Fathers Day - "where dada at?"

I had to photoshop Mike's head in here...
My poor Mike... He had to leave for Boston on Sunday morning (Fathers Day). So we celebrated Thursday-Saturday. We ate a belated birthday cake with PoPo on Thursday. PoPo stayed with us for a few days because he and mike took a short trip to the baseball hall of fame. Evan made PoPo (and Mima too) each a fabulous finger painting. Evan and I had Sirrius radio installed in the car for Mike. He was very surprised! I even let Mike listen to the Jimmy Buffet station. Now that's love! hehe Friday night we walked to the Adobe Cafe, which is a great little Mexican restaurant hidden on a residential street - it also happens to have a great vegetarian menu too. Evan ate only chips, salsa and a boat load of guacamole. Then we walked to the ice cream store for Evan. The next day we ate at a sushi place in the mall and Evan had a freak out! At one point he was laying on the floor behind Mike's chair. He enjoyed stabbing us with chopsticks (the chopsticks were rigged so cute for a kid!) He kept wanting us to take him to Ruby's Diner to see the trains- which we did twice. He had a time out by the bathrooms at one point. On the way out, Evan gave us a big smile and shouted "HAPPY FATHERS DAY!" Little punk. So that's the memory Mike had of us as we dropped him off at the train station on Sunday. Then Evan and I headed for my parents' house to celebrate the day with my dad.

My dad picked a place in West Cape May for dinner. It so happened to have a mini carousel and mini golf! Evan immediately hopped on the car and said "Can I have money please?" The ride cost $1.50! So my mom made Brittany get on too to get her money's worth.


We then spotted this sweet woman with special needs. We let her ride too.

Brittany took a full circle on this ride in this very position without moving just so I could get this shot.

Also, I just had to put up this picture from today. My mom is off from work and Evan and I have been taking full advantage of her love while Mike is away. We went shopping in OC. My mom watched Evan as I shopped. When we met up Evan yelled "Mama, we eat cupcake!" and the evidence was on my mom's camera

Evan's Garden

CAN IT BE? My mother gardening. They say that grandchildren change you, but I never imagined this. Evan and my mom planted tomato and basil plants. Aunt Ella contributed some pepper plants. Tonight Evan and my mom picked some of the basil for dinner. We just hope the plants survive with all of this crappy rain. I should've taken pictures of my mom, Brittany and Evan mixing soil the day before. He was literally covered head to toe in dirt and mosquito bites. He has absolutely no concept of "clean" vs "dirty".




Speaking of the word "crappy"... Evan and I had our weekly playdate with Jin & Jacey last week. We were at the story time at Barnes & Noble. Pretty much the playdate is as important to Jin and I as it is for the kids. We talk and bitch about stuff. It was after the stories and Jin and I were sitting at a little table by ourselves while Jacey & Evan ran around. So I was talking about our horrible basement and happened to use the word "crappiness". A little boy about 5 years old approached me and said "Please don't use that word." I felt bad and told the kid I was sorry and Jin gave him a look. Then Jin whispered to me "crappy is NOT a bad word". It was the second time that day I got yelled at. At one point we were in one of the book aisles and there were heaps of books and toys thrown all over the floor. I had no idea who did it and said "They just left it this way?" A mother nearby snapped "We're working on it, okay?" OOPS! So I said "I thought our kids did it!" to cover my tracks and all was cool. But later Jin and I agreed that we would never let our kids do that in the first place. So anyway, I promise to be better behaved next time!

New York, Neeeeeeew Yooooork!

Evan's 3rd time! This time my mom, Evan and I drove up on a whim. Mike is away for a week and a half and we wanted to see her and Josh's new apartment. The neighborhood was so cute. There were little restaurants, bars and boutiques crammed everywhere. Lots of hipsters too.

This is the front. To the right is their garden that is just starting to pop up. We'll have to come up again when it's in full bloom.


Josh bought Evan an airplane!


The backyard...


Cute little touches...


Evan enjoyed Josh's equipment, where Josh let him touch pretty much everything. The thing on the left is VCR-like thing that plays enormous floppy disc movies... I'm talking about floppy discs about the size of a laptop. He had a box full of those movies. Evan's going to be the only kid that knows about those and records/record players (he listens to my and Brittany's old records at his grandparents' house).



Here's everyone resting in a community garden. Josh watched Evan and pushed him around in the stroller as the ladies shopped. We walked all around their awesome Brooklyn neighborhood. None of us wanted to leave as the end of the night. Especially since all the cute little restaurants, bars and shops were filling up as we were leaving. I immediately called Mike and told him we should move there.


At Prospect Park. As you can see, Evan could care less about us. He was too busy being cool with Josh.

Josh is overjoyed by a super classy glass carriage.


This is just before we took off. Evan went all day, through the car ride, his nap and everything in underpants. We even had to stop on the side of the Parkway because he had to peepee on the way up with the next rest stop 20 miles away. When we had dinner at a little restaurant that night, he got quiet. I looked in his underpants and found a big poop. Stinky. We went back to Brits to change him. I think Josh was nervous because Evan was jumping naked on their bed before we put his pjs on.

Josh is saying 'please don't get poop on my bed.'

Before we got in the car, 2 fire engines showed up with 4 firefighters! We had to run to the corner to watch for awhile. Then on the way back, we stopped to "ride" Josh's motorcycle. Life doesn't get much better than this when you're Evan.

Sarah's Graduation

Congratulations, our little Bunda! We are so proud of you!


A year of research in shown here in Sarah's poster... The best one btw!


Sarah was only allowed like 2 tickets for the ceremony, but somehow a hundred of us got in. I guess Cabrini doesn't know the size, or the will of our family for us all to be there to see her. We took over the hotel too. Aunties, uncles, cousins and all.




We went out to dinner the night before. Sarah went to dinner with her friends because we weren't cool enough. Here's the family (sans Sarah) eating.. with Chris's girlfriend Molly.



Evan decided to join another family.

Beach Time!

Evan's digging in the sand hole Mike made with "spoony".

Make sure to click for a close-up on this one to see Evan's sandy little face.

Evan squooshed Mike's castles with his entire body. It's always a joy finding sand in places it shouldn't be when we all come home.

First we rented bikes. It was impossible to tell if Evan was having fun or not. His face remained expressionless.

O poop. I mistakenly won Mike a free t-shirt! It took me months for him to get rid of some of the free t-shirts that he never ever wears.

Here's Evan with "spoony". His favorite beach toy.


And there was naptime of course!

Boardwalk Time

We've probably hit the boardwalk rides about 10 times since these photos. Evan is officially bored with the baby rides as you can see. His new favorites are the fun house (he races up the ropes and runs across the rickety bridge by himself), the super slide, the little rollercoaster, the nascars (he does "no hands" on the rollercoaster and cars!) and the huge ferris wheel that overlooks the whole town.


Evan loves his ice cream.


Bored.

Bored.

So tired.

Mothers Day

Ya, I know I'm really behind, but we've been too busy doin' stuff to keep up. Here's Mothers Day. That Saturday Evan, Mike, Brit & Mom went to Teaberry Antiques then we shopped across the street. The next day all of us w/ dad went to the Lobster House.


We got caught in a torrential downpour/thunderstorm while sitting on the dock for about 15 minutes. We waited it out at our table... My mom got hit with a lot of water. Then it cleared up for a beautiful sunset!


Lollipop courtesy of Brittany.

Evan with his girlfriends

Aunt Doris and Evelyn! Evan was a true gentleman and pushed his toys out of the way so that Evelyn could walk through with her cane. That's Evan's expression when you ask him to smile or say "cheese".