ice skating!

I'm supposed to be doing some work, and I don't have the video from this past weekend yet, but it's just too cute not to post right now.
First, a quick update on Evalana's health. I called the nurse this morning. When I was leaving the message for the nurse, after I had given her all of the information, she said, "So basically you're calling because your baby is cranky?" Uh, yeah, pretty much. I got a call back this afternoon (I guess a fussy 1-year-old wasn't the top priority for a return call), and the nurse said that both Evalana's regular doctor and the doctor she saw last week talked and said that it would be normal for Evalana to still be fussy. They said just to continue what we're doing, as long as she isn't getting worse. And the nurse even thanked me for calling with my concern. Great! So to distract her from her fussyness, we went to the zoo this afternoon, and had a wonderful time! We went to Australia, the rain forest, and saw the sea lion show. Evalana especially enjoyed the sheep and the sea lions.
Friday Gigi (Joshua's mom, Gina) came for a visit. It was great to have her here! Saturday morning we went together to the Louisburg Cider Mill Ciderfest. It was a beautiful fall day.
Saturday afternoon Evalana had her first ice skating lesson with Coach Aunt Michelle. Michelle's job is being an amazing ice skating coach, so she's been waiting for the moment Evalana's feet became a size 6 so they could fit into the smallest skates they have at the rink (although usually kids don't start until they're three years old). There was actually just barely enough lace to get the boot laced up around her thick calves. We probably could have picked a better day for Evalana's mood since she was still grumpy (just hesitant and attached to mom and dad) from being sick, but it was fun anyway. Hopefully Joshua will be able to post some videos soon, but here are the pictures my parents took. For only walking for three months, I think she did pretty well.

tease

I have a lot of work work to do, so I'll have to tell you about the weekend later, but here's one photo for your "appetizer."

pink medicine update

Just a little update on Evalana's health. On Thursday she was diagnosed with an ear infection and given Amoxicillin. The medicine is (i think) disgusting with red dye and artifical bubble gum flavor and who knows what else. why can't they just give me the medicine? I can sweeten and flavor it. I don't understand the point of the dye at all though. it's gross. She does take it easily, though. So by Friday afternoon she seemed to be feeling much better. But now she's just unhappy. Not nearly as upset as she was crying and sleeping all day on Thursday, but she just acts uncomfortable and cranky. Is it something else, is it some reaction to the medicine, does she just need more time to get over last week's sickies? Ugh. I'll look forward to when she can tell me a little more clearly what's hurting. I'm not sure yet if I'll take her back to the doctor tomorrow or call the nurse or what. Suggestions? Seven more days on the disgusto medicine.

stickers for samson

While Evalana was sick, one thing that made her sometimes smile a little was her puppies.

ear infection

Just got back from Evalana’s doctor appointment. She seemed to be improving a little through the day yesterday, but today she’s been either crying, sleeping, or nursing, so Joshua made an appointment for her. Our regular doctor wasn’t in today, so we got an appointment with Dr. Young at the College Park Family Care office that’s just a few minutes from our house (much better than the 20-minute drive to Dr. Kaufman’s office with a sad girl). I actually really liked Dr. Young, too. They tested her for strep and influenza, and both came back negative. Dr. Young said her left ear was very bright red, though. He suggested that maybe she did have a virus and now that’s gone, but it has caused an ear infection. While I don’t like giving unnecessary antibiotics, her infection seems bad enough that I think we’ll go ahead and give her the amoxicillin. And hopefully she’ll be feeling much better tomorrow. And for those who are curious, she was 28 ½ pounds.
Joshua was supposed to go golfing for work yesterday, and the weather was perfect, but he was such a helpful daddy and decided to work from home yesterday. Grandma Moser came over yesterday evening, which was also helpful. Today I’ve been able to spend lots of time cuddling with and praying for Cutie while she sleeps on me.
Thank you for the prayers for her health. We continue to be so thankful for her overall health and our access to medical care.
The pictures in her green shirt are from Wednesday evening when she was feeling a little better after her virus. The sleepy wrap pictures are Thursday when her ear hurt.

Sick Little Girl

Joshua here - hijacking Rachel's blog. I just wanted to put up a quick post asking for prayer for our little girl. Nothing real serious - she just feels really, really bad. Last night about 8:30, Evalana just got very irritable and sad all of a sudden - like she was uncomfortable to the point of pain. It seemed to be severe gas, but as the night wore on it was not going away. Rachel and Evalana both were up all night. In the middle of the night, Evalana threw up like a big girl (possible form the gripe water we gave her) and by early morning she had developed a mild fever (much warmer to the touch than normal, but no chills or sweats/shakes or anything). So anyway, she has been very sad and very uncomfortable since yesterday evening. Despite that, she still tries to put up a brave smile every now and again. Please join us in thanking Jesus for our darling daughter, for the blessing of her good general health, and ask that He would touch her little body and help her to get over this bug soon. Thanks everyone.

Also, I'm sure it will come as no surprise to all of you. But Rachel has been tireless, tender, and an absolutely amazing mother to our little sickie. She is awesome.

silly girl

a couple of videos of a regular afternoon with silly girl
(for some reason it's not letting me reorder these things right now, so watch the video of the chair (the second video) first and the first video (of the crib) second. or watch them backwards. i don't care--just telling you the order they happened i guess).

You can also get to more of evalana's videos with the links to the right, under her photos, or by going to http://vimeo.com/channels/evalana.


(also updated the http://100babies.blogspot.com/2009/09/doggie-chores.html post with better video).

Ah, is your skirt on backwards?

little kid at the family celebration

Westside had a family celebration this afternoon. Evalana had lots of fun playing, and Joshua and I realized that we have a little kid rather than a baby now. She had a great time running around and playing on some of the little kid things.


More video with the bad camera:

She enjoyed her time in her classroom at church, as usual. Then we played on the playground, bouncy, and rode the train while Joshua helped with one of the big-kid inflatables. Joshua actually helped with the same type of big slide obstacle course inflatable thing in South Africa (with kids who have never seen inflatable rides before). He said the kids in South Africa flew down the slide and usually bounced right off the end of it. The kids today, though, followed all the proper rules for a safe experience.

Evalana played hard and then fell asleep by the time we backed out of our parking spot to head home. She should be ready for the Swedish Festival soon.

sign language teacher

Evalana is now teaching me sign language. We love being able to communicate through sign language. Evalana has recently been inventing her own signs. Sometimes it takes me a minute to figure out what she’s trying to say, and sometimes I never get it. Last week she handed me a ball and then in Evalana sign language asked me to throw it. I caught on and threw it, and she was very pleased. I thought as long as we’re signing “throw,” I’ll look up what the actual ASL sign is so we can do it correctly. Apparently Evalana had already looked it up; she was doing the sign perfectly. I have a feeling we’ll be learning a lot from this sweet girl.

doggie chores

We just got home from a wonderful evening at the dog park. The weather was perfect, the setting sun was huge, the clouds and sky were beautiful colors, and there was even a rainbow without any rain. Evalana enjoyed all the puppies and so did Samson and Abner. We really should try to get to the dog park more often.
Evalana's favorite chore that she does is feeding the dogs. I recorded this with our camera that takes very poor quality video. Sorry. We'll try to get a better one later. Oh and everything that's usually on the deck is also piled inside since we stained the deck today. Evalana takes her puppy-feeding chores very seriously.

Here's another video we made with the better camera on 9/20:

At the dog park, Samson always stays right with us, or at least comes as soon as we call him. Riley used to run into the middle of the lake when it was time to leave. Here's Abner's method to get more time at the park:

praying

Thanks to the amazing children’s ministry and teachers at Westside, Evalana loves going to church. As I think I mentioned before, Evalana learned to pray in her classroom at church. Joshua and I usually held hands when we prayed, but one day when she came home from church, she folded her hands together when we sat down at a meal—pretty cute to see evidence of how much a baby can learn at church when the teaching is age-appropriate. Evalana now frequently folds her hands and looks at me to pray. Anytime she feels like praying—which is whenever anyone sits down at a table, frequently throughout meals, and randomly throughout the day. The current teaching series at Westside is on prayer. Last week’s message emphasized praying continually. Apparently Evalana’s got that one down and is doing a great job of reminding us of how important that is. What a sweet gift God has given us in our Evalana.

One other note about Evalana in church. Last Saturday evening the code came up on the wall during service which meant they were short handed with teachers, so Joshua left the service to see if he could help. He ended up being assigned to Evalana’s classroom, which was a great treat. He said it was interesting to see her in that environment—where she was happy to be playing with friends and didn’t care too much that Daddy was in the room with her. He came back with a couple of funny stories, though. One: she’s a pacifier thief (which we already knew from our peeks in the classroom window). She’s never used a pacifier, so she probably thinks they’re dog toys or something interesting. The other story was that they use a bunch of rings on a rope for the kids to hold on to to try to keep track of everyone while walking to the playground. When they opened the playground gate, Evalana was the first one to run to the play equipment. On the way back, Evalana was at the back end of the rope line, and she decided to try pulling all of the kids backwards. She’s been working on pulling all sorts of things backwards at home, so I’m not surprised, but we kind of laughed about what the teachers have to deal with.

naps

I have lots of posts I’ve wanted to write about this sweet girl who amazes me every day, but her nicely predictable 8:00ish wakeup, 10:30am 30-45 minute nap, 45-60 minute afternoon nap, and then 8:30 bedtime is now all messed up. I guess she’s getting older and doesn’t need as much napping. One nap isn’t enough and two is too much. She’s not tired until around lunch time. If she takes a nap then, she’s ready for another about 5pm or so, which makes for a late (around 10:30) bedtime. If I try to delay the nap to early afternoon time in an attempt to get just one, she’s cranky until she gets her nap and then she goes to bed early, but she thinks it’s her other nap, and she pops back up for another late bedtime. I like the two-nap-plan since it gives me a chance to do a couple of things in the morning if she falls asleep in her stroller. Oh well, I guess she needs to keep growing up. Any suggestions for this nap transition? I’m so thankful to have a flexible enough schedule that we can let it work itself out in whatever time it takes.

Go Chiefs!

And smashy face looking out the front screen door.

Evalana's one-year photos

The photos Heather took of Evalana are up at http://heathernelsonphotography.com/, password "evalana". If you want to order any, you can either do it through us or through Heather by September 30th. Heather takes such great photographs!

house cleaner

I've been trying to figure out a way to get a house cleaner for free, but so far we've only come up with living in a not-perfectly-clean house. And we'd much rather have our sweet girl than have extra time to clean. But Evalana has recently taken on the house cleaning duties. I really don't know how she even knows how to clean--as little as we get to those things these days, but she actually does a good job of it! Here are some examples of the things she's done this week:

• Evalana favorite cleaning tool are her wipes we keep in a basket by her diaper stuff. When I bring the diaper laundry up, she takes the wipes out and puts them in her basket. This week she's decided to keep the wipe basket behind her rocking chair.
• When Joshua was powerwashing the outside of the house, Evalana got one of her wipes and wiped the inside of the windows.
  Evalana picked up a couple of the tiniest crumbs off of the kitchen floor and handed them to me.
• She handed me a little piece of something off the living room floor, and I didn't feel like going to the trashcan at the moment, so I dropped it (and didn't think she saw me do it), and she picked it right back up and handed it back to me.
• I washed my hands and then dripped a little water on the kitchen floor, and she grabbed a towel and wiped up my drips.
• She dribbled a couple drops of pee on the floor before letting me know she needed to go potty. After she finished on her potty, she grabbed a couple of wipes and ran to her mess and wiped it up.
• When we feed the dogs, if any pieces fall on the floor, she picks them up and puts them back in the dog bowls. (She's also really good at giving the dogs their medicine).
• If we leave our shoes or socks in the living room, she throws them over the gate, downstairs.
• She found a piece of fuzz on the floor, took it upstairs, opened the trashcan, and threw it inside.

a few more photos

Heather has posted a few more of our family photos on her blog: http://heathernelsonphotography.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/the-vaughn-family/.

more babies (not pregnant, as far as we know)

“So, you ready for another one yet?” That seems to be an extremely popular question since Evalana’s first birthday on August 1st. My answer is always an enthusiastic “Yes, trusting God.” Before we even started dating, I told Joshua I wanted to have 42 kids, and it’s probably even stranger that he’s okay with that. We’d love to have kids by birth, adoption, however God asks of us. I remember the moment Evalana was freshly born and lying on my chest, I instantly knew how people could want to have many children. While I hoped we’d have a little time with just this one before preparing for another, I’d love to hold another squishy new baby anytime. When people ask me when we’re going to have another, I wonder how much they really want me to tell them about ovulation and how much they believe we can or should have control over our baby timing. Joshua and I have practiced NFP during our marriage and are thankful for the openness that it has taught us to have about God’s will in the creation of little humans that will be trusted to us. Anyway, we’ll be sure to let you know when we do find out we’re pregnant. We’re not trying not to get pregnant, but average return of ovulation for a breastfeeding mom is 15 months, and we’ll just wait and find out what God has planned for our family. I do sometimes worry about still being able to breastfeed Evalana if I were to get pregnant again, but, as my smart husband says, “I’m sure it’ll all work out.” It’s amazing how much joy Evalana shares with our family. We love our little girl so much and look forward to hopefully many more, however God adds them.
I’m pretty sure God asks each family to do something a little different as far as their family planning. I had started on this post and then last night heard on Family Life Today a broadcast on deciding when to start having kids. We are so thankful we didn’t wait until the most convenient and planned out time to have our sweet Evalana.

And the picture is of Evalana's current favorite necklace. We're hoping she turns out to be the great seamstress she looks like :-)

cutest little bottom

Several weeks ago I bought underwear for Evalana since I'd been putting her in a diaper even when I knew she wasn't going to potty. Joshua doesn't like the underwear since he thinks it's too big girl for our baby. She is wearing size children's XS shirts in these pictures--apparently we're beyond both baby and toddler land. Evalana's doing so well with EC. It's great having underwear for her. I took a clean diaper off of her when she first woke up this morning, and she didn't wear any diapers or potty on the floor today, and then we put a diaper back on her for bedtime. When we're out running errands or doing things, I do put a diaper on her since I don't pay attention to her timing and signals as well when we're out.

13 months

Today our little Evalana is 13 months old. She’s so big. Every day she’s learning and doing new things, so I’m not even quite sure what to write about. One of her favorite games is playing in our walk-in closet and hiding and having us hide in the clothes. She’s really funny. She loves playing in water and always wants to be outside. My favorite sign she’s learned is “help.” Tonight, though, she looked like she was signing “toilet” while going potty—that’s going to be my favorite sign when she starts using it to tell me she needs to go potty. Another thing she enjoys doing is grabbing my head and shoving it into Joshua because she likes to see him kiss and hug me—would be very sweet if she were a little more gentle about it. Evalana wants to help me with everything, but with a lot of things now, she actually is a good helper. She hands me clothes as we’re putting away laundry, and some items she can even put away herself. She also understands pretty much everything we say to her, so I can give her directions to go get something or take something somewhere, and she’ll go do it. She loves to be involved in whatever it is everyone else is doing. Evalana has learned how to get up into her blue rocking chair and adult-sized chairs by herself and can usually slide down off of furniture pretty well by herself, too. Oh, and another favorite game she made up is the stinky sock game. Last week while playing in the closet, she picked up one of Joshua’s dirty socks, smelled it and made a scrunched up nose face, and then tried to shove it into Joshua’s face. Joshua acted like it was a very offensive stinky sock, and Evalana thought it was hilarious and loves to keep playing. Evalana is working on several molars, which is making her bedtime sleep a little more restless, so we’re looking forward to those getting on through. This girl really does amaze us and keep us laughing every day. We are incredibly thankful to be her parents. Oh, and i took Evalana's measurements this morning, and she's 28.2 pounds and 30.5 inches.

Evalana's one-year photos

Some of Heather's pictures of Evalana are ready. You can see them at http://heathernelsonphotography.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/exploring-everything/ or on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=98469&id=73658792980&ref=mf.