Welcome Spring!

The weather has been BEAUTIFUL here! Most days it hits 70 and is sunny. We have really taken advantage of the nice weather and have been playing outside everyday and frequenting all of the local parks. A few weeks ago we had a nice visit with Jay's Nana - which is Emma and Anna's Great Nana. She flew in from Missouri to meet Anna for the first time and to do some bonding with both girls. We went to the park, played outside, and showed her around our town. We had a nice, relaxing time and she enjoyed seeing both girls! Jay and I both hope that when we are in our 80's we are healthy enough to fly and visit our great grandkids!!

We also celebrated Mardi Gras this past weekend with our neighborhood. Of course it happened to be the one cold day that we have had in weeks. Once the sun went down, the temperature really dropped and we had to break out the winter coats. We had a great time eating, drinking, visiting with friends, and watching the kiddos have a blast. They had so much fun decorating bikes and wagons and being in a parade. There were TONS of beads being thrown everywhere and Emma managed to pack her bag on her bike full of candy!

Anna has been growing like a weed and continuing to change every week! We recently went in for her 6 month checkup. She weighs 15lb 9oz (39th percentile) and is 26.75 inches long (82nd percentile). Her head circumference is in the 93rd percentile - lots of room for that smart brain of hers to grow!! At this age Emma was 16lb 10oz and 26.5 inches long - similar but about 1 lb heavier. She has also started to eat solids. So far she has LOVED all of the foods we have given her which include apples, bananas, pears, squash, carrots, and sweet potatoes. She has also started sitting up alone!! She can sit for about 30-45 seconds on her own, but has not mastered the fall yet. We sit her in her boppy pillow to help break the falls, but she is getting stronger every day! We also started to let her "cry it out" at night as she was still waking up one time. Since then she has slept through the night a couple nights, woke up a couple nights and cried for 30 min or so and then fell back asleep, and one night she screamed bloody murder for 45 min. I gave in that night and rescued her. I think she is slowly getting the idea that she has to go back to sleep until morning. She has been napping much better too which = a happier baby and a happier mommy! She also continues to love to interact with Emma. She is always watching her every move and laughing at her silly faces. It melts my heart to see my two girls loving up on each other!

Emma has continued to live to go to school two days a week. Every night she asks me if tomorrow is school. She also has a couple favorite new sayings:
1. "Daddy isn't making good choices." Ha - this came after he took too long to help her with her corn at the dinner table.
2. "I go potty by myself. OK. Be right back." I also hear "Don't help me!" no less than 50 times a day. She is miss independent and REFUSES any attempt to help her.
3. "I want to wear my jammies a little while." She wants to keep her pajamas on all morning now instead of getting dressed.

Sweet Anna is 6 months already!!

Great Nana feeding Anna for the first time

Great Nana with both girls

Emma was playing in her "boat" and wanted Anna to join her

Attempt of a picture with mommy - neither of the girls cooperated

Emma chatting with Anna

Introducing.....Anna's first ponytail:)

Anna's first solid food - apples! She loved them!

Dress silly day at school. Emma got to pick out her outfit and bows - can you tell? She loved this and all day kept telling me, "Mommy I look silly today!"

Miss Kim with Anna at the Mardi Gras party

Emma lined up for the bike parade

All of the Mardi Gras beads

Beads kept getting stuck on Emma's training wheels - a bit of a disaster!

Our friend Stacie with her adorable baby Anna

These smart girls huddled up by the front door to get out of the wind and stay warm

Presenting the neighborhood King and Queen of Mardi Gras - Woody and his wife Stephanie

Anna sitting up!!

Mardi Gras Parade

Anna eating for the first time - yummy!



Anna rolling over

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! We had a great day. I made dinner for us and although Jay and I decided not to exchange gifts he still sent me roses. What a good hubby! We also had cupcakes for dessert from Ooh La La Bakery - YUMMY! Emma helped me make Daddy a creative Valentine with candy (see below for the picture - double click on it to enlarge so that you can read it.) She had so much fun making it - she LOVES crafts and asks to use the glue every day! She glued everything (with just a little help) and had so much fun. She kept telling Jay that she had a surprise for him and was so proud to give it to him.

Otherwise we have been enjoying the warm weather. It has been gorgeous this week (mid 70's) and we have been playing outside a lot and going for bike rides, too. The four of us even had a little picnic in the park on Sunday AND I washed my car. Talk about a great day:)

Enjoy the pictures and video. I especially love the video of Anna laughing. There is something so innocent and adorable about those first baby smiles and laughs!

I am a sucker for those darn hooded bath towels:)





Emma riding her bike - she still talks about how Santa brought it for her and it is "Beautiful"



Sliding down the big slide at a friends birthday party

Twirls

That's my girl sucking her thumb. Apparently she was worn out from all the jumping and sliding!

Happy Valentine's Day Daddy!!

The poster the girls made for daddy

Anna's adorable laugh

Emma's Latest Stunt

Warning: the following story is a bit gross! Proceed reading for a good laugh.

On Super Bowl Sunday, after our friends had left, I took Emma upstairs for our normal bedtime routine. She got her jammies on, brushed her teeth, and I read her a book. Before leaving the room I decided to do a thorough cleaning of her nose so that she could sleep good that night. She had had a runny nose for a couple weeks and it had recently started to be green and goopy. She didn't have any other symptoms of a cold or sickness so I had written it off to a normal kids snotty nose. This time, for some reason, I decided to clean out her nose as she was laying in bed. This allowed me to get a good look up into her nose which normally doesn't happen. As I look up into her nose I see something WAY up in her left nostril. It is some kind of foreign object.

At this very moment I have a flashback. Ten days ago when I picked her up from school she ran up to me laughing and smiling and said "Mommy, I put a Band Aid up my nose." I laughed it off and said "Emma you know you aren't supposed to put anything in your nose. That's yucky!" Never once did I think she actually shoved it way up in her nose where it couldn' t be seen.

Back to reality - in a panic I sprint downstairs and holler at Jay that Emma has something in her nose and I think it could be a Band Aid. I grabbed my tweezers and ran back upstairs. Jay came up too. I had Emma lie flat on her back as I proceeded to do an extraction of this foreign object. Mind you this "thing" is so far up her nose that when she breathes in I couldn't see it, but when she breathes out I could see just a little bit of "something." Emma knew I was in a panic and stayed extremely still (a true miracle in itself) and just kept asking "Mommy what are you doing?" After several attempts I pulled out a gooey, green, SMELLY Dora the Explorer Band Aid!!! It had been in her nose for at least TEN days!!!

She immediately started crying as Jay and I kept yelling "Emma you DON'T put Band Aid's in your nose!!!" I didn't know how to feel - I was so relieved and thankful that I saw it and was able to pull it out. I also felt terrible that I didn't believe her that day when she told me multiple times that she put a Band Aid in her nose. Who would have thought she was telling the truth on that one?!? I just can't believe that she didn't complain of her nose hurting or headaches. This is definately a story for the baby book:) Poor Emma - hope she thinks twice in the future about putting anything in her nose!

Emma Dancing

Emma showing off her dance moves. I think she must have inherited Jay's rhythm:)

Lots of Firsts!

We have had a few firsts over the last month. It started with Emma's first sleepover at her friend Avery's house. I, personally, can't believe my little girl is ready for a sleepover! The whole family actually went to our friends Brian and Jamie's house for dinner followed by some cards for the adults. I was there to put Emma to bed with her friend Avery, but she woke up the next morning with us gone. She did a great job and the girls had fun playing and watching movies. She told me that they even had Mickey Mouse pancakes in the morning - yummy!

Another reason why Emma is growing up too fast is that she has demanded that she go potty ALONE lately (yet another first!) She takes the stool over to the potty to climb up and is SO proud of herself when she is done. Mom likes this independence except when we need to get out the door because it takes her forever to pull up her pants!

Emma and Anna also had their first bath together. I decided that it was now possible to save time by letting them bathe together. Anna's bath chair fits into the tub perfectly with Emma and Emma loves having her sister in the tub with her.

Anna was doing quite well at night and was sleeping through the night even a few times per week. The other nights she would either need to eat one time or just need her pacifier put back in. However, the past two nights have been awful! She has been up at least 3 times to eat (which seems like a million after she has been sleeping through the night!) Although I have no idea why this is happening, my best guess is because the air is so dry. The nights have been cold and the heat has been running a lot. I wake up with a really dry throat and she has a dry, stuffy nose. So we went out today to buy a humidifier. My fingers are crossed that this really helps the situation!

I dug up an old photo of Emma at 20 weeks to compare to Anna and thought I would share. I still think they really look similar, although Anna's may have a bit more petite features.

Emma at 20 weeks

Anna at 20 weeks



Emma's sleepover with Avery


First bath together


Sweet Baby Smile!

21 weeks take 1

21 weeks take 2. Much happier!

A little shot of the tongue Anna loves to stick out

Mmmmmm....cupcakes

Look at those blue eyes! Anna is really rolling over good now and holding her head up too!

Sisters

Videos

I finally figured out my video problems! I feel like a technology guru!! Hopefully now I won't have any other issues uploading my videos from my new camera - thanks again Jenny!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! This post is long overdue! Since the last post we have been extremely busy. I took Emma to her very first movie in the theatre with some of her friends. We went to see Tangled and overall she had a great time. She lost a bit of interest about halfway through the movie and started climbing through the aisles. She then crawled onto my lap for the last part of the movie. When we left the theatre I looked down and she was crying! She was so sad that the movie was over and she kept asking where Rapunzle was. It was adorable!

We traveled home to Michigan for two weeks to celebrate Christmas. It was nice to see family and friends, but the flu bug ravaged our families. We had to cancel extended family Christmas' on both sides of the family and we weren't able to celebrate our anniversary because I was still recovering from the bug. (Happy 7 years to my hubby!) Emma was able to enjoy the snow and went sledding on multiple occasions and loved it! She also was able to see Santa two different times and loved him. She was always super excited to see him but very wary to get too close to him. She was too scared to get onto his lap alone. It was so much fun this year as she understood who Santa was and to see her reaction to gifts under the tree Christmas morning. She was sure to leave out cookies for Santa and chex mix and brown sugar for the reindeer. Santa left her a note to tell her he had also dropped off some gifts in Texas.

It was kind of sad for the very anticlimatic way that Emma found out that Santa left her a princess bike under the tree. She asked Santa over and over for the bike every time she saw him. When we got home she fell asleep in the car on the way home from the airport. We walked into the house 4 days after Christmas, with an extremely tired toddler to see the bike waiting for her. Lets just say she wasn't extremely thrilled at the time. Since then, however, she has told everyone in the neighborhood how "Beautiful" her bike is. It will be harder and harder to be away from home as the girls grow older and know about Santa. It has been really nice to get back home and settled into our routine.

We also received Anna's test results and found that she has a milk intolerance (not an allergy, YAY!). We have since switched her to soy formula which has made a dramatic difference in her disposition. She no longer cries 24/7. Since returning home I have also forced the nap issue with her and let her cry it out in her crib. She has been taking 2 to 2.5 hr naps on most days, which is dramatically different from the literal 30 min nap/day she took before. Overall, she is a much happier baby. She loves her bumbo seat and exersaucer now too - it is amazing to us that she can actually be happy without us holding her!! She is changing so fast and smiling so much now.

Since being home we celebrated New Years Eve with the neighborhood. It was a great time with a progressive type party. We went from house to house and stayed at each house for 1hour. Each house served snacks and a drink of choice. The kids even got to stay up a bit late and watch some fireworks out in the street. We had an awesome time and didn't even have to drive home!

I have videos to share but am working through the problem of how to post them (with lots of help from my sister in law Jenny - thanks!) My new camera takes the videos in Full HD and the file size is too big for the blog. We are trying to figure out how to get around this. The last video was posted through You Tube. Hope to figure this out soon! Enjoy the pics below (they are actually in reverse chronological order.) Happy New Year!

A girl after her moms heart! Learning how to use the measuring tape already. We all know this is not something she would learn from daddy:)

Sweet baby Anna

Look at those eyelashes

How sweet - Anna was completely listening to Emma read to her

Lovin' her exersaucer!

Emma with her pal Avery at the Houston Childrens Museum

Anna's first cereal. She was not happy!

The after shot of our cleaned up toy room

The before shot - seriously can you find Emma in the mess?!?

Emma hard at work on her new art easel

New Year's Eve - all the kiddos watching the fireworks

My two babes

She couldn't wait to start using the easel!

Just opened her new art smock and paintbrushes and SUPER excited

Nana and Papa with the girls

Emma checking out the fire trucks at Williams Twp. in Michigan

Going sledding with her cousins Darian and Kennedy

Opening her gifts Christmas morning

The girls Christmas morning

The cookies and pie for Santa and brown sugar for the reindeer. Emma also left a note!

Spreading chex mix with daddy outside for the reindeer

Great Grandma Charney meeting baby Anna

Grandpa pulling Emma on the sled behind the 4 wheeler. She LOVED it!

All bundled up!!

Just sittin on the cooler playing with her toys from Aunt Ann and Uncle Tim: a candy necklace, candy cigarettes and a travel size bottle of vodka. The essentials for every girls purse:)

Mr Twinkles and Bono landed at the same place one night!

Emma with cousin Kole

Getting a piggy back ride from Papa

Great grandpa Bill

Ryan and Becky with Darian

This is what we walked in to. Santa left her princess bike under the tree along with some other nice gifts! We have 2 lucky girls!

Emma with Avery at the movies

Handing off her ticket

Hmmmmmmm...candy or popcorn? She chose popcorn!