Evan Christopher Rutledge

Alexander is growing up more and more everyday. I swear he weighs as much as Evan. This is a little video of him giving the all done sign after eating for mom:

This is a Video of Mom finally getting her Christmas present. I had intended on finishing before Christmas, but, well, it was a little behind schedule:

This is a video of Evan at his first Karate class. I couldn’t help but cheer him on and laugh; but he seemed to really love it:

Evan Christopher Rutledge First Karate Lesson from Steven Rutledge on Vimeo.

and finally this is a timelapse video of me working on the painting linday’s got today:

I guess it was a busy day!

Evan has a new invisible friend, his name is Optimus Prime.; which is pretty darn cute. Almost as cute as his last invisible friend – a mouse that lived mostly in his pocket.

From Mom: “optimus is eating dinner with us this evening and, FYI, you don’t want to eat baby doggie tonight (Evan says)

and I got Evan to eat his veggies by telling him they would make him strong like Optimus. Only after he asked for more chicken and I said only if you eat all your veggies and he says “I can’t it hurts”

I decided to start posting what I call “Evan-isms”, little conversations or sayings from Evan.  Because sometimes the things that come out of Evans mouth crack me up or swell my heart, I just have to share them!  So here’s the first one, from tonight:

Me: What should we have for dinner Ev?

Evan: Ummmmm…PRETZELS!

Me: Hmmm.  That doesn’t sound like a very good dinner.

Evan: Yes, yes it does!  It sounds like a beautiful dinner!

Me: (cracking up laughing on the inside)

Where did the time go?  Months are flying by, I can hardly keep up!

Alex is still such an amazing little guy.  He is still very laid back, and very sweet.  Among his newest tricks he does what I call “the finger”.  He takes his pointer finger and just touches things.  It’s so cute, I could just eat him up.   He does it to his food, his brother, his toys, or in the morning when we’re laying in bed and he’s trying to get me up he touches my nose, my mouth, my eyes.  It’s too cute.

“The Finger”

And he is definitely turning into my animal kid.  He loves the dogs, they motivate him to move across the room.  He is drawn to Isa when she’s sleeping on her bed in the living room.  She is, shockingly, very good with him so far.  She’s growled a couple of times but not nearly as much or as bad as she did with Evan.  Not sure if that’s because I “trained” her with Evan or if she’s just chilled out.  Today when he crawled onto her bed with her she looked at me (and I gave her “the look”) and she turned back and licked his face which he thought was a total riot.  Then she started wagging her tail and licking him more, which for her is a really big deal.  And the horses, oh how he loves the horses.  They come up to him and blow in his face and he giggles and smiles and kicks his legs.  The cats, of course, are a hit still.  They seem to be drawn to him.  They always want to be snuggling with him.

Getting acquainted with Isa

Serenity enjoying the morning sun with Alex

Safety First!  Daddy likes to start the tool/safety training early.

Alex is also moving.  He isn’t crawling, he’s scooting on his bottom.  We call it the “Gorilla Crawl” as he kinda looks like a little baby Gorilla.  I guess it is more comfortable since we don’t have carpet in the house, crawling would probably not be very comfy on the wood floor.  So he just scoots along on his bottom and he’s fast!

Scootching along on his bottom and blowing raspberries at the same time.  Talent!  This scootching is Alex’s way of crawling.  I’m sure it’s much more comfortable than crawling on the wood floors.  We call it the “Gorilla Crawl” because he looks like a little baby gorilla pulling himself alone with his arms.  It’s the cutest thing ever, and he’s FAST!

He is now pulling himself up on anything and everything, starting to furniture surf and can go one handed, very tricky!

He loves his blankies.  Melt my heart!

We are trying all sorts of new tastes and textures.  Here it’s celery, he actually really liked it.  He didn’t eat it, of course, just chewed on it a bit.  Other things we’ve tried: cottage cheese, avocado, peas, sweet potato, pears, bananas, pasta, cherrios, egg, carrots, apples, and pretty much anything else anyone within eyesight is eating.  If someone else is eating and he isn’t, watch out!  You will have a very unhappy little guy until he gets a taste!

Kisses.  Alex loves giving out kisses.  To his brother, grandma, mom, dad, his stuffed animals.  I love it!  We went swimming a few days ago (Alex’s first real time swimming) and Alex got a splash to the face from another kiddo right as we got in.  Normally he takes that kind of thing in stride (his brother does it all the time in the bath tub) but for some reason it was rather upsetting for him this time.  He turned to me and started giving me kisses.  I think it’s a reassuring thing for him.

And of course there are the ear infections.  I am fairly certain the only reason the little guy had two bad ear infections back to back is 1) because we decided to get an HSA account, and 2) because right before his first ear infection I had told a friend of mine how I hadn’t had any ear infections in either of my boys.  I should have knocked on wood.  Regardless, the poor little guy is one tough cookie.  He was a bit cranky, and definitely had some trouble sleeping, but nothing that would indicate a perforated ear drum!

We are moving through the list of “first foods” slowly but surely for Alex.  A couple of weeks ago we tried some egg.  Evan LOVED eggs, still does if they’re hard boiled.  I’m not so sure that Alex likes them too much…what do you think?  It’s been a couple of weeks since that picture was taken, and he still has moments where that face emerges again.  We introduced cottage cheese last week–you should have seen the face for that one!! Very interesting textures.

…was a huge disappointment.  We decided to go because we had to take Mommy’s boss to the airport, it had been super cold outside for about a week so everyone was going crazy and we needed something to do!  So the Childrens Museum in Denver seemed like a great idea.  Now you have to understand that Mommy grew up going to places like OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) which is one of the coolest places to go if you have kiddos.  Well, this is nothing like OMSI at all.  It only had a few things to do, we could have blown through that place in about 15 minutes.  We did a complete walk through when we first got there because Evan kept running from one thing to another trying to find something cool to do.  Well, now we know where not to go when we are in Denver.  However, here are the highlights of our trip:

They had a real fire engine right as you walked in.  It took Evan at least half an hour before he’d play on it, but then he really got into it.  They even had jackets and hats the kids could wear.

And they even had a freaky stuffed dalmatian.  A little too freaky for me, but the kids seemed to like it.

The coolest thing there by far was the “backyard experience”, or something like that.  It was kinda cool.  There was a “hill” when you walked in the room with trees on either side.  The roots of those trees ran across the hill so the kids could use them as footholds to climb the hill.  When you got to the top there was a little rabbit hole the kids could climb down and that lead to a series of tunnels that ran underneath this hill.  Evan enjoyed it.

Climbing down the rabbit hole

And through the tunnels…

“Mommy!! Come here! Come here!”  He liked the tunnels, can you tell?

And that’s it for the Childrens Museum.  The other rooms they had were an art room, a train room, a basketball room, and a fake grocery store.  Nothing Ev hasn’t seen before.  In fact everything with the exception of the grocery store he has and does at home.  Like I said, I am a bit disappointed.  It’s no OMSI!

Evan had his first school play for Thanksgiving.  It was more of a little song actually.  And he didn’t really sing it, mostly just looked at the other kids.  BUT, he was very proud of himself as he should be!  Too cute!

Before they started singing he waved at me, and so I waved back.  He turns to his friends and (rather loudly) says “That’s my mommy!”  Melt my heart.

Well, Alex officially has his first boo-boo.  And it’s a big one.  Bigger than anything Evan’s ever gotten so far, which is shocking.  Evan and Alex were taking a bath together  when Evan jumped up and landed right on Alex’s ankle.  Sigh…Poor little guy.  He recovered from the incident pretty quickly (less than a minute of crying) so we thought he was alright.  However we began to notice that whenever we bumped his leg he would cry, and his ankle also became swollen and we could see a bruise forming.  So off to the doctor we went.  The doctor was concerned about a possible break because Alex refused to put any weight on that leg and it was obviously painful.  So we put his leg in a splint in the office (not a fun experience) and shuttled everyone over to the urgent care for x-rays.

Alex was a rock star for the x-rays, but wasn’t too happy when we had to put his splint back on again afterwards.  We went home and everyone was taking a nap when the radiology tech called me and said she forgot to take ONE view that Dr. Schmidt ordered and could we come back in to take that.  I have to be honest here, I really wanted to reach through the phone and strangle that radiology tech right then, but instead I just sweetly told her we’d be in right after they woke up from their naps.  I was very disheartened that not only did we have to go back into town (3o minutes each way), but we also had to take off the splint again, meaning we had to put it on again which is upsetting for Alex.  Just read the radiology order the first time, while the patient is there!  Especially when it’s a 6 month old!  Oh well, I certainly know everyone makes mistakes.

So the official word according to what was seen on the rads is there isn’t a break.  The doctor said it is most likely just strained and bruised.  We have to keep it in the splint for a few days, then re-evaluate Alex’s pain.  Sounds good, right?  Lets hope so!  I am a little skeptical only because Dad told me that a break would be hard to see on rads in a baby this age.  So if he still has pain after a few days then we may need to get a CT scan.  And that sounds expensive…I was just thinking about how we didn’t have enough medical bills!  Stay tuned

How did that happen!! Alex is 6 months old, already!  The little man is growing and changing so fast it’s hard to keep up.  We are just trying to enjoy it and not take for granted this wonderful gift we have.  Here’s what we know:

-  Weight: 20 lbs (88%)

-  Height: 29″ (95%)

-  Can sit up on his own

-  Is trying to pull himself up on furniture, people, whatever is close

-  Watches Evan’s every move (oh I am in so much trouble…)

- Is very frustrated that he can’t crawl, but is able to get up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth when he gets there

- Is still the happiest baby I know

- Is eating solid foods: avocado, pumpkin, banana, pear, cereal, and is testing out broken up cherrios although he isn’t sure if he’s a fan of those quite yet

-  No teeth yet, but they are sooooo close!

He got FOUR shots at his 6 month appointment…bummer

Showing off his skills.  He likes to pull himself up on the toy basket.  He

gets up onto his ankles, sounds odd, but he hasn’t quite gotten all the way up onto the soles of his feet yet.

He gets very excited about this new skill!

As mentioned in previous posts, Evan has always been Daddy’s little helper.  And mommy’s, and anyone else who will let him.  He’s just a helper!  Here is Evan helping Daddy split wood.

Normally I would suggest using safety glasses to protect your eyes.  Evan, on the other hand, wanted his swimming goggles.  Whatever works!

Daddy promised me the splitter was turned off when this picture was taken.

When working hard, one must always remember to take breaks and stay hydrated.

Forgot about the Treatsylvania trick-or-treating event at The Farm.  We went with Cathy and Caitlin and Evan really got into it.  Alex even dressed up as a dalmatian–perfect to go with Evan the Firefighter!

Local businesses that chose to participate each had a “booth” with a door on it.  The kiddos knock on the door and say trick-or-treat just like the real thing.  They had these booths set up all over The Farm, this one was down in the arena.

We even got to go on a hay ride pulled by a tractor.  This was Evan’s reaction to getting to be pulled around by a tractor.  Such a farm boy!

We all know that Evan loves to “make it” , as he says.  GrandMutti thinks he’s going to be an architect.  I agree with that, and with anything in the construction category.  He’s a maker!  I just had to share this picture, I absolutely love it!  He was so into whatever this creation was, and I think it really shows in this picture.  My little inventor!

Not sure what this one is either.  It’s a pvc pipe with a plastic wheel duct taped to the end and a coke bottle stuck on that wheel…I don’t know…

This is the best one yet.  Evan said it was a waterfall.  He piled all of these random things into the bathroom sink, then turned on the water.  Inventive little man!

Evan wasn’t really feeling Halloween this year.  He liked the candy part of it, don’t get me wrong.  But the dressing up?  Not so much  Oh well, maybe next year.

We went to the Halloween party at Evan’s class where he had a total melt down and refused to put on his outfit.  I tried really, really hard to get him into his pirate costume before I stopped and asked myself why I was pushing him so hard to wear something he really didn’t want to.  Reality check mommy!  So, we gave up and just tried to have fun.

Playing some sort of pumpkin pushing game.  Not sure what it is, but the kiddos loved it.  Notice the lack of costume on Evan, next to him is Caitlin as cute as a *bug*!

The class costume parade.  Evan was willing to wear his pirate shirt, but not the hat or the pants, for the parade only.

We also went trick-or-treating with James and his dad in town.  This was Evan’s first real trick-or-treating and he LOVED it! Evan compromised on a firefighter costume, and James was an awesome Ghost Buster.

Evan was ecstatic to find out that if you knock on someone’s door and say “trick or treat!” they’ll give you candy!  Wow!

So cute.  Evan was insistent that James hold his hand when walking from house to house.

Me: “Honey, I am going to give Evan a bath.  Can you watch Alex?  He’s sleeping but the cats keep trying to climb in his crib.”

Steve: “Sure, no problem.”

Give Evan a bath, come back about 20 minutes later and check on Alex.  This is what I find:

Me: “Honey, have you checked on Alex?”

Steve: “Ya, why?”

Me: “Um, the cats are in there with him.”

Steve: “Ya, but they look so comfortable, and they aren’t near his face…”

Me: Sigh, walk away.

Just another example of Evan, the best big brother a little man can ask for

This post is a little late, better late than never!  A few weeks ago we took a little day trip up to Estes Park for the fun of it.

We stopped at the “Dam Store” on our way up, just because we never have so we thought we’d see what it was all about.

The view from the top of the tower.  If you look really, really, really close you can see the dam…not very big.  At least by our standards.  Maybe big for Colorado standards?  Not sure…

Evan and daddy at the top of the tower.  Evan wasn’t a huge fan of the tower, may have been a little too high for him!

We stopped at the Cherry store too, because how can you not?  The cherry juice is oh so yummy!  And Evan confirmed that.  Side note:  Alex is naked because he had a little accident and mommy forgot to bring extra clothes.  Lesson learned.

Evan and daddy “climbing” the mountain.  Evan always talks about going up to the mountains, he loves our little trips up there.  On this trip he said he wanted to climb the mountain so we found a little spot where they could have a little adventure.  Alex was asleep in the car so we stayed behind and took pictures…and sometimes I turned around so I wouldn’t have a heart attack.  My little dare devil.

Daddy picking cactus pokies out of Evan’s hand.  Lesson learned here:  thou shalt not grab a cactus while climbing a mountain.

Evan taking the easy way down the mountain: the Daddy Mobile

The roads in Estes are not used for just cars, Elk use them as well…

…and the soccer fields.

Elk on the soccer fields at sunset.  Gorgeous.

Evan playing at his favorite park in Estes Park

It was a teensy bit chilly

But that doesn’t stop a three year old from playing!

Taking a moment for a family pic at sunset…missing a family member (Evan) because he was waaaayyy to busy to stop playing!

Yes, we got our first snow in early OCTOBER!  It’s crazy.  We don’t usually get our first snow until Halloween or after, that’s kinda the been the generality for first snow since I’ve lived here.  I think this may be a rough winter, not ideal for people who just got laid off!  However, we had some fun with it, as usual.  It was about 13 degrees outside, so we could only go out for short stints.

Ready to go!

The monkey bars

The fort

Look at that face!  He was cleaning off the slide with his bum

Climbing up to the slide

Snow always invigorates Isa.  She jumped the fence a good ten times that day.  Stinker.

Evan cleaning the snow off the tree.  Apparently this was a very important step.

Helping daddy clean off the back porch

Sitting by the fire trying to get warm, look at those red cheeks!

I think this is so cute.  Ozzie has never really had a playmate since we lost Domino in 2005.  Isa isn’t really best friend material, she’s kinda a loner with eyes only for Steve.  But now it looks like Serenity and Ozzie are becoming friends.  The pictures might not look good, but Oz was being really gentle, Serenity not so much.  They play like this all the time.  Serenity is always the instigator by running up and attacking Ozzie’s legs.  Stinker.

(Just ignore the dirty house

At five months old Alex is now sitting up!  He is getting better and better everyday, at a frightening speed really.  He is always very excited to have the chance to sit up, just like a big boy  He squeals and flaps his arms in excitement, so cute.  Occasionally he does a slow fall over to the side or down onto his face, but it doesn’t seem to bother him too much.  He just uses it as an opportunity to practice his crawling skills.  Such a happily motivated little guy.