50th Anniversary Celebration

One thing I never got to mention last week was that Andy's Mom, Dad, Little Sister and Scott, her now fiancé, danced at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Los Angeles temple. I was unable to attend it myself but Andy made it and he took some great pictures that I think some of you might be interested in seeing. Enjoy!

Why I Love Evelyn

I've been thinking a lot lately about my number one girl, Evelyn. She's been changing so much lately it's hard to even remember when she was a little baby. That's why I have decided to write a blog all about Evelyn; her favorite things, her latest accomplishments and just the cute little every day things that I love about her. I guess I could wait until her next birthday but my reasoning tells me that by then I'll probably have completely different things to write about her.

So to begin, like I said before, she is my number one girl. I love her so much! She is the happiest little girl and is the easiest person to make laugh. For the most part all I have to do is jump in the air (which by the way she still can't do) or dance around. She's also one of the best dancing partners EVER. Every time we watch a movie and it comes to the end we have this little tradition that we dance together during the credits. The fun part is that we have a projector so it feels like we have a spotlight on us as we dance and Evelyn likes to watch her shadow dance around on the screen. Sometimes when Andy's working late and it's just the two of us I'll bust out the tunes and we'll just have our own personal dance party. Evelyn's dancing style is quite unique to say the least. She just spins around and around and around and around until she just can't spin anymore. I don't know how she does it but it sure makes me dizzy just watching her.

If she could only eat one food for the rest of her life it would definitely be bananas. She wakes up every morning and the first thing out of her mouth is "nani too" which is her way of saying she wants a banana. During breakfast I usually start her off with one banana which she literally inhales and then immediately asks for a second. Her other favorite foods would have to be cheese & cookies of course. She's my little cookie monster.

Another thing she loves is her daddy. Andy is such a great dad to both our children. He loves to roughhouse with her and one thing he does is play this game with her where he swings her back and forth and says "One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and four...to...GO!" and he throws her onto the bean bag chair.

Lately she's overcome two of her biggest fears;

Going down the slide & Laying back in the bathtub.

The thing she depends on the most for comfort is her baby doll. I would never even think about letter her go to bed without her baby. What's funny is that Andy and I promised ourselves that we would never let her get too attached to anything but I can't help myself, it's just so cute!

She's learning more and more each day. She's like a little sponge. At the moment we are currently working on animals (her favorite is the cat) and body parts. She knows hair, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, teeth, hands, tummy, belly button, hands, arms, feet & toes. Poor little Preston is usually her test subject so he's gotten his share of eye pokes.

She loves watching Sesame Street. When we're not doing anything else she'll lead me by the finger into our room, climb up on the bed and ask me to turn it on. The way she says Sesame street doesn't even closely resemble it so I won't even try to spell it out. At first I wasn't sure if she was learning anything from it but after watching an episode with a segment on cameras I went to take her picture and she actually said "cheese!". I couldn't believe it and she still does it almost every time I take her picture.

One of the things I love the MOST about Evelyn is that she is my little posse. Sometimes it's a little irritating having her bump into my legs every time I turn around but it makes me feel so special and important. Anytime I ever feel sad or like I'm failing in one aspect or another she is always there for me. Her big beautiful smile let's me know that I'm doing a good job.

I hope that I can always by the mother that she needs me to be and I hope that we continue to share the same tight bond that we have now. I could go on and on about Evelyn and all the things I love about her but I'd better end here and leave some for a later post.

The Much Anticipated Halloween post!

Halloween has come and gone and now I have all these cute pictures of the kids in their adorable little costumes that I am very proud to share with everyone. Halloween night we got all dressed up in our costumes and went on down to the ward Trunk or Treat. I even made cupcakes for it which by the way I have never done before so it was an interesting experience. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of them because they were finished literally minutes before we had to leave but they looked pretty good and tasted good too:) You know I had to try one just to be sure. The party was great! There were a ton of people there. Evelyn was dressed up as a chicken, Preston was a pea in a pod and Andy and I at the last minute threw together John Lennon and Yoko Ono costumes. We got to take Evelyn around to all the very nicely decorated trunks and got a good bit of candy to take home. They also had tasty chili dogs and frito boats. Yum Yum! After the party we headed on over to Andy's brother Tim's house for some more fun. There we got to hang out, swap stories and watch a little bit of competitive eating. This probably sounds crazy to most of you but I already miss Halloween. At least I still have Thanksgiving and Christmas to look forward to.

The Gang; Tim, Brenda, Andy, Me, Evelyn & Preston

Preston, My Little Pea in a Pod

Evelyn, My Little Chicken

Murray Family Farms

One of my favorite things to do every year around Halloween is go to the pumpkin patch. As a kid I remember going and getting to pick out my very own pumpkin and it was just so much fun. So Tuesday we took the kids to Murray Family Farms. When we got there we noticed that they had a pretty good size petting zoo that was only a dollar a person to get in so we bought tickets and some "animal food" (which turned out to be cheerios) and we took Evelyn in to see all the animals. She was really timid at first and just wasn't having a good time so we took her back to the car and put her Halloween costume on her hoping that it would make her feel a little better. We went back in and she was just fine. She was like a whole different Evelyn. She was laughing at the animals and getting right up next to the fence. I guess she felt like she was one with the animals or in disguise or something since her costume WAS a chicken. She even started to bawk back at the chickens. It was really cute! After the petting zoo we were walking back over to the pumpkins and on our way we happened to run across this big round hole probably 6 inches deep filled with dried corn for the birds. Evelyn ran right over to it and climbed right in. She thought it was so much fun picking up the corn and letting it fall through her fingers. The funniest part was that she was dressed in a chicken costume and every time she reached down to pick up another handful it looked like the chicken was pecking at the corn. She even started to play the part of the chicken and pretended to eat the corn by putting it up to her mouth. She really got into the whole chicken thing. After the corn we made our way over to the pumpkins and Evelyn wandered around for a little while. We found a cute little pumpkin that was just her size that she carried around for a few minutes until she lost interest and put it down.

Evelyn and her daddy feeding the Goat. She never did get the fact that the cheerios where for the animals and not for her.

Is that a chicken pecking at some corn? No, it's just Evelyn.

Evelyn with her little pumpkin

Happy Halloween!

I just wanted to wish everyone a

Happy Halloween!

Fitzgerald Family Fun

Saturday we had a fun day out with the family. The day started out with a great game of soccer. My little brother played in the last game of the season. The game that decided who would take number one in the league. It was quite an intense game that ended with a score of 4-2, Tehachapi claiming the victory. Yay, Go Tehachapi! The kids were great fun too! I think they all had a good time even though none of them really sat down long enough to watch. One of the highlights was watching my 4 year old nephew try to "feed" Preston. First of all he asked if he could hold the baby which was sweet. When Preston started to get fussy we explained to Joshua that the baby was hungry. Joshua immediately responded by lifting his shirt up and positioning the baby accordingly. We asked him what he was doing and he just kept repeating "Preston's hungry". What a sweet kid for trying to look out for his little cousin. After the game we all decided it was time to get our grub on and what better place than Costco where you can get some of the best pizza in town for a reasonable price. The pizza was great! We sure attracted quite a bit of attention though with my 2 kids and my sisters 3, all under the age of 5. It was quite interesting to say the least. The party ended with the whole gang (Mom, Dad, Nichole, Scott, Tiffany, Kory & the kids) all meeting together back at our place and just hanging out and talking. It was fun getting to see everyone in the same place. We really should have days like this more often. Kory doesn't have a blog (yet) but I wanted to tell him congratulations on the big win. I'm really proud of my little brother. He played an awesome game and I can't wait to watch him play on the High School Varsity team again this year.