My brother, Brady, was meeting some friends in Milwaukee for the weekend to go to a Brewers game and to play some golf. Since he's been living in Ohio for the past two years, we don't get to see him as often, so this was a nice opportunity to meet him for lunch. My mom, Evan and myself headed to Johnson Creek, did a little shopping, and then met him at Culver's. I can tell he's already a good uncle - the second after I told him Evan likes swings, he made his own swing for Evan. Luckily, Evan liked it and didn't throw up.

Also, when Evan did start to cry, Brady didn't immediately hand him over to me. Maybe Brady is more ready to be a dad than he thinks!

Many have already heard this little story, but now I have photos to prove it. Evan doesn’t mind sleeping in a sitting position. We find it rather amusing. I went in to check on him during his morning nap, and here he was. Check out the line on his face after I laid him down. Oh, Evan. I guess that’s just how he rolls.

Dave, Gwen, Dylan & Abigail (and another swing)

We love our neighbors. Very friendly and inviting people. Not to mention they have an incredible playground in their backyard that they said Evan can use whenever he likes. Their youngest, Abigail, loves Evan. Before I could finish putting Evan in the swing, she was already behind him ready to push. I foresee a future babysitter in her!

It has been a crazy couple of weeks. Without going into too many details, both of my parents have been in and out the hospital; my dad to have his gallbladder removed and my mom for chest pains. Thankfully, they both are at home now and feeling better. If we have learned one thing from this, it's that they have great family and friends. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and kind acts.

On the lighter side of things, this past weekend we had glorious weather. Saturday we spent in the backyard, playing and doing a few chores. Saturday night we went to Janelle and Darrin's for a grill out and Eric stayed to watch a UFC fight (way too late for Evan and I). Evan had such a good time playing outside and watching Matthew and Mackenzie play. They are such good kids - the perfect combination of cute, polite, and playful. As a bonus, Evan got his first ride on a swing and LOVED it.

Sunday was spent swimming at the pool (what a surprise, right?) and lunch with my parents. Later in the afternoon, cousin Jackson came over to play with Evan and to make sure that Grandma Janet and Grandpa Rick were feeling better. You should see Jackson's impersonation of a horse. It just might be the cutest thing I have ever seen. And if you ask Jackson where his belly button is, this is what you get:

The thing I most enjoy about working for 3 local radio stations are the unique opportunities that come with it. Most of the "tasks" I don't even consider working, as they are fun and exciting. I've been lucky enough to be on stage when the Dave Matthews Band performed at Bonnaroo, driven Feist, John Mayer and the John Butler Trio around town, and talked with Trey Anastasio about his process when it comes to making music. And while most people laughed at me when I said that Hanson was coming into the studio, I didn't care. I've enjoyed their last couple of albums, and Saturday they performed 4 songs for 10 listeners and were very humble and gracious. It was a good day.

Guess which one of these things happened last night?

A Our car was stolen
B Eric bought me flowers and I loved them
C Evan crawled
D Wrigley rolled over, on command
E The huge tree in the front our yard was struck by lightning, but it didn’t fall on the house. Instead, it hit the new mailbox my dad made us. Some city workers came to help us clean it up, and I was so excited to use the wood chipper. It took about 3 hours to finish off the whole tree, so to show our appreciation, we invited the workers in for some lemonade. The last guy in forgot to shut the door behind him, so I said, “Hey, were you raised in a barn?” He replied, “Yes, actually.” That was pretty much the way the conversation ended.

I’m sure none of you guessed B. I hate flowers.
That’s right, it was option C! Evan has conquered the new skill of crawling. Look out, Wrigley.

NEW TRICK Evan thinks it's great that he can now pull himself up in his crib. We're not so thrilled about it, since he did it about 10 times throughout the night. Here is his progression after yesterdays nap:

I'll admit it's amusing to see how proud he is of himself. But like I said, we got rather tired of it by 2am. Other than that, we had a good weekend of chores around the house, taking advantage of the terrific weather. Friday night we went to the Dells to pick up my sister, who came home for the weekend from college. Of course, we had to stop at the outlet stores and buy Evan things he doesn't need. This hat my favorite purchase. It's 50% ridiculous, 50% adorable:

I've recently decided to convert the blog into a book for Evan. Then I found these great little albums at the scrapbooking store with 20 pages in them, so I thought I'd get one for each year of his childhood. So, here are the first 4 pages of his first year (with some background images I found on the web). Other pages that will be included will be a one for Christmas, one of him and Wrigley, road trips, and so on.

SWIMMING, AGAIN. Just another swimming picture! Evan loves the water. His new favorite thing is going under water and holding my hands and "jumping" into the pool. Here we are at lessons last night - my friend Kylie and her son Bennett signed up this session and Bennett is doing great!

FINISHED PROJECTS: I'm just addicted to making stuff that revolve around Evan. I don't know what my problem is. I just inished his height stick (although technically it won't be done until he is old enough to tell me he doesn't want his height taken). It's gonna be tough to keep him and Wrigley from pulling the stickers off (they are dimensional and felt - too tempting for little fingers!) I got this idea from a magazine, and the plan is to insert dowels into the side to show fast he hopefully reaches 6”7’. The great thing about it is that if/when we move, we can just pluck it off the wall and take it with us.

TAG CANVAS: This craft project didn’t take long at all. It was so easy to do and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out...