Man, I have a ton of stuff to catch people up on. Plus, I have to do it better than my stinkin' big brother, who somehow beat me to press. First things first, the trip out to Minnesota. Basically, Mom, Eli and I bailed out of Philly in order to give Daddy some "alone time." It was nice to have some girl bonding with Sydney, the only other female in my generation on mom's side (so far):

Mostly, we just accessorized. And complained about boys.When I wasn't flexing my girl power, I did some serious tanning with the Grandma:
No healthy glow yet. Damn you, SPF 95!!!At least I didn't have to worry about tan lines:
Watch your back, J-Lo. Literally. Watch it.It was also a good time to engage in some serious negotiations with Grandpa Don about buying his shoe store:
As you can tell by his expression, I drive a hard bargain. Another beer, Grandpa D?Then it was up to the Twin Cities for some PaKi time:
I think I just passed him in the hair follicle department...
And then the inevitable Evelyn vs. Evelyn showdown:
That's right, I'm your namesake. What are you going to do about it, huh?I missed Daddy desperately, but as soon as we got back to Philly, BOTH Mommy AND Daddy bailed on us and jetted off to Hawaii. Without even asking whether I might like to come! Luckily, I got to bond with Grandma Lisa and Grandpa Paul, who apparently had a bit of a throwback week... a throwback to 1983, that is. I tried to make life easy for them by sitting around looking cute and gnawing on various body parts until my parents returned.
Mommy and Daddy weren't back long before they schlepped all of us again, this time to the Jersey Shore to visit Uncle Wren. both parents wasted no time introducing me to the ocean:

Both experiences can only be described the following way: wet. I also figured out how much seawater a standard diaper can absorb. The answer: a whole lot.Better to just sit by the side of the pool gnawing on one of my blankies:
My oh my. Ah must trah to stay out of the sun...While we were there, Uncle Wren got a little taste of parenthood:
I'm a damn cute accessory, if I do say so.Enough of my travels. The big news is that I've expanded my gustational horizons beyond the bottle. Each step has been a revelation:
First, mush. As you can see, a little disappointing.
Popsicles... getting warmer...
Oh sweet baby Jesus...
I'm sorry... you waited HOW LONG to give me this stuff???
Any left in here?
Ummmm.... ummmmm...As much fun as it is to take food in, sometimes it can be just as enjoyable giving it up again. Notice my completely nonplused expressions in the following pictures:
Maybe I'll finally get that part in the straight-to-DVD release Baby Phantom of the Opera.
What? Is there a problem here?In case you doubt my adorableness, I leave you with the following pictures:


(I fully realize this picture could start a new trend in exercise headbands)
I'm not sure how I got the right genes, but they certainly didn't come from my daddy's side. He recently came across the following picture of himself with Char the Great. Let's just be charitable and say daddy looks like he has a
great personality:

Peace out,
Ev