Walking!

Three days shy of 11 months old, Evelyn is walking on her own! We're so proud of our girl! We took this video about 10 minutes after she started walking. (We were a bit too enamored to grab the camera at first). She is heading toward one of her favorite attractions, the open dishwasher. At the end of the video it looks like she takes a mean spill but she actually caught herself on the door of the dishwasher with no harm done.

Little Explorer

Due to her increased mobility (crawling, cruising, and ALMOST walking), Evelyn is becoming quite the little explorer! Everyday is filled with exciting new discoveries!
Above, she's enthralled with Josie's water bowl (and food bowl . . . yum). Evelyn often likes to go visit Josie's food dish while Josie is trying to eat. Like a good dog, Josie just backs away and watches, waiting for one of us to notice and redirect Evy, at which time, Josie can finish her dinner in relative peace.

Below, Evelyn's wearing a tutu and playing with dolls. Mom is so proud. As you can see, waving is pretty popular in our house right now. Squealing and screaming are also popular.

Below is an example of what happens when Evelyn is given access to the fridge. She's like a moth to the flame whenever I open the door. She sees the light, feels the cool air, and hurries over to see what she can find to snack on. Notice when I ask her what she is doing, she responds quite appropriately. You can imagine her saying, "Eating a peach, Mom."

Above is a video of Evelyn discovering Josie's doggy door for the first time. Sorry it's a little dark.

The Coast

We went to the coast for 4th of July weekend and took Evelyn to the beach for the first time. Josh's family has a condo near the beach in Aptos (just south of Santa Cruz).

Here's our girl with her bare toes in the warm sand.

She was pretty cautious about the water. (See the adorable video clip at the end of this post)

She's getting closer and closer to walking by herself.

The weather was just perfect on Saturday...

...sunny and warm with lots of little kids and dogs running around everywhere (Evy and Josie both got plenty of exercise).

Sunday, on the other hand, was a little chilly so we had a quick picnic and headed back to the condo.

Below is Evelyn's souvenir that she stopped to picked up while walking on the trail.

Back at the condo, we warmed up by reading some books. Evelyn loves reading books!
Her current favorites are Goodnight Gorilla, There's a Monster at the End of this Book, Peekaboo I love You, The Big Hungry Bear, and The Creation.

You can see where she gets this love for reading.
While we were snuggling here in the recliner with a good book (Eclipse), I remembered back to a year ago...

...when we snuggled in this same chair with another good book.