Emily Has Teeth!!!

Yes, I am the mom who has almost never spent time away from her kids and had only spent a night away from Emily since she's been born when I went out of town for 3 nights to get in some quality family time in Alabama.  While I was gone we hit a big potty training milestone with Kate and Emily cut her first tooth!!  Maybe they were just waiting on me to get out of their hair for a little while to get things moving along.  Since then Emily has another tooth on top and one about to cut through her bottom gums any minute!  She looks so cute with her two little stubs peeking through her top gums when she smiles!  I always think I will be so sad when they don't have their gummy grins anymore and then I fall in love with the new smiles that come along with new teeth!  Here's to enjoying each step along they way and excited for more milestones to come!

This was the picture I was texted while out of town.  Nick had some assistance from a sister-in-law

This was the best I could get trying to capture those 2 little stubs sticking out



Beach Vacation

We took a trip to the beach for an extended Memorial Day weekend.  We met Uncle Kevin, Aunt Dana, Braxton, Karoline, Uncle D (Derrick), Aunt B (Brandi) and Claire in Fort Walton for a very fun beach trip!  We stayed at a condominium with several pools...it almost felt like a little water park...and it was right on the beach.  Most days we went to the beach in the morning and the kiddie pool in the afternoons.  Nick even let me have some time on the beach by myself while the girls napped!  We took turns cooking and just really enjoyed our time with our "fambwy" (family as Kate says).  The girls absolutely loved it!  Kate was a little skiddish of the ocean and wanted to be held most of the time but loved playing the sand, building sand castles and playing in the kiddie pool.  Emily was happy where ever she was.  She loved the ocean and the sand...she even thought the sand tasted pretty good!  And she enjoyed playing in the kiddie pool as well.  Both girls also loved spending the week with their cousins!  Here are a few pictures from our trip

Emily loved her first trip to the the beach!!

Kate ready to hit the waves

Emily and her Parrain

Kate and Daddy having fun in the ocean

Uncle D throwing Braxton

Emily and her Nanny

The group playing in the water together

Kate and Karoline relaxing in the sand

Kate and Claire

Daddy and Emily

Sweet sisters!

The family

Uncle D, Aunt B and Claire

 Karoline, Kate and Braxton got creative during a game of hide and seek on our last night at the beach

Emily 10 Months Old & Ready for Rice & Gravy!

I just cannot believe that we are only 2 months away from Emily's first birthday!  Emily is getting so big and is so much fun!!  Her little personality is really starting to come out and she is getting to where she plays really well on her own, with Kate or with whoever else is around.  Emily is also more curious and a little mischevious lately.  She has figured out how to open drawers and whether it be in the kitchen, bathroom, Kate's room...anywhere...she is pulling open drawers and pulling out anything that she can find.  Emily is standing as much as possible and reaches for fingers to help her walk more than she reaches up to be held.  She plays this "game" where she'll hold her hands up in the air because she wants us to let her stand on her own.  So we let go and she'll grin really big and stand for a few seconds before falling back into our hands.  She will do this over and over again.  She's also gotten very good at pushing things--push toys but also chairs, stools, little wooden steps that we have for Kate, pretty much anything that she can move.  We have officially crossed over to the place where she will eat pretty much anything.  In the last month she got her first taste of rice and gravy and hasn't looked back.  She loves it and basically anything that we cook!  She's eating whatever we're eating most nights and still didn't have her first tooth!  We are having such a great time with Emily and can't wait to see more and more of her personality!!

We Love Daddy!!

We've got a pretty great Daddy at our house and know a lot of really great daddys too, so I wanted to take the chance to say Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful Dads we know!  Papa and Pop Pop have been great examples for us to follow and we couldn't love them more!  Happy Father's Day to them, to Nick, to all of Kate and Emily's uncles and all of our Daddy friends!  We hope you have all had a wonderful day!

Emily 9 Months Old

Emily was 9 months old May 11th.  When we went for her check up she was weighing in at 20 lbs, 12 oz and 29.5 inches long.  She's off the charts on her length and between the 75th and 90th percentile on weight.  She looks like a chunky monkey to us but I guess she's on the skinnier side in relation to her length.  Emily is cruising very easily and crawling all over the place.  She does good pushing her walking toys as well.  Emily has just started to bounce and dance a little bit to music.  She loves Kate's Mike the Tiger that plays the "Hey Fightin' Tigers".  Emily is also starting to get into books and begins to slow down for a second to watch when Kate is watching Mickey on TV.  She loves to play peek-a-boo and if we won't do it for her she will pull her blankey over her face and play herself.  Emily is basically done with baby food.  She reached a point where she would take a look at what we had on our plate and decide that it looked a lot better than the baby food we were offering her.  She loves avacados, spaghetti, chicken, cheese toast, fruits, yogurt...I really haven't found anything yet that she won't eat!  Emily is very happy and super sweet.  She's become a little bit of a Momma's girl over the past month but I'm not complaining :)  We are so blessed!



Weekend on the Lake

The first weekend in May we made the trek to North Alabama to spend a few days with Nonna and Papa on the lake.  We were all so happy to see Nonna, Papa and all of our family in Alabama.  The weather was perfect and we had a lot of fun playing outside and on the water.  Kate is going to be a little water bug.  She was ready to just jump right into anything and everything.  She and Daddy kayaked and rode the wave runner, she swam and was pulled behind the boat on a tube.  We had so much fun and can't wait to go back for a whole week in July!!

Kate and Daddy kayaking

Kate and Liza making their way down to the water

Kate with Daniel

And with Connor

Happy girl

With Daddy

Kate had no fear and was ready to jump right into the water.  She did a great job kicking and spinning herself around in the water too

Daddy taking Kate, Liza and Mary Emma for a ride

Kate ready to drive the boat

Emily and Daddy on the boat

Momma and Kate taking a swim

Momma and Kate tubing.  Kate loved it!!

Emily enjoying some time with Granny

Kate, Liza and Mary Emma waiting to start a ride on Giant Bubba

Nonna and Emily on the boat

Papa and Kate driving

Momma and Emily playing on the boat

Nonna took the girls for a ride on the Giant Bubba

Happy Half Birthday Kate!

 Kate was 2 1/2 years old on May 2.  She's now quick to tell anyone who asks that she is 2 and a half placing a big emphais on the 1/2!  She is such a big girl!  It is unbelievable how quickly she has gone  from being a baby to a "big girl"!  Kate definitely has reached a point where she wants to be more independent...has an opinion about her food, clothes, shoes...oh the shoes!!!  This girl is such a girly girl and loves dresses and shoes!  As much as she likes them though getting her to transition from winter shoes to sandals was quite a task.  Had to orchestrate a visit from the Shoe Fairy (who knew there was such a thing!) to just get us over the hump from old to new.  Kate has been loving going to her play school 3 mornings a week and we are sad that it's now over for the summer.  Kate is also quite the chatterbox these days and most recently has started the neverending "Why, Momma?"'s.  I probably get asked why at least 100 times a day.  I try to answer the best I can but we usually reach a place of either "I don't know!" or "Just because" and if you ask Kate why she usually give a drawn out "beecaaauuuse!".  It's pretty funny.  Kate's pretty patient with Emily often letting her play with her.  Of course she has her moments where she doesn't want to share and doesn't want Emily around but overall, Kate's a great big sister.  Kate is still pretty tall for her age, looking more like a 3 or 4 year old than a 2 year old, with a head full of curly hair!  We are loving the curls!  Her hair still looks pretty short most of the time but it's because the longer it gets, the more it curls.  Before Kate was born, we looked at baby pictures of Nick and laughed and laughed about his curls and Kate now looks JUST like him!  When we show Kate pictures of Nick around her age she will tell us that it is her.  She cannot comprehend for one second that it was her Daddy.  I've been wanting to post a comparison for a long time now but didn't have the pics of Nick scanned whenever I sat down to blog.  Well the time has finally come--

As a special treat for Kate recently, we also took Kate to Disney Princesses on Ice with several of ours and Kate's friends.  She loved it!  To say that she's obsessed with princesses is an understatement, so it was right up her alley.  The show was great and we enjoyed getting to do something special with just our big girl (Emily stayed home with Pop Pop).



Kate and her cousin Karoline all dressed up and ready to go see Disney Princesses on Ice