2 Years Old

Emma G. is two years old; how can that be? This will be the last "official" monthly update for her. Over the past month, Emma has continued to amaze and her vocabulary grows by leaps and bounds. Seriously she repeats everything these days. Brad had her do the whole chorus for "Jingle Bells" yesterday morning. At two years old, she can tell you her name although it comes out "Emma Gace Mackenberg" but that is a mouthful for a two year old. She can also count to 13 and will count objects so she understands what she is doing. While we know her comprehension is very good, if you tell her something, she will often respond "Huh?", which can be frustrating because we know she knows what we are talking about. I guess that is just part of being two! Just last week, we moved Emma into her big girl bed and she is doing great at nights. I think the novelty of being able to get out of bed is hampering nap time but hopefully that will wear off. I just might have to remove everything from her room in the meantime. Emma loves clothes and I mean, she loves clothes! I let her pick out her outfits several times over the weekend and she always grabbed items that coordinated well. Playing dress-up also seems to be a favorite nap time activity.
We have been taking Emma up for the children's message during our church service for a while now and she does great with it. We just recently started taking her to the Parents and 2's Bible Class after service and she is having a great time. They sing songs, have a Bible lesson, and then do an related art project. This was only her second week in Bible Class but they open with the same song each week. All day yesterday, she was singing "Open, shut them, open, shut them", which is the first part of the song. She still loves to draw and will make little circles. She also likes to scribble and then tell you that she wrote her name or Josh's name. Emma is definitely getting quite the imagination as well. She had a piece of potato skin from her mashed potatoes and was telling us that it was a dog but far and away, her favorite pretend activity is having a tea party. She loves the tea set that she received for her birthday and makes us lots of tea throughout the day. When Brad was home with her last Monday, he said he must have had about 50 cups that day.
Finally, Emma had her two year check-up yesterday complete with three shots even though I was only anticipating one. They finally had the Hib vaccine, which there had been a shortage of at her 15 and 18-month appointments. She also needed her seasonal flu booster and since they had H1N1 on hand, I decided to have her get that as well. She was a hurting unit when we got home but some Tylenol and ibuprofen eventually kicked in and she was good to go and had a good night of rest. The check-up went well and Emma is now up to 25 lbs 6 oz (35-40th percentile) and 35 1/4 inches (80-85th percentile). Over the past year, she has gained 5 lbs 7 oz and 6 1/4inches. She continues to track right on her growth curve. Here are some new photos of the big, two year old!

3 Months Old

The little man was three months old on Saturday. Hard to believe that we will be able to start rice cereal in only one more month. Josh started laughing this past month and thinks his big sister is especially funny. She likes to get in his face and say "Boogy boogy boo Josh!". He definitely has a pretty set schedule. He is usually up for a while before eating, then he will eat and within an hour to an hour and a half be ready for a nap. Unlike big sis, we can actually lay him down in his crib to sleep. I wish that I could say that he has become a terrific or even good sleeper at night but that is not always the case. We tried swaddling again last night and that really improved the situation so maybe that is the key to a five hour stretch right now. Josh has also discovered his hands and you will catch him clasping them together and just looking at them. They also must be the best tasting things in the world because they sure do spend a lot of time in his mouth. Last week, Josh inherited the crib so it may be time to move to his room before too long especially since I am sure that he is probably near if not over the weight limit for the bassinet in the pack and play. I just wish he were sleeping better before the move but maybe that will improve things as well. Here are a couple photos of our little three month old.

Wordless Wednesday - Little Man, Big Smile

Emma's Birthday Party

This past Saturday we celebrated Emma's 2nd birthday with some of her friends. When her first guests arrived, Emma acted so shy and buried her face in the couch. However, she quickly warmed up as more of her friends arrived. We played for a little while downstairs while Emma's friends arrived. Then we took advantage of some decent temperatures and headed outside. We had bubbles, sidewalk chalk, balls, which were fun but the most fun came in the form of the big rock in our backyard. Emma has often demonstrated how fun it is to climb on, slide off, and jump off and her friends totally agreed. After a little outside play, we headed in for some cupcakes (Elmo-themed of course) and little more playtime before everybody headed home. Emma had a lot of fun and it was so fun to watch her interact with her friends since they are now starting to play together rather than just in the same area. The four of us will celebrate her actual birthday on Thursday so instead of pie this year, we'll be having birthday cake! Here is a slide show with the highlights of Emma's party.

Hop Hop Hop!

Lately Emma's main mode of transportation has been hopping. They must have been learning/practicing at daycare recently because several of her friends were hopping around at her party the other day as well.

Changes

Wow! It has been two weeks since my last post. Not to worry, I have a video of our little hopping Emma to post and somebody does have a birthday coming up next week and a little birthday party this weekend to celebrate. I am just hoping for some good weather so Emma and her friends can run around outside.

Yesterday was my first day back after 11 weeks of maternity leave. I fully expected for Josh to need time to adjust to his new lifestyle but he took it in stride. Whereas Emma wouldn't really eat for the first few days that she started at daycare both times, Josh just went about his regular business and ate on schedule. He also napped very well. While I would definitely rather still be home, it was much easier this time around knowing the quality of care that he would be receiving. For now, here are a few photos of Emma and Josh; they are not the most recent but they'll do. Josh is much bigger than that now and getting some nice little Michelin Man legs with the fat rolls.

Halloween

It didn't take long for Emma to get into the swing of Halloween. We got her all dressed up and then took her next door. She wasn't quite sure what was going on but after she realized that if she held out her bucket, she would get some candy, there was no turning back. We only took her to five houses but if Emma had been given a say in the matter, we would have hit every house in the neighborhood. She couldn't wait to delve into the candy as soon as we got home and needless to say, it disappeared quite quickly to be rationed out over time. After trick-or-treating, we went to a party at Lisa and Joe's house. Emma had a great time watching the teenagers and eating cookies and other goodies. It is a wonder that she didn't have an upset stomach that night with all the sugar she consumed. Amazingly, we got home and she crashed; we were a little afraid she would be on a sugar high. The next morning she had to check out her trick-or-treat bucket first thing and was disappointed to find it empty. Fortunately, the disappointment passed quickly as it turns out it is a useful vessel to store rocks. Here are a few photos of our ladybug this year. Josh does make a cameo appearance in one photo but the poor little man was without a costume and was left home for the trick-or-treat portion of the evening. I can't wait until next year!

Candy! Checking out her loot!
The morning after!

Big Helper

As I noted previously, Emma loves to help mommy with EVERYTHING! This is what the utensil drawer looks like after Emma helped put away the utensils.

At first she was separating everything out but then she lost interest and in it all went. The knives were not touched because she knew to leave them alone. Emma had a great 2nd Halloween. More to come on that later.