may babies

May is a fun and busy month in our house!  Big E turned 8, Miss Em turned 3, Mom turns **cough** thirty-something **cough**, and then add on Mothers Day, teacher appreciation week/end of school stuff, and capping it all off with Memorial Day! Whew! 

Here are a few highlights from my growing babies...

BIG E:

• Loves to dress in black, neon, camo, and sometimes all three.
• Loves swords, nerf guns, and spy gear. Requested a double-edged sword for this birthday, but settled on a hatchet.
• Went turkey hunting for the first time (no one was hurt - not even a turkey)
• Best friend is Kale
• Aces most spelling tests
• Super responsible kid and an awesome big brother! He makes me proud every day!

MISS EM:

• Loves to wear her "cow boots"
• Rough & tough girl. Walked in one day to find her sparring with a boy from her class.
• Loves to sing, especially Happy Birthday, ABCs, Old McDonald, and Little Bunny Foo-Foo
• Wanted scissors and candy for her birthday 
• Best friend is Sutton aka "Sutt-Sutt". Other buddies include Sibley "Sibby-rose" and Kate.  
• "Yesterday" means anything from this morning to three years ago (example: "I was at that hospital yesterday when I was a baby."
• Total daddy's girl, but gives mama plenty of hugs and kisses too. Love our baby girl!

This year the kids had a horse party for their birthdays! If you ask Em which was her favorite: the slower smaller horse, or the bigger faster horse, the answer is of course the big fast one (not pictured)!

Halloween 2006-2013

This is a little story about a lion, a zebra, and a bumblebee...  

My awesome two year old.

Miss Em at 2 years, 3 months...

She's starting to speak in sentences, and cracks us up with her Italian accent. "I wash-a ma hands!" "I poop-a da potty!" "I drink-a ma juice!"

She loves to dance (a lot!), loves to draw (still calls it "ess" for some reason), loves to play with her baby (whom she has named Baby Julie), and loves to play and wrestle with big brother - always.

She enjoys going to school each morning. Her favorite teacher Miss Jenny just left for school, but she's quickly become attached to Miss Carley and Miss Beth. On the way to school, she'll say "Eric hit me" or "Sut-Sut pull ma hair".  This morning I responded, "he just pulled your hair 'cause you're so cute." To which she said "I'm not cute." When I glanced back she said in her just kidding voice: "I'm cuuute!" (I don't think she's often abused by her classmates - but she's hung up on the couple of times she got picked on by the boys.)

She can say her alphabet, count down backwards from 10 (blastoff!!), and can sing or hum twinkle twinkle little star.  She loves music, but is also very opinionated about it.  I'll often have to flip through several songs ("don't like it") before we land on one she can be-bop to. Her current favorite? Icona Pop - I love it

If I could freeze time right now I would, but unfortunately I don't have the super power yet. However I know that she'll just get funnier and cuter and smarter as time goes by, and I've got a front row seat!

march kidstagram

Cute kids + Instagram = Obsessed!  (albeit a little late)

riding back from visiting family in Illinois

working on some dance moves

story time with Big E

loves to make mustaches

taken by her big brother

finally warm enough for the park

sick again at the doctor's office

playing jeff's piano

easter morning funny faces

peeking out of em's new window!

helping daddy with yardwork

horsing around

watching elmo videos on youtube

Big E's Holiday Program

our little rudolph in a sea of elves

dada and brother's biggest fan

em looking cute in her new christmas outfit from grandma

posing with brother the red-nosed reindeer

pure joy

Here are a couple of videos of Big E practicing Jingle Bells and his school's new fight song, which the kids debuted at the holiday performance!

Breakfast with Santa

Breakfast with Santa is always fun, right?  I get to pose in the big jolly man's chair...

wear a Santa hat and take more pictures with my sister...

and sit on his cozy lap and tell him all I want for Christmas and that I've been a good boy.

And then my sweet little sister joins me on his lap...

for about two seconds before throwing her hands up and arching her back, turning Santa into a furry slip-n-slide.

I'm not sure you're getting that meowing cat you wanted.  We'll try again next year, sis.

Dancing Queen [18 months]

 

 

Miss Em is 18 months! How blessed we are to have such a smart, lively, funny girl in our lives. We should call her goldilocks because look at those blond curls! Maybe we have a future in shampoo ads. 

 

Dance class is in our near future because girlfriend loves to get down!  If she hears a few beats, she'll stop whatever she's doing and start bouncing around.  Makes my heart so happy.

 

She's making new sounds daily. She can tell you when she needs to be changed and just went in the potty for the second night in a row! Her words are currently limited to please, ball, help, more, hello/yellow, and hi, but I can tell she's just on the brink of talking up a storm.

 

She just started in the Toddler 2 room with her teachers Ms. Linda, who watched Big E when he was a baby, and Miss Carissa, who watched him in the school age room.  It's really nice to feel such a sense of family at our day care. Her best buddy is Sutton.  He likes to dance too.

 

These pictures were the hardest to get.  She cannot seem to stay still for as long as it takes for a flash to go off on my camera. 

 

Em loves her stuffed animals - especially her pink sock monkey.  She loves her big dog Padre even more. He gets daily hugs from his little sis.  And then there's her other big brother...

Em loves Big E SO much! She wants to do everything he is doing and vice versa.  These two are my heart and soul.  I am glad they will always have each other.

I love my babies.

dinosaurs & money

I finally got a video of Em acting out her favorite song!




And this is what happens when I turn on the video function on my phone and give it to big E. I'm thinking he needs his own podcast series.

fireside chats

This girl is going to be trouble, I can tell.

munchkin update

Big E

Almost 6 1/2 and in first grade, E is a high energy kid.  On a scale of 1-10, his volume level is often at 11.  He's super funny, super nice to his friends and super smart. His favorite subject is math.  He struggles with reading a little bit, but is trying hard to learn. We read almost every night and started working on flash cards for sight words. I fell like he will be rainman when it comes to math - just like his dad. The numbers just seem to come to him. He's also very interested in space, which I've learned freaks me out. Anyone else get anxiety talking about space?

E's a hard one to get to stand still for more than a second, but here's a short interview I managed to film.

Em

At 16 months, Em loves music, books and drawing.  She'll focus for a long time on anything with buttons to push. There's one toy with a little keyboard on it and I she played the best song for me. She loves Ring Around the Rosy, Old McDonald, and Twinkle Twinkle Dinosaur (with big ROARS and stomping included, which I totally need to get on camera). If she hears music, that little blond head starts bobbing.

Her communication skills are the biggest advances lately.  She can sign for please, thank you, and milk, and can say "baa" for sheep, "ma" for more/milk, and nods yes or shakes her head no. When you ask her to say the word "please" after she signs it, she'll just make the biggest "cheese" face. It's cute.

I did manage to capture some moments on camera this month.  Loving the easy upload from my phone to YouTube.

Excited for Dada to be home | Eating a lemon | Riding her pony

The best part of all is seeing all the sibling love. They love to wrestle and hug. Em wants anything her big bro is playing with, and sometimes he'll even let her have it. These two sure keep us busy and it's hard work, but I can't imagine life without them. Yup, we're pretty much moving to wherever they go after college.