Mara’s Blog Influencing the world one day at a time since 2005…

May 31, 2006

Breaking news….

Filed under: General — Steph @ 5:23 pm

Yesterday for the first time UNsolicited Mara said “I wuv ewe” translation “I love you”. Isn’t that just so sweet. She was sitting in her high chair while I was feeding her dinner and she just said it. She must have known I needed a little something sweet from her since she had been really whiney and needy for the hours leading up to dinner. She also managed a “peas” that very same afternoon when I ask her what do you say when she asked to sit in my lap by saying “UP” she responded instantly with a “peas” which of course really means “please”. She sounds a little like Scooby Doo these days! But still what a little charmer!

May 30, 2006

Our Little Fruit

Filed under: Pictures — Steph @ 5:21 pm

For about the last month Mara constantly asks for “nanas” her favorite fruit it seems. She learned from her Einstein DVD how to sign for it and for the first two weeks of her doing it we didn’t seem to catch on to what she was doing. Luke figured it out and now we know when she starts simulating peeling her finger and saying “nana” she wants one. She is just starting to understand there is a “b” in front of “nanas” but doesn’t always use it. If so it sounds like an emphatic “b” followed by “nanas”

Chiquita banana

Our Little Chiquita Banana

May 29, 2006

A Life-Size Mr. Sprinkles

Filed under: General — Steph @ 12:02 pm

Saturday, May 27, the Evans family visited a unique place in Mooresville, NC. A drive-thru zoo called Lazy 5 Ranch. A fellow named Leroy was our draft horse drawn cart driver and guide. Maybe we’ll post some video so you can get the full effect of his southern accent and all the animals live.
Mara loves animals and especially the sounds they make. The sounds seem very easy for her to verbally duplicate so we are constantly hearing what the cow, sheep, horse, etc say while shes exploring the house these days. Here are the shots of our little adventure. Mara sleeps with a stuffed giraffe every night named Mr. Sprinkles compliments of Amy Poythress….Thanks! Anyway these pictures also show her with life-size giraffes, and yes she really is as close as it seems! Don’t forget to click on a photo to review the entire album of pictures!

DSCF1543

Are these big things really Mr. Sprinkles?

DSCF1545

Luther the Rhino

DSCF1548

And you thought Stephanie had a big mouth…..

May 28, 2006

Dominican Gallery

Filed under: Pictures — Luke @ 11:15 am

For our Dominican trip we actually have a few stories to tell, but it is likely unrealistic that we will be able to tell you them all here. For that reason we have decided that we will post all of our pictures for you to peruse. If we can post more stories we will and if we can’t, then well, we won’t. We just didn’t want to continually leak them out and maybe not get to them all.

That being said, some of you may wonder, OK where did you go exactly? Mara’s paternal grandparents had an extra week on their timeshare that was going to go unused. We were the lucky recipients of the week (thanks grandma and grandpa) and we transferred it to another RCI resort. We stayed at the Viva Wyndham Dominicus Palace in Bayahibe of the Domincan Republic. We flew into La Romana and from there it was only a small ride to the resort. We stayed on the resort for almost all of the trip, only venturing out for a short walk on the adjoining street to see the shops. Not really that worthwhile since they were all very similar to each other and not that much different from the shops already on the resort property.

So here are the rest of the pictures posted to the album. You will see the ones already posted as well. Its something like seventy pics in all. I have a few select ones below.

DomRep06 58

Loving the pool!

DomRep06 57

Mommy and me.

DomRep06 56

The sun can be very tiring.

DomRep06 65DomRep06 63

Mara’s friends from Las Deportes group at the resort (The sports group). They loved to see her dance. “Mira mira mira,” we would hear them say (look look look).

DomRep06 72

Waiting for the plane in Miami. Time to go home.

May 25, 2006

Ewwwww Sand

Filed under: Pictures — Luke @ 11:10 pm

So even our first day at the resort was quite eventful. We didn’t want to waste any time, so once we got in the room we got everyone dressed to go back outside and head to the beach for a walk around. This isn’t Mara’s first time to the beach, but she sure acted like it was. As soon as we put her feet to the sand she reacted like it was absolutely foreign. We had to pick her up for fear of having a meltdown on our hands. We carried her to the ocean’s edge, where we found that the waves were relatively high or at least beyond what we were expecting. It would have been nice except for the fact that Mara is so small. In fact we didn’t return to the water’s edge really for the rest of the trip since it wasn’t quite as manageable as the pool.

But besides that after a few dips of the feet in the water and a little wading in the waves with her feet getting buried, Mara turned into a believer. No more worries about the icky sand between her toes. She was loving it!
DomRep06 10

We got the opportunity to get the first pic of Mom and Mara on the trip. Daddy’s two beautiful ladies!
DomRep06 13

Mara also made her first spanish speaking friend. As we were on the beach all I heard from behind me was “American, american” and I turned to see “Kevey” from the sports group at the resort. To be honest I still have no idea why he called me over to introduce himself (he was in the middle of a conversation with another couple in another language, sitting between them on a beach chair… awkward). He failed to talk to us the rest of the trip when he saw us. It must have been Mara’s cute little face! He couldn’t resist puckering up!
DomRep06 14

Click through to see more pictures from our first day posted to the album.

May 24, 2006

Humidity Meter

Filed under: Pictures — Luke @ 7:56 pm

So this will begin the series of posts that will cover our trip last week to the Dominican Republic. I have to admit that it was a tentative trip seeing as the whole family was going. Who knew how Mara would react to the journey. In the end she was a trooper. In fact it turned out much better than we could have hoped. She made the trip down relatively well and adjusted quite easily after a bit of catch up sleep the first couple of days.

The first day in we got to the resort about 2:30pm after a short 20 minute transfer from the airport. We had a quick lunch and then we were able to get into our room by 3:30pm. One of the first things we noticed was that it was hot, so we were glad to get into our air conditioned room. The other thing was that it was VERY humid. In fact we became accustomed to our newly discovered humidity indicator, Mara’s head.

DomRep06 2

Loosen my curls, they’re tight!

May 23, 2006

Zachary’s 2nd Birthday Party

Filed under: Friends,Pictures — Steph @ 7:38 am

Mara had a blast playing at the Bur-Mill playground for Zach’s birthday party. Later we all went to Zach’s house for cake and ice cream. Here are a few of the moments we caught on film! There are some great playground action shots so be sure to click on the picture below for the link to the entire album of shots!

Zachs party14

May 21, 2006

Mara’s buddies

Filed under: Friends,Pictures — Steph @ 12:11 pm

Well these pictures are atleast a few weeks old.  Mom & dad have been very busy.  We wanted you to see them anyway since they are so cute.  Here Mara is playing (if you call it that) with Parker Sowell (~18 mos. old) and Zachary Davis (just turned two).

Friday playgroup22

Remember to click on this picture so that you can view the entire album of pictures of the little gang!

p.s. Amy & Shannon if you want the full image of any of these or for me to upload them to shutterfly for you to purchase just let me know!

 

May 4, 2006

$1.99 Equals Fun

Filed under: Videos — Luke @ 10:06 pm

So the other day we were in Target and we passed by one of those large wire bins full of plastic balls. Being one of the first words that Mara learned, she spares no opportunity to let us know that she can point a ball out. We were also letting her walk around the store at this point so whe went right up to the bin and asked us to get one out for her. Needless to say after playing with the ball for a short while, we were not going to get her away from it. So, we spent the $1.99 for the ball (a bargain) and she has played with it ever since. There is something just funny about a little person like her walking around and trying to carry a ball that is over half her size. She manages it pretty well and has a load of fun with it. Its the best money spent so far. It just seems that with the little people spending less ends up getting you more. It’s the expensive toys that just lay around the house.

Pink Ball Video

Pink Ball Video

12.7 MB / Time 5:06

Powered by WordPress