Milestones

Evelyn has gone through some fun milestones during the past few weeks and I wanted to share them with you. I also just posted a bunch more pictures, which I hadn't done in a while, those are on the lnk to the right.

The first that I need to talk about, obviously, is Thanksgiving. To be honest, Thanksgiving has never been one of my favorite holidays. I know, I know : ) Maybe it's because I'm not a huge fan of turkey. Maybe it's because I'm a huge fan of Christmas and so I'm too focused on what's coming next. Either way I've never been very excited about it. But this year was different. Even though she won't remember her first Thanksgiving and even though she actually had chicken for lunch, and even though she slept through the actual Thanksgiving dinner, it was still a great milestone! Experiencing her first Thanksgiving really made me think back to last year's Thanksgiving and ponder (yes, ponder-that's my East Coast husband influencing me) all the amazing changes since Thanksgiving 2007. I have so much to be thankful for and I think most of all I am grateful that Evelyn spent her first Thanksgiving, as I'm sure she will many to come, surrounded by friends and family who love her. We started off the day at out church's annual Turkey Bowl-watching Bard play flag football and hanging out with friends in the cold, drinking yumminess from those pretty red cups. We went over to Josh and Latisha's house, visited with more friends and family and ate great food while seemingly dozens of babies and toddlers ran around looking cute. We said goodbye to my parents, who even in the midst of this chaos are flying to Mumbai and then taking a train into the country to help impovershed children. And then we stayed up late, like the die hards we are, watching LOST at Josh and Latisha's house, which is one of our favorite weekly rituals. All in all it was a wonderful day and I am so thankful that Evy will grow up with so many amazing people supporting her and us. We are blessed.

But this is way too short for one of my blogs, so we can't end here!

Another milestone took place about week or so ago. As many of you have seen, when Evelyn gets excited she often flaps her arms up and down, looking of course, like a little birdie. So the first couple times she just used one arm I didn't think too much of it. But soon I realized that she was waving! She loves to wave now and will wave back at you if you wave at her. When she is in the car she can see herself in a little mirror that is hung on the seat in front of her and she has lots of fun smiling and waving at the super cute baby waving back at her! She gets very excited with everyone's enthusiastic response and the first few days that she waved I just about screamed (okay I did scream) every time which of course resulted in lots more waving! Now, you may think that this is only blog worthy due to the cuteness factor, but actually it's the smart factor! According to those who know, Evelyn is waving early, by at least 2 months! Yes, that's right, she is a genius. At the same time she has mastered the fine art of clapping. Unlike a while ago when I posted that she was clapping and missing her hands half the time, she now has it down and claps whenever I say "Yay!" or copies me as I clap. So between waving and clapping we have quite the aerobic work out. : )