KSU vs Mizzou

Last night as we were watching K-State beat Missouri in Basketball, I remembered something I wanted to mention on here about Emelyn's dr appt last week. We didn't see our regular Dr, and for some reason Emelyn was SCARED of this new guy. He was super nice, but she wanted nothing to do with him, as she screamed and ran from him anytime he was near her. I'd never seen her dislike someone this much before EVER, until I noticed what it was. He was wearing a Mizzou sweater vest. Emelyn was decked out in purple from head to toe. Needless to say, he won the battle that day, but KSU won the war last night. :) Go State!

Thank you

How does Emelyn eat marshmellows?

By putting them in a (rinsed out) 7-up bottle she found in the recycle pile, one by one, then dumping them all in her mouth at once.

The look of satisfaction on her face afterwards was priceless!

I love love love the way she says "thank you" too- of course when I want her to say it on camera, she doesn't say it until I ask her to - but still, just as precious I think!

Have a good weekend!

What we've been up to

Jessica recently wrote this on her blog:

The little old lady in the grocery store is right. They grow up all too quickly. The days will slip away when you're not looking. So what should we do?

• Put down the magazine
• Turn off the computer
• Let the voice mail get it
• Ignore the tweets

Instead...

• take a walk
• play a game
• ride a bike
• build a snowman
• bake a cake
• make a memory
• redeem the day

Before I saw this on her blog, Jake and I had talked about and were being purposeful to do the exact same thing... and Jessica's post put into words exactly what I couldn't. So what have we been doing these days?

• Cooking together
• Dancing together
• Laughing together
• Chasing each other around the house
• Reading together
• Pretending together
• Folding clothes together (takes 3 hours to fold each load I might add!)
• Sewing together (yes, emelyn LOVES to sit on my lap and ooh and ahh)
• and Meeting Daddy for surprise lunches

Yesterday?

Eating "yesterday"

Literally eating yesterday...
Helping me cook "yesterday"...
And now today...

A yucky cold and surprise visitors!

Over the last week, Jake and Emelyn have had colds and thankfully both went to their doctors today, so hopefully we'll be on the mend soon! Emelyn started having a runny/stuffy nose Tuesday afternoon and Jake that same night. Since then, Emelyn's has turned into watery eyes, sneezing, fever and the last few days, coughing at night and waking up at night. So into the doctor we went, and as we suspected from all of the drainage, she has a mild ear infection. :(

Saturday my sister Valerie called and said she was on her way to surprise us. She and her husband Justin decided to take a last minute roadtrip. A visit was just what we needed to end a long week. They left last night and went to Eureka Springs... one of our favorite places around here. It was so good to see them! Maybe we'll get the wild idea to take a road trip to see them this summer!

Here are some pics from our past week - many of a miserable, but still playing, Emelyn. She's quite the trooper!

Emelyn's been super cuddly this past week, and has been unusually interested in ALL of her "babies" - many times trying to carry them all at once!

What a pitiful looking little girl!
When Valerie was here, she couldn't believe how curly Emelyn's hair is - so I thought I'd share a picture of it with you all

Snuggling in with a book and Aunt Valerie - the perfect combination on a rainy Sunday!

Look who found daddy's hat! It took a lot of concentration to keep it balanced on her head - all while trying to keep her nose from dripping!

Not wanting Valerie and Justin to leave...

... so she picked up where they left off in the yellow pages, trying to figure out which place they decided to go to!

And finally, I love this short video. It might just be our sense of humor, but we get a kick out of watching her dance... especially the quick feet. This past week as we've watched a little of the Olympics and the life stories of the atheletes, we're amazed that parents knew their kids had talent at such a young age and that they started encouraging and training them as young as 2-3 years old. Since then, Jake and I keep joking that maybe Emelyn's foot moves are a sign that we need to enroll her in tap dancing. (I hope you sense the sarcasm there!)

We hope you have a good week and stay healthy!

Some kids play with blocks...

...Emelyn stacks blood glucose monitors, scalpicin and poligrip. It will be a sad day for Emelyn when we take these to the nursing home. :(

Had to share a typical "pre" comb/ponytail/barrette picture too.

Emelyn @ 16 mnths

Doesn't that sound old - 16 months?? Definately isn't a "baby" sounding number... and Emelyn is anything but a baby these days.

• She's 24.2 pounds. Yes, she enjoys going to our bathroom and stands on the scale then yells "MaaaaMaaaa!" for me to come see what the number says.
• Runs/walks/jumps... even has fun walking backwards.
• Loves dogs - still.
• A few of her words: doggie, puppy, uhoh, woof (along with all animal sounds - except oink), thank you, you're welcome, water, cracker, yummy, Noooooo!, hi, hello, hey, yeah, Mommy, Daddy, poopoo, pee, brrr as well as lots of imitating words but I'm not sure that she knows what the words mean, she just thinks it's fun to repeat. She's our little parrot. The only phrase she says is in conjuntion with "is it?" or "this is" like "This is Daddy, is it brrr?" Also, to keep her distracted while doing her hair, I'll often start counting. After I say one... she goes "two, tee." She also likes to say "peekaboo" - usually when she sees the computer, because she likes to play the game "peekaboo" at babygamer.com
• Speaking of her hair, just recently it became long enough to put in a ponytail.
• We're very fortunate that she'll eat pretty much everything we give her (at least so far.) She's an independent eater and often times if she says "no" to something we try to give her to eat, it's because she wants the spoon/fork to feed herself. A typical meal is a banana and either oatmeal, a pancake or some cereal for breakfast. She'll eat whatever we eat for lunch and supper, and for snacks, she often has a yogurt, crackers, cheese stick or applesauce.
• I think that's about it. The only other thing I have to share (sorry for those of you who find this gross!) is that on top of peeing on the potty (not all the time, just every now and then) today was the first time she had a bowel movement. Her response? "Whoa ... Mommy! Puppy!" (Translated - whoa, that was cool, but mommy, can I please have my book back about puppies?) I'm not sure how long this will last, but I have to say that flushing a toilet is much nicer than changing a dirty diaper!

Catch Up

A glimpse of Emelyn's personality...

Reading with dad
Watching the neighbors have a snowball fight in our back yard. They regularly came up to say hi to Emelyn which made her day!

A little blurry, but couldn't resist the cheesy toothy grin!

I just realized it's been a week since I've posted...

The sad thing, is that I can't think of anything new to tell you.... Let's see...

• We bought Emelyn a potty chair and she l-o-v-e-s it. Not sure if she knows she's suppose to go potty on it, but she thinks she's big stuff getting to sit on it. She also wants us to give her a book to read and turn on the exhaust fan for her - no joke! She's so funny! (Have I ever mentioned that before on here? :)
• Emelyn and I went to the mall today to walk and a friend met us there at the end with her two boys. It was so sweet to get to see her and chat with her - we've just recently met but every time we chat, I feel inspired to be a better wife and mother. Don't you love friends like that?
• The twins (my brothers that are seniors in high school) made it to State Scholars Bowl. It's in the southeast corner of Kansas this Saturday - closer for us than them I think, but it's still 4.5 hours away. We are trying to decide whether to go or not. I would really really like to get to watch them in action (I feel like I've missed out on so much of their lives living so far away!) But, Emelyn still fights her carseat, and she wouldn't be able to sit in the rounds since there's a "silence" rule, and the meet starts at noon which means she'll be getting cranky and needing a nap right when it starts. We can't figure out how we'd get her to take a nap being in a place where we can't put up a pack in play in an unoccupied room... and the thought of Jake driving around for 2 hours so that she can sleep in her carseat during the competition doesn't sound appealing either. So we can't seem to decide what to do - but in the mean time, we're having fun making a care basket! :)
• Jake was at the oncology center last Thursday and Friday mornings getting an iron infusion. He had bloodwork done two weeks ago and although his copper levels are stable, his iron was still low, and his hemoglobin started to drop. Within 6 weeks we should know if the liquid iron is helping. In the meantime, I've been doing a lot of nutritional research and reading, and found a highly recommended liquid multivitamin that's designed for people who can't absorb capsules or tablets so we're hoping it will help.
• It's snowing today.. As Emelyn and I were driving to the mall she looked out her window and kept saying "Pretty!" She was right!

I caught on camera Emelyn's reaction to hearing the garage door open around 5:15pm. I'm sure all of you parents out there have similar videos of your own kids and may find this boring, but I'm guessing it will bring a smile to the grandparent's faces! You'll notice that Emelyn insists on dad taking his coat off as soon as he walks in the door. One of her many funny quirks!

Calling all mommas....

I'm needing a little advice... or at least confirmation that this is normal. I feel like Emelyn is a bottomless pit! She just always seems hungry! For instance, this morning she had a whole wheat/whole oat pancake, an entire banana and a cup of milk. Good carbohydrates, lots of soluable fiber.. enough to keep me full for hours. Within an hour she acted like she was starving again. So I cut up an apple for us to share - she ate over half of it. She drinks water throughout the day, so I know it's not that she's just thirsty. And at meals, she can eat just as much as I do. Is this a growth spurt? Bored eating? Or perfectly normal? I guess I just assume that since she's a fifth of our size that she would require less food/calories, not more. Sometimes when she's hungry, I'll just give her plain green beans, or a piece of 12 grain bread with no butter or anything on it thinking that she surely wouldn't want to eat something so blah, but she does. Do all toddlers eat this much?
Also, for some time now Emelyn will point to her stomach and exclaim "Mommy, poo-poo!" and a few minutes later she points to her bottom and sadly says "Mommy, poo-poo." Does this mean anything? I thought about letting her go on the potty, but then decided that was probably pointless since she still wakes up wet every morning, and doesn't say anything when she pees. She's only 16 months and just seems too little to actually be pottytrained, even though I know some kids are potty trained by now. So those of you that have gone through this, is this a sign that I should jump on, or just know that she's aware of when she goes to the bathroom, and leave it at that?