Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Happy 1/2 Birthday!

Emma turn 6 months old today! I can't believe a 1/2 year has passed since she's came into our lives. 
She's such a little diva and demands everyones attention at all times but with that smile she gets it

At her 6 Month appointment she measured 26" long and 19lbs 6oz.  She's still really short and a perfect "round"shape. 
Big boned gal, really just more baby to love.  

She's sitting up all on her own and very very steady.  She hasn't started crawling yet but she does this strange pull/slide/push movement that gets her around. It reminds me of a japanese horror film.  Like she should be coming out of a well or something. 
She cut her first tooth at 24wks.  She's still a horrendous sleeper but hopefully it's because of the teeth coming through. 

She loves this pink Bunny so much, she gets so excited whenever she sees it, then she trys to fit the entire toy in her mouth at once.  

 
She's started eating solids which I thought she would love but in reality she still has to learn to use her tongue correctly but we'll get there.  
She's still breastfed so she gets most of her nutrition through that. Food is just for fun until 12 months. 
And boy is it fun cleaning it out of her hair.  
I fall in love with this face all over again every morning.

I was talking with a friend about her constant maniac smiling and she said, "when she smiles her whole face lights up and it's contagious" 
She's such an amazing bald diva and we are so lucky have her in our lives.....
(and so very, very tired too)

Top 5 Guaranteed Crying Moments


I'm not a betting woman but I can tell you the top 5 times Emma is guaranteed to start crying:

1.  The second your head hits the pillow...any pillow...anywhere

2. Any time she's spent more then 7 minutes doing any activity

3. 4:47 am

4. the minute you sit down to eat

5. 5:52 am

The rest of the time she looks like this
God I LOVE that face!


Thursday, October 18, 2012

Watch out for falling apples


We did our yearly apple picking trip last weekend. We started the year Jack was born so we've decided to keep it a tradition. 3 years in a row is tradition according to Chris. So we both had the day off and headed to the apple orchard.
After spending 15 minutes trying to shake/spear/knock apples off the tree with a large branch we got one of those apple pickers. We figured trying to catch falling apples while not getting knocked out wasn't a great way to spend the day with our children.
Jack immediately wanted every apple he could see so we picked two good ones and let him go to town. 
Let me explain something to all you (4) folks who read this blog, my son doesn't eat apples like a normal person. The first time we gave Jack a whole apple to eat was last year. We found a great "jack size" apple and gave it to him while were driving home, when we got home I told chris take the core away from him so we don't have a rotting apple in our back seat. Well when Chris went to look for it jack didn't have it in his hands. We searched and searched and finally came to the conclusion that jack ate the entire apple. Core, stem, seeds...everything. Don't think i didn't google the apple seed urban legend immediately...you know the one where If you eat apple seeds you'll die - turns out you need to eat like 4lbs of apple seeds in order to do that. 
And now I have that knowledge to share with all (4) of you.
Amazing how one photo can show so much emotion.

Emma had the best seat in the house. Snuggled right up to her mama in her pretty pink hat.
Jack picked a pumpkin as big as he is.
Emma has found her tongue. She doesn't know what to quite do with it yet but she loves to stick it out when she's smiling. She is such a ball of pink chubby love all the time.
This photo took twenty shots to get. I'm not kidding, Everyone looking at the camera AND smiling, I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't take all the pictures myself.
Then it was my turn. Both smiling both looking at the camera - perfect
Jack sharing his apple with me
Jack sharing his apple with Emma
Emma couldn't get enough of theses apples. Even when I gave her one to suck on she still wanted jacks. I guess a stolen apple is a better tasting apple.
Can her cheeks get any bigger?!?!?
Then it was off to the farm to see the animals 
Jack is totally traumatized by pigs. 
I guess after our first encounter with them they're not on the top of our "must see" list at the farm
Love that cheese grin
And 5lbs of apples, 3 mums and 1 pumpkin later we've completed our tradition. It was another great day with my family. 
My babies are getting bigger and bigger everyday. These little day trips fly by so having this blog to record every apple seed my son eats is a great reminder of the hours that we seem to forget over time (and it's a log of how many apple seeds he's consumed to date)
My next project: Apple Pie!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Jack's head just exploded

Well not literally of course....
but he was the most excited I've ever seen 
him when we went to 
"A Day out with Thomas" in Strasburg Pennsylvania. 

There was a gazillion little boys and girls there all waiting to take a train ride to nowhere on the life size Thomas.  
And 2 gazillion parents that will do anything to make their kids as happy as we were making Jack. 

Here is Emma confused as to why she isn't eating for the 40th time that day.
These pictures of the "Deseils" blew Jack's mind.  
To get him to turn and look at the camera was a loosing battle so we let him drool and stare .

We made sure we got online early in order to get a good seat.   Jack got to sit right near the window and wave to all the people as we rode by.   
Emma enjoyed herself also by chewing on whatever we 
would give her.


We drove past all the farms with cows and 
Amish people with their horses.  
Every time jack saw a horse he yelled "like bullseye" Which if your not up on your Disney/Pixar films is from Toy Story 3.

And here's THOMAS!!!

I'll start by explaining why it looks like were 
trapped in a fish net.  
Thomas comes into the station and while he's unloading and loading passengers we have 10 minutes to get the opportunity to run and shove our way towards the front of the train where they have 3 stations set up for pictures in front of the 
Great Thomas.  
However if you don't mommy push your way up to the front in the 10 minutes alotted then you get trapped in the mesh maze until the train takes it's trip and comes back to the station....which is 22 minutes.  Okay for those that lost me or is bad at math that's 32 minutes wait time if you don't get up to 
the front first.  
Lets just say that keeping a toddler in a line and occupied for 32 minutes was something I wouldn't wish on my 
worst enemy.   

But THANK GOD we got the picture we came for.  
Where am I you may be wondering (no I'm not crying in the car) I'm standing behind the photographer bribing my 2 year old that if he looked at the camera for 1 millisecond he'll get a prize. Bam! and here's the shot. 
Then we proceeded to wait on another line to see Sir Topem Hatt who was going on lunch minutes after we finally got to see him. 
And Jack spent most of the time looking up at him lovingly telling him that he was taking care of Thomas and Clarabelle, just in case he was worried.  

I actually thought it was too sweet. 

Emma's also looking at him, but it's only to see if he has food, unfortunately Sir Topem Hatt doesn't have a bottle of milk in that suit so we moved on. 



We enjoyed a lunch at the Red Caboose Resturant which was really cute.  Everything was all about trains.  Part of the restaurant is actually in a train car. And since it was right along the rail road Thomas drove by every 10 minutes. And Jack's face would light up every time like it was the first. 
Then it was nap time for everyone.

The next stop on our weekend of "Jack" was Sesame place.  Again Jack saw two of his idols right off the bat and got to take pictures with them.  
But once more we had to be patient and wait in line for our turn.  

Jack danced around like his pants were on fire until it was his turn and then.....I had to push him towards Cookie Monster and Super Grover.  
But he went and he had such a huge grin on his face when they hugged him. 




Believe it or not this is a "smile".  

Jack waving to Chris from the Carasoul.  The look on his face every time he went around and saw Chris was awesome.  He was having so much fun. 
Emma hung out and watched her big brother have his day. I know one day we'll be having breakfast with the Disney Princesses and Jack will have to sit through it like Emma did that day. 
But until then she's happy to give him the spotlight. 


I swear Chris is not a huge creepster and riding this alone. If you look very closely Jack is on it too. 


We were also first in line to watch Elmo's world live.  I learned from the previous day that I'm going to have to be a little bit crazy mama to get to be first in line and up front, so that's what I did.  I waited in line with Emma while Jack and Chris played until it was time to watch the show. He was so so so excited to see Elmo. 
Emma even woke up half way through to enjoy Elmo.
Then at the end of the day we let Jack pick out a prize for himself and his sister and in the end, well, all the prizes were for him because he was not letting either one go.  

This was Jack's weekend.  
To wake up both mornings to tell him that he was going to see these characters that make him so very happy was amazing.  
All the money, time and line waiting was so worth it when we saw the smile on his face...and really, that what life's about.