"Rehearsal" Number Two

"Rehearsal" is used very, very loosely when it comes to little girls dance classes. At least at the rec center it does and I'm extremely happy it's so casual while Lily is learning whether or not this is something she wants to do. Today was the last class of her second 6-wk ballet/tap combo class. She woke up from nap in a funk and it took awhile for her to get out of it.

A little while is being generous, it took about half the class but thankfully by the end her smiles and pep in her step came back. She even wanted to sign up for the next set of classes which will take us for another 6 weeks. We'll keep taking them until the summer but Miss Jan, the teacher, pulled me aside last week to tell me that Lily has some real talent that we should pursue. First, she mentioned the next class up for 6-8 yr olds but when she realized she was only going to turn 4 in a few months, quickly took it back...hahaha..

We'll see what the future holds for our dancing Lily but for now rec center dance it is.

After two years....

it's back.

The Rose Petal Cottage is baaack.

And, the girls are loving every single minute of it.

Double Yay for simple entertainment :)

Bags!

Today I spent the day beefing up Lily and Emma's stash of snack bags.

I made a total of eight bags today which brings their total up to more than what they would ever need :). 14 small and 5 large.

I even used some of the labels I have ordered to check them out before I use them on ones that I potentially sell. After a wash, everything seems to hold up pretty good.

When Maci Barks...

L and E stop what they are doing, whatever it is to find out what she's barking at.

Usually it's nothing, absolutely nothing and then there are times that people are walking down the street with a puppy and they stay at that window forever.

Gotta love that we have three watchdogs in the house.

Field Trip

 

Today was one of the best "playing hooky" days I can recall (OK, I took a vacation day but it's the thought) ... got to go on my first field trip as a parent! This was Lily's 2nd field trip of the school year (Mommy got the Taylor Farms one in October). For the Daddy & Lily field trip, we got to go to the local fire station.

 

 

We have been talking about it for weeks and when it was first brought up, lets just say Lily was less than enthusiastic. I think she had the impression it would be just continous blaring of loud sirens and guys walking around in their firesuits. For the past few weeks, we have been trying to explain to her that firefighters are Daddys and Mommys too and they just work at the station. I really wanted for her to have a good time, so we've been spinning this angle for the past 2 months. It worked, Lily had a blast!

Field trip started off easily enough, Lily huddled on the couch with her class as they watched the typical fire safety video. May had been the same one we watched as a kid since it was still in VHS format. After some "stop, drop, & rolling", we were off to check out the fire trucks. The fire station crew was great. They showed the kids the equipment, answered some questions, and even let the kids tour the truck. I thought Lily was going to be a little relunctant, but guess who was at the front off the line to cut through the truck. She must had did some elbowing because she was not close to the line front when we were at the back of the truck.

After a nice tour of the truck (think she felt right at home thanks to the NC Children's Museum), we found their city map. Lily stood in awe of the giant street map of Virginia Beach. Once the other kids saw her, they all swarmed over like bees. It was quite funny to see the whole mass move at once. A quick shortcut to see the fire station "sleep room" and we were off for the daily snack. I basically stood in the back where I watched my daughter systematically take down her brown paper bag of food and Capri-Sun. That's my girl, love you Lily!

Like I said, a great great hooky day!

Emma's Favorite Puzzle

Proud of you Miss Emma

Teacher Lily

Lily sits on the wicker trunk and reads to us.

She's gotten the book hold down and makes sure that we can always see the pictures. She also quizzes us during the book. She asks us questions to make sure we're paying attention, she'll turn the page the wrong way to see if we notice and changes her voice to her "teacher voice".

She is also very tough. We have to raise our hand if we need to get up and go somewhere. We can not talk to one another and we have to keep our hands to ourselves, yes...Mike messes with me just to get Lily to say something "teacher-like" to us. She says, "Do you have your listening ears on?", "We listen with our ears, we look with our eyes and keep our mouths quiet.", "We keep our hands to ourselves, don't we?"

During all of this, she is super serious. She loves to play school and takes on this role as if she is starring in a movie. It's adorable and sweet and melts my heart.

Good thing I saved a TON of teacher stuff for her to play with.

Board Games

Lily is loves playing games.

Tonight, we found her by herself in the den playing Goodnight Moon. She was so proud of herself that she took it upon herself to play and make up her own game. We've also loved playing games with Lily like Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, A Fishing Game and tons of Memory games.

It's really funny that now if we don't win and she does she consoles us by saying, "It's Ok Mommy, you can win next time. It's not that bad, it's just a game. Are you OK?" Or, if we land on a chute and we have go down a slide she says,"Don't worry slides are fun, Daddy. You'll be OK."

So proud.

Before and After

So, Lily is growing up.

She is expressing things that she likes and what she doesn't like.

She also tells us why like...

the reason she wants long hair...

because she likes a girl on the Barney video we have.

"Mommy, I like her. She has pretty brown hair like I do. Isn't it pretty Mommy?

Look how long it is, isn't it pretty?"

So now, she wants really long hair that she can feel on her back.

Yes, I can remember to like the girls on tv with long hair too.

Just a part of growing up I guess.

But since she hasn't had a haircut since probably last March sometime, it was time.

Before:

After:

Love her layers :)

And, we kept as much of the length we could.

She says next time, she's going to get it shorter for the summer.

She's getting in the pattern of letting it grow...cut it...let it grow...cut it.

Love watching you grow up Miss Lily.

And p.s. you have great hair.

A Non-... Weekend

We had a great weekend. It was full of not doing things.

We did not take one picture.
We did not go out, minus the grocery store run Sat morning.
We did not do any laundry.
We did not stay on a schedule.

But we did...

Dress in jammies or comfy, lounge around the house clothes all weekend.
We played A LOT.
We watched movies.
We ordered in pizza.
We watched football.
We took naps.

And, we had so much fun that none of us wanted this weekend to end.
Yay for non-ordinary, ordinary weekends that we all need once in awhile.

Foto Friday...

of young, blonde, baby-love.

Meet Miss Emma's new little boyfriend, Logan.

I could just squeeze both of their cheeks for days.

Makes me smile how much they love each other...

The Pledge

So, saying that Lily loves school is somewhat of an undersatement.

No, it's a complete understatement.

Most mornings she forgets to give me a hug or a kiss or even a wave goodbye and I'm so grateful that she loves it there and her teacher loves her so much. Lily loves them too. I know they take very good care of her. But this isn't the only reason she loves school, she loves to learn.

She has completely gotten Mike's unbelievable photographic memory and I'm completely in awe of it. Seriously, in awe.

She remembers things that I don't even remember.

Lily fell in love with the American flag in July during the Fourth and has really enjoyed listening to stories about history and our country. This is why we went to the Lincoln Memorial in December because Lily insisted we go. It was in the Pledge of Allegiance book.

So when they started to learn the Pledge back in November in school she was so excited. They began saying it on a Tuesday and the next week she could recite it all by herself. Since playing school  is a must in our house and she makes us pretend we're at her school, she's the teacher, and we are her students. She corrects us, she asks us questions as though we have no idea the answer, she imitates her teacher and we can tell says the same things she does in circle time. All of this plus she makes us do their morning routine which includes saying the pledge and holding "the Flag". We have a few small flags that need to be attached to dowels...again...so notice Mike is holding a blue colored pencil...yes, this is the flag and we are soluting it.

Love you Miss Lily...please, please, please never ever change.

Our One Day

With Mike having most of the Mondays off this month and Lily going to school Tues/Thurs and Fri, Wed is turning out to be our girl day. And, we've been enjoying staying at home and enjoying each other and doing things that require a bit more concentration and cleaning up.

Today, we painted.

And, I've finally, finally found a way to use the applesauce containers :)

Paint.

I've also collected medicine cups too!

They both work great since I fill up these cups and the girls believe that there's tons of paint in them. And, there's really not it's just that the cup is so small it seems as though there's a lot. Finally, I've outsmarted them...aaahahaha...yes, it's the small things.

But, the girls painted for at least 45 minutes and were really into it. Emma only ate paint twice to make her tongue blue twice when I finally popped in that binky to stop it from happening again.

Then, since Emma was quite covered in paint not just in her mouth but her hair too they were put at the sink and played there for an hour. A very long hour of me taking them off the chairs, drying the chairs and the floor only to put them back for them to dump water all over again. I didn't mind but was very glad when we were all done. The requests to play at the sink have been denied since then but I tell them, "One Day Maybe"....

Oh, and had to capture the look on Maci's face. Kinda says it all doesn't it.

When Lily's at Dance

Emma will play.

and help Daddy cook dinner of course :)

Happy Happy...

and such a great visit in NC.

We now know that a 6hr car trip is absolutely nothing for this family of four.

And, now we can go places just for a few days and be just fine.

Bring on the weekend trip to Nana and Pa's house.

Love you guys!

Awesome Day

We had a great day.

We went to our favorite Discovery Kid's Science Center...

Lily and Emma loved it.

On our way out Lily was already planning on when we can return with Nana and Pa.

The rest of our day was full of relaxin' and football watchin'.

On Our Way

to see Nana and Pa.

We left super early and had our best time yet getting to Charlotte.

One stop and 6 hrs.

All four of us were excited to get there and begin our impromptu weekend.

Lily got to hang her bird feeder from school with Pa.

Nana got tons of hugs and kisses from both Lil and Em.

Lil and Em quickly became right at home by jumping into a game of hide n seek where Emma found "her place" behind an end table.

We even got to go to the Charlotte Bobcat game!

pics to come...

Foto Friday

Time with friends from Texas.

The Stahl's had to travel to VaB this week for a follow-up surgery for Makin at CHKD. Though the circumstance were stinky, so glad to see them and catch up a bit. And, so glad that there are such great children's hospitals to take care of our kids.

Makin definitely seemed as though he felt at home with Lily and Emma and we definitely missed having Miss Lorelei make the trip with them, maybe next time! Happy that we were able to spend some time with them while they were here.

21 Months

So, definitely playing catch up again with the blog. Good thing is, though this pic was taken on the 12th, most of things I was going to type is now out-of-date and new things can be posted. Seems like every single day this little girl seems to do something new, say a new words or words and acts more and more like either a 2yr old or her big sissy.

So, some things that I want to remember forever are:

*Miss Emma is very, very petite. She is tall but just very tiny. She can very well wear 12 month clothes but the pants are toooooo short (capri length) and sleeves are 3/4 length on her. I have finally found a pair of 18mth jeans that don't fall down and are the correct length otherwise she's usually in pants that are rolled at the waist or stretchy leggings. The shirts that I have dug out of the shed that she has been wearing are anywhere from 2t-3t (the shirt in the pic above is 3t). She sometimes has an opinion about what she wants to wear and luckily her choices haven't been too awful...so far. So to sum it all up, I've been trying my best to utilize the Lily's past wardrobe but since at this age Lily was definitely in 2t-3t everything, it's been pretty difficult to not go shopping...darn.

*Words. Emma is much more talkative than Lily ever was at this age! Lily didn't really begin to talk until the summer after she turned 2 and Miss Emma has been blowing us away with new words daily. She calls all of us by name, Mama sometimes Mommy, Dada, Mia (what she calls Lily and not sure how she got to this) and MayMay for Maci and refers to herself as 'me'. I can't even list how many things she says but she talks constantly and can definitely communicate to us what she wants or what she doesn't want. If she doesn't want us around she'll say "Mama, Away" or if she needs us she'll call, "Mama, Help". If she wants to watch something specific, like Polar Express (completely in love with that movie to the point where we've had to hide it from her) she'll say, "I wanna wach all aboard".

*More than words, she has expression! She can say our names so many different ways and just by the way she says it we can tell what she want or how she's feeling and it's so great. She can say it in ways to say, I love you, you're so silly, to tell us to stop doing something, when she's excited to see us, if she wants to show us something, if she's trying to find us, if she's sad or if she needs our help.

*She gives us the biggest, wrap her arms around our necks and squeeze hugs with a uh-ughhh grunt to show she's hugging us extra tight.

*Emma loves to play kitchen, babies, trains, library, store, dress-up. dance party, forts, hide-n-seek, puzzles, and loves loves loves to be outside. We definitely have to keep the doors locked because she can open them and go out by herself. She can open the back door and screen door to let Maci in and out and sometimes wants to join her. It's getting better with the colder weather since she's not to keen on it.

*Books. Finally, books. This little girl has finally slowed down long enough to realize that books are awesome. And, why. Well, because big sister loves books that's why. Lily now plays school and reads us books and talks like a teacher to us. So, Emma follows right along. She'll sit like Lily, hold books like Lily so we can see pictures and pretend to read books for us to cheer for her. It's very cute and glad that the book thing has caught on. Right now she is in love with I Spy books, The Little People flap books and anything Minnie or Mickey. She also has been requesting Goodnight Moon and Pat the Bunny at bedtime and listening to stories instead of just wanting to look at the pictures. yay.

*Potty. I'm so not ready to do this. Really, not ready until Lily is out of school and it's warmer out but she's interested. And, not interested in the little potty we have but the big potty and the seat that Lily uses. It doesn't seem to bother her that she's so tiny she can fall right through and seems to "need to go" in very inconvenient times like naptime or bedtime and when we're trying to get out of the house. I'll humor her for the time being and need to figure out what diapers to put her in during this phase to make it a bit easier.

*Food. Emma has always been weird with food. More of a hate-love relationship with it. She'll love something and can't get enough of it and then she'll hate it. Almost like she's had her fill and now wants to move on. She loves soup, chili, anything salty, spaghetti and all sorts of vegetables. Right now she's loving dried cranberries, yogurt covered raisins, pretzels and honey nut cheerios.

I can't believe Emma will be 2 in a few months and even more I can't imagine being pregnant right now. Looking at Emma and realizing Lily was the same age when we brought Emma home is unbelievable to me. I can't imagine how Emma would handle having a baby in the house. I'm sure she'd be fine, just like Lily was, but I'm so glad that we're not doing that again.

Love you Miss Emma Grace.



The New Game

Books + Cash Register + Bag = Playing Library

Lily and Emma can play library forever and to the point that it's so quiet in the house I have to make sure sometimes that everything is OK. And, most of the time it is due to the fact that they both have cash registers of their own and we have plenty of books for them to check out. We also have been using their Belle tea cart to "return" books to their room after they are done. Nothing like a first job at the library :).

B/W Day

And, yet another fun color day at school.

But, this time Emma requested a skirt like I was going to make Lily and flowers to match of course.

So I had two girls in full black and white today and they couldn't have been any cuter.

Love that they will wear what I make them :) Makes me smile.

One Last Time...

before we move on.

After months of discussion, after months of weighing every possible scenario we are leaving the baby stage and movin' on.

And, we're good.

We're ready.

We're really ready.

And, more importantly we're excited and love our decision.

Our Prince Has Arrived

How else do you expect two little girls let their Daddy watch the Steelers play against Tebow??

Cinderella, or Emma says "Rella", Belle and their Prince had a Royal Tea Party during the first half of today's game. Why did they do this? Well since playing hide-n-go-seek was out of the question, and Daddy said he would play anything if it were played in the den with the tv. :) These girls are smart, he did say anything....

See, we're in trouble.

Training

Two girls emptying the dishwasher, drying off everything and putting it on the counter for it to be put away.

They get trained early here in the Check House.

Yes, Emma usually puts cups and forks on the floor instead but we are also huge believers of the five second rule, or five minutes...who's counting right?!? ha.

Blink...Rub...Blink...

How does time go by so quickly and then one day you look and they look sooo much older than they really are?!? Well, not just look older but act older too. I tell Mike constantly when he gets home from work that Lily grew up again today followed by a story that we both laugh at, shake our heads and just know that we're really in for it...I mean really in for it with Miss Lily.

Seriously, it's really difficult sometimes to be smarter than she is.

She catches on really, really quick and has a memory that I can only dream of and will never, ever have.

We now have to watch what we say, of course, but now we can't even spell some words because she knows how to spell them. We have been saying initials to things, calling the girls 8 and 10 (which I'm sure won't last too much longer since she'll catch on), and even spelling things backwards to throw her off. And, got a tip from a teacher to start writing in cursive so that she won't know what we're writing.

Mike and I have the "thought we had longer before we got into this" conversation A LOT.

Keeping our fingers crossed that we can outsmart her for a little bit longer.

It's Baaackkk!!!

Yes, the little potty has made it's way back into our lives.

Miss Emma has shown interest and Lily is very excited to help her be a big girl.

And, today it happened.....

Emma pointed to her diaper (while we trying to go down for nap) and after trying to ignore her I let her go to the bathroom after the fifth diaper tap. And, sure enough the little sinker sat for a bit and then let go....a river, with her diaper completely dry. She ran to get Lily out of bed to show her and got two m and m's. She's sooo excited! Not that I'm ready to do this again but if it gets her out of diapers...I may just be.

Call Me Crazy

I may be crazy and in the minority but I Love, Love, Love staying home with my girls and playing!

Don't get me wrong I need to get out of the house just like everyone else and do things but days like today make staying home to be with them even that much better.

We stayed home, in the nice warm house, high in the low 30s, and played with play doh for almost an hour and a half then did stickers for about an hour. We did other things in between and, the day flew by.

How can each day just get better and better?!?

Double Time...

It's that time again that Miss Emma has a double ear infection :(

She didn't show her usual signs until last Friday and even then it was more of a gut feeling on my part that she had at least one but when I finally decided to call the drs office had already turned on their answering service to not return until today! So, Mike and I were faced with the decision to wait it out or take her to Patient First. We decided to wait it out since her signs and symptoms weren't that bad just yet. As the weekend went on we were kinda glad we didn't rush her in since she was acting completely normal, eating, sleeping, no fever with occasional tylenol doses and only wanting her binky 24/7.

This morning I called to get their first available, squeeze you in kinda appointment, and sure enough she has a double ear infection. She's now on advil, amoxicillin and ear drops and feeling a bit better. She even likes to give her baby ear drops so that she feels better.

Hopefully in a few weeks they will be better and no augmentin will be needed like the past few times.

Ridin' The Tide

Today we bundled up and headed to Newtown Rd to board The Tide. We rode it to MacArthur Mall had some fun and then came back home. So much fun for all of us and definitely easy enough for me to do with the girls by myself. So fun to ride this to have lunch with Daddy during the week!

Happy 2012

After spending New Year's Eve taking down Christmas decorations, our tree and getting our house back to normal we spent the evening eating pizza, playing Chutes and Ladders and watching Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve on tv. The girls had a blast were in bed by 930 and Mike and I were actually able to stay awake to see the ball drop this year :)!! Great way to end 2011.

And, now it's 2012!

Happy January.

It was in the mid 60s today and with cold weather upon us we spent the day outside.

Here's to 2012 being even better than 2011!