The life of Emma and Gretta

Wow, I knew I had a lot of pictures to load, but it turned out to be more than I thought! These pictures are from our "girls beach trip" back in mid-September, when I took the girls to the beach with Mimi. We had a lot of fun, but things had been torn up by the hurricane and there was another one brewing in the Atlantic, so the weather was crazy. Add to it all of the stinky soaked furniture and carpets sitting on the side of the road awaiting pickup, and all the standing water (breeding ground for mosquitos!), and you'll understand why most of the time we stayed indoors.... They were even spraying for mosquitos by plane a few evenings and recommended everyone to stay indoors! We managed to get out in the paddle boat a few times, visited the kitties at Auntie Kimberly's house, and got to the "big beach" a couple of evenings. It was great- the girls had a blast playing on the beach, and we didn't have to worry about umbrellas or sunscreen. The waves were quite impressive, probably the biggest ones I've personally seen in KDH, so naturally the red flags were up. Not that we were at all inclined to go swimming or anything... Anyhow, it was a great trip, and soon after we got home, we had a birthday visit from Nana and Tutz, we had a great afternoon with them, and the girls enjoyed opening some gifts and playing with some halloween items as well! Emma Kate's birthday came right along, and now here we are in almost the middle of October!

We've just gotten back from a semi-impromptu visit eastward, there's a man in Newport News (Ron) who has developed a doll called a "Pew Pal," and he wanted to honor Emma Kate by naming the girl in the story after her (he knows Emma Kate's great-grandparents, and had heard about her ordeal in the hospital). The local paper wanted to write a story about it, and so we met up at their church to have pictures taken and an article written about Ron. It worked out just perfectly that PopPop had the day off and was able to chauffeur and help take care of a somewhat fussy Garoo, we couldn't have done it without him! The write up is in the newspaper here, you can see Ron and his daughter in the large shot, and me sitting with Emma Kate and Ron's daughter looking at the dolls in the smaller shot. After a "shopping day" getting some things for the new bedroom and bathroom, we decided to take a little adventure and got train tickets to ride up to the National Zoo. The train ride was really fun, definitely a great way to travel with kids, since there's no car seat to be strapped into, and both girls did great. Gretta had an especially fun time on the ride home, with lots of jolly squeals and screams with a giant smile on her face. I don't know for sure that the rest of the passengers were aware of the smile though... that girl can really belt out the high-pitched screams!! The zoo was good but a lot of the animals seemed to be in hiding... we did see lions, tigers, and bears though, and the bear was even a "Spectacled Bear," which, according to Dora and Diego, "LOVE TO HUG!" We didn't test this out though... :)

The girls are both doing pretty well- we're still having some concern about Emma Kate's breathing- over the last month or so she has been breathing progressively harder with activity and is making some coarse noises with retractions at her collar bone. We're slated to see Dr. Rutter 2 months earlier than planned because of it, and hopefully he will have an "easy" solution... we leave for Cincinnati on Sunday and will be gone for a few days. We're driving this time, hoping to do half the trip one day and finish up the next. There will be plenty of stops along the way at parks and playgrounds I'm sure... Gretta is doing well and will be turning one before we know it! She is speed-crawling all over the place, has perfected the art of climbing stairs in only a couple of tries, and is standing unassisted for a few seconds, maybe up to 10? She will sometimes take a step between objects she holds on to while standing, but has not made any true walking steps on her own yet. She loves to walk holding our hands, but we can only take so much before our backs are screaming!! She has become quite converstaional, but still seems limited mostly to "Bah." It's still fun to have conversations with her, just "Bah-ing" back and forth. There are more pictures from recent days, but they have yet to be loaded, and a lot are on Mimi's camera!