Monday, October 22, 2012

October 2012

October came and went in the blink of an eye.  These girls are growing up so fast!

Whitney is so close to crawling now!  She will go from a sitting position to getting down on all fours.  From that position she will push herself backwards, but just hasn't got the forward movement down yet.  Whit loves to sit up on her own and is very content just playing by herself.  But she also is a lot more interactive when playing people this month and loves to clap, smile and laugh.  No one can make her laugh quite like her sister though.

Whitney is now taking baths without her "bathtub seat," and the girls take baths together.  Emry likes to splash, and Whitney laughs and claps when she does.  That gets Emry even more excited so then she splashes even more to make Whitney happy.

"I'm not satisfied unless someone is splashing!"


Emry has been showing a lot of focus and concentration this month.  She will get involved in something and block everything else out.  We can practically yell and she won't break her concentration.  She actually sat down and watched her first full length movie from beginning to end - Finding Nemo.  Unfortunately for mom and dad, Emry has also recently wanted to  watch "Barney and Friends."  Hopefully that's a phase that doesn't last too long!

Emry is a lot better about identifying her colors now, and thinks hard when deciding what colors she should use in her coloring books.  She still loves to read books as well.  She was really into Charlie Brown books this month.  One day we were playing in the living room and a Metlife commercial came on TV.  Charlie Brown, Lucy and Snoopy were in it, and Emry got really excited, but also very confused.  She said "Charlie Brown on TV?"  

Emry still says a few words wrong.  Bananas are Dam-as.  When she says the mealtime prayer she says "Bless us O Lord and these 'grifts' which we are about to 'cerieve'...." Despite these cute little mixups, Emry continues to amaze us with the words she knows how to use.  She was helping us make soup one night and she dumped some carrots in the pot.  We asked what she put in the soup.  We were expecting the obvious answer "carrots", but instead her reply was "ingredients."

Adding some ingredients to the cookies


The girls have been playing outside a lot.  We've been trying to get as much time outside while the weather is nice.  Emry has become good friends with the next door neighbor and she looks for her every time we go outside.  They like to climb the tree in the front yard, swing, and color her swingset with sidewalk chalk.  Even though Emry is making other friends, she still loves to include Whitney in her playtime and teaches her how to play new games.  Emry also enjoy pushing Whit around in her cozy coup!





Hopefully this is the only time Emry poses
on the hood of a car!


As you can see from the video, it only takes a 2 year old about 3 minutes to completely wreck a house.  Although she doesn't like to pick things up, Emry still loves to dust and clean.

Another thing the girls did this month was go for their first bike ride with mom and dad in the new bike trailer!

Getting ready for the big ride!


"Emry, should we be nervous?"
"No, I've ridden with dad before."
"Then why are you biting your fingernails?!"



The girls big adventure in October was there first trip to Chicago.  We drove through downtown and showed Emry all the tall buildings.  We ate at some new restaurants, and had a cheesecake party one night.  The girls got to sleep in a cool hotel.

Hanging out in her Chicago "crib"


Also while in Chicago, the girls went to some cool parks and played on the slide and the swings.

 



Every once in awhile the the stars align
and you get a good picture.



We also went to a race and the girls got to see a bunch of runners, including their daddy...

Waiting for dad on the side of the trail...


Emry pushed Whitney all the way to the finish line

Both girls did great on the car ride to Chicago.  The whole way there, we kept telling Emry that we were going to Chicago.  We rewarded Emry the first night by going to the Jump Zone, which was right next to our hotel.  I think this confused Emry into thinking that the Jump Zone is Chicago.  Because after all the cool new experiences she had, when we'd ask her what she did in "Chicago" she'd say "My jump in Mickey's House! My play in pirate ship!"

Arrrgh!

Poor Whit was too small to enjoy the bouncers.
She only had a boring rubber mat to crawl on.

Playing in Mickey's Clubhouse...HOT DOG!


With it being October, the girls got to celebrated Halloween.  Emry was really into it this year.  She finally showed interest in the holiday for the first time, so it made it a lot more fun.  First, we went out to pick out a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. We took a couple of them home and carved jack-o-lanterns.  Emry didn't want to get messy with the pumpkin guts at first, but eventually she came around.  She was so excited and proud once they were finished!




It took her 5 hours to roll that pumpkin all the way back to our car


Emry enjoyed looking at all the funny shaped gourds


I see the perfect pumpkin!







But Emry's favorite part about Halloween was dressing up.  Both girls went as peacocks.  Emry did pretty well saying "Trick or Treat" when she knocked on doors.  She was shy at first, but after about 3 or 4 houses, she had it mastered.  When we'd leave a house she'd say "More houses!"

Peacock 1


Peacock 2

Whitney was more interested in chewing her giraffe
than watching Emry go trick-or-treating 

"Thanks for making the costumes mom!"
We also took the girls to Boo at the Zoo.  It was pretty crowded and since it was starting to get dark, most of the animals weren't out.  But it was still a fun experience, and we did encounter a few animals...


Emry scared off this goose by spreading her tail feathers
and shrieking at the top of her lungs

The cutest peacock in the whole zoo!

We can't believe another month has already gone by, but we are eagerly awaiting to see what the girls will do next month!





Sunday, September 30, 2012

September 2012

2 years, 3 months and 5 days.  That is how long it takes to raise a human being from an infant into a fully independent person.  Emry has been wanting to do almost everything "all by self" lately, but on this particular day she didn't want to talk to mom and dad or answer any questions.  She was totally engrossed in her world of play and mischief.  Her world no longer revolved around mom and dad and the things we tried to say or do.  Emry truly has developed her own likes, dislikes, interests and favorites.  And on her 828th day of life, Emry ignored everything mom and dad tried to do with her the entire evening.  We wondered if she was mad about something.  We set the table for dinner and went in to get our bowls of soup from the kitchen.  When we walked back into the dining room Emry was sitting in her chair, getting a cracker out of the box.  She pointed to our places at the table and said "cracker for mommy, cracker for daddy."  She had already put a cracker on each of our plates before she got one for herself...she hadn't forgotten about us after all!  Its funny how one second she can have you completely frustrated, then one second later do the cutest thing that melts your heart.  That story describes Emry in a nutshell at this point in her life...miss independent.


She looks like she's got something devious on her mind...

But how can you be mad at a face like that?


 Besides being miss independent, Emry has been busy this month doing a lot of dancing and singing songs.  Maren picked her up from daycare one day and found her dancing around the living room and singing "at Miss Laura's house..."(Miss Laura is what she calls the babysitter).  She likes to make up her own words and just sing random things that she's doing - kind of like Marshall on How I Met Your Mother.  Emry started singing her ABC's back in June, and now she has them pretty well mastered(QRS get left out on occasion, but those letters are overrated anyway).

She's a one-woman band

A lefty, just like mom and dad!

Hmm...maybe some more orange?

Emry can also count to 20 now.  Her favorite book this month was "The Three Bears", although she still likes her peacock books and Curious George books a lot.  Emry is gradually learning her colors.  Its almost like she has a 3 color limit, where she can only accurately identify 3 colors at a given time.  She knows orange and grey for sure.  She's hit or miss on yellow and red.  Often times she'll confuse purple and pink, blue and green, yellow and green, or white and brown.  But she's getting better and better with them as the weeks go by.

Emry's favorite saying this month was "that's kinda crazy."  She uses it all the time, like "Whitney take pants off! That's kinda crazy!" or "Mommy drop her fork, that's kinda crazy!"  Apparently she heard her uncle say it one day and it just stuck in her head.  So this is a warning for anyone who feels the need to curse if Emry is around...make sure you use the "earmuffs" technique!

Whitney got to go on her first camping trip in Sept.  The girls both had a lot of fun.  Emry showed Whitney how to throw sticks in the fire, eat s'mores and get really dirty.  Whitney just watched and learned from the comfort of her stroller, but both girls seemed to enjoy spending the weekend outdoors

Helping build the fire

Just a couple more sticks should do the trick

Taking it all in

Fall is coming...time to bust out the cute hats!






"Whitney, I hope your taking notes"

Pinky up...the most refined way to eat a s'more.
You know its a good s'more when you get
 chocolate all the way down to your shins.



Whitney is rolling all over the place, and its still her main mode of transportation.  She is trying really hard to scoot.  She can scoot backwards, just not forward.  She'll probably be moving all over the place in just a couple of weeks.

Just chillin' under the coffee table

Practicing our earthquake preparedness plan

Yes, its a chick-fil-a ball...its not a social statement,
its just a ball, so relax people.



Whitney sat up for the first time early this month, and by the end of the month she was a pro at it...


Happiest baby in the whole wide room

Multitasking...sitting up and holding a ball.

"Hey look, no hands!"



Whitney had some "real food" for the first time this month.  She had some homemade baby sweet potatoes and homemade baby peas.  She seemed to enjoy them both, just need to work on our table manners....


Yum Yum!

Hmm, not sure what to think yet...



"Whit you got a little something...nevermind"

Apparently Whit was taking notes when Emry ate the s'more!

Whitney had to take some meds for the first time this month.  Luckily it wasn't anything too serious, she just couldn't get rid of a cough and a runny nose.  Whit also had two more teeth break through...the top two middle teeth are now visible!

Whitney has started making some phonetic sounds in addition to the normal baby-babble.  On the last day of the month she kept saying da-da-da-da.  She's just been a really happy baby!

Yep, happy!

Bath time makes her very happy


The girls interact more and more as the weeks go by.  A couple of weeks ago Emry taught Whitney how to play baseball.  She didn't cover the infield fly rule or the importance of hitting the cutoff man, but there's still plenty of time to learn all that...




In addition to coaching Whitney, Emry still shows her plenty of love, although she needs to learn to be a little more gentle...

Showing some sisterly love...
Whoops!



Emry still loves to help mom and dad take care of Whitney too...

Helping to brush Whit's teeth

All in all, September was a great month for Emry and Whit!