Would it be too much to ask...

...for you to put down the camera and put me to bed.

Emelia was really tired the other day and kept falling asleep where she was playing... and I did what any responsible mother would do,

I grabbed my camera!

She kept falling asleep on her little keyboard, which started the music playing and she woke up.  It was so stinkin' cute!

Those are her tired eyes.



Head, sholders, knees and toes...

Oliver learned a new song.  It goes like this:

 

 

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes

 

and eyes and ears and mouth and nose and elbow and penis and chin....

 

 

Ollie really likes to sing to Emelia, or as he refers to her "my baby siser"

 

Here are some other songs he sings here:

 

The Spider Man theme song

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

 

and

one he made up called "baby siser"

 



Summer time!

Its funny that I'm just getting to my summer re-cap post on the first day of autumn!  Actually, it is a bit sad, so much has happened!  But we've been busy playing, traveling (me, for work), working around the house and geting back into the back-to-school schedule (Andy).

 

 

Here are some of our favorite memories of this summer:

 

Playing with Henry and Gabrielle.

 

 

Playing in the pool, running through the sprinkler and eating popciciles!

 

Gabrielle sure loves the baby! (Maybe a bit too much sometimes!)

 

 

 

Oliver continues to adore his sister and cuddles her every chance he gets!

 

 

We took some time (a week!)

 to give our kitchen a face lift and do some other work around our house. 

 

 Here is our kitchen before (but after I removed some cabinets...oops!):

 

 

 

And after:

 

 

In the before pictures, all of the kitchen lights are on.  In the after picture, none of the lights are on!  Since the picture was taken we switched out the light fixture from the brassy colored on pictured to one with a brushed nickel finish and painted the walls a beachy blue.

 

So.Much.Better!

 

Like this:

 

 

Emelia is 7 months old now and has learned a lot of new tricks.

 

She is rolling over like a champ.

 

She's eating solids and, like her brother, has a BIG appetite.

 

Here is how her first bite went...

 

doesn't she look thrilled:

 

What the hell is that?!

 

me: it's yummy!

 

Emelia: if you say so...

 

Can I be done now?

 

Please?

 

But seriously, now that we are beyond cereal, the girl loves to eat!  I'm still making most of my own baby food and I'm still mixing flavors and adding spices.  So far, so good.

 

Oliver has been practicing his soccer skills, he's pretty good!

 

 

Here's Emelia, sitting up like a big girl.

 

 

and laughing at Grandpa Mike.

 

I love the way her little toes are sticking out in this picture.

 

Modeling the short sleeve hoodie Grandma Sherri made.

 

and Oliver's new socks.

 

The End.

 

For now.

 



Everybody has a...

Oliver and I were in Target recently and I was picking up some travel-sized items because I was going out of town for work.  We had the following conversation:

Ollie: What 'dat Mama?

Me: Soap

Ollie: Oh.  For washing your butt?

Me:  Among other things.

Ollie:  Oh.  You a girl so you not hab a penis.  Not everybody hab a penis...

but everybody has a butt!

It's hard to argue with that logic! 

He also recently asked me; "what you do with my crap, Mama"?  It took me a while to realize that he was asking me where I put the art project that he made at daycare... he was saying "craft".

Aren't they cute in stripes?

It has been so fun watching these two bond.  Oliver just adores Emelia, and has all along.  Emelia is starting to really like her big brother too.  No one can make her laugh like Ollie does.

Unfortunately for us, Emelia is usually laughing the hardest when Oliver is acting really obnoxious.  Sometimes I don't know what she is laughing at, Oliver being silly, or how annoyed And and I are!

Emelia has recently found her feet!  So fun...

Her new favorite game is to raise her legs as high as she can (kind of like in this picture) and then slam them down on her mattress as hard as she can.  This makes her whole body bounce.  I can hear her up there squealing in delight every time she does it and it cracks me up. 

Except for the fact that she is supposed to be sleeping.

On the topic of sleeping, last night Emelia stayed asleep until 2:30 am, I fed her and then had to wake her up at 6:00 am to feed her before I got ready for work.  I've (we've) been getting up at 12:30 and 3:30, so this is a step in the right direction.

Which makes us all very happy.





A quick status update

Emelia is now 4 months old.  My how time flys.

Her 4 month well baby check up was this week and my goodness how she has grown!  (but we new that, she is already wearing size 9 month clothes!)

She has grown 5 inches in her 4 short months which puts her at 26 inches

(95th percential.  My child in the 95th percential for height.  Ha!

Guess we have her Papa to thank for that!)

She has also gained a whopping 9 lbs!  She weights just over 16.5 pounds and is right above the 80th percential!

I'd been feeling guilty lately about not blogging as much, until I realized that I'm spending my free time outside of work playing with my kiddos.  Definately more important than blogging, but I love this record... so I'm working to keep at it.

Emelia is a much happier baby than she was a couple of months ago.  She spends most of her awake time cooing, babbeling and blowing bubbles.  She tolerates her brother tremendously (he is still a bit overbearing when it comes to her!) and thinks he is pretty funny most of the time.  Except when he picks her up and drops her!  Oops!

She is happiest when she is outside, being held or playing in her exersaucer.  She can scoot around on her back (very quickly--especially in her crib!) and we are working on sleeping through the night. 
So far, so good.

I'll keep you posted.

Emelia laughs

Oliver is still enjoying his role as big brother.  Most mornings when he wakes up the first thing he asks is to hold "my meya" which is what he calls Emelia.

For her part, Emelia is learning to tolerate her somewhat overbearing big brother...mostly.

It is hard to tell in the two pictures above, but Emelia is getting pretty rolly-polly.  In fact, I've started calling her chub-a-lub

because she has so much chub-to-love!

Exhibit A.  Belly.

Exhibit B.  Thigh. Rolls.

Exhibit C.  Chins.

I can't believe how fast she is growing.  She is already over 16 lbs and isn't even 4 months old yet! I love her little smirk in this picture.  It is so emblematic of her personality.  Oliver was always grinning and laughed easily.  Emelia smirks when she is amused and chuckles when she thinks something is funny. 

She was really laughing this weekend and now

I have about 100 pictures just like this:



Emelia's First Trip to the Zoo

As far as Emelia was concerned her first trip to the zoo was rather uneventful, she spent the entire trip buried in her stroller, asleep.

I think Oliver rather enjoyed himself, though.

He got to ride a tortoise.

He saw really big polar bears...

...and giraffes...

...and got to hang out with Grandpa Mike.



I call her hunny bunny

We went and saw sharks!

We recently invested in a membership to Sea Life Minnesota.

Oliver loves the sharks!

They are all he can talk about for days after we visit: "I go see sharks, mama?"  It is really hard to avoid going to Sea Life MN any time we go to the MOA.  And, he seems to think all malls have sharks.  Recently we went to Roseville and as we walked in the doors Oliver said "This a mall, Mama?" I said yes, and he replied "I see sharks?"  I had to explain that there were not sharks at this mall, and Oliver decided that it was a yucky mall.

Auntie got him a shark hat, here he is modeling it, along with his new shoes!

I just love watching his face light up every time he sees a shark.

(Personally, I prefer the tortises.  You can see one in the background)

I think Oliver was less impressed with this guy:

Jeez Papa, this guy is ugly!

I did manage to get my favorite threesome to slow down long enough

to take a nice picture.

Well, two out of three isn't bad...