Moments

It has been two months since I did a moments post and I’m afraid this will be a large post with lots of catch-up. Going all the way back to the beginning of February….

My mom brought a box of toys at the beginning of winter from my childhood. I kept the box hidden in Emily’s closet and pulled out a new one every week or two throughout the loooooong winter. Emily really liked the new additions. Here she is trying to figure out the concept of stacking cups.

I wish I had a better picture, but she was sitting on the toilet paper and bouncing up and down and up and down until she launched herself off, over and over again.

After bath pictures. I will never stop loving her curly hair! Emily has also figured out how to do fish faces! I remember my dad doing fish faces with me in the mirror after baths or while he shaved in the morning, so it is a tradition to pass down. Emily is 16.5 months here.

Our one and only toilet paper incident so far. She was pretty stunned, but by the time I snapped a pictures she thought it was hilarious to have toilet paper everywhere.

Emily loves wearing Andrew’s backpack when he gets home from school, so she was really excited to discover in the box of hidden winter toys that my old backpack was in there for her to wear. She wears it regularly. Sometimes in the morning she puts it on and waves good-bye to Andrew from the window.

Right before Emily and I headed to Iowa and Andrew went to Las Vegas, we had a family movie night and watched “Big Hero Six”. Andrew and Emily started out making a fort for us to watch it in, but it turned into fancy lounge chairs instead. Emily only has about a 20 minute attention span for movies (if that…) so we watched the first twenty minutes, paused for dinner, watched about 20 more minutes, put Emily to bed, and then finished the rest just Andrew and I.

Onto March…

Emily is a huge fan of peek-a-boo, and the games only become more epic and inclusive. Sometimes I’m covered, sometimes we’re both covered, sometime Andrew is throwing blankets on us or himself.  She loves it and initiates the game often.

At some point we switched from death screaming through baths to completely loving them. Once Emily realized she could lay back in the water and have me pour water all over her then she was completely on board. She even insists on playing in the tub after until she is blue and shivering.

You won’t get this from the picture, but we were singing “head, shoulders, knees and toes” with Emily doing all of the actions and occasionally interrupting to ask for one more chip.

Emily has started insisting that after she gets dressed on Sunday that I take a picture of her. She can now climb (a recent discovery) and pulls herself up onto the chair and rocks away.

I very rarely see Emily sleeping anymore because we pop her in bed and walk away and shut the door. I needed to wake her up so we could go to church and I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of this sweet girl. It woke her up, so I confirmed that pictures will continue to be rare while she sleeps these days. We recently gave her a sippy cup full of water to keep in her crib. She is very particular about keeping it in the corner while she sleeps. It has done wonders for us to all get more sleep at night because she can grab a quick sip when she wakes up thirsty without alerting us of the situation.

Andrew found out that he was officially accepted into the PhD program at Purdue and will start in August after graduating with his masters here. This means that we will not be moving!!!!! For a loooong time! I don’t even know what that is like! As a symbol of our longevity (and because we were completely out of freezer space and wanted to put more things in it) we bought ourselves a chest freezer.

Another Sunday with pictures. This time Emily figured out, after much effort, how to climb on top of the chair I made her at Christmas. This climbing skill knows no bounds.

We are really enjoying the glimpses of spring. Emily loves collecting sticks, pine cones, leaves, and rocks to play with outside or hold on walks. Usually she picks up one for herself and one for me. She is also learning the difference between street and sidewalk and loves to run further and further away on the sidewalk. We are now trying to teach the concept of always being able to see mom in her running radius.

Emily continues to be a huge help with household tasks. Laundry has always been one of our favorites, and now Emily tries on all the clothes by herself as we fold them. She got really really close to getting her shirt on all by herself. She was super excited with her progress.

Emily loves to draw at her table. She signs “color” (which is the cutest thing ever) and then runs to the office to work. This usually transitions rather quickly to her drawing on the whiteboard.

“Smile”

Emily has rediscovered headbands. She now wears them for 30 minutes (maybe a little more even) which is considerable progress. She has sooo much hair now that it is nice to have something to help keep it out of her face and closer to her head to prevent the Albert Einstein look (which she comes by honestly). And she looks sooooooo old!

She was in the middle of signing “cold”.

Andrew and Emily packing Andrew’s lunch together. Emily usually gets in on the action and tries to grab a snack.