The Little Things

Emmy had her two year well check and here are her stats:

Weight: 26.6 pounds (50th percentile)
Height: 34.5 inches (75th percentile)

AND she can now drink skim milk with the rest of us! YAY! I don't know why I've been so excited about this but sometimes it's the little things that make life seem a little easier.  No more buying two different milks!

Emmy had a great well check. She is meeting all her milestones and beyond- not much to discuss with the doctor. And she did not have to have any shots! I was not expecting that but it was a pleasant surprise. Again, the little things.

So now that Emmy is two here is a little update:
She is currently getting her two year molars in and it has not been fun. It's been going on for the past 3-4 weeks now.  One of them is finally all the way in and another is emerging.  She chews on her fingers and hands a lot. She has also been crying some at naptime and nighttime which is very unusual for her.  I will chalk it up to teething.

Emmy is SO independent. I hear the words "I do it" more often than not.  She is very proud of herself when she can take her pajamas off and put her pants on. This new found independence takes practice I guess because I went in to her room the other day to get her up from her nap only to find her completely naked.  Every strip of clothing down to her diaper was on the floor by her crib.  I guess she needed to practice undressing herself.  Hopefully this won't become a habit!

Emmy still talks up a storm, chases after her brother and tests the limits all the time.  I foresee lots of disciplining and "time outs" in our future. But that's ok. It's part of this stage we are in so we will embrace the "terrible twos" and we will make it through- because we've done it once before!

And speaking of "the little things", Jackson and Emmy have LOVED flying kites.  This $.88 kite has brought more fun and laughter than you can imagine.  They have been thoroughly entertained.  We've lots of chilly, windy weather so we've made the most of it!

 

Look Hoo's Two!!!

Emmy turned two last Friday. It's hard to believe my baby girl's two- and yes I still think of her as a baby! I did a really scaled down version of the party that I had originally planned in my head.  It was small but fun. And perfect for Emmy as she still tends to be very shy and quiet in crowds.  We celebrated her birthday on Friday with a pizza party and cupcakes at home and then on Saturday had family over for hot dogs and more cupcakes.

This year's birthday was much different than last year.  Emmy wouldn't touch her cupcake last year but she was not shy this year about getting it all over her face! She's come so far in the past year. It's hard to remember the struggle we had with table foods because she is such a good eater now.

Emmy had some requests for her birthday. She wanted Baxter at her party (that's my parents dog) and she requested "big big balloons" and "open presents".  She definitely understood more of what was going on this time around.  And I think Jackson was just as excited as if it was his own birthday. He was such a sweet big brother and kept telling her she could play with any toys she wanted and watch any video she wanted because it was her birthday. Sweet big brother!

 

Look Hoo's Two theme:

 

 It's been awhile since I've updated the blog so I have more updates to come and Emmy's two year stats after our doctor appointment on Tuesday.

A New Year

I didn't make specific New Year Resolutions like I usually do. I have some general thoughts on things I would like to do better or more but there are so many other things going on around here that I have been preoccupied.  January has brought many changes and we are still sorting through some things. I'm really looking forward to February and hoping that things will have calmed down by then.

 I thought I would just give an Emmy update because I haven't done that in awhile.

She is more into girly things these days. She likes to dress up and "go dancing" she says.  She loves us to tell her that she is so pretty. She gets a big smile on her face!

She loves the baby dolls and things she got for Christmas.  She likes to give her babies a bath and put them to bed. She thinks it's funny when I pretend like her baby is crying and she always tell me to sing "Rock a Bye Baby" to her babies, and animals too!

Emmy loves to sing and to be sung to. The songs she requests the most before bed are, "Hush Little Baby", "Itsy bitsy Spider" and "God is so Good".  She loves to sing too and can pretty much sing, "Jingle Bells", "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Jesus Loves Me". 

Emmy continues to love books! She will sit and look at books any time. We read books everyday and she never gets tired of reading the same ones over and over. She loves to point at different things and ask, "What's that?"  She got some Olivia books for Christmas and is loving those but has recently started enjoying lift the flap books as well.  

Emmy continues to talk up a storm. Her favorite phrases right now are, "I do it" and "do me". She says "do me" whenever anyone else has had a turn (answering a question, being tickled, being hugged, etc.).  She is very independent and wants to do everything herself, especially, washing hands, climbing into her carseat or booster chair, putting socks and shoes and pants on, brushing teeth, opening a door, etc. The best way to get her to obey is telling her that I'm going to do something for her. If I tell her to come here and she says "no" usually all I have to say is, "obey mommy or I'm going to come carry you in here." Then she comes running! She actually is pretty good about saying "yes mam" which she has picked up faster than Jackson did. If she tells me "no" I usually just give her a look or tell her to try again and she will say "yes mam" and obey.

  

She is still a really good eater and will always clean her plate. I'm grateful she still likes things like salad, grape tomatoes, celery, cucumber and of course all the other typical vegetables. She eats anything I make which makes things easy for me. She also continues to be a good sleeper. Her naps are consistently 2 to 2.5 hours and she typically goes to bed around 6:30 or 6:45 and sleeps until about 7. She still never makes a sound when she wakes up. She lays quietly in her bed until I come in and get her. In some ways she can be very challenging but I'm so thankful we don't battle eating and sleeping.

It's so fun watching her grow and change and learn new things. She's so sweet and loves to give hugs and kisses (especially to Jackson). It's hard to believe this girl's coming up on 2!

Christmas and Other

December flew by as it usually does. Here we are at the end with no December updates or pictures. I have a lot of catching up to do. 

We started our Christmas season by decorating the house and our tree on December 1.  It was so fun and the kids loved every minute! I used to love decorating the tree with all my favorite decorative balls but oh how children change those things. Now my favorite ornaments are the ones the kids have made at school or the ones we handmade together. Our tree is very "kid friendly" these days.

(And our tree is so tiny! But I'm happy to report we bought a much bigger tree on sale after Christmas and am looking forward to decorating it next year. It's huge compared to our current one!)

 The first half of December was very very warm so we were still enjoying lots of playtime outside.

Love these sweet picture of both kids. Sometimes they are so cooperative and let me take sweet pictures. Most of the time this does not happen though!

 Love this one too of Emmy copying Jackson's pose! This girl LOVES her big brother and will follow him anywhere!

We also enjoyed the Christmas festivities at church which included the children's choir program.  Jackson joined children's choir this past fall and worked very hard to learn all the Christmas songs and his Bible verse. The songs were very simple and short and soon we all found ourselves singing them around the house and in the car! Even Emmy learned them and would sing along! It was so sweet to hear their little voices singing about baby Jesus.

Christmas was a lot of fun this year with Emmy being older. She loved the tree and by the time presents were under the tree she could tell us which ones were hers, Jackson's, Mommy's, etc.  I know I'm biased but she is so smart!

A few weeks ago I was letting her play on my Ipad (from work) and we were doing a painting app where you use your finger to "paint". I drew a heart for her and was showing her what a heart was and then she says, "Mommy, draw tri-angle" (emphasis on the "angle"). I thought I misunderstood her so I said, "a triangle?" and she confirmed again that she wanted me to draw a triangle. So I drew one and she pointed at it and said, "triangle!".  I have never shown her or talked about a triangle before (I'm sure she's hearing it at school) but I was pretty impressed!

A couple of weeks ago I decided to put a band-aid on her thumb to try and wean her from her thumb sucking. I'm hoping if we can stop her before she's two we'll be doing good! So far she's done pretty well. Sometimes she complains about the band-aid and wants to take it off but she understands so much that I can talk her through it and she leaves it on. We let her take it off for nap time and bed time and she understands that now.  However, the other day she randomly came up to me and said, "I take a band-aid off". So she was telling me she wanted to take her band-aid off but she used a 5 word sentence! That was the first time I've heard use anything longer than a three word phrase. She basically uses 2-3 word phrases to communicate but a 5 word sentence for a child that's not even two is impressive, at least to this momma!

School finally let out for everyone on Friday, December 21. That is much later than usual but after that last day we jumped into a whole long weekend of festivities.  We celebrated Christmas with different family members Saturday through Tuesday.  On Monday we celebrated Kevin's birthday and then Tuesday was Christmas- lots of parties and celebrations which the kids loved! I loved seeing the kids' faces on Christmas morning and watching them open presents.

Santa brought a kitchen:

 Santa also brought Hello Kitty band-aids in Emmy's stocking!

Christmas is always such a great reminder of how blessed we are!  

 

We had a very Merry Christmas and as always I'm a little sad when it's over. It was so fun to have a long Christmas weekend and have Kevin off of work for so many days! I've also been so thankful that we have all stayed well especially with so much sickness going around. Looking forward to the New Year!

Pictures

Back in October we had our pictures taken again by Brittani Bailey. She did a great job! I thought I would share some of my favorites.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and we have so much to be thankful for.  Once again we had Thanksgiving at our house and hosted my parents as well as a mix of family from my mom's side and my dad's side.  It was a small gathering but it was fun and the food was great!

Love these two kiddos! They had such a fun day seeing family and playing outside- the weather was gorgeous!

Jackson is finally loving his bike! He would often try it and get frustrated with it so it took him awhile to learn and now he flies around the driveway!

I am so thankful for both of these children.  This year I am mostly thankful for a healthy year and thankful that there were no extended hospital visits in 2012 (well, we've got about a month left but hopefully there won't be any).  2011 was a really hard year for us so I am very very thankful that 2012 turned out to be a lot less stress free.  And so thankful for children who eat well, sleep well and love each other and a husband who loves his family- I will never take those things for granted! Most of all I'm thankful for Jesus and the everyday reminders of how much we need Him. I'm looking forward to the advent season and celebrating this time with my family.