Crash! 14 Months Old

Not the car, the computer. The old computer, I should say. The trusty computer that brought you this blog from the beginning. Dead.

Good news! I backed up all of Evie's photos from her first year, and all of the videos from her first year, on DVD data discs.

Bad news! All of the photos from months 13 and 14 are now only on S*napfish and in hard copy form, which doesn't help me upload them here. And now I have V*ista (don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to the nice lady at C*ostco who gave us a great price on a floor model of my new touch screen Dell, but V*ista stinks) and it's going to take awhile to get my free copy of Windows 7 that was promised with the purchase of the computer. And S*ony didn't release a driver for my camcorder that works with V*ista. So, the videos are stuck on my camcorder unless someone locally wants to come over and let me use theirs to upload? :)

Which means, in the end, that this post is going to be way more words and a lot fewer pictures. And the pictures I do have from the past couple of days aren't anything great, but they do illustrate what Evie is up to at this age:

Playing with Aunt C and Uncle M's dog (Nana and Papa were visiting). She loved kicking the dog out of the bed and sitting in it herself:
Eating frozen yogurt (teething molars = OUCH! fever, diaper rash, runny nose and much crankiness):


Avoiding the camera:

Dancing on her toys:

And some pictures from today (in a D*ora outfit that was a birthday gift from G's grandmother)...

"Hey, Mama! There's velcro on my shoes!"
My little genius who figured out that her tea set is also a shape puzzle:

Just after taking off a shoe and throwing it to the floor:

Examining her music:

Balancing out the challenges of parenting a willful, teething toddler, Evie is all sugar and spice right now. She learns something new every day (throwing balls! new words and signs! climbing skills!) and is very cuddly. She has recently begun giving J and I real hugs and kisses, and will sometimes come up to us when we are standing and give our legs a tight bear hug. There is just nothing like it--feeling your baby's little arms wrapped around your legs or neck, squeezing tightly...knowing that she learned how to hug by being cuddled and hugged every day since she was born. Knowing that she loves you back and wants to express her love for you with a tight squeeze and a little puckery kiss. Parenthood just keeps getting more wonderful, and more challenging!

I've been spending a lot of my spare time trying to get caught up with projects before the new baby comes, so I haven't been online as much recently. It's paid off, though, with some major accomplishments. I am officially, totally and completely caught up with scrapbooking Evie pictures! That is a major accomplishment because if I can keep it up then I'll be able to start scrapbooking Drizzle's pictures immediately and not fall into the second child trap of falling behind on documentation. You know, the first child has a baby book and scrapbooks and the second has a box of pictures? I don't want that for Drizzle!

I'm also working on a Christmas quilt that I started over 2 years ago. I'm hoping it will be displayed before January, or at least for Drizzle's first Christmas next year. :)

Finally, I bought a plain t-shirt for Evie and some iron-on letters to make her a "Big Sister" shirt to wear to Florida in the spring. Now that the holidays are here the time is going to fly!