Emmie Singing

Emmie has recently started singing along with me when I sing to her at naptime and bedtime. We always sing "Jesus Loves Me" and "Amazing Grace". I love listening to her sing so I videotaped us singing together today.
(Sorry about the squeaky chair!)



One other super cute thing to share. I always tell people that Emmie sings from the time she gets up in the morning until she sings herself to sleep at night and last night she literally fell asleep in my arms mid-song. We were on the last verse of Amazing Grace and she was singing along and then she just stopped...she was fast asleep!

Peek a boo!

Summerville

We left Thursday night to go to Summerville and we came back tonight. Paul played in a golf tournament at Miler and the girls and I hung out with Papa, GG, and Uncle Blake.
Friday morning the girls and I went with Paul's mom to the beach. We went to Isle of Palms and it was perfect weather! The girls had lots of fun playing and they were all over the place! They both loved going out in the water. Emmie always wanted to be as far out as the older kids and Ellie would constantly point out to say she wanted to keep going farther. We stayed for a little over an hour and the girls were soooo tired by the time we got back to the house but they had a blast!

The next 2 shots are ones I edited in Picassa (which I just discovered and LOVE). I love how they both turned out!

Little Miss Ellie made a beeline for the water! You can see the excitement on her face! Gin-g and I had our hands full chasing the girls around (because they generally wanted to go in opposite directions!).

Ellie has mastered using a shovel.

When we pulled up Emmie saw other children in the parking lot and said "look at all my friends". Then at the beach she kept following the older kids around but they were going out farther than she could in the ocean so we finally found her some friends about her age who were nice enough to let Emmie help dig a hole in the sand. 

Emmie fell alseep like this when we got home and I woke her up 2 hours later and she was still in the same spot!

Friday night I went and met Paul at the golf course for hors d'ourvers while Papa, GG, and Blake kept the girls (and Franklin). Afterwards, Paul and I went and met Blake for some Marble Slab and then we all went back to the house and watched The Help. I had read the book but hadn't seen the movie...so good!

Paul relaxing while watching the movie...haha!

Saturday Gin-g and I took the girls to the pool and Paul got to go too since he wasn't playing until the afternoon. It took Emmie a few minutes to warm up to the whole pool thing but Ellie was so excited to get in the water.

Hoby showed up as we were leaving and Emmie and Hoby sat together by the pool for a few minutes.

Saturday night we all went to Miler for dinner. Last year Emmie got her first kiss from Hoby and he was there again. She and Hoby danced and even came up with some new dance moves. There wasn't a kiss this year (much to Paul's relief!) but Hoby brought Emmie some flowers. Beth said Hoby made her stop and get them and said "they're not for you mom they're for the other girl"...so cute! Emmie loved her flowers and she kept walking around smelling the hydrangea. Emmie had lots of fun dancing...when the music started she went and stood at the edge of the dance floor, twirling her hair, like she was hoping someone would ask her to dance...it was precious. Ellie also enjoyed "dancing". She crawled all over the dance floor and one of her new discoveries is that she can sit up and spin herself in a circle so it kind of looked like she was dancing. Ellie really liked playing with Finley, who is around 16mo.

Emmie and Hoby last year.

Papa and Emmie dancing.

Emmie looked so grown up eating her salad!

Dancing with Daddy.

Hoby wasn't out on the dance floor so Emmie danced with his daddy, JJ.

Emmie and Hoby.

Their new dance moves.

Ellie got to dance with her daddy too.

Emmie was so proud of her flowers from Hoby!

Gin-g and Fred took the girls home around 8 and Paul, Blake, and I had lots of fun dancing, listening to the karoke, and catching up with friends.
Sunday morning Gin-g and I took the girls to the pool again and then Sunday afternoon Blake and I went over to the outlets and boy did I have fun! Poor Blake, he went and got what he needed and he was done but I was a Mama without any kids underfoot, gift cards, and Memorial Day sales and I racked up the deals! I got some cute jewelry and two shirts at Jones New York and then got some cute pants and shorts along with a few shirts at Banana Republic. I also hit up Janie and Jack and got some major steals ($42 skirts for $7..what!) for the girls and went to Carter's and Gymboree too. Gymboree was having an awesome sale on some of their more recent collections and I got some really cute clothes plus some wardrobe staples. I think Blake now realizes why I said that I wasn't going to wait for Paul to go shopping because Paul wouldn't want to go with me!
Paul called me while we were shopping and said he was headed back to the course to pick up his prize. I was confused because he was in the middle of his flight (I think he was about 6 shots back from the top of his flight starting the day). Apparently he shot a 77 today and won his flight!! I was quite proud of him...and he was quite proud of his accomplishment!

We headed back to Columbia after dinner and I think, other than the girls' stuff we're mostly unpacked!

On the move

The other day Emmie was in my room watching Sesame Street and I was sitting on the couch in the den working on the computer while Ellie played the next thing I knew Ellie had crawled into Emmie's room. I think she saw an opportunity to go play with her sister's toys (or perhaps just to lay down on her carpet?) while Emmie wasn't paying attention!

After going to Emmie's room Ellie decided to build a fort under the side table.

Monday Musings

• I love that Ellie can crawl...she is so much more content and I've been able to get a lot more done around the house.
• We were a mess tonight. First Ellie threw her rice all over my chair while I was trying to get my dinner ready. She took a big fistful of rice and purposefully flung it on my chair. Then Emmie was eating applesauce and got it literally from the top of her head to her toes...not quite sure how she managed to make such a mess. THEN while I was cleaning up the kitchen (from the previous messes) Emmie dumped pee all over the bathroom while she was dumping out her little potty. She was nice enough to drag the sopping wet bathmat from the bathroom to the laundry room (off course they're on total opposite sides of the house). While I was scrubbing down the bathroom floor and cleaning up the mess between the bathroom and the laundry room Emmie and Ellie were busy dragging every. single. last. piece of tupperware out of the cabinet. So then we reorganized the tupperware cabinet and THEN I finally got to finish cleaning the kitchen. WHEW! Paul made some comment tonight about me not being in control of our children and I busted out laughing and told him that I think it was pretty obvious tonight that I have NO control of our children...haha!
• Emmie and Ellie have been playing together so well lately (for the most part) and it's been really nice. For instance, today I gathered up all of their books from all over the house and put them back on the bookshelf and then the girls had so much fun togetehr dragging them all out of the bookshelf.
• Do you get why my house is never clean and very rarely picked up?
• I'm currently loving my Resolve spray and wash...every mother needs some of this...works like a charm!

• Tonight I noticed that Emmie has cut her 2 year old molars on the bottom...I didn't look at the top but i wonder if this was the cause of some of her bad behavior a few weeks ago. She's been really good the past week and the teeth appear to have cut all the way through so I imagine she's feeling better.
• Poor Ellie has open sores on her bottom again. She hasn't had any in 4 months and it makes me so frustrated that she has them again. It occured to me today that she stopped having them when we switched to the Prevacid for her reflux and now we're back on Zantac and she has them again...I think perhaps the prevacid just neutralizes the acid better. If we continue to have problems we'll try the Prevacid again. Her poor little bottom has been bleeding and it's so pitiful and everytime you wipe her bottom she flinches.
• I thought the Grey's Anatomy season finale wasn't very good. Lexi died too early in the episode and I was mad the whole time that Lexi had died and I kept getting irritated when it would flip back to Seattle Grace. NCIS on the other hand had a great ending (although very sad if Ducky did indeed die) and I can't wait for next season.
• I can't believe that on May 28th Franklin will be FOUR. It seems like just the other day Paul brought home our little 1lb 6oz furball and I was getting up at 4 or 5 am with him because he thought that's when the day started! Now he's 11lb of sweetness who sleeps all night and most of the day! I just love my sweet Franklin!

• Ellie has FINALLY turned into a tummy sleeper. She still goes to bed on her back and she sleeps on her back at naptime but at night she's generally turned onto her stomach by the time I go to bed and she's been sleeping again until 8 or 8:30...SO NICE! Emmie usually gets up in the morning and goes to the potty (and is finally to the point where she doesn't wake me up when she's done) and then she goes back to bed and listens to her music or reads until Ellie gets up...it's quite nice! If Ellie sleeps until 8:30 I'm usually awake in time to get breakfast all ready before the girls get up and that's nice...a few moments of peace before the craziness begins!
• I need a good book to read...any suggestions?

Sunday Style Section

I'm behind on our Sunday Style Section but I also haven't been taking many pictures...my camera is pretty fickle so sometimes it's just not worth dealing with it especially since we haven't had any new outfits lately. The girls have 2 new matching smocked dresses but Emmie's need to be hemmed before she wears them...hopefully I'll get to that soon because the dresses are super cute!

The girls on Mother's Day. Ellie wore a dress my mom made and Emmie has on an adorable Rosalina dress. It has some smocking at the top and is so precious. Next time she wears it I'll get a picture of her standing up...and without her water...the girls were being quite uncooperative so this was the best I could do.

I love Ellie's plaid overalls! Emmie had on a plaid skirt but you can't really see it.

How cute are Ellie's whale shorts? I got them when Gymboree had their big box sale and they're precious!

Not a baby

About a month ago Emmie and I were walking around the neighborhood and I looked at her and realized she looked so grown up and didn't really look like a baby anymore. It made me a bit sad. The first year or tow they change so much but they still look like babies...they're just bigger babies. Now she looks like a preschooler not a baby. In the last few months she has really started to thin out. Her legs have really thinned out a lot...we're still working on the tummy but she's getting there...haha...I love that big ol' tummy! She seems so much older in other ways too. She is very smart (I'm her mother so I'm quite biased!) and she talks in complete sentences most of the time so she seems so old...sometimes she sounds like a little adult (probably due to the fact that she mimics EVERYTHING we say!). Here are some pictures so you can see how much she's grown!

                       1 year old


last May  - 17 months...look at that tummy!


19 months - right before Ellie was born

22 months - definitely starting to look older but still has that baby look

2yrs old - She definitely looks so much more grown up in this picture.

last month...so grown up!

Picking Strawberries!



Mason, Jackson, Ellie, Emmie



Yesterday we went to Cottle Farms with Christina, Jackson, Lindsay and Mason to pick some strawberries! There were pretty heavy rains the day before so the fields were quite muddy. Jackson thought the mud was great and I'm pretty sure he spent most of the time throwing mud. Emmie wasn't so sure about the mud at first but by the end she was playing in a mud puddle! Despite the mud we had a great time picking strawberries.

I got such a kick out of Ellie. She was sitting in her stroller and I was putting strawberries on her tray for her to eat. Well, at one point I went to give her more strawberries and she was COVERED in strawberry juice! She must have rubbed her hands all over her face and there was strawberry juice all over the fabric part of the stroller, her shirt and shorts were covered and she even had strawberry juice in her ears! She was hilarious! After a bit she got tired of being in her stroller so I took her out and let her sit on the ground...which meant that now she was also covered in dirt...but she had fun (she apparently does not have the same aversion to dirt that her sister has)!

(sorry for the bad quality of the pic...I had to do some lighting adjustments because my camera has issues)

Emmie mostly hung out with Mason while we were picking strawberries. They had a great time sharing their strawberries.

After Christina and I finished picking, Christina watched the kids and I went to help Lindsay. Christina and Jackson introduced Emmie to the joy of playing in mud puddles (I told Christina that that is a perfect example of why she is a boy mom and I'm a girl mom!) and Emmie and Jackson had a GREAT time and luckily my camera was with Christina so she got some great pictures.



Fortunately the farm had a place where we could rinse the kids off before putting them in the car...we at least got the top layer of dirt off!

This is what Mason and Ellie's bottoms looked like after we were done!

We got home and I gave the girls a bath and put them down for naps and then set to work unloading the car and cleaning the stroller and myself...it was over an hour before I finally got everything and everyone all clean.
After cleaning I made a yummy strawberry pie...it was so worth all the work!

"Hurray for strawberries!"