Thursday, May 26, 2011
DORA!!
We accomplished a lot today, and one thing was errands... we bought some new summer clothes for Emma Kate, since apparently it's going to be hot now... :/ She had SUCH a ball going through them at home and "trying them on." I think she would have been occupied for *hours* if we had let her. We also got her a set of Dora sheets for her bed (Daddy's idea) and she was ecstatic!!! It was hilarious, she got so riled up over it and of course it was right before bedtime. I wish I had a picture of the joy on her face when she laid down on her Dora pillow, with Boots right beside her head. I think she was even talking to them a little bit!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Uncle Maffis' (Matthew's) med school graduation weekend!
We're back home after a great long weekend in Richmond celebrating my brother Matthew's graduation from MCV with his MD! We had so much fun and were happy to see so many family members there too! We're so incredibly proud of Matthew, and excited to see how the next 4 years go while he does his residency in orthopedic surgery at UNC! The picture above is one you will be familiar with by the end of the post- Gretta was having flash-backs to when Emma Kate was in the hospital- she got to take so many naps in arms and was just loving it! :)
Pre-graduation lunch at Tobacco Co in Richmond, it's been eons since I've eaten there- what a cool old place that is!!!
Dixie dog enjoying her last few weeks of pug-fun. She has stayed with Matt and Chelsea or Mimi and PopPop's since mid-December, I think, and will be coming home this summer, but she has definitely enjoyed having a fenced back yard and other dogs to play with! She's going to be so bored when she comes home, after all, there's no more chicken poop to eat in the yard. :/
Emma Kate had so much fun with one of my old dolls, "Squeak Baby." She loved having all the different stuffed animals at Mimi and PopPop's house, and especially had fun putting diapers on and taking them off of various dolls and animals... :)
Emma Kate playing in Mimi's shoes- she had so much fun on this little pathway through the back yard- she went back and forth on it countless times, often trying to avoid stepping on the spaces between stones. It was so fun to watch her entertaining herself!
Emma Kate, informing me that she, in fact, could *not* smile, because her face was (and I quote) "Very dirty, dirty."
On the way home today, we thought we would stop for a quick visit at Va Safari Park, near Natural Bridge. Little did we know we were in for hours of fun! They have a cute little gift shop that was fun to walk through, a wonderful zoo exhibit- including 2 tigers, some very horny warthogs, various monkeys, kangaroos, tortises, goats, llamas, and so much more! Then we were off to do the drive-through safari, which was miles and miles long! It was quite impressive! We saw tons of animals, and so many of them came right up to our car even though we didn't have any food for them! It was so cool! Emma Kate had a big goofy grin on her face the whole time, and would squeal out about the animals when she saw them! Even Gretta was quite entertained! We will definitely be stopping by in the future- it happens to be very close to the half-way point to Mimi and PopPop's house, which is a convenient place to take a break and wear out some girls!! :)
Safari Emma Kate, fully equipped with her safari hat that was officially (in her words) "a little bit too big"
This is how I feel some days... :) The kangaroo exhibit was so cool- you actually get to walk through with them! Unfortunately, all the many kangaroos were passed out in the shade in the area separate from where we could walk, but it was neat to look at them- we even got to see one of them hopping along to join all the others in their nap. Very cool!
This poor little pot-bellied pig actually had her belly dragging the ground! She was very friendly though and hung out at the fence with us for a little while!
Emma Kate and some Emus- what bizarre birds! They *really* wanted some grain! Emma Kate kept saying "hey, where's my grain, lady!" just like we do when we see Charlie in the barn...
The camels were incredibly friendly and brave! There was even a sign up saying that the camels are known for stealing grain buckets, and sure enough, as we rounded the corner, we saw a fourth GIANT camel, chewing and *swallowing* a grain bucket! It was crazy!!!
There are more pictures to come... We only had our camera with us for a small portion of the weekend, so we're waiting for more pictures to be posted! We had an amazing time after the hooding ceremony at the Agecroft house in Richmond, and got a lot of beautiful pictures in the gardens! Hope to post them soon!
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Gymnastics anyone?
Another day of Romp N Roll for Emma and Gretta. We were both amazed at what Emma was doing today versus the last time. She walked around on elevated platforms without concern, ran down ramps, jumped and hopped, and as the picture shows-was hanging around on the rings.
Monday, May 9, 2011
The teeth are coming!!!
Gretta officially has two lower incisors popping through! I thought I could see them a bit last night, and I can actually feel them this morning!
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Happy Mother's Day!
Today is Mother's Day! We got to spend the weekend with Mimi and PopPop and were planning on spending today at Mill Mountain Zoo, but it rained all night and looked like it was going to be a dreary day... so we scrapped that and ended up getting lunch together at Olive Garden (yum!) and doing a little shopping... the visits always go by so quickly, the weekend is gone before we know it. It was a fantastic day- we are lucky to have wonderful moms with us, and I am so incredibly honored to be the mom of two precious, incredibly special little girls! It's the best job I've ever had!!!
As a side note, I recently went through Emma Kate's clothes to remove the ones that she had outgrown or were out of season- she was taking them from the drawers (a very exciting thing, since she's usually not allowed in the drawers due to overwhelming chaos that results from it), she would hand it to me after checking the tag and tell me "this one is a little too shmall...." and indicate it needed to get stacked on the dresser and put away. Well, when we were shopping today, it turns out that everything on the racks, as well as everything I tried on, was "a little too shmall" in her opinion! It was pretty darn cute. Gretta was especially good on the trip, and seemed to really enjoy people-watching. These little girls are a lot of work, but they are sooo much fun!!!
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Well, Greg has officially been released back to full duty at work! He had a recheck with the neurosurgeon Wednesday and apparently everything looks good! Today is his first day back at his regular shift, which means that it's my first day (again) of having the girls on my own for 24 hours... we'll get the hang of it again soon, I'm sure... :) The girls and I had a great day, spent nearly every waking minute outside, and even had Gretta take an impromptu nap in the tie-on wrap this morning. Guess all that jostling around is pretty soothing. Gretta is officially going from the hands and knees position to a sitting position now- she has done it several times successfully, and so far she's managed to avoid hitting her head on the floor when she topples over eventually! It's become so pointless to put a blanket down for her- she gets around so well that she's never on the blanket- apparently it's more fun on the bare floor! Emma Kate's favorite thing right now is playing with all the baby clothes that Gretta has outgrown- she sorts through them and makes the neatest piles... She even separates out the hats and the bibs in their own little piles! She made quite the towering stack of clothes yesterday... pretty impressive!
In all our difficulties getting logged in to post updates, I overlooked Gretta's 6mo doctor's visit, which was last week. She weighed in at 16lbs 3oz and is in roughly the 75th percentile for weight, height, and head circumference. So, apparently pretty well-proportioned. The doctor was pretty impressed with her near-crawling, and was glad to know that Emma Kate has been so discriminating with what toys she offers Gretta... She did get a couple of vaccines, and luckily she only cried for a minute or two! So sad... :)
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
So, here's Gretta on 4/27/11, just a day over 6 months, and this was not the first time she had done this! She is demonstrating "airplane" and "praying mantis" as we call them... before we know it she will be up and walking and talking in full sentances! Speaking of which, this evening Emma Kate said to Daddy, "Mommy made new purple popsicles for Emma Kate!" It was a mouthful! She continues to amaze us every day...
Visitors from the Big Apple!
Uncle Michael and Jill stopped by and visited with us last week. Here are a few of the photos from that.
Uncle Michael and Gretta
Monday, May 2, 2011
Another long stretch since the last post... we've had some issues being able to log in to the site for a little while, plus things have been really busy! We've got the workshop painted and have started organizing out there, and Greg has been working on getting trim work up in the new bedroom so that we can hopefully get carpeting in and start using it soon! (The bathroom will be finished later!) We've had a lot of fun lately- we did a little egg hunt for Easter- Emma Kate had a great time finding the eggs and was very excited to find a little treat in each one! She let us hide them again, and then she "hid" them for us. We enjoyed a long time outside since it was a gorgeous day. The other fun thing is Romp-n-Roll! This is our sort-of solution to the gymnastics class- it is more of a play room with some of the same gymnastics pads, but not a whole lot of direction, just having fun! They have the kids play, then bring out some musical instruments, then play, then music, and play again before going back into "Rompy's room" (Rompy is the mascot dog) to say goodbye. It was so much fun Emma Kate actually started to cry when she realized it was time to go! They do a 45 minute session and apparently that wasn't nearly long enough! It was great, we got her a little Tshirt with Rompy on it and she is constantly asking about whether or not it is clean... :) We signed her up for 4 weeks of classes one day a week and it has been a great thing to look forward to. Unfortunately I got sick at the end of the week with a bad cold and Emma Kate picked it up over the weekend. She's much better but still getting some pretty yucky snots, so we haven't been in this week yet.
Gretta is amazing- she is so strong!!! She has been pushing up to all fours for about a week or more, and she does this little "praying mantis" move sort of wiggling back and forth- I'm sure she will crawl before long! Yesterday she even went from the all-fours position to a sitting position and just looked up at me like "what?" when I was all excited. She can sit for a while before toppling over to one side, and I can't believe how mobile she is even without crawling- I seem to remember this stage with Emma Kate too- you put her down on the floor and within 3 minutes she is clear across the room! Emma Kate has been very attentive to her baby sister and is always explaining to me what the baby needs if she is fussy- funny thing is, she's almost always right! :) hehehe
Here are some recent pictures of our goings-on...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
