Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Let's Play Ball!

We have been busy trying to survive the Texas heat! It has been extremely hot and humid here, which makes for nonexistent play time outside during the day, unless, of course we are at the pool! We tend to make it there at least a couple times a week. Emma is getting a cute little sun tan despite mom's due diligence at applying sunscreen. She insists on taking her blow up fish with her every time, although she hates it and refuses to use it in the pool!

We recently had a week visit from Nana. Emma enjoyed seeing her again and being spoiled by her. She took Emma shopping for a new kitchen set for her birthday and Emma absolutely loves it. It has a little high chair for her dolls and Emma spends a lot of time preparing the meals for the baby to eat. She also makes sure to give them milk with their meals! We have found Emma's babies in the "oven" and even her real milk in the "refrigerator". Have to watch out for that one! Emma got lots of good one on one play time while Nana was here and even learned how to do Nana's knee exercises with the Thera-band.

We also recently bought Emma a little tee ball set. She has a love/hate relationship with it. Sometimes she loves to hit the ball, other times she loves to chase the balls that daddy hits, and sometimes has no interest in it whatsoever. She does ask frequently to "pay ball" and daddy is usually happy to oblige as he would love to have a little ball player on his hands. He gets frustrated at her lack of enthusiasm after about 5 minutes of hitting the ball. The other day he was literally mad at her because she wanted to put on her pretend lipstick instead of play ball with him! It was hilarious and he kept asking "when is the kid gonna be able to play ball with me?"

She is 100% all girl. She LOVES getting her toes painted, putting on her pretend lipstick, and also insists on carrying her purse everywhere we go. Yesterday she threw a fit and wanted to take her purse with her on the short walk to the mailbox. Not sure if daddy's dream of a ball player will ever come out of this girly girl!!

We are looking forward to our trip home to Michigan next week. We are excited to see all of the family and to enjoy some cooler weather!

Carrying her fish and bucket to the pool
Ready to go with her purse in hand!
Playing with her new kitchen set


Time to feed baby!


Sleeping at nap time with a tight hold on her baby and her thumb in the mouth - that is going to be a tough habit to break!



Exercising with Nana's Thera-band




Lovin up on Nana


Look at those ringlets!!


A softball star is born!




You can hear her say "Ready, Set, Go" in the beginning of the video. She loves to chase the ball.





Sunday, June 6, 2010

Fun at the Pool

We have been enjoying the neighborhood pools in the last couple weeks. It has been fun trying new ones each weekend to see which we like best. We haven't made it to the beach (there is a man made lake and beach in our neighborhood) yet because mom and dad haven't had the energy to deal with all of the sand!

Last weekend we enjoyed a barbecue with our friends on Memorial Day. Jay and I also found a new yogurt spot called Tutti Frutti that we love. It is a yogurt shop where you pick your own flavor and "do it yourself." So after you dish up your favorite flavor there is a big bar with toppings ranging from fresh fruit including raspberries, blueberries, etc to peanut butter cups, chocolate chips, gummy bears, and the list goes on and on. It is yummy and a perfect summer treat.

I have been busy this past week trying to check off as many things as possible on my to-do list before I head back to work. I took one day and organized the garage. I hung up a big system of hooks to hold all of our lawn equipment. Yes, I did this without any help from my loving husband. As I said in my last post, he had no interest in doing this over Memorial Day weekend and somehow in my family the "honey do" list always falls in my lap. I also installed the bike seat for Emma (which was a pain and took forever) because again, I knew if I didn't do it than it would most likely never get done. I was exhausted at the end of that day - a whole day working hard in the garage when it is 90 degrees out and no wind, along with a bun in the oven set to the "broil" temperature, makes for about a 2 hour cool down session in the air conditioning. Jay doesn't seem to understand why I am hot all the time now. He asks constantly "Aren't you cold with that fan on?" I really wish that men could go through one week of pregnancy to try and understand what it is really like for us women. I don't think they could handle it and manage to cook, clean, do laundry, and take care of the other children. But I digress......

I also managed to complete all of my continuing education credits to renew my PT license. I have to do 30 hours of continuing education every 2 years and my time is up at the end of August. I wanted to get it done early just in case baby decides to come early. I spent a lot of time couped up in the study completing my online courses this week. Now all I have to do is fork over the big bucks to renew and take the mandatory jurisprudence (state rules) exam that is open book. I will be happy to have that behind me.

I have been feeling pretty good, except for how I am burning up all the time. This summer will be excruciating! My lightheadedness has declined, but I do still have it occasionally. It isn't anything that a protein bar won't take care of. I have started to have a little reflux, of which I know will only get worse the bigger that I get. I had this really bad with Emma at the end. I had to sleep with Tums in the nightstand with her. I am not to that point yet. I did have a doctors appointment this week and everything looks good. The Csection is tentatively scheduled for August 30th! I know I still have a ways to go, but I am starting to get very excited to meet the little munchkin and see what she looks like. I wonder if she will have all that hair that Emma did??

Emma has been doing very good. She has learned to count to 6! We have been working on counting and this week out of nowhere she said "one, two, tree, fo, five, six, Elmo!" I couldn't believe it! So we have been working on seven, eight, nine, and ten. She will pretty much try and repeat any word that you say. She has also learned "strawberry", "bubbles", "fish", "moon", and "pig". The list is growing so fast that I can't keep track. She loves to go to the pool, although when she gets there she wears us down chasing after her. This weekend we went to a pool with a kiddie water slide and she didn't want to do anything but go down the "side". One of us had to guard her going up the steps because she kept slipping and the other had to rescue her at the bottom. It was only 1 ft deep water, but she would get going so fast and lean backwards so that she would go under almost every time. She loved it though. She has also been enjoying her bike seat and Jay has used it multiple times this week. We also went to Toddler Time at the local library this week and Emma loved it. She tried singing along to the songs and loved playing with the big parachute and running underneath it.

Nana is coming this Friday to visit for almost a week and we are looking forward to seeing her. I start back to work tomorrow and am very sad about it! I will be working Mon, Tues, and Thurs each week until baby comes. I just am not excited about starting work at a new place, learning new patients, and new reimbursement rules etc (since it is a different practice setting than I worked in before) including new paperwork for a big 2 and a half months. It would be a different story if it was working where I was before. Such is life. Enjoy the pics and video below.


Emma's first bike trip with Daddy


Emma with her pal Chase in their Barbie motorized car. We call it "Driving Miss Emma" because Chase and his sister Lexie take turns driving Emma up and down the road since she can't drive it yet. She LOVES it!

Getting ready for the pool


At the bottom of the kiddie slide. Thank goodness daddy is there to rescue her!


Emma coming down the froggie slide


Playing in the splash pad





An overview picture of the splash pad








Coming down the slide


Counting - I am so proud of my little girl!!