Happy 23 Months!

Only 1 more month until I have a 2 year old!  This is so crazy to me!!

Here's what's happening with Emily at 23 months:

- She wears some 12-18 month clothes, but mainly now 18-24 month clothes.

- She wears size 5 shoes and size 4 diapers.

- Whenever other children come around Shawn or I, she becomes very attached to us and says "my mommy" or "my daddy."

- She says her name - "Emily Baxter"

- She can count to 10.  We have no idea how long she's been able to do this.  I know they teach her this at school, but one day she was watching Sesame street and they were counting and she counted right along with them.

- She likes to clean.  She likes to use wipes to clean her face and hands and then before you know it, she's using the wipe to clean the walls, the stairs, etc.

- She is addicted to putting chapstick on. 

- She's gotten very good at saying "thank you mommy or thank you daddy" without having to be asked. 

- She'll say "bless you mommy" whenever I sneeze.  She gets lots of practice with this.  :)

- Caillou is her new favorite show.  Although she still loves "momo" (Elmo) on Sesame Street.

- She knows which faucet is the hot water and which one turns on the cold water.

- She added another song to her favorites - Ba, Ba, Black Sheep.  She knows all the words.

- She's tall enough now, that she can climb up onto the couch herself . . .sometimes.

- She has started talking in full sentences.

- She knows she is turning 2 next month.

Weekend Wrap-up

After a really long week of Emily being home sick, we were finally able to get out and have some fun this weekend.  Emily's cold last weekend turned into a fever blister outbreak on Monday and because of it, we kept her home all week from school.  Luckily, by Friday though she was feeling better.  Shawn and I split up staying home with her all week and because of it, Shawn was behind at work.  So he headed into the office on Saturday morning while Em and I went to watch my niece's, Lauren, soccer game.  I enjoyed watching her play and was amazed at how intense a 6 year old soccer game can be!  After the 3rd quarter, Julie and I took Natalie, my other niece, and Em over to the playgrounds.  I think Em may have enjoyed this more than the soccer game.  After the game, Em and I ran a few errands and then headed home for lunch.  Shawn came home during her naptime and when she woke up we headed to Burleson for dinner with his family.  His mom just built an outdoor kitchen and now that it was done, she wanted to have everyone over to test it out.  Emily enjoyed playing with her cousins, especially Sienna, who is just 2 months older than her. 

You'll notice they are rooting for different schools.  Too bad Sienna's team didn't win their game.  :)

Sunday we didn't have any big plans.  Shawn did errands/chores in the morning, while I occupied Em.  Right before her nap, I decided to deflate Em's pool since we wouldn't be needing it anymore this year.  Well, Em had other plans and decided it was just as fun to play in it while it was empty.  To get her to go down for a nap, I promised her I wouldn't deflate it and she could play in it again when she woke up.    While she was napping, I came up with the great idea to buy some balls for her pool.  So when she woke up, we all ran a few errands and one of them was to go buy some balls for her pool.  She was so excited when we got home.  We brought her pool upstairs and threw in the balls.  She loves it!  Now I'm afraid, not only will we not be able to deflate the pool for a while, but I have a feeling we will also be picking up 150 balls each night.  Maybe this wasn't such a good idea??

Part of the fun was diving into the pool.

Weekend Recap

Saturday afternoon we had our friends, the Arnolds, over for dinner and to help cheer on our Red Raiders.  The game lasted forever, due to several weather delays, but in the end we came out with another win.  The kids had a great time playing together while us adults had a good time catching up.  We don't get to see Matt and Kara often since they live closer to Fort Worth, but it's always fun when we do!

This afternoon we headed over to the Balloon Festival in Plano.  It's been years since we have been to this event, but we thought it would be fun to get Em out of the house.  It ended up being pretty hot and also windy.  We had hoped to see the balloons launch, but with all the wind, there was no way that was going to happen.  As a result, we left after about an hour, but not before letting Em get her face painted for the first time.  She did really well sitting for the lady and loved her kitty cat that she got on her cheek.

Open House - Early Preschool I Class

Last Thursday we attended Open House for Emily's school.  Somehow, we were the only parents that showed up for her classroom.  The other classrooms had lots of parents.  But as a result, we were able to get a 1 on 1 conference with all 3 of her teachers (Ms. Amber, Ms. Julie, and Ms. Chelsea).  They told us all about the stuff they learn in her class.  They say the pledge of allegiance.   They know there are 13 stripes on the flag and there are 50 stars.  They can count to 10 in English and Spanish and also sign to 10.  They know all their colors in English and Spanish and can also sign all of the colors.  They have roll call each morning and they have to raise their hand when their name is called.  They talk about the weather each day and do 2 art projects a day.  They also have music class each day.  Each day, they do different centers and the kids have learned how to rotate between centers.  Her teachers said Emily is one of the most helpful students.  She's one of the first to help pick up toys and follow directions.  When it comes to naptime, they said Emily is always eager to go down and never has any trouble falling asleep.  I loved hearing about how cooperative Emily is and also how much she is learning.  Even though it's a "daycare" that she's in, I feel like it's more of a "school."  They have a curriculum that they follow and we really can see how much she is learning there.  It's things like this that make me glad that we ended up putting her in an environment like this.  She's learning a ton, while also learning great social skills.  Her teachers said she will more than likely stay in this room until she's around 30 months.  So she still has a while before moving to Early Preschool II. 

Day 7 : Goodbye California

Finally. . .last post about our trip.  We woke up Sunday morning and left Steph and Luke's house around 10:00.  We had a 2:30 flight, but had to make the 2 hour drive back to San Francisco first.  Of course Emily would fall asleep about 20 minutes before we got to the airport.  That was her nap for the day. 

After a little bit of traffic and turning in the rental car, we didn't have too much time before our plane left.  The security line was really long, but luckily, one of the security guys let us go through the handicap line (and I guess for small children), so we got to cut in front of everyone.  It couldn't have worked out more perfectly!  Once again, Em did great through security.  They let me hold her as I walked through this time (DFW was way more strict about security and also bags - San Fran didn't weigh our bags, at DFW they wanted to charge us $125 overage fee for 1 of our bags - we re-distributed instead, so they weren't overweight).  By the time we got through security we had just enough time to grab a quick lunch and then get to the gate.  I think we waited all of 10 minutes at our gate before boarding. 

Emily was a little fussier on the flight home.  Since she didn't have much of a nap, she started getting really antsy the last hour or so.  Luckily for us, we arrived 30 minutes early (and got a gate right away - that never happens at DFW!). 

Thanks for the extra surprises Steph - we used them all!

We got our bags (that took a while) and then took the shuttle to our car.  Emily actually fell asleep in my lap on the shuttle, but woke up as soon as we got in the car (how convenient).  We finally made it home around 9:00 (that's with a quick stop through the In-N-Out drive thru :) ).  We got everything unpacked and then headed off to bed.  We were all up late since we were still on CA time.  Although we were all sad our trip was over, it was nice being able to sleep in our own bed.

Day 6 : Fairytale Town And The Splash Park

Saturday was our last full day before heading home.  We decided we would split the parenting duties with the guys this day.  Steph and I left early to take the girls to Fairytale Town in the morning while the guys played golf.  Our plan was that we would put the girl's down for a nap and then the guys would take the girl's to do something in the afternoon.

So off to Fairytale Town we went.  It was a really cute little place.  Everything there was from a known fairytale.  They had Jack and Jill's hill, the crooked mile, Cinderella's carriage, Farmer Brown's barn, etc.  Emily had a blast running around.

We left Fairytale Town around 11:00 and stopped by Chick-Fil-A to bring lunch home.  Emily fell asleep in the car ride and slept all of 20 minutes before we got back to Steph's house.  She woke up to eat and then I hoped to put her down for a nap.  Boy, did she have a different idea.  I put her in the crib and she sang and talked for 45 minutes before I decided there was no way she was going to sleep.  So both girls forgo their naps.

The boys arrived home after lunch and took the girl's to the splash park in the afternoon followed by some swimming.

Steph and Luke made another yummy dinner and then after putting the girls to bed, we all enjoyed chatting by the fire pit on their patio.  Of course our last night there, we stayed up the latest.  But it was worth it!  We had a great last night!

Day 5 : Goodbye Tahoe, Hello Sacramento

Friday was our final day in Lake Tahoe. We were all sad to leave! Luckily though we still had a couple more days before we were heading back home to Texas. We packed up all our bags and said goodbye to our condo (but not without taking a few pics in the pretty flowers). We decided to take the North route home this time (Steph and Leah were getting car sick on the way up) and we made a pit stop at Emerald Bay to take in the Lake one last time.

Em fell asleep in the car, but woke up with about an hour left to go.  We stopped for lunch at Ikeda's (they had the best pie!!) and then made the rest of the trip back to Sacramento.  We spent the afternoon just hanging out.  The girls enjoyed a little dress up time and then we put the girls to bed early and  just ordered pizza for dinner.

Em couldn't get enough of Leah's bracelets and necklaces - she put them all on

Funny story from when we were there. . .Leah has the biggest imagination out of any 3 year old I've ever met!  She was constantly requesting that we call her Roxy, Belle, Cinderella, Jasmine, etc.  Her name changed several times throughout the day and she was very quick to correct us when we called her the wrong name.  And she never missed a beat.  As I was taking these pictures, she reminded me 3 times that her name was Belle Belle.  And now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure we ever got to meet "Leah."  :)

Steph kept joking that they looked like two 80 year old women having a tea party

Blog time

I'm almost done, I promise.  Just 2 more posts to go. . .