Evie's second birthday party is a blast!

Evie celebrated her birthday with friends this weekend and had a great time! The sun was shining, babies were crawling all over the place, and the bubble machine Julie brought was...bubbling. Evie's first guests were Meg, Kyriakos, and Zoe (who recently turned two and gave Evie a special message, "Happy Tutu Evie!"). It was super cute. Then soon enough all of Evie's friends from her waterbabies class and now music class started rolling in... Izzy, Ava, Connor, and Andrew!

Surrounded by Dr. Seuss characters! Here is "Evie in the Hat" with Mommy and Daddy. Evie was not a big fan and it only lasted seconds on her head.

Evie actually got into opening some of her gifts this time around. She went for the gifts about halfway through the party (was attracted to a big white bow) and actually seemed to enjoy each of the cards almost more than the gifts themselves (until the next day, when she didn't want to take a nap so she could just play with her new gifts)!

Everyone sang Happy Birthday before Daddy helped Evie blow out the candle on her "black & white" cupcake. At the end of her bites, Evie had both chocolate and vanilla frosting all over her face. Ba, Julie, Ava's daddy Thomas and Evie recover from the cake. That's Andrew and Tom in the background having a blast pulling down the streamers. Andrew was a big fan of the Dr. Seuss hat, and the balloons!

As was Connor, here with his mom Kristin. These boys could wear the hat all day! I guess Evie was worried that she would get hat head and mess up her hair.

Ava with Mommy Valerie

Phew! I am exhausted!

Evie celebrates her first birthday with family this weekend!

Evie had a fantastic birthday party on Saturday, surrounded by family and thunderstorms. Grandma Bebe, Popi, and Great-Aunt Dellie traveled all the way down from New Jersey; Aunt Karen, Uncle Wally, and cousin Molly traveled from Philadelphia, and Great-Aunt Karin traveled from Yorktown, all to help celebrate Evie's first birthday. With Ba, Opa, Ba Co (Great Grandma), Great-Uncle Minh, Great-Auntie Mailan, Great-Auntie Van, Great-Uncle Diem, Great-Uncle Tung, cousin Kevin, Nguyen and Yvonne. It was a full house but everyone had a good time, including Evie.

Daddy made this fantastic cake based off the "Oh, the Places You'll Go" image. Yes, that is a picture of our little Evie sticking out of the balloon's basket!

Here is Evie in her stylish party dress, opening gifts.
Evie enjoyed everyone singing Happy Birthday before Daddy helped blow out the candle for her cake.

Yummy! Evie loves her first taste of Funfetti cake and frosting. Opa, what is this ancient-looking thing? A camera?

With Popi, Daddy, Mommy, Ba, Ba Co, and Grandma Bebe.

After everyone had gone home, Evie enjoyed playing with her new toys in her ballerina princess outfit.

Evie's exciting week with Andrew

Look ma! I got a tissue!

This week Evie got to spend lots of time with her friend Andrew, as Ba was baby-sitting for him. The two babies got to play with balls and had several adventures, like trying tofu for the first time. Here are Evie and Andrew discussing their opinion on Puffs vs. Cheerios, and Evie is showing Andrew how to boogie down with her music machine.


Here is Opa playing "Hoopla Hoopla Reiter," a German song where Evie is dropped from the lap in surprise. It was one of her mommy's favorite games as a kid.

Evie loves to get her hands in the dirt so she will be a gardener just like Ba.

New videos of Evie walking down the street and eating blueberries!

Apparently Evie's fans - ur, Aunty Michelle - have requested more pictures of Evie, less of the rest of the family. Harumph. Well, we are nothing but responsive here at Bringing up Baby McDonald. Here are some videos of Evie - it seems like she's grown up so much in the past week alone!

In the first video, Evie is eating her favorite blueberries all by herself and making some dinner conversation. I swear she is saying "hello" if you listen carefully.




In the second video, Evie is taking her first steps alone down the sidewalk without the Daddy's help. She looks pretty worried but comes through like a champ, right before she falls into Mommys' waiting arms!

A day in Yorktown...

The family headed down to Yorktown, VA this weekend to celebrate Lexi's graduation before she takes off for Virginia Tech in a couple of weeks. We had a great time at Aunty Karin's and enjoyed the beautiful weather, nice people and delicious BBQ. Evie was a little scared of the dogs but then got used to them, and was quite transfixed by Albert the parrot. She wanted to walk around and explore the entire yard.. we also think we will have quite the gardener on our hands as she is always leaning over to dig through the mulch and dirt. She must be taking after Ba!

Evie's newest thing is leaning over and looking into things. Here she is checking out the iced tea that second cousin Clara is stirring up for the party. Just don't drool into the iced tea, Evie!

With the graduate Lexi and Ba.

Evie's first office picnic and BBQ, all in one weekend!

Evie got to experience quite the weekend, full of tasty treats and meeting lots of people. First off on Friday was Mommy's office picnic, where everyone loved Evie's cheeks. She enjoyed the music and walking around, was nonchalant about hanging around Andrew, but most of all liked her little bite of ice cream.

Here is Evie enjoying her first bites of watermelon!

Then on Saturday we headed over to Jules' house for a BBQ. Before the thunderstorms came, Evie enjoyed playing with the bubble machine and watching the big kids, Alex and Ryan, run around. After awhile she even got used to Guinness, Jamison, and Indy, the doggies. She was tuckered out at the end of the night, falling asleep on the cozy Yankees blanket.

Here Evie is with Mom, Jules, Maya, and Lori.

Up to Pennsylvania, Philly and the Amish countryside

Evie loves walking around the table, and goes pretty quickly when Mommy is chasing her!

Everyday Evie is picking up new talents, like pushing her Radio Flyer wagon by herself and holding her sippy cup. She was particularly proud of her ability to drink her water by herself, so much that she would then spit out the water between her teeth. Which was all good, as it gave her something to amuse herself as the family hit the road this weekend.

The family took a roadtrip this weekend up to Philly for two big celebrations - the return of the Sareen family to the East Coast and little cuz Molly's baptism. On Saturday we picked up Auntie Mel and Uncle Brian in Philly before heading up 467 to the new home of Priya, Amit, Sonali and Sachin. Sonali was so nice to Evie, handing her toys and blocks, and Evie was fascinated with Sonali's toy lawnmower. We all had a lovely time.

Here is Mel (with baby only about 6 weeks away), Priya, little Sachin (2 months old), mommy and Evie.

Sonali handing Evie a block. What a cutie!

Brian had a great time with Evie - especially when he kept poor Misty (the dog) away.

Then on Sunday we traveled to Chester Springs to celebrate Molly's big day. Molly didn't make a peep during the whole ceremony, and was such an angel. At Aunty Karen's and Uncle Wally's home, Evie loved walking around and exploring all the cool new toys.

Who's this cutie? Little Molly in her baptism dress gives a coy smile to Great-Aunt Dellie!

Evie in her polka-dot party dress!