Doggie, Meet Doga

While Steph's family was in town we went to the Build-A-Bear Workshop, presumably to build Evan a new teddy bear. We decided we already have plenty of teddy bears around the house, though, so we made him a teddy dog instead. A Peekay look-alike, in fact, which we named "Doga" (Evan says "dog" with a very hard "g"). This is the first time the dog and her doppelganger met:



Doga is excellent at following Evan's commands to "sit" and "stay" (yes, he already tries to give the dog commands), but we're having some trouble with "come".

Slider

We got Evan his own slide a few months ago, but he needed some major assistance to use it up to this point. Well, no more! He's now a fully-certified solo slider:

Breakfast with Daddy

Since Evan has started feeding himself at breakfast he hasn't been real interested in eating any other way. He usually is done before us, so we clean him up and let him out of his high chair to run around for a bit while we finish ourselves. In the last few days he's taken to playing for a few minutes and then climbing into my lap to have a little more daddy cereal, though:

Garden of Eden Again

A fortunate convergence of events (Jim & Sheilagh making the return leg of their summer trip through the Pacific Northwest and Kim & Bill attending a friend's wedding in San Francisco) brought all Steph's family into town to stay at our place this past weekend. We took the opportunity to revisit the scene of Goetsch family trips past (and Metz family trips recent as well) and go back to Garden of Eden for an afternoon.

I doubt Evan picked up on much when we talked up the trip to our nieces, but he sure seemed excited as we walked down to the water:

Actually, he just likes running downhill (I'll talk about this again in a future post I'm sure), but you could tell that the girls were excited.

Once we got there we did all the usual swimming hole things, like walking around in the water:

and playing in the sand:

I liked this picture because of the interesting solar flare effect, and it's a great one of Steph:

Children's Discovery Museum

We went to the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose this weekend for the first time, and Evan had a blast. He liked the post office and streets exhibits, and the little kids section was certainly fun, but the best part were the trucks! First, right inside the front door there was a fire truck that immediately caught his attention:

Even better was the old farm truck upstairs:

We'll definitely be coming back... soon.

Hallie's Wedding

My sister Hallie was the last Metz kid to tie the knot, which she and her husband Mark did at Chouinard Winery in Pleasanton this weekend. Unfortunately, like with my sister Hilary's wedding we didn't take hardly any pictures of the event since we were both busy at the time. You'll have to take my word for it that it was a beautiful setting, and I think everyone had a wonderful time.

We didn't get any pictures, but I was able to shoot a little video during the reception:

Evan always likes a chance to dance, but I don't think he knew what to make of his mom dancing with someone else.

Rocking Horse

A neighbor passed along a rocking horse to us not that long after Evan was born, but he hasn't been big enough or had the balance to sit on it without major assistance. Up till now, that is:

Dance Fever

Evan likes to dance, and he has a fairly distinct style all his own:

It's some kind of combination of hippie spinning and stomping.

Sunglasses

Evan received a gift of a pair of sunglasses many months ago, but they were much too big at the time. He's a lot bigger now, though, and Steph recently was able to convince him to wear them for some pictures (the fact that they were too big wasn't the only reason he doesn't wear them):



Now if we could just get him to wear them when we're outside and they might do some good.

Eating Cereal

I referred to Evan's efforts to eat yogurt by himself a few weeks ago. He's also started eating his breakfast cereal by himself recently: