Evelyn is One

Evelyn turned one yesterday! I just can't believe it. I will have birthday pictures up over the next couple of weeks (as well as the Christmas holiday pics). Evelyn also goes to the doctor next week....so an update coming soon.

Happy Birthday Little Girl....mommy and daddy love you!

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas. I'm going to take the rest of the holiday week off, but expect several post of holiday pictures. He is one great photo of Evelyn eating marshmello cream for the first time.

What a day!

Yesterday was one of the most craziest days of my life. For the last couple of weeks we have been looking for a new car to replace the blazer. It had been acting up and we knew it was going to die any day. So about two weeks ago we found our dream car....2004 Nissan Armada. It had everything we wanted...black, 4 weel drive, towing package, navigation system, dvd player, leather, power lift gate.....I mean everything and best of all it had an amazing price. So we had it transfered from the Carmax in Memphis, TN to Charlotte. But here is the catch....it could take a couple of weeks go arive and we had a car that was dying.

So, last thursday the blazer got to the point that it wasn't safe to drive. Daniel started it up thursday morning and it just sounded really bad. So he worked from home that day and I drove him to work on Friday. Justin Evans came over Sunday to fix the car and confirmed that we should only drive it to Carmax when our new car comes in.....ohhhhh.

So now to the crazy day. Yesterday we left the house a few minutes before 8am and drove to Daniel's work near uptown. Then I drove Evelyn to Gina's house in Kannapolis so I could go to work and get some things done. After dropping Evelyn off I went to work (church office) in Concord. Got some work done and then drove to the movie theatre at Concord Mills to give them an updated staff list. Then home for lunch. After lunch I drove to walmart in Concord to pick up a perscription and then back to the house. My sister arived and wanted to do a little shopping....so back to the mall for an hour. At 3:30 we proceeded to Kannapolis to pick up Evelyn, then to uptown to pick up Daniel, and then home. While driving home, Carmax called and said our car was in. Awesome!!!! More driving!!!

So got home and ate some dinner. Went outside to load into the Blazer and it wouldn't start....ahhhhhh. After using the Malibu to jump start it we were finally on our way and praying that the Blazer didn't die before we got to Carmax.

We made it to Carmax, spent 2 hours buying a car, and finally made it home around 9:45pm.

What a day! What a beautiful car.....just in time for Christmas! The great thing.....no payments until February! Time to recover from Christmas :)

And the best thing about the whole day....Evelyn was a trooper....I think she spent a total of 3 hours in the car yesterday! We won't talk about how many hours I was in the car :(

(pictures to come soon)

Evelyn is Walking

Evelyn has started taking a few steps at a time. I tried to put a collection of videos together in one video but I couldn't get it to upload. So her is the best single video I've got.

Notice I yell at Rusty at the beginning...he like to get in the way of Evelyn walking. I don't think he likes the idea of her being so mobile (first rolling, then crawling, then walking).

Bag Baby

While visiting family on Thanksgiving day, Daniel decided to entertain Evelyn by putting her in the diaper bag. As you can tell....she had so much fun.

Chocolate Gravy

It's a tradition in the Perkins family to have Chocolate Gravy Thanksgiving morning and Christmas morning. This year Daniel's parents were visiting us during Thanksgiving and we all sat down for the famous breakfast. I know it sounds weird, but its chocolate on fluffy biscuits is just amazing. This year Evelyn got to participate in the chocolate festivities. Below are two pictures of her eating Chocolate Gravy for the first time.

Thanks Sandra...it was ohhh so good.

Fun with Mick

A couple of weekends ago, we went to hilton head for my Nana's birthday. While there, Nana gave Evelyn this teddy bear. This is the first Micky teddy bear and we named him Mick. So when Daniel's parents came to visit us for Thanksgiving Sandra got a great picture of Evelyn playing with Mick and Grandpa Clay.

Thanks Nana for the wonderful bear. Evelyn just loves it.

Holding the Bottle

While Daniel's parents visited during the Thanksgiving holiday, Sandra was able to capture Evelyn holding her own bottle. You might think I'm crazy, but this is a big accomplishment for Evelyn. I have been holding her bottle for her for 11 months. Starting with 8 feedings a day, down to her current feeding schedule of 4 bottles a day. Thats 1,710 bottles being held by me, Daniel, or other family member/friend. Wow....thanks to all of you who held Evelyn's bottle.

More pics to come from our Thanksgiving week.

11 Months

Evelyn is 11 months today. I can't believe we almost have a toddler. It's been so much fun these past 11 months having Evelyn around. We reached some major milestones this month.

1. No more acid reflux medication

2. No more rice cereal in bottle

3. Refusing most baby food

4. Eating Cheerios

5. Eating Crackers

6. Well, eating anything that you will let her try

7. Holding own bottle

8. Removing socks and shoes on her own

9. Sliding off the couch gracefully (sometimes)

10. Standing for long periods of time with no assistance

Coming soon....mommy going back to work 2 days a week, walking, sippy cup, christmas, birthday, ending formula, and so much more.

Bottle Independence

So Evelyn reached a major milestone this week (well at least its major to us). She is finally holding her own bottle and feeding herself...yahhhhhhhh! This is something that we have been struggling with for a while as we watch other kids hold her own bottle. I didn't know what I was going to do....how was she going to hold her own sippy cup when she can't hold her own bottle.

Currently we use Avent bottles. They make sippy cups that the handles and sippy part detach from the sippy cup. So this week I tried putting the handles on the bottle and with in one day Evelyn had the hang of it. This is such a relief.

Next up....putting the sippy part on the bottle. Then.....transiton to the sippy cup. The goal is for her to be drinking out of the sippy cup by the time she is one. We will see how that goes.

(I don't have a picture of her holding the bottle yet because she likes to be held while drinking and I kind of enjoy that to....she will only give me so much cuddle time.)

Beautiful Life

Life as a wife and monther is so amazing. While thinking about how wonderful my life is and discovered this song...Beautiful Life by Fisher. It's currently the song being used in alot of advertisments on TLC and I just love the song. Below I have included the lyrics. While visiting this blog you will also hear the song.

Hey child up and go
Big world is out there waiting for us to
Live in every day

Outside you will find
There is love all around you
Takes you, makes you wanna' say

That it's a beautiful life
And it's a beautiful world
And it's a beautiful time
To be here, to be here, to be hereYea!

The sky's blue
Just us two
Side by side we'll see the world
That surrounds us
Hey, seize the day

Each road - every mile's a photograph in motion
To astound us, carry us away

Into a beautiful life
'Cause it's a beautiful world
And it's a beautiful time
To be here,

To be here!

Leave all your cares behind you
The sun is rising
Turn around it's right in front of you
And it's a beautiful life
And it's a beautiful time
To be here, to be here, to be here

Visiting Greensboro

This week Evelyn and I went to Greensboro to visit my parents. We had four fun filled days of Christmas and Birthday shopping. While on the trip, I took a photo of my parents and Evelyn for their Christmas card. I will not post the pic being used for the card but here is a test picture. I really wanted you guys to just see the dress she is wearing. My mom and dad gave it to her and its just super cute. More pics to come from my Greensboro visit.

Happy Halloween #3

Last Saturday, Evelyn went to her first halloween party. She also discovered straw for the first time. (Thanks Lori for the photos)

Xbox with Daddy

Last year for Christmans, Daniel got me the pink Xbox controller. Now the controller belongs to Evelyn. We have taken out the batteries and she will just play with it for hours. Well, really only minutes. But thats hours in baby time. So a couple of weeks ago, I caught Daniel and Evelyn playing Xbox together. Looks like I've got a gamer on my hands (just what I need, two gamers).

Happy Halloween #2

This afternoon, I let Evelyn play with halloween build-a-bear that my sister gave me a couple of years ago. My birthday is around halloween (27th) and so I got this really cute orange bear with a pumpkin costume on it. Evelyn had so much fun playing with it.

Candy bag belongs to the bear

Kisses for the bear

Snuggles for the bear

More snuggles

Happy Halloween #1

Today, I will be taking alot of photos since its Evelyn's first halloween. Therefore, I decided to break them up in a couple of posts. Here are the first pics from this morning.

Evelyn and Rusty sharing a toy.

Evelyn always seems to have her mouth open for pics!


And another mouth open pic!

Getting sassy!

Happy Girl!

High Ropes Course

In a past post I talked about our trip to Camp Cedar Cliff. While on this trip I faced my fears and went on the High Ropes Course. Last year I was pregnant, so I had a good excuse. But this year...no excuse. So below are some pics to prove that I went on the course and was scared to death. (Thanks Allyson for the pics)

10 Months

Today Evelyn is 10 months old. We don't go to the doctor this month but it doesn't look like she has grown much. Evelyn loves to stand up. She can pretty much use anything to stand up (couch, toys, windows, walls, dishwasher, etc). She doesn't need anything to pull up on a flat surface like our glass sliding door (which is just crazy). Evelyn is "cruising" all the furniture, toys, walls, etc. She will even walk with help from us or her walker.

We are currently working on transitioning to a sippy cup. So far its not going well since she doesn't like to hold her own drink. The goal is to have her using a sippy cup by 12 months. After her first birthday, we will transition to regular milk. Evelyn is eating baby food as well as finger food. She just loves fruits like peaches, pineapple, and pears. She has also tried small potatoes, rice, corn, and bread. So far, she will pretty much eat anything but green foods.

This month we have gotten two new toys that she just loves and I figured I would let you know about them (for all the moms that have children younger than me). First is the Fisher-Price Brilliant Basics: Activity Walker. Its a walker and becomes a wagon then your child is a little older. She just loves it and will use it to walk around (with some help). The second toy is vtech Sit to Stand Alphabet Train. She just got this toy today and is very interested in it. You can sit and play with all the buttons. You can use the front part of the train as a walker. And lastly, you can sit on the back part of the train and drive around.

I caught Evelyn in action (about to sit down)

Traveling Weekends

This month has been full of fun filled weekends. Last weekend, Daniel and I went to Camp Cedar Cliff with Kinetic Worship for a high school camp. Daniel H, Matt N, Aaron E, Cameron K, and my husband are in a band that likes to play outside our church. So the band guys, Allyson H., Mike, Lauren, and I all went to Asheville for the weekend. It was a fun filled weekend of great Worship, delicious food, and new adventures (I did the high ropes course). Special thanks to my parents for taking care of Evelyn while we were at camp.

This weekend, I was able to go to Asheville again on the first ever Kinetic Women's Retreat. What an awesome weekend to Worship, grow and learn more about Jesus, and fellowship with some of my best friends. Thank you to all the women on the trip....it was an awesome weekend. And thank you to my wonderful husband for being a single parent for the weekend.

This coming weekend Evelyn will attend her first ever Halloween Party. More about that to come.

Below are some pictures of the beautiful leave in Asheville.

Walking with Assistance - Video

Take One

Take Two

Walking with Assistance

This week Evelyn decided it was time to walk (well, with some help from us). She is currently walking while holding on to our hands and just loves it.

For some reason I'm having trouble posting the video of Evelyn's new trick. Hopefully I can get it up soon.

Fun at the Mall

Sandra (Evelyn's grandma) and Mildred (Evelyn's great grandma) came to Charlotte to see Evelyn. We went to the mall and played on some toy cars.

Chili Cook-Off

Each year our church has a Chili Cook-Off. This year was just amazing. Perfect weather, great chili, and wonderful friends. Below are some pics from the cook-off.

Evelyn hanging on to Jonas' stroller while he gets his first taste of a rock (Boys will be Boys).

Evelyn and me on the sand volleyball court.

Kitchen bowls are more fun than toys!

Evelyn discovers that a kitchen bowl is more fun than her toys.

First Carter Brothers Trip

Friday Evening, the whole family went to Archdale to have dinner with Daniel's parents (Clay just turned 51....so we were celebrating). We met at Carter Brothers (Daniel's favorite bbq place) and it was Evelyn's first visit. While there she also tested her new sippy cup for the first time.

Coffee Table at Emerald Isle

While at the beach last week, Evelyn discovered the coffee table (we don't have one in our home) and had so much fun using it to stand. Below are some pictures of her with the coffee table.

Playground Time at Emerald Isle

Evelyn got some play time on the neighborhood playground.