Ev sings about the planets!

She's been singing about the planets for about a month now- thanks to aunt and uncle for finally catching it on video!



Here are the words, incase you missed 'em:

Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars,
These are the planets near our star.

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, too.
Neptune and Pluto, we can't see you.

I know the planets, do you?

(Yes. We still include Pluto!! Long live Pluto's planet status!)

Lost items...

Evelyn turned 2 a few weeks ago and we have yet to blog about this wonderful event, which involved a party at daycare, a 2 year check-up and a party last weekend at home with friends.
The culprit?
Lost camera cord for our DSLR (and the battery charger too!).
Amazon.com to the rescue!
We decided it may be gone for good and ordered another that should arrive in a few days.

Here's an iPhone pic of our adorable 2 year old, in the mean time!

I'm a boxhead!

A couple of weeks ago, we had the pleasure of hanging out with some friends for our friend Emma's birthday party.  During the party, her husband Chris decided to invent a little game to amuse Evelyn and her friend Elsa.  Here's a quick video!  So awesome!  Love that guy!  (Also, I love the part where Elsa just randomly falls over. Gotta love toddler balance!)

Wordless Wednesday: Silliness.

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! :-)

Happy Halloween

For the 2nd year now, we have joined up with the Owens family to do some good old fashioned candy bagging. Last year, we were merely carrying around our little ladybug (last year's costume) following Avery Owens around her neighborhood. Oh what a change can happen in a year, Strawberry Ev was more than willing to traipse through the yards this year and see what bounty could be found behind the doors.

The weather was perfect, a sliver of moon was in the air and we had a great time walking around the Sylvan Park Neighborhood with Avery and Kim, Ira, Kirsten and Jesse. (the candy wasn't half bad either)

On Sunday, we were invited to a party at Ev's daycare. It was great to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes and even some of the parents got into the spirit (not us...) Lorie cooked up some delicious chili for the adults and the kids were blessed with toasted cheese and peas. Ev was in heaven and in typical Ev form, found her food to be more interesting than anything else going on, ponied up to the table while every other kid was running around, and partook in some food.

We can't believe how cute Ev was, how different she is from last year and how different next year will be. Sadly, it won't be as easy to take all her candy next year!!!

...gulp.- UPDATE!

If you read this blog post, say a little prayer for me. Brendon has gone to Montana to hunt with my family and Ev and I stayed home. For me, this is the first time in her life that I've been alone with her for one night, let alone five!  We've got some things planned, but.... I have to admit to being nervous!!


I made it!  Brendon made it home last night.  So grateful to have him home!

3 Cheers

Tonight we gather to remember and recall a great friend. Our Audi has been with us through the last few years while we lived in Portland and here in Nashville. We put a little over 50k miles on it, took our first child home from the hospital, took trips all over the NW, drove to Bar Harbor, Maine and back last fall, North Carolina a few times and so much more. Its high quality windshield kept us safe (specifically Annie) when a piece of concrete dropped from an overpass and smashed the glass right in front of Annie, it hugged the corners tight at the high legal speeds on Montana's I-90 and always it got us to our destination in comfort and style. We will always have a fond place in our hearts for this car!

Now for the reality. There were some seriously ill noises coming from under the hood and after further inquisition I found that the transmission cooler that is inside the radiator was leaking, the expansion tank for the radiator was falling apart because of the transmission fluid in the radiator fluid, the transmission itself was slipping in reverse and even in forward gears (as I was driving it to the dealer today), the water pump was failing, the air suspension was leaking and to top it all off...the brake light went out today. I had found a local used car dealer that was willing to buy the car from us but found another one today that upped the offer and suffice it to say, we took the offer. So, for now we are a 1 car family and we will start the car shopping process (we are not complaining, we love cars).

So here's to the Audi, to all the good times, the good memories and to the $ we saved by not owning it after today!

A couple of videos from last week...

Last week Ev had her first bout with the stomach flu last Weds. night. All clear by Thursday morning, but  stay home from daycare anyways. I went to work in the morning, as things are really hectic in the lab right now- see forth coming blog post-, and then came home in the afternoon so Brendon could go to work for a couple of hours. Ev and I decided to walk to the elementary school nearby, like we often do on the weekends, so that she could play a bit.  Here are some pics and a couple of videos we took while we were there. Apparently, she's going to be a barefoot driving kind of gal. :-)

Catching up

I thought I'd post some pics of what's been happening with the Powells lately...

More pics from atop the gondola in Colorado:

 Lunch with Kiersten and Sophie in Portland!

 What. A. Cutie!

 Celebratory drinks with the newly minted Dr. Tibbitts!

Deanne with her new "Ph.D." necklace... seems like a must-have for all of us lately!

Hanging out with friends in PDX...

 B and Ev handing out during his 34th birthday dinner...

Birthday blackberry pie!

 Aw, friends!

Shamelessly eating birthday pie straight from the dish!

 Ev doing her favorite thing lately...

Yet another ice bath for mama!

Impromtu visit from our train-traveling nephew, Jason and his traveling partner, Ruby!

So nice to see them!

Brownie baking with mom...

Brendon's picked up a few side projects at my boss's house in the evenings.  Tonight, he headed off for a couple of hours of painting and the ladies donned our aprons and decided to make some brownies!!  

Playing with the box... (Trader Joe's Reduced Guilt brownies.  Quick and perfect when you need a chocolate fix!)

 Getting my bowl ready!

Putting the mix in the bowl.  Well, almost. :-)

Stir, stir!

 At some point, Ev's apron became a cape! So versatile!

Vietnam.

A shot this video a couple of weeks ago when Brendon was giving Evelyn a bath.... and apparently reading her the Patagonia catalog. So funny.   Hey Brendon, where was that made again?