The birthday PARTY (May 11th)

Not to be limited to one day of festivities, Evan had a lovely birthday party with his and Mommy and Daddy's friends. We had brisket, brats, potato salad, cole slaw, baked beans, and plenty of good times to celebrate. And of COURSE presents and cake.

What a great day!

The birthday (May 10th)

Well...it has taken us a week to recuperate from our wild birthday festivities last weekend! Evan had a wonderful birthday. Daddy got in early that morning, Mommy made a special breakfast, lunch came from Popeye's fried chicken, and dinner was at Casa Rita's...with complimentary birthday sopapillas! Mmmmmmm...

And of course the day was spent opening and playing with presents! Enjoy the pics...they tell the story!

Who let this happen??????

My baby will be three tomorrow. Who let this happen?

Who let him grow this much in one year?

Who let him turn into a stinky little boy instead of a chubby roly-poly stumbly toddler?


Look into his eyes. Tell me the answer.

Still cute though, ain't he? Kitty (in the background) agrees.

The big boy bed actually gets a bed!

Now that we feel fairly certain that Evan won't fall out of his bed, we have finally upgraded from a mattress on the floor to an actual bed. Bryan was in town last weekend, so he was able to go ahead and put it together for the boy!

Here are photos of Evan "helping" Daddy put the bed together. Evan thinks Daddy's even cooler now than he did before. Why? Because Daddy used tools just like Handy Manny!

Enjoy...

Easter in Shreveport...

Since Bryan has been working out of town, Evan has been really missing him (as has Mommy). So on Easter weekend, when it was looking like Bryan was going to be off for a few hours, Mommy and Evan headed to Shreveport!

And you might guess what happened next: Daddy got called to work overnight. :) :) :)

So here are photos of Easter morning...with a very tired Daddy and a happy Evan. Right after these photos, we all went to breakfast--and then Mommy and Evan headed back home.

Such is life. Happy belated Easter!

Evan and monkey--1, Mommy--0

As the mother of an almost 3-year old, potty training is, of course, at the forefront of my mind. There's this weird pressure to have your child trained by the time s/he's 3...and I'm telling you folks...we ain't there yet. I've still got a week, though. :)

We've tried a number of approaches. We've got books. We've got DVDs. We've got reward stickers. We've got pull-ups. Pull-ups are useless, by the way. Why do they decorate them with super-awesome characters? How am I supposed to encourage Evan to give up his pull-ups when they have Lightning McQueen on them? Even the cheap Kroger pull-up knock-offs have police cars and fire trucks. He loves them! I think I'll have to go back to 7th Generation ones just so he'll be bored by them.

Anyhoo...I do have evidence that some of this potty training advice is getting through to him. Recently he decided to potty train Curious George. George did quite well... Then again, I think Evan has more patience than I do.

Enjoy the slideshow. Bear in mind that I didn't intervene--all of the actions depicted were from Evan's own imagination at work... :)