Air show

So while the girls and I went to the zoo, JR and Eli went to an air show. Both of my boys love things that fly and it was a rare opportunity for just the two of them to go do something without the rest of us. JR called me to let me know that Eli was going to get to ride on a helicopter! I was super bummed that I couldn't be there to see it so I made JR promise to take pictures. How exciting for Eli because he has never even flown on an airplane. And at some point he had been promised a helicopter ride sometime in his lifetime and he had remembered it.

Look at that ear to ear smile....I just love it! This was where they had to stand to wait for the helicopter to come pick them up. They were the last ride of the day because of the weather.

This is just before boarding the helicopter. That is their pilot Sterling behind Eli.

This was right after. I can tell by Eli's face that the kid came right off that thing talking. I'm sure he had lots to say!

There were no pictures when they were inside because it was a bit squished. They flew over Memorial Park and over my work. JR said they were so low that he could read the words on the sides of our trucks at work! And Eli got a big kick out of the headphone/microphones that they wore. He talked the whole time to JR.

Zoo with old friends

As I am sure you have figured out by now, we love the zoo! I think we have the best zoo out of all of the zoo's I have been to. And it's great exercise because there are lots of hills to walk up and down. It is in the mountains after all. So this trip to the zoo was with a friend of mine since 6th grade and her 5 kids. It was an overcast day so it kept it pretty cool up there for us. I took some pictures of all the kids together (minus one) and some cool pictures of the 2 grizzly bears wrestling. That was pretty cool to watch because they reminded me of teenage boys horsing around.

From the left: Christian, Zander, Allorah, Gabby, Sam, Kayla and Emma

This was inside this tree thing that has a bug display and let's you see a better view of the Pumbaa's (warthogs)

Here is a picture of the bears playing....couldn't get any closer because of that head..... :)

This mountain lion was not happy...you can't really tell by this picture but it was growling and hissing. There was a docent down below (outside of the cage) and I am guessing it was talking to her for some reason.

The hippo....it was eating but you can't see it's food.

They have a carousel at the zoo. This thing is from the 1930's and they restored it in the 1990's. I am not kidding you, this is the fastest carousel I have ever been on! So this was Kayla checking out what is holding her on it before the thing started.

This is Emma....by the look on her face she is only just now processing what she is about to do and isn't too sure of it.

I stood between the girls while the thing went so that I could hold on to Emma. And let me tell you, it isn't an option to hold on. If you don't you will go flying off!

So if you did the math, and read my note, you notice that there is no Eli. He and JR went to an air show at the old airport. Too cool!

Emma's 2 yr check-up

Today was Emma's well baby check-up and it was mostly uneventful. Which I LOVE! Here are the things I learned.

She now weighs 27.5 lbs. Which means she has only gained just under 3 lbs over the last year! I have explained before that the percentile thing is mostly meaningless to me, so I mainly use it to give people an idea of how the size relates to other kids in that age group. And to show me things like when Emma was 1 yr old and weighing 24.8 lbs, she was in the 94th% and now she is 61%! Of course, the girl eats only what is necessary to keep her alive (in other words she has much better stuff on her agenda than eating) and has really been that way for the last year!

Her height....WOW....she is 35.8" tall. What that means for her is that if she follows the "golden rule" of figuring out how tall a person will be as an adult (the formula is to double the child's height at 2 yrs old) she will be 5'11! Which would make her a cool 7" taller than me and only 1" shorter than her daddy! Which now leaves me wondering if miss Emma is going to end up being my tallest kid! Of course I am thinking Hailey is darn tall too. And we won't discuss the fact that Kayla is officially taller than me already....ahem. ANYWAYS, Emma is a tall, skinny little girl!

She had to have one shot....the girl didn't flinch...didn't shed a tear! I couldn't believe it!

And, again, as I have said before, I really love the doctor. And here is yet another reason why. Emma is at the toddler phase of not really digging strangers. So whenever the Dr. comes in the room, she gets really still and really quiet. And despite that, this man can READ Emma. After he was finished with the exam, he sat back and said that he can fast forward to her being an adult and see that she is a confident, self assured woman. Not mean, not pushy, but knows what she wants and the right way to get it. Holy cow that man could not be more accurate with the way she is at 2! Nothing will get in the way of what she wants (let me tell you how un-fun that trait is right now!) She very much asserts herself with Eli and will not put up with any of his antics! And, I have to say that was a huge compliment to JR and I. That means we have done something right so far!

And speaking of her getting her way.....there has been a change in plans for the bed transition. She caught the stomach crud that Kayla and Eli had earlier this week and has been ill the last couple of days. Well I am not about to mess with the poor things emotions right now so the crib isn't coming down this weekend. However, after talking to Nana and Dr. Luebbert, we have decided to leave it up and move her to the big girl bed after she falls asleep. Then when she wakes up in the bed, we can partay and get her all excited about sleeping in the bed all night. Yeah I realize THAT is messing with her psychological state....but it's for the best! :)

Big Girl Bed

Last Friday was supposed to be the big day....Emma would stop sleeping in her crib and start sleeping in her big girl bed. We have had it set up in her room, well, for a really long time because it used to be Kayla's bed before she moved out of the room. But for Emma's birthday we gave her a Dora bed set for her bed to make the transition more exciting.

So Friday night rolls around and I have mentally prepared myself to go Supernanny on her. For those of you that do not watch this show, her rule is a step-by-step process to get the child to stay in their bed and go to sleep. The process is basically walking them to bed and telling the child it is time to go to bed and say goodnight, the next time you only say it's time to go to bed, and from then on out when the child gets out of bed you simply put them back in bed and do not speak a single word. So that is what I was all ready to do. Boy was I in for a shock!

Here is what happened....Emma FLIPPED out! She wanted nothing to do with her big girl bed. Even if I tried to lay down with her. She only wanted to sleep in her crib! I tried pulling her mattress out of her crib and that didn't work EITHER! So I didn't push the issue because I don't want her freaked out about the bed. You see, we had Kayla sleeping in our bed until she was about 4 and then Eli in our bed until he was about 6! It has been a couple of years since we have had a kid in our bed every night and I am loving it! I don't wanna go back! And because I have been such a stickler about Emma sleeping in her own bed, she won't sleep in ours. Even if she is super sick, if we try to bring her in with us, she only wants to play! And nope, not complaining at all! Anyways, I was brought to a complete halt and left with my chin resting on the floor with such shock! I have never known a child to NOT want to sleep in a bed with all that freedom! I should have known it would be Emma to change that!

I have received many great suggestions on how to work with Emma on this one. Unfortunately she doesn't really have much of an option because Hailey is ready to sleep in the crib and get out of our room. And buying a new crib is just not an option! So I think what we are going to do this weekend is take the crib down entirely and store it somewhere for a little while. In the meantime, Hailey will slowly move into Emma's room and she will start out sleeping in the pack-n-play! Because after talking to several people, I am thinking that poor Emma is tired of all of her stuff going to Hailey and she isn't about to give Hailey her crib too!

So all my dear friends and family, wish me luck this weekend! I am hoping and praying that with the crib out of site, out of mind, she will be game for sleeping in the big girl bed!

Two little love dogs

Yep, it's official, the dog has a girlfriend! He went MIA the other day. He was nowhere in the house. Eli was helping me make mini-meatloaves so you would expect a dog to be right there at his feet praying for a bit of meat to fall. Nope. He wasn't there. So I put my head out the back door to call the dog and glance over to the neighbors yard. Yep, you guessed right, that is where he was! Dust had been kicked up from him obviously running and coming to a screeching halt! So we fix the fence and figure it would be all taken care of. Then this morning, again gone for quite some time. He's over there again! Oh geez I hope this dog is fixed because Mal is not! Those would be some ugly puppies! And as a side note, the vet isn't keen on doing it at this point because of Mal's age. Anyways, I send Eli out there to get the dog and Mal just hops over the broken part of the fence like it's nothing! The kids and I had a few errands to run so we were gone for about 4 hrs or so. When we get home, I go to let the dog out and this is what I am greeted by......

That's the dog from next door! Apparently she got tired of waiting for Mal to go over there so she decided to come to our backyard! I can only imagine their conversation through the door while we were gone. Who knows how long she was back there! She really is a cute and sweet dog! It is a very weird feeling to open your door to find an animal that doesn't belong there. It took me a minute to process what I was seeing!

He is saying "Puhleeeease let me go out and play"

I kid you not, this dog was licking the door and nosing it. I think it's puppy love....

The good news is that I did find out this evening that she is fixed. We never really see the people that live in that house because we all keep different schedules. But one of them happened to be home and outside and were able to confirm that she is not able to have puppies! Phew!

Happy 2nd Birthday Emma!

Today was Emma's 2nd birthday! I cannot believe it has been 2 yrs already! At times it seems like she has always been here and at times she seems so new! I have loved watching all of her growth over this last year. Really developing a rather large vocabulary for one. I don't know that there is a word out there that she can't say! The funny thing is how soft spoken she can be. You would think that being in such a large family you would learn to speak up to be heard but instead she goes the other direction. And sometimes, when you ask her what she said, she will say it even lower the next time! She does know how to get what she wants though! She is one tough cookie and isn't afraid to fight her poor brother for anything! She very much looks up to Kayla and would be fine spending every waking hour with her. And Hailey, she does love her and wants to hold her alot but is also ok with Hailey sleeping and Emma getting all the attention. When she wants to hold Hailey she will ask "Can I hoed her?". She can't say hold so it comes out hoed. And whenever she says something like spoon or snake it comes out as sa-poon or sa-nake. Love it! Of course, we have to be aware of not talking like her so she can learn how to say the word the right way. And more importantly, so we don't walk around talking like Emma at work or school!


So for her birthday we decided not to have a party and we would just have family over. Well geez, when there are 4 sets of grandparents plus aunts and uncles....that ends up being a party! We ended up having 5 grandparents, 1 surrogate grandma (my step-sister and step-brothers mom Rhonda), an aunt, and an uncle here. Plus my giant family! A couple of the grandparents weren't able to come because of already scheduled plans. So we had cake and ice cream and let Emma open her presents. Emma is so shy that it is kind of funny. She was hiding behind this little half wall when my dad was coming to the door and then wouldn't look at anyone but Rhonda. She sat on her lap for quite some time before it was time to open presents. She did finally decide it would be ok to hug everyone though by the time they were leaving.


We gave her one of her presents in the morning, then she went to Nana's house and got more presents there, then she had the ones everyone brought to her. But she still enjoyed opening every last one of them! And now imagine how confusing it must be for her to wake up on the 26th and there are no presents and people aren't telling you happy birthday (whatever that means) and treating you special! 1 of the big gifts we got for her was a Dora bed set for her "big girl" bed so that she can transition from her crib to a twin daybed. Wish us luck with that one!

Before the madness.....

You can't see Emma but it sums up the evening!

After presents we sang Happy Birthday and ate cake. She was too cute while we were singing to her. She was facing away from everybody because of where her chair was (and no I didn't think to move it!). When everyone started to sing, a smile very slowly crept up on her face until it was full blown and she was looking around at everyone. Her expression kind of said "hey...this is cool that they are all singing to ME!".

Track update

Because my good camera broke and I haven't taken the time to get it fixed (like a dummy) I haven't been able to get good pictures of Kayla running. The track is too big and she always ends up running on the east side of the track and we sit on the west side of the track. They make all of us parents sit in the stands and cannot go out on the track....period. Even if your child is injured as I witnessed this week!

Anyways, track is going good for Kayla. Those coaches are really working these girls! Kayla has improved some of her race times this year which is awesome. I can see her pride when she tells me this too which I love. I'm glad she has found something that she likes as far as sports go. Since she always competes in relays she doesn't win on her own and quite honestly I don't know that her teams have won yet either. We don't stick around for the whole meet if we don't have to because of having to feed everyone dinner and homework and everything that goes along with 4 children! The meets start at 4:30 so the girls get out of their classes about 15 minutes early to load the bus and head over to the stadium their meets are at.

Here is the only picture I managed to get and Kayla is being a bit goofy in it. She had forgotten to bring her snack on Tues so that she would have it for the meet so she was rather hungry by the time I brought her this! That is her friend Kadejah with her.

Soccer

Here is a quick update on soccer.....

It is very quickly coming to an end already! Eli only has 3 or 4 more games left! This season has been a good one for the team. They average a win just about every other game. It's fun to watch these boys play though. And they seem to have fun for the most part. They did group pictures before the last game so I am looking forward to getting that.

I did figure out that it isn't a good idea to take Emma to the games. I can now see why they make kid leashes! :) She thinks it's fun and funny to take off running across the park. There is one particular park that they have games at that is quite large. She really enjoys taking off and running for the hill which is literally on the other side of the park than the soccer field we are on!

Scrapbook

A couple of the ladies at work are pretty avid scrapbookers and offered to scrapbook a couple of pages from my baby shower that they threw for me. With their schedules and what not they were finally able to get together to actually work on it a couple of weeks ago. These two are so creative that they got the whole idea just from seeing the gift bags at the shower! Here are pictures of each page.

The pictures are in order as they would be in a book. They had tied the pages together with little ribbons as you can see in a couple of the pictures. Well I turned my back for a second and Emma had all the pages out and all the ribbons pulled out! Geez! So I just need to get a book to put the pages in and there is my start of a Hailey scrapbook!

Sleeping

As I took all the pictures off my camera this evening I happened to notice there were several pictures of sleeping people. I guess I was just enjoying the quiet time so much I decided to snap pictures! Just kidding! Once you see these pictures you will see why I took them!

Emma with her baby Sarah sleeping on her chest. And only 2 blankets instead of the 5+ she was sleeping with every night during the summer!

My little snuggle bug Hailey. She still loves to be swaddled for sleeping at night.

Yep, she is sleeping like that. If she gets fussy all JR has to do is put her near his face and talk softly to her and it usually settles her right down. This time, it settled her so much she fell asleep!

Eli and Mal....the dog really thinks he is human. He was on his back and snuggling up in Eli's neck!

Eli rocked her to sleep this morning while I was in the shower. Big brothers rock! Oh and just look at how much she looks like him!

Hailey Smiling

So I have been trying very hard to get a picture of miss Hailey smiling. It is quite the challenge because as soon as the camera is in her face she just stares at it wondering what it is. Kayla and I had to get together and have one of us make her smile and the other take a picture!

She was "talking" to Kayla.

1st Soccer game

Eli had his first game of the season on Wed. His team tried real hard but they lost quite painfully! :) One of his teammates must have some experience with soccer because the kid stood up at half time and did a little of his own coaching for the boys! They had their 2nd game on Friday and this time they won 7-1!

All the players getting ready for the start of the game. This was before Eli realized just how cold it was. He eventually put a shirt on under his uniform.

Can you find him out there?!

Poor Kayla had to go straigt from track practice so she didn't have ANY warm clothes! Good thing I brought this blanket!

Emma found a seat on Hailey's stroller.

This was Emma's and now Hailey get's to wear it. Too cute! It even came with a little teddy bear in the pocket.