Emme's First Day of Preschool

Emme is in preschool! I still can't believe it when I say that and she has been going for a whole month now! Her first day was August 8th, she goes Mondays and Thursdays from 8:30 until 12:30. The first day was really hard on both of us I think, she has never been to daycare or had to be left really by me so she cried when I had to leave her which in turn made me bawl like a baby. I felt awful having to turn my back on her and leave. She cried for a few minutes and then off and on for some quick moments that first day the teacher said and then she had to ask about every 20 minutes about me coming back to pick her up. The second day she went to school went much better as far as not asking about me picking her up and she didn't cry in between activities. Every day we have gone has gotten better. She actually still cries when I drop her off even still but only for a minute and then she moves on to her tasks for the day. I know she loves school because she always says she wants to go back to school and has fun when I ask her. They do art day on Mondays and Yoga and pizza on Thursdays which I think is really fun for her. She just seems like such a big girl to me lately, where does the time go?
Emme's cubbie for school
All dressed for the first day of school!

Our July Vacation

We took our vacation to Wisconsin in July this year, my cousin and very good friend both got married a week apart so it worked out perfectly for our visit. Other than being disguistingly hot and humid, we had a great time. There were a few days there where it was about 100 degrees with 90 some percent humidity that almost did us in, especially since my parents have no AC! But we made it through and the rest of the trip was luckily not as bad. The girls had a blast as usual, we got to go to the beach, hang at my parents house and my grandma's, visit some friends that we haven't seen in forever (which was looooong overdue!), and just do some relaxing.
Playing with our friend's Doug and Brianne's little girls, Alex and Carys Feeding fish at my Grandma's house Playing at Pattison Park on the beach Eating ice cream with Audia in Minong Picture with Grandma and Grandpa

A New Addition

Looks like we will be expecting a new addition for Christmas this year! This is actually old news but since I haven't blogged in FOREVER, I thought I would add some pictures of the newest Lilly on here. My due date is actually Christmas, December 25th and we couldn't be more excited. I can't wait to see the girls with the new baby. I'm 23 weeks right now. And we have opted not to find out the gender of the baby this time, the surprise will be lots of fun!

12 weeks (first picture) 19 weeks (second and third picture)

The Girls

It is so hard to write down every month new things the girls are doing to keep record so I thought I would make a little post about some things that are new just to have for memories.

Let's start with Emme. She has just exploded with language in the past six months. It's amazing to me how she is such a little girl and not a toddler anymore. She has such a great vocabulary and comes up with the funniest things sometimes. I'm amazed how she knows things that I didn't recall discussing with her or things that we have talked about months prior and it's on her mind like we just talked about it. She is now fully potty trained except at night we have a few accidents but I feel that is doing very well for her age. I really wanted to get her potty trained well before August since that is when she starts preschool and she has been fully day trained for about 4 or 5 months now without any accidents. I decided about a month or two back to just cut out the pull ups at night because since she was day trained, I figured we should work on the night time stuff. To my amazement, the first night she didn't have an accident at all. Since they, she has had accidents but she has gone about 5 nights without having any which I consider to be very good for her age since it's not really a conscious thing, it's more to do with their body maturing enough to hold it. She also can hold it all nap time and she has one had one incident with that ever. We have also got rid of the Binkie as we call it, or Pacifier. She was only allowed to have it at nap or bed time but my goal originally was to have it gone by 18 months and that went out the door a long time ago. It was just more of a comfort thing to her and I just decided one day to take them all away and when it came to nap and bed time to just endure the withdrawl from it. It went way better than I expected it to. The first day she cried for about 10 minutes at nap and bedtime and by the third day, she was saying she is a big girl and doesn't need it anymore. I'm so relieved it wasn't a huge battle because she really loved that thing so much. I never thought I would have my 2 1/2 yr old still having a binkie so I'm happy to see it go.

Emme starts preschool in August and I'm so hoping she will have an easy adjustment to it. She only will go 2 days a week for half days but it seems like so long to me since she is with me all the time. I really think she will thrive because she loves being around other kids and she is so ready to learn and have that social experience. I think it will be very good for her. Whenever she sees a school bus, she says "Look Mommy, school bus, Emme is going to make new friends!" So I have been preparing her for school and saying she will meet new friends and she has to go by herself, Mommy and Daddy can't go to school with her. I find when I explain things to her ahead of time, it makes things so much easier and she doesn't get upset or as upset anyways when it's just sprung on her.

She can count to 10, sometimes skipping a few numbers and also say most of the alphabet which I'm happy about since she will be in school soon. She is really good with her sister and loves to include her in everything, sometimes she pushes her around and doesn't like to share but she never does that with other kids so I think it's just a sister rivalry thing. She has been telling us lately that Stella is her best friend which just totally melts my heart. I'm really glad they are so close together now that they are older because they have such a good time playing together. One of their favorite things to do is go in Emme's room and read books together and also play in their "fort" which is either her walk in closet or her bathroom in the tub :) She is such a bright little girl and listens for the most part, especially in public which I feel very lucky for. She always wants to help me in the kitchen make dinner or bake and is always willing to get things for Stella when she is asked. She just gets funnier and funnier as her vocabulary grows.

On to Stella...Stella is such a happy little toddler, I couldn't ask for a happier child. I feel so lucky to have her personality because as much as I love Emme, she is alot more high maintence. They have always been so opposite in personalities and Stella has been so easy going since she was born. That has definitely carried through to now because I really don't know of a happier little girl. She walks around with a permanent smile on her face and she is always laughing. It's so funny to finally see her walking and running around. She didn't officially start walking until almost 14 months, she was so laid back it really didn't interest her that, she was content with crawling around. She is so different in body build than Emme too, she weighs about 26 lbs and Emme is 27 lbs! She has really thinned out alot I have noticed however since she was little, I think the walking around has helped that. She is so smart in knowing what's going on even if she can't talk like Emme. She will pretty much do anything you ask her to and if you say to her to go put something away somewhere, she knows exactly where you mean. She also has been telling us when she goes poo at times so I think she will be pretty good at potty training too, I hope anyways!

Some of the words she is really good at saying are: sit, drink, more, Mar (for Marley), doll, baby, B for Binkie, Mama and Dada of course, and she tries to say Thank You and shoes, etc. but she's still working on those :) She is very good at communicating what she wants even if she doesn't know the word yet. She's a very good sharer with Emme and any other kid and she just loves people. She always shakes her head yes or no for things and is really good at giving hugs and kisses to people when asked. I'm always grateful for her little sunshine personality in our lives :) We are very lucky to have two wonderful girls.

Balloons

One of my absolute favorite things about our new house is all the hot air balloons we see on a daily basis right out our windows. They have been so close at times, we can hear the noise from the flame and we have seen several about 30 feet from our house literally. It is so amazing to be eating breakfast and see as many as 6 hot air balloons around our home. I never get sick of them.

Easter

To say that Easter was fun for the girls this year was an understatement. Emme is like a old pro at collecting Easter eggs and she was all about teaching Stella the job of finding them. We did an Easter egg hunt at my best friend Heidi's parent's house and then one at our house. I think Emme had half of the eggs in her basket in about 2 minutes. Stella was alittle slower at the process since she obviously had no recollection of last year. She could actually participate now so she did very well at putting them in her basket however she was more interested in opening them as she found them to consume what was inside.

I was also very impressed at how well they did getting their picture taken with the Easter Bunny this year. Emme actually sat on his lap and smiled, no crying which is pretty much the first year for that now that she is getting older and realizes that he brings baskets and eggs with candy and goodies. Stella immediately shook her head when she was going to be plopped on his lap so I had to end up being in the picture so she wouldn't freak out but Emme did an amazing job, and she did not forget to ask for Easter eggs filled with chocolate of course. I haven't scanned the picture yet but I will get that on here when I do.

Visitors

We had visitors galore from January to March, come to think of it, maybe that's why I haven't been able to post anything and I'm way behind!

First, Brian's parents visited for a month in January. They are moving out here and so they came to stay with us while they shopping for a house. It was a good thing they ended up staying a month because there were only a few homes at a time we could see that fit what they were looking for in the area so we needed the whole month's time. They actually found several they really liked but they were outbid on two homes the first day they came on the market which was a bummer but that's the way it goes in this market with regular sales. They ended up finding a short sale they really liked and their offer was accepted. They have been dealing with that whole mess since they left here, waiting to hear what is going to happen-waiting and waiting, and waiting...waiting is the name of the game in short sales if you didn't get the hint ;) They were inititally going to close at the end of May and that is what they were planning on until a few days ago when they found out it won't be until June at least. What a roller coaster ride that is ! So we are hoping it will be June for sure now because they are so ready to be out here and we are ready for them to be here as well! Emme talks about them moving every other day pretty much so I'm sure a few months is like eons for a kid.

The casita came in so handy while they were staying, they had their own little space to make their own and it ended up being perfect for long term guests. The girls had so much fun with their Nanny and Papa, they were sad to see them go but it's not as sad this time since we know they will be here soon. Emme made Jerry her personal coloring partner and Nanny was her baking partner. I'm sure there will be lots of baking and coloring in their future when they move here, get ready Nanny and Papa!

Just a short time after Nanny and Papa left, we had more visitors, Monica and Tre. They just came for an extended weekend which was great because they had not seen our new home yet. Again, the girls were thrilled to have more guests and especially their Auntie Mo Mo who is a little ball of entertainment. I'm a firm believer people should rent her out for parties, she is quite the entertainer :) We had a long weekend of grilling out, going to the zoo (always a crowd pleaser), and some good family quality time.

Feeding the giraffe at the zoo

Happenings

So it's been waaaaay too long since I have last posted something, I swear I have no idea where the time goes. I always have the best intentions of writing what's been going on and then I get distracted (probably by two little munchkins I am the primary caretaker of.)

Since I have missed the past 3 or 4 months, I should probably fill you in. My parents as well as aunt and uncle visited in March. After they stayed about 8 days, the girls and I flew to Wisconsin with them for 12 days while Brian stayed in AZ. He would have loved to come but since we usually take a 2 week trip in the summer to WI, he couldn't come both times. I was really nervous to fly back with the girls by myself, not because of them misbehaving, but just because I only have two hands and I was nervous about being able to get all of our car seats, bags, stroller, etc. to where we needed to be by myself. Luckily my parents were able to come with me to the gate until we boarded so that was a big help. The staff also helped me carry everything and I ended up sitting next to a nice lady on the plane that helped me off with the bags and the girls so that was a huge plus. The girls were really well behaved on the plane too and luckily we didn't need to take any bathroom breaks on the plane which I was dreaded because the picture of me trying to stuff myself and both girls into a plane bathroom, didn't sound too easy to accomplish. They actually took about a 2 hour nap on the plane on the way home and then woke up for the last hour which we just watched a movie and played/snacked so it was perfect. I must say it was a success but I probably won't do that again until they are a tad older :)

When my family visited, we took them to a spring training baseball game which was a blast as always. The girls had fun running around and were very well behaved even though their nap was pushed a few hours later in the day which actually amazed me. They loved running around on the grass and watching the game. We also took a trip to Jerome with my family and my parents took my aunt and uncle to Sedona one day by themselves so I think they enjoyed that. I'm just so grateful for this new house we have that we can accommodate all the guests, the casita is such a nice place to have for visitors! I appreciate it every day.

We also took the girls to this historic museum that is right by our house, who knew! It was very old western and had tons of old buildings and artifacts to look at. They even had a little gun show play they put on and so that was something fun to do.

Needless to say, it was a big weather shock to go from Arizona weather in March to Wisconsin weather. We needed our winter hats, coats, and boots and there was even a blizzard while we were there. It was fun for the girls to experience the snow however and they had a blast sledding and eating the snow. Well, I should say Emme did at least, Stella ended up being crabby for part of the trip because of teeth coming in but she is such a happy spirit, it didn't last long luckily. Sledding with my Grandma was a highlight for them and then we spent part of our visit at my parents house too. The girls and I also got to meet my sister's little girl Addy for the first time. They had a ball playing with their cousin.

Stella giving a hug to Addy

I must say I give all the credit in the world to single parents because 12 days as the sole parent was a long time even with help from my parents and my Grandma. I feel very lucky to have a husband who helps out tremendously with the kids, we all missed him. I don't think Brian is cut out to be a bachelor either, he was counting down the days until we came home. I think he was getting pretty sick of Chicken Ramon (which is Ramon noodles chicken flavor) :) and take out. We had a great visit but it's always great to come home at the same time.

Stella's 1st Birthday

For Stella's birthday, we had a party at our new home which was nice because in addition to a birthday party for her, it was a chance for our friend's to see our new place. We rented a jumpy house for the kids, always a favorite and had a really nice group show up. It was the perfect amount of people that came, usually I tend to over-invite and it's hard to be able to talk to everyone for more than a minute between dealing with the kids and playing a good host. All the kids seemed to enjoy it and Stella LOVED smashing her cake all over her face. She got a bunch of new toys (lucky me to have to clean up!) and it was so nice as always to catch up with good friends. Here are a few pictures below...