Wordless Wednesday - Hugs for Brother

Fascination & Things I Forgot

Emma Sassy Pants - The other night Emma was into everything and was pulling out all of the Tupperware, which was not the problem as she is allowed and encouraged to do that rather than all the other trouble she finds in the kitchen. However, while I don't mind her playing with the Tupperware, I do not need her standing in it. After asking her to get out and pulling her out several times, I had had enough so I asked her to get out and then started the count..."One" to which Emma responded "Two". That one stopped both Brad and I dead in our tracks.

Sorry - Last week, Emma pulled open the drawer under the stove onto my foot, which didn't feel so good so naturally I said "Ouch". Upon hearing that word, Emma realized that she had done something wrong and gave me a hug and said "Rorry". I don't know how many times she apologized that night. She also knows that when she hits, she should say sorry. However, sometimes, she finds herself hitting Daddy just to say sorry. My question is, what has she been doing at daycare that she has had to learn to say sorry because she didn't learn that one from us?

Tour de France - As I mentioned yesterday, Emma is fascinated with bikes after all the riding that she and Daddy have been doing and loved seeing them on TV during the Tour over the weekend. Here is a brief clip of her excitement over the racing.

20 Months

Our little stinker is now 20 months old and continues to delight, amaze, and yes even frustrate from time to time but she is a toddler after all. It was a big month for Emma and I think that a lot of her development has to do with being moved up to the freshman class at daycare. She has been so much more stimulated there with all the activities and just the daily interaction with all of the older kids has done wonders for her vocabulary. In a few weeks, all of the older kids will move up to the sophomore class and Emma will be reunited with all of her cronies from the nursery. She'll have to teach them everything that she has learned. It is just amazing the new things that pop out of her mouth from day to day.

Emma and Brad have been getting to go on a lot of Saturday morning bike rides lately and she loves it. Brad said that she is always getting into her trailer before he can even hitch it to his bike. She is definitely giving his legs a workout. Over the weekend, any time that we turned on the Tour de France, Emma would stop in her tracks and get so excited yelling "Bike, Bike, It's a bike". She has also become obsessed with babies of late but we'll see how that translates when we bring Junior home from the hospital. As I have noted, we have really made some steps in the right direction towards potty training this month. We had a major event yesterday. I was folding laundry in our room and Emma was playing when all of the sudden she stood up and said, "I need to go pee pee" and took off for the bathroom. I almost didn't follow because we spend a lot of time getting undressed just to sit on the potty. However, I did go find her and she was pulling off her skirt so I took off her diaper, she sat down and went pee pee. We were so proud and she was so proud of herself. It was cute. I think a lot of the time she wants to sit on the potty just so she can be praised. If anybody has read, The Five Love Languages, I think that we are going to have a words of adoration kid on our hands.

It has just been an amazing journey watching Emma grown into a little person. She is so much fun and LOVES to be chased by daddy. It is a little bittersweet that our time with her alone is almost over but I know that she is going to make a great big sister and I can't wait to see how she interacts with her baby brother.

50 Days

50 days to go according to the ticker today. Of course, that is assuming that Junior arrives on his appointed due date but what are the chances of that? Let's just hope that he is a little shy of his due date like big sis rather than a little past his due date. I guess that we are as prepared as we can be. We know where to park and how to get to L&D and now have a package of diapers unless he comes out weighing 10 lbs and then it will be a mad dash to the store. That being said, Junior can feel free to stay where he is and continue to develop for another 4 weeks at least but preferably 5. He is more than welcome any time after that and I will reiterate, hopefully not past those 50 days.

Big Girl

We're still a long way from being potty trained but guess who has used the potty a couple of times at daycare over the past two days. Emma also went potty last night before her bath and was super proud of herself and couldn't contain a big old grin as Brad and I heaped praise upon her. What a difference from the first time that she went and was a little freaked out by what had just happened. We're just excited that she is starting to get the concept. On another note, Brad and I are taking the Labor & Delivery tour at the hospital this afternoon as it has been totally renovated since Emma was born. It is still hard to believe that we will be welcoming Junior there hopefully no more than 7 weeks from now.

Wordless Wednesday

Bo & Grandma Kristi Came to Visit

We had Grandpa Bo and Grandma Kristi here with us over the last weekend. They got in late Friday night so Emma had a surprise when she woke up on Saturday morning. We tried to keep busy so that we could minimize the number of times that we had to hear "The Wheels on the Bus". Pretty much as soon as she gets home, awakens, etc., Emma goes over to the cabinet with the stereo, opens the doors and says "I Want Beep Beep". The funny part is that usually by the time it gets to the horn going "beep beep", she isn't even paying attention anymore. We need some new children's CD's. Anybody got any thoughts?

And now I return to my regularly scheduled post about our visit. We headed down to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning where some fresh blueberries were purchased much to Emma's delight. I guess they must have reminded her more of Papa's blueberries. We took a little stroll over to the pedestrian bridge that spans the Arkansas River and made Bo very nervous by letting Emma get right up next to the fence even though there is no way she could fit her head or her body through the spaces between the metal bars. On Saturday afternoon, we headed down to the park where Emma climbed and climbed and tried to shimmy up the pole after Bo put the idea into her head. She had also seen some little girls playing on the horizontal bars earlier and wanted to spin like them. She was only able to get a good grip once but that one time, she did manage to pull her little body up off the ground. Emma has definitely got some upper body strength.

Sunday morning was pretty low key after church. Emma played with Bo and Grandma while Brad and I went grocery shopping by ourselves. There was a couple in the store with an 8-9 month old little boy. They looked at my big old belly and said "See what you have to look forward to". I was like "Actually, we've already got one at home". After they walked away, Brad wondered if they wanted to see what they had to look forward to at 20 months. We headed down to the pool on Sunday afternoon, which was a bit cooler due to the nice break in the heat that we have been enjoying but even Bo got in the pool. Will wonders never cease?

Yesterday Bo, Grandma, and Emma were left to their own devices. They took Emma to the Wonder Place in the morning where she apparently had a big time. She also conned Grandma into buying her yet another bouncy ball. Emma and Bo were both exhausted and had to take naps after lunch. Yesterday afternoon they spent some time outside and talked to Pocket for a while. I think that they also heard "The Wheels on the Bus" several times. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to them last night since they had an early flight today but the main questions from Emma this morning were "Where's Bo?" and "I want Bo". I am sure that she'll go looking for him when we get home tonight too.

We have been horrible lately about getting the camera out. I tried to get Bo to take the camera with them yesterday and get some shots but he forgot and then was too busy the rest of the day. We did get a few photos last night, which I will post later but they weren't the greatest because it was bedtime and somebody had flipped the cranky switch to the "on" position. It is also no longer a secret that Junior is a boy. Brad and I both slipped on Sunday night, which made Kristi very happy. I think she baited us by waiting until we were nice and relaxed and then asking a question about the baby. Bo had a good run but the need to watch our pronouns has thankfully ended.

Emma's Top Three

In no particular order although it is a toss-up for the top spot between number one and number two:

1. Be Ball (Beach ball)

2. Shoes

3. Dogs or Puppies

Emma is a little girl with a shoe obsession already. Whether it be her shoes, my shoes, Brad's shoes, any other shoes from visitors, she has to try them on. I am trying to teach her to say to Grandpa Bo, "Emma needs new shoes". He quit listening to me on that front a long time ago but maybe he'll give in to his granddaughter. The next step would be to teach her to tell him, "Mommy needs new shoes".

Wordless Wednesday - A Taste of Summer

Weekend

We had a great time this weekend between a visit with Uncle Dale and Papa and then swimming and grilling with some friends. Uncle Dale took us out to eat on Friday night and insisted that we go back to the Faded Rose (it didn't take much arm twisting). The Faded Rose is the place that serves Emma's favorite appetizer, frog legs. Each order comes with 6 frog legs and we ordered two for the four adults and Emma. Guess who ate 1/3 of the frog legs and that was after an all day food fest at daycare. I think that they said that her class devoured 40 mini pancakes and fruit Friday morning. They then had grilled hot dogs and s'mores at lunch followed by Popsicles and Cheetos in the afternoon. I figured that she would be done after the frog legs but no, she then moved on to some veggies, catfish, and fries. It seems that there was still some room after dinner for some soft serve from McDonald's. Really, she was just getting stocked up for the weekend since Brad and I don't feed her at home.

Uncle Dale and Papa headed out late Saturday morning but not until after Emma gladly accepted some blueberries from Papa; the same blueberries that I had offered to her several times throughout the week. It would seem that blueberries must come from Papa. I haven't tried since he left but it would be interesting to see if she turns up her nose again.

Yesterday we got to spend some time with our friends Anne, Sean, and Charlie who is now a big 2 year old. We headed down to the pool, which both Emma and Charlie really enjoyed. Then it was back to our house to grill some burgers. We have had plenty of corn on the cob this summer but I had yet to offer any to Emma. Last night, I decided to give it a go and she loved it. She watched Anne show Charlie how to eat off the cob once and that was all it took. I guess we'll have to be sure and get her plenty more before the summer is over. She would not, however, try the watermelon. Maybe if Papa had been there, she would have tried it!

Visitors

We are having a slew of visitors all of the sudden. Unfortunately most of them are just stopping through briefly but it is still nice to see everybody. Last night Grandma Kato and Grandpa Jerry stopped by. They are on their way from Arizona to Baltimore to spend a few months sailing. It didn't take long for Emma to warm up and then start hamming it up. Tonight we'll be seeing Uncle Dale and Papa. Uncle Dale found out at the last minute that he has to make a delivery for work down here today and rather than spending 18 hours round trip in a car, he asked to bunk at our place tonight before heading home tomorrow. As a bonus, he is bringing Papa with him and when I told Emma this morning that Papa was coming, she started looking around going "Where's Papa?" over and over. Too cute! We'll be welcoming Bo and Grandma Kristi next week assuming that their flight plans go as scheduled, which is never a safe assumption with those two. However, if all goes according to plan, they'll be in late Friday night and get to stay until Tuesday morning. Emma is going to be spoiled after all this extra attention!

Wordless Wednesday - Cookie Monster

Lesa's BD Weekend

We headed up to Missouri last weekend to celebrate Lesa's birthday. Although Emma had a little bit of a cold, she still had a great time and loved, loved, loved fresh blueberries from Papa's bushes. I bought some from the store when we got home since she liked them so much and she won't touch them. Guess we better go visit Papa and Grandma again. Emma impressed us Friday night by being able to point to everybody at the table when we said their names. This is not something that we have worked on and that is a good number of people. As always, Emma enjoyed her time with Bailey the dog and was much more interested in baby Madison than she had been previously. Most of the time she just refers to her as baby but I did hear her call her Maddie at one point. Brad did buy some sparklers, which Emma enjoyed but she was in bed well before any fireworks started. We enjoyed spending some time with everybody and hope that Lesa had a great birthday even if she is an "old coot" now.

Belly at 30 Weeks

Here are Junior and I at 30 weeks and 2 days. We're getting there!

30 Week Appointment

We headed in for our 30 week check-up today and fortunately there isn't anything real exciting to report. Junior is still measuring about a week ahead. We don't think that Junior is going to be the little peanut that Emma was, which is okay but please don't let Junior be a 10 pounder. Junior's little heart was beating strong at 145 bpm. That is about the extent of the report. We go back in four weeks and then it will probably be two weeks and then one week until Junior appears.

Emma's new phrase this week is "Where'd he go?". Every time Brad leaves a room or goes into the house if we are outside, she turns both of her palms up and says "Where'd he go?". She will also turn her palms up and say "Oh no!" if she drops something or if something else is awry.

Ms. Andi at daycare said that shortly after we left this morning, Emma looked at her and went "poop". Ms. Andi joked with her that she would have to wait because her teacher wasn't there yet although she obviously had every intention of changing Emma. To this, Emma started saying "Peez poop, peez poop". I guess she really wanted that diaper changed.

We're headed up to Missouri tomorrow to help Aunt Lesa ring in the big 3-0 as well as celebrate the 4th. We hope that everybody has a safe and happy holiday weekend!

Wordless Wednesday Video - For the Love of the Dance