Creativity

It's interesting to see some of the things that Evelyn does and the way that her mind works sometimes. For example, she calls her mittens "oven mitts" and pretends her toy bins are swimming pools for "the guys" (aka--her dolls and stuffed animals).

And this morning she was playing the "piano" by hitting beaters on a book--she likes the metallic ring that they make when she hits them and says they're making music.

She also uses her bed as a bus, a boat, a car, etc. depending on what game she's playing, like the picture below. She and all of "the guys" are on the bus after playing school.

Ahh, the joys of being 2 (almost 3!).

Can you guess who picked the ensemble?

No Question

Looking at baby pictures of Evelyn at this age, I think it's pretty obvious that she and Edison are related.

Happy Boy

While Edison has definitely learned how to cry to truly be heard, most of the time he is a pretty happy little boy. He has such a sweet temperament and has been a pretty smiley baby from the get-go. I just love his dimpled smile; it makes me smile every time (though maybe not quite as big at, say, 2:00 in the morning).

I also love seeing Evelyn and him interact. This morning Evelyn said that she calls him, "Sweet, cute little Edison." She just loves giving him hugs and kisses, checking on him when he's crying, asking why he has the hiccups, etc. And more often than not, he smiles at her when she's around him. I hope this means they'll be good friends as they get older, although I know it's going to rock Evelyn's world once he starts getting into her toys....

Conference Tent

This was one pretty successful venture. Evelyn has taken recently to reading stories out of the Friend. We have months of the Friend that she has practically memorized the stories out of. Well, in the most recent one, there was a story about kids who decided to be like the people of King Benjamin, and build a tent facing toward the prophet, and watch Conference from it. So as not to be to rowdy, they named it the "reverence tent" and brought scriptures, old Friend magazines, and other supplies for watching Conference.

Evelyn thought this was a great idea, and we did, too. So watching Conference at Grandma & Grandpa Hinckley's house, we set up a tent with some pillows, blankets, dolls and snacks. She loved it. She stayed quiet and occupied—if not for the entire time, then at least as long as can humanly be expected of a toddler. I think it helped that I, dutiful father that I am, conceded to watch/nap/snack from the reverence tent as well. This was a much more successful solution than last year's taking turns and only catching half the talks.