The language!

Emma's vocabulary seems to grow by the minute these days! She is becoming quite the parrot too. I have figured out that if she doesn't know the word or how to say it, she just doesn't do it. She has never really "babbled" or made up words for stuff, just worked on mastering the words right away. Here are some examples:

*One day Kayla found a broken hanger and said "oooohhh you're in trouble" so Emma will now say trouble in that tattle tale kind of way.
*I had a basket of towels that a couple of towels had fallen off of. Emma walked in to the room and saw this and immediately said "Momma Trumbull!" and picked the towels up. She will also say her name too. We aren't sure where she picked this up because we all say her first and middle name....not first and last.
*She will not say Love You to anyone except for Grandpa Weiss....no matter how hard I try to get her to say it. This evening she finally said Love You Grandpa to us! I guess it's a start!
*We are pretty big on manners and do what we can to get our kids to use them....and Emma is well on her way to being good with them! She will say please in a begging sort of way which is cute for a 1 yr old! She says Thank You usually when she is handing you something. And she recently started saying excuse me which comes out more like Coo Me's. She used to say move to the dog or even to people if they were in her way but after a little bit of persistence she figured out she shouldn't say that.

There are tons of other things she says, and I could go on all night but I will spare you! I just love this phase because she can communicate with us so much better than even just a few months ago. She certainly knows how to assert herself and will grab our hand to point to something or take us to what it is she wants. We had to completely rearrange the kitchen because she could get in to the pantry and bring us food. Which she would do all day long!

Coloring

After school and homework the kids had some spare time before dinner and got the paper and markers/crayons out to do some artwork. Of course Emma has to be involved in it like her siblings! So Kayla got a piece of paper and drew a picture for Emma to "color". Here are the pictures!

He finally did it!

I have been begging Eli to let me cut his hair for quite some time now. The poor kid had been trying to grow it out long but his hair is just difficult. He was blessed with lots of thick heavy hair (like me!) that also came along with a mind of it's own. While I was at work JR called to tell me that Eli had a surprise for me. Of course I figured it was that he had cleaned his room. Turned out it was that he let JR cut his hair! And I love it!

Look at all of that hair!

And there is the Eli with his new do!

Halfway there!

I hit the halfway mark in this pregnancy a few days ago....and my how time is flying! 20 more weeks to go (give or take a few days since my babies tend to be comfortable and want to stick around in my belly)! I have my ultrasound and hopefully find out the sex of the baby on March 5th. So everyone start hoping and praying the baby shows the goods for us! :)

Kayla and Eli are still excited. I have been telling Emma there is a baby in my belly but she just doesn't get it and just wants to look at my belly. I still can't wait to see how she reacts. This is the first time we will have double the diapers and two small babies/toddlers together like this. Not bad considering this is the 4th! :)

I will get some belly pictures soon (just for you Cheryl) and post them on here. I still get told I don't look pregnant but I certainly feel it! And I have to wear the maternity pants now!

And last but not least, I have put a "link" off to the side to participate in my online baby pool to guess the sex, DOB and size. Have fun!

Ewwwww Emma!

She got awful quiet this evening and I kept hearing a noise like the dog being at his water bowl. Went to check it out finally and this is what I found.....

Notice the "floaties" in the water...apparently she added those for some flavor! Not sure why she decided to drink his water out of nowhere but she did again after her bath! So apparently we have to keep it put up until she loses interest again!

Conehead

Leave it to our dog Mal....I have never heard of this before but he broke the cartilage in his ear from shaking his head and therefore broke a blood vessel which had to be drained. The cause of the head shaking....an ear infection. I suppose that is the advantage to cropping a pit's ears. This drain contraption has to be in for 3 weeks! So in what started as an innocent car ride this afternoon, ended in a whiney cone head of a dog! Can't say I blame him for not being very happy about the whole thing. Now the funny part for those of us not wearing a cone is watching him try to navigate the house. We don't have a very big house with open space so it can be a bit challenging at times. And this cone is HUGE! He gets it stuck on the floor on the carpet and on just about anything in his path. At first it was like he just gave up and figured he would stand there until either we moved him or the object moved but he is getting the hang of it now. The "just a little bit funny" part of it is that Emma is terrified of the whole thing! If he so much as touches her with the cone you would think he bit her! So she is currently sitting behind me on the couch eating her chicken because he ran into her foot with the cone and she wouldn't quit crying until I rescued her. The next three weeks should prove interesting.....

I have some pictures but keep in mind that there is blood involved so it looks a little gross.....you have been warned! :)

See that poor me face? So sad!

Kayla feeling sorry for the dog

Eli feeling sorry for the dog

And this is Emma after the dog touched her....so scared.....

Science Fair!

Kayla had her first ever science fair on Thursday the 7th. Her experiment was to see if plants could grow in different colored light. She got some seeds from Nana and planted them in seperate pots for each different color of light. She used white, red and blue bulbs. And nothing grew! Oh well! That's part of doing an experiment! She was pretty nervous on Thursday because that was her big day to present to the judges. She had already done a trial run and was critiqued by her science teacher earlier in the week but that just isn't the same! She had to dress up and look nice for the event and it lasted from 1:30-3:30 that afternoon. Then they had awards and such later at 6:30 which is what I went to with her. It is fun to see all the different experiments and ideas that these kids came up with. And I love seeing this group of kids because they are so diverse.

Here is Kayla with her board that she spiffed up quite well

Kadejah, Kayla and Jade....bff....and the great thing about these girls is that they go way back to 1st grade and have been friends since then....though not as close as they are this year

Sarah, Kayla and Kadejah....bff

And as I said earlier these kids had to dress up for the presentations earlier in the day....I think at least 90% of these kids went home and PROMPTLY changed their clothes!

Ishes!

Apparently Emma has a love of doing ishes (or dishes for those of us with a fully developed vocabulary) that came out this weekend. The kids all went to Nana's house for the day on Saturday while JR and I got outta town for a bit. Emma kept begging Nana to do ishes until Nana finally caved. So they pulled a chair up to the sink for Emma and let her go to town! And come to find out JR would sit Emma on the counter if he did dishes while they are home together during the weekdays.

I have pictures however blogspot doesn't seem to want to cooperate with me....as soon as it does...I will post them!

edited - turns out it was me and not blogspot causing the photo's to not upload....so here they are

She can read!

Well not really but close! Whenever we go to the library, Emma gets to check out books too. She loves to be read to and to just sit and look at a book on her own. Thursday morning she brought Look at the Baby over to me to read to her. She actually read it to me! I wasn't sure if she was just pointing to the pictures and naming stuff or doing this by memory until the end. She said yummy, yummy, yummy! A couple of pages towards the end it says that and then the very end says sweet, sweet, sweet. So after only having this book for 2 weeks she memorized it that well! She is my kid for sure! So far all 3 of my kids like books which makes me very happy! My task now, find that book to buy for her!

1st Ultrasound

I had my first ultrasound today to determine my due date. It was a quick check and I got a few pictures to go along with it. My due date is now set at July 3rd....so it was moved up a week. I took the 2 big kids along with me so they could see the baby and be a part of this whole thing. They thought it was super cool and really liked hearing the heart beat. So here are baby's first pictures....

2007 Book List

I meant to do this earlier this month but given the circumstances there have been other things on my mind! :) Here is the list of books I read for 2007. It is quite sad because I started lots of books....even got close to finishing....and just couldn't do it. I used to read 1-2 books a week but over the last couple of years I have found it difficult to just read 1 book a MONTH! I have only been recording what I have read for a few years and that is only because one of the girls I work with gave all of us readers little notebooks to log what we had read or books that we wanted to read. Anyways, here goes the list! The date is the date I finished the book.

1/26/07 - Jodi Picoult - Harvesting the Heart
3/7/07 - Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Travelers Wife
4/26/07 - Jodi Picoult - Nineteen Minutes
6/3/07 - Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Infidel
6/24/07 - Pamela Ribon - Why Moms Are Weird
7/15/07 - Carl Hiaasen - Nature Girl
7/31/07 - Lisa See - Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
8/12/07 - Emily Giffin - Something Blue
8/27/07 - Emily Giffin - Baby Proof
9/2/07 - Alison Winn Scotch - The Department of Lost and Found
9/18/07 - Emily Giffin - Something Borrowed
11/17/07 - Nikki Sixx - The Heroin Diaries
12/8/07 - Janine Latus - If I am Missing or Dead

The gap between 9/18 and 11/17 was filled with "reading" the Post Secret books. I didn't feel right counting those because they are semi picture books. There are words but it seriously only takes an hour or two to read the books. So if I added those to the count then I think it makes 18 books read for 2007. My goal for 2008 is to double the amount from 2007. Wish me luck!

Ya think she looks up to him?!

This evening Eli and Emma were playing in my bedroom and Emma came running out into the living room telling JR "off, off" and was tugging at her shirt. After a second of trying to decipher what Emma was saying to him we figured out that she wanted her shirt off. Which is kind of out of character for her since she is usually OK with leaving all of her clothes on all day long. So I asked Eli if he was wearing his shirt....turns out he wasn't! So little Emma apparently wanted to be just like her brother and be shirtless! Naturally I had to get a picture of that!

And my little perfectionist baby cannot stand to have a finger or toe nail half broken or to have lint in her little itty bitty toes so she will take her socks off and then stay quite busy making sure all is well on her pretty little feet! She was inspecting tonight and apparently found a toenail that needed some attention so she decided to bite it! She is trying to make Aunt Lorie proud! And again, had to get a picture of that!

And this is Emma just being silly playing with me