Lazin' on a Sunday Afternoon

Today we went and took a walk around the beach, which was actually pretty crowded and there were so many people in the COLD water!!! Crazy Californians. I am going to get in the water before we leave though, no matter how cold it is so I guess I'm crazy too. :) We got a backpack carrier for Evelyn though so we wanted to try it out before we go hiking with her. She seems to like it so far!!!

I love this pic!!!

Out on the pier

Watchin' the waves

Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean. --Christopher Reeve--

Now that Evelyn has had a little experience at the ocean, we decided to take her to the pool! I thought that since she LOVES the bath tub then she would love the pool, right? Wrong!!! She was so scared! We took her to the "kiddie" pool first, which had this fountain thing in the middle which scared her.

So then we decided to take her over to the big pool, shallow end, and walk around with her. I think here she got a little scared because the water was a bit cool so the whole time she just buried her head in my shoulder and kinda peeked out once in awhile but overall just stayed hidden in my shoulder til she fell asleep. She was kinda tired before we went there so that might have been part of the problem too but oh well!

She didn't quite like the bathtub at first either so hopefully this will grow on her! I signed us up for a Mommy and Me swim class next month so hopefully by then she'll like it better. I just wanted to take her a few times before that to get her used to the whole thing but maybe I'll have to go a few more times than that if she keeps this up!

Being happy before we got in

Being scared at the kiddie pool

Getting in the big pool!

Plain tuckered out

But oh so cute!!!

"A cousin is a ready-made friend for life."

Yesterday morning little Jeremiah Chase officially became a member of the fam! His adoption was finalized and we're all very excited and happy that it's done with little problem! We're all excited to have him in the fam! So now that it's all official and everything I can finally put up pics of him on here! So here's a few pics of Jeremiah and Evelyn when we were out there.

Matching outfits!

These two are sooo cute!

Such a happy little guy! As long as his momma's around anyway... :)

Easter Sunday

They wanted to hunt eggs like the big kids

I just love this grumpy face!

He loves his brothers too

Almost all the grandkids!

He just LOVES his Momma!

This was when we first got to MO, before he had his lip surgery.

And this pic is after his surgery!

"Summertime and the living is easy"

One tip another Navy wife gave me is to make the most of each area you live in and focus on the positives instead of the negatives! So here is a list of things I love about California.

1. The BEAUTIFUL weather! All week my fam has been telling me of how awful the rain is at home or how hot and humid it is and I'm just like, awww! How sad! :) It's been beautiful almost everyday we've been here, in the 60's, sunny, and just wonderful! The only thing I can complain about is the wind, which makes it a bit chilly but hey! Better than hot, muggy, HUMID Missouri! :)

2. Being minutes away from the beach! We've only gone a couple times so far but I plan on going lots more while we're here. Evelyn loves it! I wish the water was warmer so I could put her in it but I'm going to take a Mommy and Me swim class with her so that should make up for it. I'm so excited for that btw! I can't wait to see her in the pool! She LOVES water!

3. Along with the beach there is a lot of other "nature" things to do. One top thing I want to do while we are here is go over to the Channel Islands and hike around there and see all the wildlife and plants and such. It's supposed to be really cool! There's also LOTS of other hiking places around the area which I would love to go to as well.

4. I know some people wouldn't be interested in the "non-nature" attractions here in SoCal but I am! One of course being Disneyland! I DEFINITELY plan on going there while we're here! I've never been to Disneyland or World so I'm excited! There's a few other theme parks besides that one too which is awesome because Utah SUCKED for theme parks and I love me some roller coasters! There's also lots of "Hollywood" stuff since we're pretty close to Hollywood too :) The one thing I want to do in that area is go to the Grauman's Chinese Theatre and do all the touristy things there.

5. There are many, many shopping centers, plus a great mall, PLUS an awesome Outlet Mall, all within 10 miles of the base! They have every store I love except..........a scrapbook store!!! Well I found one but it wasn't open Monday so that sucked, and then they do have JoAnn's and Michael's but still....nothing like Archiver's. I guess that's ok though cuz I left all my scrapbook stuff in storage so I can't scrapbook anyway but it's still fun to go to the stores. So yeah...I've been spending a lot of my time getting to know the area and going to a lot of the stores, which might sound like I'm a bit of a shopoholic but I promise I'm not! I'm more like a window-shopoholic :) Mark's pretty good with money so I try not to buy a whole lot of stuff and if I do then it's usually something for everything so that's ok right?

6. It's been a loooooooooooooong time since I've been back in Cali which means a loooong time since I've seen a lot of my fam here! I'm planning a trip up to San Jose/Santa Rosa in June and am so excited to see everyone up there! Annie will be there by then so I'm excited to see my fav sister and of course her darling children :) Oh and of course Andrew as well :) :) :) Then we're going to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Fredrick and I'm sure see some of the Aunts. And then hopefully I'll get to see my sister Katherine and some of that side of the fam. In San Jose I'm visiting Grandma Rose and Grandpa Dan and Aunt Denise with her two adorable little girls, Raven and Sydney. I hear they are absolutely ECSTATIC to meet Evelyn :) So that trip should be lots of fun.

7. Hmmm.....well I had a bunch of thoughts running around in my head but that was earlier and now it's late so they've gone so I think that's all I've got today but I think you get the gist of it all. I'm excited to be here and I hope we have a fun few months!

What? Did you expect me to do a post without any pictures? Ha! Well if you did then you don't know me very well :) These are from today when Evelyn and I went to the beach. I put sunblock on her and a hat, as you can see, which worked out a lot better! And, as you can also see, she's still fascinated by sand!

In a world that's all brand-new, Babies have so much to do! Tasting, touching, reaching high, Crawling under, scooting by...

Like I said in a previous post, Evelyn's not technically crawling yet but she's scootin and pushin' herself backwards so she's "mobile" now! It's been fun seeing where she ends up and seeing her get frustrated when she wants something ahead of her and she can't get to it or get frustrated cuz she's stuck under something.



I tried and tried to put up a video but for some reason my computer won't let me put videos up on my blog! Annie can put up 8 minute ones but I can't even put up a 20 second one....this frustrates me so much!!!! You'll just have to live with pictures.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Evelyn, as with any baby I'm sure, learns something new and then likes to do it over and over all day...which can be quite funny and of course utterly adorable. Today's favorite thing was sticking out her tongue! Which she has done before but for some reason today she just wanted to do it.

Another favorite of Evelyn is her daddy! She gets so excited and happy when he comes home and whenever he leaves she just looks at the door and is like, where'd he go? Now that she's more playful she's liking her daddy more...not that I don't play with her but dad's are just more fun in that regard I guess :) I got this pic of them today, so cute! She look's so much like her daddy!

One of my favorite things is to dress Evelyn up! I love all the girly baby clothes and putting her in the cute little outfits and accessories. :) I love the bows and flowers and such but sometimes they are so hard to find! I had to get these headbands on ebay and I've found some flowers around but they aren't cheap. So a couple weeks ago I found some that were made from felt so I decided to try and make one myself and here's the result!

It's kinda hard to see cuz she was moving around when I was trying to take the pic but the second one is a bit better. I just love the first one though! She's so cute. Anywho, I think the flower turned out cute and it's way cheap to make! I just found some flowers on my Cricut cartridges and used them as a pattern. Once I get my Cricut back (I left it in storage cuz we didn't have enough room for it, so no scrapbooking for me until August!!! I'll be busy then I tell ya!) I'm gonna try to cut it out using that but we'll see how that goes...felt is kinda weird and might be too thick. Anywho...Mark's kicking me off the computer so he can do homework so that's all for now!

"Cinderella is proof that a new pair of shoes can change your life."

Now that it's warm and we're in CA, I can put the cute little sandals that I have on Evelyn! And this pair is quite possibly the cutest pair I have and I love 'em! They're JUST about too small for her so I had to have her wear them once...luckily they were given to me instead of me buying them! I hate buying something and finding out its too small.

I just can't say this enough, but I love these little feet!

And the whole outfit! :) She wore this when we went to meet the Captain's wife and the rest of the CECOS wives....fun fun!

This last pic is just one of Evelyn's new "smile". She's been making the hammiest face lately where she scrunches up her nose and breathes in and out of her nose real quick and kinda rubs her gums together and smiles...it's the cutest darn thing!

“The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” --Jacques Cousteau --

Today we took Evelyn to the beach for the first time! She was pretty amazed and fascinated by it all and it was so fun to watch her! We took her up close to the water and she was just staring and staring at it and laughing. Then we put her down real close to the water as the waves came in and she was a bit scared. It was so cute! I didn't put her feet in though cuz it was COLD! It was cloudy and a bit windy today so that kinda sucked but it was still pretty decent out. Gotta love SoCal! :)

After that we went up to sand and let her sit on the beach towel and she discovered the sand. She kept picking it up and it kept falling out of her hand and she was just like, what? Why does it keep running out of my hands? She tried over and over to pick it up and fortunately only put her hand in her mouth once when there was no sand. :) She loved it though!!!! It was so funny to watch her and I look forward to bringing her again!

She was pretty flabbergasted by this new texture...

She kept trying to grab it, and grab it...

and was just so enthralled and mesmerized by the whole thing.

Kept her busy for quite awhile!

This girl is so darn cute!!!!

The downside to this all is that Evelyn also got her first sunburn today...just a little one but still a sunburn, poor thing! I was so prepared though, I had sunblock for her and a hat and everything but totally forgot to use any of it. So next time I'll actually have to use it!

The strawberry: "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did." --Dr William Butler--

Today we went on a little adventure to the California Strawberry Festival! The area surrounding us is the strawberry capital of California so needless to say we have lots of yummy, yummy strawberries! And they're huge and delicious! Evelyn certainly likes them!!! We gave her one the other night and she was just like, whoa!

Then I did the responsible thing and put it in this nifty little thing for babies where you put the fruit or whatever in the little mesh thing and they can chew and suck on it without getting the big chunks. They have the coolest things for babies nowadays!

Anywho, Mark's parents were in the area this weekend so they came up to see us and went with us to the festival. Basically it consisted of a little carnival place for the kids, some stages for performances (we didn't see any), a lot of booths for people selling crafts, etc. (you can find such interesting things at these type of places! I can't remember anything in particular right now but I'm sure you know what I mean), and a lot of food, which of course meant lots of strawberries! They had booths selling them by the box.

(This was a cool seat/swing thing they had...it was actually really comfy to sit in!)

For lunch we had this yummy meat on a stick thing and then for dessert we had funnel cake with strawberries on it! It was SO delicious! Then of course when we were leaving we saw an even yummier looking strawberry shortcake and were slightly disappointed that we missed out on that...but oh well...you can't really go wrong with funnel cake!