Officially a toddler

First of all - sorry for the delay in posting! Life gets a little chaotic sometimes, y'know?

A few weeks back, our very own babe became a toddler in all senses of the word - both by passing the 1-year-on-earth (ex utero) mark, and by figuring out how to, well, toddle all. over. the. place. We celebrated with - what else - a baby party! Much good cheer and cake was plastered on the faces of Eva's guests, as well as into the carpet, floor, furniture... you get the idea.

Then, to add to the birthday surprises, Jenna and Tarleton came into town for a surprise visit with their main man, Jonas, who seems to have (possibly overnight? no?) exited toddler-hood himself, moving straight into boy-hood! Whoa! Funny how these changes just keep coming...

Great party and all...but where's the cake?

Happy birthday baby with frosting in hair and turkey meatball in hand

Jenna, Tarleton and Jonas joining us for a stroll in downtown Boston

Making friends with the starfish at the New England Aquarium

Guess who put daddy's hat on all by herself?

Happy Halloween!

In the last week, we celebrated Eva's first Halloween, as well as a little early B-day celebration with Grammy and Poppy I., who were in town visiting E.'s new home. We misplaced the baby during the Halloween festivities, but a large ladybug flew in and kept us company until she decided to re-emerge.

A Bruin in training. (and no, this wasn't Halloween!)

Look what the lobster boat brought in - freshly caught baby!

Mama is now more used to this sight than she used to be...and she can't help that Eva LOVES it, every time.

Watch out, seagulls! You're on notice!

Slinky, slinky - fun for a girl, a boy, or a ladybug.

Trick or treating (an admittedly limiting outing for our first year out)

Early birthday cake - guess who ended up with a blue tongue afterwards?

A day at the beach with Grammy & Poppy.

One (+ a few) small step(s) for babykind...

So, how long from this point to running laps throughout the house? We're up to 12 hands-free steps so far...

(Sorry about the sideways view!)

Eva at 11 months

Eva just had the best time getting to know her great-grandparents, Gordon and Betty, during their visit out from California. We spent time visiting Boston, riding the T, exploring Winthrop and Malden, and discovering a certain tiny Italian restaurant that we will definitely be frequenting in the future.

Sporting her sassy new chapeau from G-Grandma Kibbe.

"Garcon!"

Eva decided she enjoyed playing inside boxes so much during the move, we can't stop her! Here, she found a mostly-full diaper box and decided this would be her new play space - er, office - for at least, oh, 20 minutes or so.

"I told you to hold my calls!"

The leaves are starting to turn...time to pull out the puffy jackets!

"Where's the moose??" (I suppose you had to be there. Though, even if you were, you still might not get it...unless you're Eva, of course, who thought this was HIGHlarious!)

Taking a stroll on the new Rose F. Kennedy Greenway (former site of I-93) opening celebration.

Showing off all those new choppers.

La Casa de Eva

Okay, so we've been a bit remiss in posting pics of the new digs. While it's a bit embarrassing to admit, we never quite got around to taking pictures ourselves, so we're going to borrow the pics taken by Gordon (Eva's "bis-abuelo") this past weekend during their wonderful trip out to visit. (Maybe we'll even - eventually - get around to posting pics of the inside someday!)

Street-level view (including the driveway of death - at least to bumpers and fenders. Jetta still isn't speaking to Cat.)

A view of our backyard, including parking, shed, and grass (with Eva's sandbox in the distance!) - taken from the back of the house.

Another shot of the house - from the back this time. As you can probably tell from this and the other shots, there are few particular overly friendly trees in our yard...the professional tree trimmers are paying us a visit tomorrow, to the relief of our roof!

Eva the Wheelie Queen

Turns out Eva LOVES wearing a helmet...who knew? Today was her first-ever bike ride...we took her to "Hub on Wheels", a big charity ride that shuts down most of Boston for a few hours. Eva had a great view of the Charles River, Storrow Drive, and all the Boston landmarks...she was laughing and yelling for 9 of the 10 miles before passing out in her seat.

With Mama in her "Ibert" bike seat.

Eva would yell "Yeah yeah!" before every downhill


Relaxing downtown...

Post-race potassium.

And sometimes after a hard day on the bike, you just have to drive yourself home...

Speaking of home, this is Eva's favorite porch pastime!

Moving time!

A couple weeks ago we loaded all our earthly belongings into a U-Haul - again - and moved to our very first non-rented house! We've had a little time to settle in, and are already finding ourselves a little overwhelmed by the seemingly endless list of projects - both little and big - we'd like to take on. Is there such a thing as home improvement ADD?

A few highlights thus far:

Moving Day! Now which box was the baby in, again...?

Baby summit! Lily and Eva meld minds (as Amy and Cat run interference when necessary).

Enjoying our new backyard - and sandbox! - on one of the last happy days of summer.

Have we mentioned Eva has started feeding herself? Yeah, we've had second thoughts about it too.

Enjoying the new bathtub.

Eva's learned a few things in her many months of life, including, now, how to give - and take!