Silly

Emmy is so silly.  Seriously, she has a hilarious personality.  Here are just a couple of examples. 

First, the face she likes to make to get a good reaction from everyone around her.

Second, she has been wanting to put on Reese's undies lately.

Superhero

Off to preschool for superhero day!  Thanks to Lauren for letting us borrow her *super* cute costume.

Reese doesn't like anything tight or itchy, so I consider getting her out the door in costume my biggest accomplishment of the day.

Snow Fun

We had fun playing in the snow today. 

 

 

 

 

Mommy's Birthday

Happy birthday to Mommy!  We lit 34 candles, and almost started the house on fire.

Water Parks

We have had fun at water parks lately.  First, we went to the Maple Grove Community Center.  Both girls loved it. 

Reese was super independent -- maybe a little too independent swimming off on her own.  We had to keep a close eye on our little fish.

 

 

We had so much fun in Maple Grove, that we decided to go the Waterpark of America this weekend to celebrate my birthday.  

 

 

Emmy really enjoyed the wave pool part of the water park.  I thought she would be scared, but she smiled the whole time, even when she would go under water.  At one point she was waving to everyone around her and I couldn't figure out why, until I realized I kept saying, "The waves are coming!"  Ha ha!

 

Plus, there are bonuses at this waterpark... a hotel stay and room service for breakfast!

 

 

2am

"Don't mind me... I'm just eating Cheerios with a fork at 2am.  My new schedule is making my mommy tired."

Sleep

I've decided to stop beating myself up about it, and just accept that fact that I sleep with the girls most nights.  Just think of all the extra time I get with these two beauties, and I know they aren't going to want to sleep with me forever.  Good-bye "mommy guilt"!

 

 

Movember

You might be asking, is Todd confused and participating in Movember in January?  No.  Reese asked him to grow a beard over Christmas break, and every day requested he keep his facial hair.  It started as a full beard, was shaved to a goatee, and tonight (the night before he shaved it all off before a business trip), it became a nasty mustache with chops.  I thought Reese would say it looked silly, but she said she liked it!

 

Funnies

I haven't been very good about writing down funny things Reese has said lately.  But rest assured, she's still hilarious.  Here are a few examples...

I overheard her playing and saying, "And to the republic we will fly! We will rescue the fairy.  Now on DVD."

Before bed one night, she told Daddy, "Even though you are not a girl, you are really cute.  Tell Mommy I said that."  Daddy then asked Reese if Mommy thinks he's cute, and she responded, "Yep".

Her new favorite phrase is, "What the heck is going on in here?"  I know I should not let her say this, but it's so funny.  She also knows she gets a good reaction from me.  I think she only says this at home... at least I hope.

One night she told Emmy, "I'm going to get the flashlight.  You stay here.  Don't be evil."

And not much needs to be said for this picture...  Ha!

Birdie Birthday Party

We continued Emmy's birthday festivities with a "little birdie" party with family and neighbors.  Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate!  (I apologize for all the pictures in this blog post, but come on, they are all adorable.)

 

 

 

 



 

 

Little birdie craft (complete with picture directions), courtesy of ex-kindergarten teacher Grandma Cipra.  Love it!

 

 

 

It's cake time! 

 

 

 

 

I wish  I could say that this was Emmy's first time eating cake, but it definitely is not.  However this frosting must have been very sweet!

 

 

Present time!  This is fun! 

 

 

 

An end-of-party "date" with her boyfriend Bode. 

 

Ice Castle

We went to the Ice Castle at the Mall of America today.  It was warm out (40+ degrees), but actually too warm as the ice castle was melting all over us!  Reese had a great time and ran around the tunnels and mazes for over an hour.

 

 

Happy 1st Birthday

A very happy first birthday to our beautiful Emmy bear!  We love her so much, and cannot believe she have been making our lives perfect for a whole year.

Here are some of Emmy's highlights this past month...

• She walks!  It's hard to know when to officially declare when Emmy started walking as she's been taking 3-4 steps for about a month, and is now taking lots of lots of steps at once.  When she needs to get somewhere quickly, she still crawls.  And when she has a long distance to go, she crawls most of the way, then stands up to walk the last few feet. 
• She's says a lot of words!  Some new words include: Baby, Ball, Hi, Bye-bye, Grandpa, Grandma, Libba (for Libby), Ra Ra (for Reese), Who Who (says the owl), Ho Ho Ho (says Santa, sounds just slightly differently than Who Who), Santa, Elmo, and Books.  She really concentrates and looks at your mouth when you're talking, so I can tell she's trying to soak it all in and learn.
• She loves books!  She points to the bookshelf, says "book", and crawls up into your lap to read book after book.
• She understands nearly everything we say.  She will follow directions and answer questions we ask by shaking her head yes or no.
• She loves talking on the phone, including Facetime, but always grabs at the phone or iPad and hangs up on people.
• She takes things away from her sister, and gets very mad and has even hit Reese when Reese takes things away from her.  We tell her "no" and have even put Emmy in timeout, but it's kind of nice to see her stick up for herself.   

We celebrated her birthday with some presents tonight. 

Reese picked out and gave Emmy Dumbo.

Daddy and I gave her forks.  I'm not sure if any other 1-year-old has ever received forks for their birthday, but it was the perfect gift for the little girl who will only eat with a fork! Emmy's eyes (and teeth) look HUGE in this picture!

 

Happy birthday, sweet girl!  We LOVE you!

Standing Ovation

Emmy watched some Elmo videos on You Tube for the first time tonight. After watching this video of Elmo and India Arie singing the ABCs, Emmy stood up and clapped giving them a standing ovation. It was hilarious!

Cake Pops

Emmy is having a "little birdie" themed birthday party, and I got this great idea to make birdie cake pops as party favors. Approximately 10 hours later (including a few hours of help from my friend Ashly), the cake pops and chocolate bird nests are done!

Stacked Up

Daddy, Reese, and Emmy walked up the stairs like this to find me.  Sillies!

Baby Will

We met our newest friend Will today.  He is such a honey!  I got to snuggle with him all afternoon, and Reese got to hold him, but she was honestly more excited about holding the snake.

 

Henry is a great big brother, and Will is so cute.  Now if Will would just start sleeping at night for his parents, then he would be perfect!  Sleep Will, sleep!!

Vikings Girls

We had our friends Bryan, Ashly and baby Elsa over to watch the Vikings playoff game.  Luckily we had 3 cute little girls around to keep us distracted from the horrible game.

The little "E" friends, Elsa and Emmy.

 

 

Click here for a video of a game of chase that lasted most of the night.