I wanted to post some random updates on the girls since I don't really have a good story to tell: 

Evelyn is getting bigger and bigger every day.  We had her 18 month doctor visit on Wednesday and she got a good to go from Dr. Cherie. She is now 24 lbs, but I've already forgotten her height :(. 
She has also been talking more and more.  This started a couple of weeks ago and has just been snowballing!!  Its great to watch her vocabulary grow, especially since we were beginning to feel a little concerned.  But not anymore and that is a relief.  Some of her most recent words include play, bus, and phone.  There are plenty more but those are the ones I can think of right now :).
We have also begun our transition to sleeping in her big girl bed.  This past week she has napped in it just about every day (with today being an exception).  She still sleeps in her crib at night for now. 
The downfall of this process is that I have to lay in the bed with her for about 20+ minutes until she falls asleep.  And if I try to get up before she is deep in sleep, then she immediately pops up, climbs out of the bed, and the routine starts over again. 
The upside is that she wakes up in a much better mood.  She wakes up knowing that she can climb out of the bed on her own and come find me.  No more waking up and immediately screaming at the top of her lungs to make sure I am aware she is no longer sleeping.

Some random pics of the little monster:


Ainsley has had a great first 2 weeks of Kindergarten!  She really likes her new teacher and seems to be doing well... all blue lights so far, yay!!!  The only negative thing about school is that she has already gotten sick and needed to stay home for a day. Only 5 days into the new year and she gets bacterial conjunctivitis in her eye (a.k.a. pink eye).  I'm hoping this doesn't represent how the rest of the year is going to go.  The good news is that she was treated and able to return to school the next day so she didn't miss much.  She was very happy about that!
I had mentioned before that we were going to have Ainsley tested for the gifted program this year.  That process has already begun.  Paperwork has been submitted on our end and I think we are now waiting to be contacted by the board so that they can evaluate her.  I'm not sure how long we are going to be waiting, but the teacher hasn't given me much hope that it will happen too quickly.  I'm anxious, but I'm trying not to be impatient :).
 

And the one random pic I have of Ainsley... I liked it better when she enjoyed my taking her picture, haha.