Emily is 3 and a half!

Our big girl hit a major milestone- 3 and half years old!  She is growing so much and is such a delight right now- this is a wonderful age!  Here's what life is like right now:

- She loves to play pretend games.  Anything- teacher and students, princesses and princes, dress up, doll house, animals... you name it, she'll play it!  So much fun and she has SUCH an amazing imagination already. Super fun!

- She can now write her name by herself- with no help (like she doesn't need someone to say the letters for her).  She is so proud of this!

- She moved to a new classroom- now she's with other kids who are 3.5-4 years old.  It's nice for her to be the youngest because it gives her some new friends to play with and she can learn something from them and be a bit more of a follower instead of a leader...er, a boss. 

- Speaking of being the boss, she'll gladly tell you that she IS the boss.  As her last teacher put it, Emily has "Leadership Qualities"....hahahaha!  That is TOTALLY Teacher Speak for "your child is bossing around all the other kids".  I always knew Paul and I would make a bossy kid- look at us!!! :)

- She loves to play outside but is terrified of bugs.  I definitely never use that to my benefit to get her out of flower beds, etc....never!

- Emily loves to sing and now is singing all kinds of hilarious songs that sound like this:
...she's a girl, yes she's a girl...
and she is a PRIN-cess, and she is a girl.
and she has a dog named Malalalshaya and she has a mommy
and a daddy and a SISter and she likes to PLAAAAAAAY and she
is a princess and I like to go outside and I am a girl
and I like to sing a song
sing a song 
sing a SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG
and I am laughing and
and
and
and
 I 
I 
I am a girl and I am Rapunzel's Mooooooooooooother...

it is HILARIOUS to eavesdrop when she starts singing!

- She ate lunch in WV last weekend and was an absolute ANGEL- never got up out of her booster seat, never spoke too loudly, ate her lunch and listened so quietly.  It was AMAZING!

- She plays well with Audrey but gets very upset when Audrey puts Em's toys in her mouth.  Then she comes and tells me to please wash her toys since Audrey has made them "sooooooo dirty". Haha!

- She's getting super excited for the new house/ the move.  We spent last weekend there and she LOVES her new house, the river, etc. and is kind of over living between 2 places.  Not much longer now!

I'm sure there's more but that's what I can think of right now.  She is so much fun and we're so proud of her!  

Baby Audrey's 1st Tooth!

It's true- our sweet baby girl has a tooth!  The bottom right broke through the gums today.  Fantastic!  She's been miserable for a few days so we figured it might be soon.  Now if she goes to gnaw on your finger you better watch out- that little guy is SHARP! :)

ZOO Trip!

Yesterday we packed up the girls and headed to the NC Zoo for a little family time.  It was so much fun, despite the weather report (which I dutifully check twice before we left....they really, really blew it!) It was supposed to be 70 degrees and sunny by 10am...instead it was a misty, dreary, cold 58 outside until about 1:30...but whatever.  We covered the (improperly dressed!) girls and went on our way. 

Emily was SO excited about the animals and loved getting to get in and out of the stroller over and over again to see them up close.  I wish the NC Zoo was a little more interactive and maybe had a section of animals you could pet or something.  She would really love that! 

She made me SO proud when we saw the buffalo-- she immediately yelled, "GO HERD!"  My love for Marshall is definitely rubbing off on her!  It was such a cute moment!

The highlight of her day was getting to ride the bus back from the one end of the zoo to the other end.  No, I'm not joking!  She was literally grinning from ear to ear on the bus and kept telling me, "Mommy- we're on a bus!" It never really dawned on me that she had never ridden a bus before!

Audrey was an absolute ANGEL-- no crying, fussing, etc.  She even napped in the stroller in the afternoon!  I had packed the Baby Bjorn-type thing we have but we never even got it out.  She was so great.

Here's some pictures of our fun day- more are uploaded in the Picasa albums. 

Looking for gators

.

At the sea lions- we stayed here for a long time!

Poison dart frogs.

Mommy's getting better with the camera!

 

Happiest baby on the block.

My favorite animal ever.

Audrey is 7 Months Old!

It's hard to believe that our sweet girl was born 7 months ago today!  She is growing like crazy and constantly doing new things.  This is a glimpse into life with that sweet baby Right. Now.

- She loves her feet!! She found them this month and constantly is pulling off her socks, sucking on her toes, etc. etc.  It's like she got a whole new set of playthings!

- She worked her way through all the vegetables in the Gerber Stage 1 line this month.  She loooooves sweet potatoes, squash, and carrots.  The green beans were just ok.  The peas were NOT. HAPPENING.  Seriously....if you give that girl some peas she is literally going to blow it right back out of her mouth at you.  The peas are a no-go.

- She is LOUD!  Like, super loud!  Yelling, screeching, blowing raspberries...you name it, she's doing it.  We've not heard any babbling yet but it has to be soon.  She is so noisy all of a sudden!

- She got her Big Girl carseat and we used it on the trip back to the new house last weekend...Big Mistake.  Major Mistake!  This carseat (the Britax Marathon 70 in cowmooflage print) doesn't have an insert for babies-- but it is labeled for kids from 5-70lbs.  I thought for sure we were in the clear since she is now over 14lbs...but she wasn't!  She kept falling asleep and her head would droop to one side. Then when she woke up, her neck would be hurting like crazy and she would cry cry cry cry cry cry cry cry for what seemed like an eternity (ok, it was a 5 hour car ride so it definitely was made much more stressful by her fussing). We took it back out of my car and will try again in a few weeks.  Poor girl!  (fyi...yes, I tried rolling up a blanket to make a head support/halo type thing...no dice.)

- She rolls all over the place and has recently started reeeeally pushing up high on her arms.  Big girl!

- She began fruits tonight...so far bananas are a hit!  We will slowly work through all the fruits in the Gerber Stage 1 lineup, and then will probably do a fruit and a vegetable each day.  I remember this age with Emily so well...we were getting ready to move here and it felt like all I did was pack and feed her.  It seems like babies this age just eat all day long! 

- She visited her new house (we all did, she wasn't alone :) ) and she celebrated by sleeping 13.5 hours straight!  CRAZY!  Don't worry...she's made up for it this week. ;)  She also got to spend some time with my mom, dad, and sister, so that was great too.  She really likes her new house...she told me so.

- She is doing better with sitting up.  She is getting so strong!  I am so proud of her working so hard.

- She got her first ear infection this month.  She's also teething like nobody's business and her mouth feels so bumpy when I put the numbing gel on her gums.  Poor girl...I hope they break through soon!


So that's life for us right now.  Just moving right along until we really move right along, back to our previous area, in June.  We couldn't be more excited!  Thanks for checking in on us and loving our girls! :)

Eye Surgery!

Tomorrow morning I am having laser eye surgery...I have worn contacts or glasses every single day of my life for the past 20 years.  It will be AMAZING to have corrected vision.  Please join me in crossing fingers for success tomorrow!  I am so hopeful (and nervous too!) 

Big Photo Update

I've been such a bad blogger lately- we have been CRAZY busy but I have pictures....does that make it better? 

Look at my beautiful girls:

You're welcome. :)

UNhappy Baby!

Poor Audrey is a mess right now.  For the past few days she has been having a tough time- lots of tears and fussing, which is completely abnormal for her.  Well, last night she fussed for almost 90 minutes (off and on) before Paul and I gave up and let her get up.  She laughed, cooed, smiled, etc at us and we figured she was just acting up a bit (she had been in WV with my in laws over the weekend and got a little spoiled, sleeping in arms, etc.)  We tried to put her down and she got SO upset- we're talking inconsolable crying...so atypical for our little girl.  Finally she gave up and we went to bed.


Or so we THOUGHT she gave up.  She woke up, as usual, around 2:30am and I gave her a bottle and put her back to bed.  Paul and I have both been suffering from some insomnia...tons of stress in our lives right now...so I was lying there, not sleeping, when she started crying again.  And again.  And again...until it was 4:30 and we STILL had not gone back to bed (by this point I had sent Paul to the guest room to sleep since he is on call for everything--adults, peds, rehab-- tonight).  I went downstairs and requested a substitute teacher for the morning since there was just NO way I could teach all day if my day started at 2:30.  She finally slept around 5 and I slept with her in my bed...until 6:15, when Emily woke up.  I. Was. Exhausted.!! I never really got anymore sleep and we just got up and got ready for the day. 

In the morning, when I was getting ready to go to work, Jamey called and said that Audrey seemed like she might have an earache (fyi, Emily has NEVER had one, so I had no idea what to look for).  Paul was able to take her in to the pediatrician this morning and she has a slight ear infection but the doctor was mostly thinking this is all caused by teething...apparently poor Audrey's gums are super inflamed and she expects us to see multiple teeth any day now.  Honestly....this is one time it's ok to not be an overachiever, lol!  Although I guess if she gets a few at once it means we deal with this for less time....

At any rate...I am beat.  Just wanted to put this on the blog for posterity's sake...someday we'll look back on this and remember how hard it was to have young children and constantly have interrupted sleep.  But for now...I'm going to bed. :)