Growing Up

I know Evan has been growing up, but our new little guy really makes that evident.

Evan has a few favorite things that he loves to do, and he does nothing but those few favorite things. These include:

• Throwing balls
• Throwing stuffed animals
• Throwing anything he can even though Mama has made it very clear that he is not supposed to throw anything except balls and stuffed animals.
• Jumping
• Coloring temples
• Saying, "Watch this!"
• Telling stories (if you've seen him in the past two months you probably heard the tooth story a couple of times)
• Finding every fire extinguisher at every store
• Watching garbage truck and fire truck videos on the iPad

He actually learns quite a bit watching truck videos. Exhibit A:

"It travels down the conveyor belt and it gets crushed in the compactor and then the fork...and then the forklift comes up and picks it up and transports it to another part of the warehouse."

I ambitiously took the two boys, on my own, to the city Egg-stravaganza on the Saturday before Easter. It was intensely crowded, involved a lot of walking and waiting in lines, and I might have forgotten to take water or sunscreen...but it all paid off when Evan saw the fire trucks that came to the party. After taking pictures from every angle with the ladder truck, the egg hunt was highly anticlimactic. But we did it anyway because I'm in the business of making memories and I sure try to give my kids varied experiences, even if the fire trucks experiences are the only ones he talks about.

This year our family tried to establish our own Easter traditions, merging things from mine and Isaiah's childhoods. So the Easter bunny came to our house and hid candy-filled eggs around the house and in the backyard. He also put candy and a chocolate bunny in our Sunday shoes. (Is my family the only ones who do that?) Evan was a rockstar egg-finder. Because of schedule conflicts we had Easter dinner--ham, potatoes, carrot cake--with only our little family of 4. We told the Easter story about a hundred times.

After Easter we're back to normal life. Preschool has started again after a 1-month hiatus. Evan sings songs and does tricks and makes us laugh and drives me nuts.

And occasionally we remember that we have another child and we should probably document his life as well. So, here's Seth.

Don't pity him. He gets plenty of attention.