Around here, rain is quite common. Snow on the other hand, no so much. But this entire week we have had SNOW. It has been fun to see Eva's reactions as she plays with the snow and enjoys eating it. She likes to have Matthew pull her around on our cheap plastic sled and will say, "again" over and over when he finishes doing circles with her on the slippery ice/snow. Did I mention that it's also nice to be home this week! School has been canceled since Monday! Always bitter sweet, though, when we can't finish all the kids little projects before the break. I am sure all of you will school aged kids probably feel the same way too. The top picture is just a fun one of Eva showing off her cute little personality and the one with me is of us picking out our tree at the tree farm.

Birthday Message for Nana

Translation:  Happy Birthday Nana!  I love you.

The shorter video was my attempt to get a better video but I posted it because I thought her face was funny.

Ps. sorry the lighting is so bad, my house is dark even with the lamps.

I took this picture a while back but there is something about it that I love. I think it is that these two have such a love-hate relationship. One minute Eva loves her Rivie (it's what she calls River when she is in a good mood) and the next minute she is screaming at her to "go away!" These are two words I wished I never would have taught her. And yet, as look at these two I can't help but wonder how they will handle one more...you see we are adding on to our little family. It will no longer just be Eva, it will be Eva, River and this new little baby due to join our family around June 2nd. So, there you have it! Before my belly can't hide it any longer I figure I might as well go public with this one.

What's a blog without Halloween pictures? I know it's passed already but I just have to have you check out our little giraffe with her dad as a zookeeper following her around picking up the giraffe droppings. If you ask me, Matthew just wanted nice coveralls to work in, but he turned it into his "costume." Clever Matthew!

I wish I could say that life has been totally exciting around here but the truth is things have just been busy. My little Eva has turned into a T.V. junkie. All she wants to do now is watch Shrek and the Incredibles. The good thing is we watch them in Spanish but the bad thing is she doesn't get enough of them. I try to get her to play with her toys and sometimes she will play but most of the time she would rather watch her movies. I think I am going to have to start getting real mean with her and hide the movies. Any suggestions? Toddlers develop some strange obsessions! We have done some fun things. We haven't had too much rain lately so earlier in October we went to the zoo where she got stung by a bee (hence the picture of the bee at the bottom) although she is positive the tree got her. It happened while waiting in line to see the new baby elephant. Can you believe some people were waiting for over an hour to see that elephant? Well, after she met her encounter with the bee we got out of line. And this past weekend we went to the pumpkin patch, which is where those cute pictures from above were taken. Overall life seems to be going well for now so I will take it!

We have been trying to teach Eva the alphabet in Spanish.  She doesn't know it all the way but we are getting pretty close.

I could not contain myself and I have to upload this video.  I know it's not the greatest video and I am laughing hysterically in the background, but I can't believe how well this child moves her booty.  She must get that from her dad!

It's official, the school year has started and our little family is back to the routine of life. It was fun doing nothing while it lasted. On our final weekend of my freedom, we spent it at Cannon beach with some of the Powell clan. Like always, we have fun during the day but once "nigh, nigh" hits our child has some serious issues. But we made it. Sorry to everyone who was there for having to put up with my child and for my grumpy attitude (note, this only happens when Eva drives me bonkers). I have included some of my favorite pictures. There were more but since I take them with such high mega pixels, I can never get more than four on one blog. You can check the rest on our picasa page if you would like.

I begin this blog sad, looking at what I have done and with a slight smile as well. My little Eva has some beautiful curls. Don't really know who she gets them from but they sure are cute. However, last night after hearing quite a bit that I needed to cut her hair in the back I took the scissors to her hair. She was so good in the shower, that not only did I trim the back, but as you can see the front too. If you really know me you know that I don't exactly have the knack for cutting hair, but I thought I was doing such a good job. I laughed and cried as Matthew disapproved of what I did with Eva's little hair. But I do have a consalation of knowing that this is just hair, and it will grow back. After I put a little water and a clip, it doesn't look too bad but I will have to deal with this mistake for a while. I have included a before and after. I guess she has more of the Powell forehead than I initially thought. Don't judge me everyone. Maybe Eva will forgive me when she is older.

It is true...my baby is know longer my baby. The reason she is in her undies is because she is offically potty trained! I am so proud of her. She just had her second birthday and has mananged to complete this phase of her life with flying colors. I thought for sure after the first day that we weren't going to be very successfully. She was tinkling in her undies at very unpredictable rates. Sometimes every 15 minutes, or sometimes every 7. I could never guess. In fact I sent Matthew to the store that night to buy me 20 pairs of undies and he said he felt like a pedifile(sp?) but that is beside the point, I thought that was funny. But by day two we were looking much better. Less accidents for sure. And now, at the end of the week, she is doing awesome. So, here I am proud of what I have accomplished in my few weeks that I have to be with her before I go back to work full time. I love being at home with Eva and spending every little moment with her. I treasure this time so much. She is growing faster than I ever imagined possible and every day I love her that much more. Being a mommy is definately a wonderful blessing. However, I do have to remind myself, like Matthew reminds me, to enjoy this little time that I have and forget about the cleaning. There is always time for cleaning but it seems like never enough time to enjoy these little ones!

We had the Powell Family Reunion this past weekend and had fun doing it. Powells: this blog update is really for you this time. I have teased you with some of the pictures that I took this past weekend. Out of all the family pictures we took, this first one was the only one that was decent. Sorry about that. I have included just some of my favorites, on here so don't be offended if your child is not included on my favorites. It doesn't mean they were my favorite but since I take pictures at such high mega pixels, I can't post more than four pictures at a time. You will just have to visit my picasa page found on my blog to check out the other pictures. I put them ALL on there. Let me know if you want something specific that you can't take offline or something edited and I can do that too. Thanks for letting me photograph your families. They are all adorable!

A week ago on Saturday we had Eva's Second Birthday party. Like usual we were joined by our favorite people (not all of our favorite people of course because many of you weren't there). It's always fun to have all her little friends over at once to play. I know what you are thinking, a 2 year old with friends, but it happens, I tell you. However, the fourth of July must have left her traumatized because she was afraid of lit candles on her froggie cupcakes. In fact, we had to blow out the candles in order for her to be content in front of the cupcake. I am starting to think I have a big wimp on my hands. The last couple pictures are the berries that we have picked( not all of them, believe me). Rasberries and blueberries are one of my favorite things about summer and every year now we go and pick some. This year Eva was especially cute but for two years running I fail to bring a camera. There is always next year I suppose. Next up? Peaches!!

Since the weather has been so great we have spent many days watching Eva bask in the sun in her pool. Here she is receiving a bucketful of freezing water, but I guess on a hot day anything feels good.

We spent the fourth like many from Hillsboro watching the parade. She's so cute in her glasses.

And lastly, we went to Salem in the afternoon to visit Natan (this is how Eva says it) and her baby Owen. They are so cute!

We made yet another trip to Urgent Care today. I think we must travel to the doctor for emergencies than most people. Here's what happened. This morning Eva was playing with my wedding bands. I didn't want her to lose them, so I had to pry them out of her hands. Well, then I felt bad because I know she just wanted to wear what mama wears, so I went into my jewelry box and found her an old ring that she could wear. Matthew warned me not to give it to her but I didn't listen. Can you guess where this story is going? The next thing I knew she is choking on something and it was the ring. Matthew pounded her on the back but nothing came out. She had managed to swallow it without any problems. However, this was a tramautizing experience for Matthew because I guess Nathan swallowed a penny? You will have to explain to me later, Nathan. Anyway, we took her to urgent care and this is the bummer with having Kaiser, we didn't get to keep the x-ray, with a nice round ring in her tummy. They told us it wasn't a big deal. She will pass it in her poop. But for now we think it is funny that when you ask her where the ring went, she just opens her mouth wide for you to see that it went in her mouth. Kids do the craziest things sometimes; especially mine! Still working in aperature mode. This is where I can't stand the lighting in my house!

My brother got a super duper nice camera and now is interested in taking pictures. So, lucky for me, I have someone who is now going to help me get better at something that I don't have the time to learn on my own. Together, he says, we are going to learn how to take better pictures. My first assignment was to put my camera in aperature mode and to learn to play with the f stop and the ISO. I have been doing it for awhile now, a couple weeks at least, and I don't know if I am getting better or not. It is really challenging to get the right lighting. Nonetheless here are some of my attempts. I love these pictures because it shows Eva with her babies. Especially, her Dion. Dion was a gift from her Pap her first Christmas and she loves him to death. Some kids have their blankies or a teddy, but mine has this funny lucking Asian cabbage patch doll with crazy hair. The reason why it sticks up is because everynight she has to stroke the hair until she falls asleep. Crazy I know but it works for her. Well, here you have my pictures, unedited. There is something about them that I like, even though the shadows are bad. And if you look closely you can see the beginnings of our fence in the background!

We have had so many graduations these last couple of weeks that I think we all pretty much have the routine down pat; especially Eva. She has been nothing but super duper good at sitting and listening to all those names being read. In fact she knows the routine so well that by the time she got to my graduation she finally lost her fear of the graduation attire. We couldn't figure out why she wouldn't go to Matthew at his graduation and then at my little brother's high school grduation. But we realized she was freaked out by such weird clothing. By my graduation I think she thought they were kind of neat. I wanted to take the time to say thanks to all that came to our little celebration! We had a nice time even though we are still recovering from the fumes inside our house. I blamed by mom but it was totally me. Any ideas for how to get rid of fumes are totally welcomed.

Here is Eva being a gem and entertaining herself at all graduations. The bottom picture is of my brother Ricky messing with her. They all LOVE to bug her. Poor child. She is telling him, "No icky!"