I haven't taken pictures in awhile, and I want to make sure to get some cute Evander shots before he gets too big! Don't want to give the 2nd kid short shrift in the photo department, you know?

I love this little head shot. What a funny expression he has on his face. And what chubby little cheeks... so cute.

Evander is four months old now, and he's growing out of his bassinet! He smiles a lot (whenever he sees a face, pretty much), and he likes to grab his toes. He rolls from back to side a lot. He has been waking up a lot during the night this past week... (ugh, five or six times a night... give me a break!), so maybe he is learning or developing or growing. Or maybe he is uncomfortable in his bed, ha ha!

He weighs 16.5 lbs and he's about 25" tall at the moment. He's comfortably wearing 6-9 month clothes.

Lewis is about 34.5 inches and weighs 28 lbs. He's definitely leaving the "count his age by the months age" (you know, "he's 21 months old"), and entering the TWO YEAR OLD age! Woo hoo. It's pretty fun, and he's been so much fun to watch. He's talking up a storm now, and is pretty much only held back by his pronunciation. Well, his sentence structure isn't perfect, either, but he's definitely communicating well. I recorded a couple of audio tracks of him on my mp3 player, so I will try to post those sometime soon for those who care (grandparents, I'm looking at you!)

Special note to Popi: whenever Lewis sees a photo of someone with a beard (or a person with a beard and glasses in public somewhere), he calls them "Popi."

Lewis is a great little helper. He loves to close doors for us (here he is closing the car door). He is fascinated by the car and driving. If you leave the front car doors open when he's loose, he will scramble in and try to buckle himself into the driver's seat. His dad has let him "drive" around our neighborhood a couple times. Lewis always gets distracted by the windshield wiper knobs and the stereo buttons and ignores the road, though! You have to have priorities, right? He drove one of those shopping cart cars at Lowe's yesterday, and he was pushing an imaginary button on the dashboard and saying "moo-ca?" (music).

He also likes to wear hats. I just let him choose a hat before we leave whenever we go outside, and he puts them on and wears them, no problem. I got him a little pair of sunglasses yesterday, too, and he wore those all afternoon.

Here's another pic of Lewis in one of his hats (Grandma Wanda-made!)

We met some of our neighbors the other day. They have a 2 year old boy and just had another baby boy last week. They named their new baby Everest... so, we have an Evander and an Everest in the neighborhood! I am sure Lewis and their older boy will become buddies as soon as little boys start to become buddies. They had fun playing on the playground sort of with each other... they picked up rocks from the rock pile and handed them to each other.

Well, I have a lot more pictures to share, but I should use this precious naptime (I'm FREEEEEE!) to do some not-so-free-feeling housework and other work...

I will keep the photos and use them to prompt blogs for the rest of the week, maybe. :) Let me post another photo of Evander before I go, though.

He's laid back!

Kids are great, and there's no magic number age-wise that is the "best" for everyone. However, there is an important situation in which to have children:

Number ONE: with a loving SPOUSE. Kids need two parents, and they need love and security. If you aren't married, it's probably not a good time to have children.

I would also suggest waiting until you no longer have the word "teen" in the number of your age...

I personally waited until I was almost 30 to have my first kid, and I definitely feel like I was ready and that I had a chance to "enjoy life" before I became a mom. ("Enjoy life" = be selfish, not in a bad way).

Nobody's story is the same. Some people have kids nine months after they get married, and it's great. Some people wait a long time before having kids, and it's also great. Some people adopt, and it's great. Once you are committed to having a kid (like, when you're pregnant), it's a great time to have a kid. Kids are a gift from God, and there are many blessings that come along with having them. There are lots of challenges, too, but that is part of the depth of forging a parent-child relationship.

p.s. I have several friends who are adoptive/foster single parents, and I totally don't think they made a bad decision by becoming a parent. I also have friends who are single parents, or unmarried parents, and I would never condemn them or say that they did a bad thing by becoming parents. I just think that the most ideal situation in which to have a kid is when you are married.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

This is one of those non-attributable things circulating around the internet, but I just read it and laughed out loud so hard that Lewis had to join in laughing...

10 Lessons to Learn Before You Have Kids

Lesson 1
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who
already are parents and berate them about their…
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s
breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and
overall behavior.

Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have

all the answers.

Lesson 2
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel…
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the
living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately
8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious
sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go
to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag,
until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink
and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work
hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful
and together.

Lesson 3
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out…
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there
all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How
does that look?

Lesson 4
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms
hang out.
Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 5
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave
it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look
like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove
compartment. Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into
the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them
with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 6
Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you
can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent
choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely
take more than one goat. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the
goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having
children.

Lesson 7
1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into
the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the
air. You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 8
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney,
Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS,
the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you’re
thinking What’s ‘Noggin’?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 9
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying ‘mommy’ repeatedly.
(Important: no more than a four second delay between each ‘mommy’;
occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required).

Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now
ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 10
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else
continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while
playing the ‘mommy’ tape made from Lesson 9 above.

You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.