate at 4:57, 6:57, and 8:57. Crazy. She enjoys taking her sweet time when she eats. She needs exactly 20 minutes on each side, and today I found out that many babies only need 5-10 minutes in all! Last night an amazing thing happened. First, she was crazy hungry and ate two feedings back to back. Then, she slept through the night! The first time I woke up was at 5. Hooray!

Things are starting to get back to a normal schedule around here. Logan is working hard on a research grant proposal for his new summer research job. He is going to be working on an interesting project related to endodontic surgery. He worked in a research lab for three years at BYU on his own project related to plant genes, and he is excited to work on a project with results that will directly affect his profession (and that people care about and can understand).

FYI- I've decided to take pictures to document little Eva's growth. I have a stuffed animal that will be in all of the pictures so it will be easy to see how much she grows. These pictures will be posted on the same link as my baby belly pictures. The first one is two weeks old and then I will take them every month.

Pictures...

My mom and dad were here for a week. We did a lot of fun things with them and we are very thankful for all of their help. Thanks Mom and Dad!

When Eva sleeps she likes having her hands above her head in a "praise-the-lord" position. In fact, she was being very fussy yesterday and her hands were all over the place, but as soon as they both found themselves above her head she was out cold- a tranquilizer dart couldn't have worked any better!

And here she is, wide awake and ready to take on the world.

Eva Girl

It has actually happened... Eva has taken over out blog. Apparently this is what people wanted. I never realized how many comments we could get by posting pictures of our baby girl. We love getting comments.

This week has been very eventful and most of it has been from the comfort of our own home. I am very pleased with my recovery, and have been out and about as often as possible. I have found, however, that little Eva has a lot of control over my schedule. I seem to be getting used to being sleep deprived. A very exciting thing happened today. For the first time in three weeks I wore jeans instead of Logan's scrubs. I have felt great, but have not been able to have anything against my incision. After an hour at Sam's Club I realized that I am very thankful for scrubs and will still be wearing them for a while.

Eva has been getting a lot of attention from her grandparents these last few weeks. My parents left on Wednesday morning and Logan's parents arrived on Wednesday night. Logan and I have really enjoyed the company and the help.

On Saturday we had a beautiful snowy day. It snowed about 18 inches and I enjoyed watching the blizzard through all of the windows in our sun room. Church was cancelled on Sunday for the first time I can ever remember. On Sunday we discovered that many cross country skiiers come out on the streets after snow storms.

The Many Faces of Courtney Hazard

I dedicate this post to my sister, Courtney Hazard. We love you!

Our little Bug

Evelyn is showing some personality now. She is very even-tempered, but is not afraid to be heard if she needs something. The nickname "bug" is starting to stick, because of some of the positions she gets into and the facial expressions she makes.

Today we blessed her at church, and showed her off to all of our friends. We have been receiving so much help from the people in our ward and in our neighborhood. If any of you are reading this, then we would like to say thank you, thank you, thank you.

We really feel very blessed to have her as a part of our family. I can start to see what people mean now when they say that you'll never really understand the joy of having children until you have them. She has brought a very special spirit into our home.

Here are some more pictures. On some of them, you may be able to see where the "bug" nickname comes from.