Fashion... Saturday?

Pics/Videos of Christmas and details of our trip home to Montana are to come, but I couldn't resist posting this picture of Evelyn in her new Carhartt overalls (I know. SO CUTE, right?) that her daddy bought her for Christmas!

ADORABLE!

Hat: Hand-knitted, commissioned by me to be made for Ev by a co-worker's girlfriend.
Jacket: Patagonia. (from Grandma and Grandpa Lucas, of course.)
Overalls: Carhartt.
Shoes: Crocs from Grandma and Grandpa Lucas.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!


Love,
The Powells

Location:5th Ave W,Polson,United States

Decorating cookies!!

This weekend Evelyn had the experience of decorating Christmas cookies for the first time.  She had fun, but I think she enjoyed eating the frosting even more!! 

21 degrees...

So I spent the whole summer belly-aching about how hot my runs were. (And they were-- 92+ degrees with a "real feel" of near 100 degrees was very typical.)  And now, for my normal hilly 6 miler on Saturday it was only 21 degrees out and, despite wearing my normal winter running gear, I was FREEZING the whole time.   Oh Tennessee, how fickle your temperatures and how short your transition seasons are.  I'll say it. I miss the rainy, yet moderate winters of Portland. I do.

Just a brief complaint. Adorable pictures of Evelyn from this weekend are soon to come...

Christmas Tree Decorating

No doubt it is getting close to Christmas, no doubt we can't imagine life and the holidays without our little angel and no doubt that our little angel is entering the toddler stages of life!

We got our tree on Sunday and put the lights on and thought it might be fun to let Evelyn help us with the decorations. She is great at putting things away, taking things to the trash can, finding toys and so on. Only logical that this would work, right?

Ev the tree decorator from Annie Powell on Vimeo.

Maybe next year the ornaments will make it to the tree instead of make believe telephones and battles of will.

Neither wind, nor rain, nor freezing temperatures...

Can keep us from our favorite frozen yogurt spot!  

Ev and Elmo on a Sunday morning

Nothing like watching Sesame Street on mom's iPad on a Sunday morning in jammies.


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Fashion Friday

All ready for Winter in Nashville.

Hat and mittens courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Lucas.

Top and leggings (Carters) courtesy of Cousins Steph and Jake.

Boots (Target) courtesy of Mom and Dad!!

Dancin'

One of Evelyn's favorite things lately is to dance...  Here's a quick video we shot this past weekend.  While the lyrics to this song leave something to be desired, she absolutely loves it and will dance anytime it comes on!  Even in her carseat- if you've never seen a kid dance in a carseat, you're truly missing out! :-)

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful time visiting our friends Kirsten, Eric, Tom, Victoria, Matt and Chantelle in North Carolina for thanksgiving.  It was quite a long drive, but well-worth it!!   Here are some pics!! 

In our post-turkey trot tees!!

Matt and Ev

This jumper was mine when I was her age! I love it!

 4 pies to choose from!

Channy and her pie!

KV and some mustache cup silliness while out Black Friday shopping!

Ev trying on her new slippers

Me and V!

 The girls on the slide!

 Auntie Kirsten and Ev reading the magazines!

 The crew at dinner!

 Thanksgiving dinner pic!  Ev is clearly enjoying her food!

Khaya is the crayon caper!

We are in North Carolina for thanksgiving. Went out to brewery in Durham tonight and came home to this. Khaya is officially the crayon caper.


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The Crayon Caper is....

Not Khaya.
The crayon stayed where I put it all day long.

Where in the world is this little girl hiding these crayons???

(Certainly, being the great scientist I am, I will repeat this experiment. Everyone knows nothing ever works the first time. And if it does, it's likely not real. ;-) )

The case of the Crayon Caper...

Crayons keep disappearing at our house. 32 of them, to be exact, in a little over 2 months. 24 generics, 3 "giant" Crayolas... and most recently- five normal Crayolas.  Those five- Gone overnight last Saturday.  Poof!

Knowing Miss Ev is a smart and mischievous one, we have searched EVERYWHERE. All the obvious and non-obvious spots. Nothing. Not a single wax-covered-by-paper trace.

Our friend Kathryn suggested last night, that maybe, just maybe Khaya is eating them.  Well you know, she's been known to eat weirder things, so it's completely plausible. Plus, Brendon thinks he thinks he saw some colored poo in the yard the other day.  So, today I set a trap. One half of a blue crayon. Laying in the middle of the living room floor. As if Evelyn had left it there.

I'll let you know how this case shapes up, when I get home...

Patagonia.

Brendon and I are gear junkies... especially when it comes to our clothes. I think between us, have about 12 winter jackets. Literally. One of our favorite brands is Patagonia.
For those of you in the know: Enough said.
For those of you not, well, suffice it to say that Patagonia has good quality, durable clothing that's nice looking as well.  Unfortunately, all that comes with a decent price tag.
I'm not sure if you knew this, but the only Patagonia outlet in the nation is Dillon, Montana. Lucky us.
At any rate, due to this fine little fact, Miss Evelyn now has a decent amount of this good quality, durable clothing. (Thanks, G-ma and G-pa Lucas!)  Sometimes Brendon and I do get a little jealous of the little packages that come in the mail for Miss Evelyn-- usually there's something from Patagonia!!
Here she is, hamming it up for the camera, in her pink, down Patagonia jacket.

We can't keep everything, and so each season, a lot of her things are donated forward, but this is one we might be keeping for her lifetime. It certainly will last that long!

The Ryman!

One more thing checked off of our "things to do while we live in Nashville" list!
Last night we were lucky enough to take in a show at The Ryman. What's The Ryman?  Well, it's a number of things, and you can learn about them here, but most notably, the Grand Ole Opry was performed there for years and years before it moved to its bigger spot at Opryland. It's an intimate little venue with amazing acoustics and anyone from Nashville will tell you it's the best place to see a show-- maybe the best in the US. (Certainly one of the oldest- the first show was played there in 1890!)
The auditorium was dark, so pics of Lady Antebellum -the group we went to see- are a bit dark, but there are a number of them here.  Instead, here's a few pics I took of the good looking folks in the room with my new iPhone. (Yup! After 2 years and 5 months of our old iPhones, B and I got our new iPhones!... Still figuring the new cameras out...)

Many thanks to Justin, who hooked us up with the tickets!!!

Coffey Lab Happy Hour Club

I don't know if I've ever commented on this blog about how much I like my co-workers. Certainly, if you've read some of my work-related posts, or held a conversation with me in the last 16 months since I've been a postdoc, you'd know that my postdoc has been really challenging, in that the level of good, aggressive science that occurs in the Coffey lab is, well, fairly high up there.  There is certainly nothing relaxing about it, and whenever my mom calls to ask how we are, I say, "good."  Then she asks how my job is, I say, "stressful."  This is and will be the answer, I'm sure, until I take a new position in a few years!  Don't get me wrong, I am glad I chose the lab I did, it's just I haven't seen <60 hour work week since grad school.

So, luckily, in addition to an awesome [tolerant] husband and wonderful daughter, I have a whole bunch of cool-cat coworkers who make me laugh and I absolutely love working with.

Right now, my boss is currently biking across the only paved road in Bhutan. In his absence, I'd say I've been pretty impressed that the hard workers in the Coffey lab have kept up with the hard work.  The Coffey lab has about 15 people in it (plus or minus 2-3 undergraduates, depending on the term), but there's a group of us that will sometimes take a break and head out early to happy hour. We've lost a few in our club, recently, due to PhD graduations and babies being born, but last Friday, we took this chance, with the boss away, and headed out to PF Changs.  Yum.   A bunch of happy scientists!

 Left to Right: Greg, MD/PhD; Doc P; Yang, PhD, Emily, Grad Student; Michelle, PhD; and Daniel, technician.

First haircut!

Well, we made it 2 days shy of Ev's 21st month on this Earth, but we finally did it. We gave Ev a haircut. Her bangs were hanging in her face constantly, and the back of her head was basically, a mullet. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but it definitely needed some help.  She did pretty well. As you can imagine, she wasn't overjoyed to sit and have it cut (we baited her with some of dad's fresh-baked bread with jam), but overall it was a success! 

(A pic from a few days ago. Note the bangs hanging down in her eyes.)

The front, post-cut.

 The sides/back post-cut.