Summer is slowly sneaking in

Slowly but surely we're getting there.  We'll have a few days of pretty nice weather and temps followed by a few days where we have to wear light jackets and long pants again.  It's been rather frustrating, but hopefully summer is here to stay very soon.

The neighbors across the street were having a garage sale the past several days.  The girls thought that that was awesome and begged and pleaded with me to have a garage sale too.  They said that garage sales are "so cool" and would be "so much fun."  Then I asked them what toys they wanted to get rid of and sell to other people.  They quickly decided that garage sales aren't all that great!!

Emmi absolutely adores sharing everything with anyone who's within reach.  Every toy she picks up, she wants to hand to someone.  When she's eating, she wants to feed someone her food.  If she gives us something and we drop it, she picks it up and hands it back.  I wish I could fully describe how cute it is.  She is sooo proud of herself afterwards.  She picks something up, shares it with us, then gives herself a nice little round of applause with a little giggle.  Just adorable.

Yay for swing rides!!

The love these two have for each other is amazing.

Picture of all three = impossible.

Livi running like mad!!

Addi warding off the water with an umbrella.

 

We've had snow for so long the girls are confused about what to do with the shovels.

Such a sweetie.

Just a little update

Emmi had her 9 month appointment on Monday (yes, I'm a little behind in writing about it).  Dr K said that she is absolutely perfect and she's growing like a weed!!  Our little sweetheart is now 18lbs 3oz (50th percentile) and 29 1/4 inches long (95th percentile).  Still long and skinny.  But Dr K isn't concerned because she's been long and skinny from the beginning...so she's following her own little growth curve.

And just a funny little occurrence in our house the other day.  Below is what happens when your 4 year old sister leaves her chocolate ice cream cone unattended too close to the edge of the picnic table. To which the 4 year old then states "Emmi is a bully."

May 2nd, a nice spring, I mean SNOWY day!!

Yup.  So we didn't just get a little snow.  We got quite the snow storm!!  Last I heard, our total was 8 1/2 inches...which was actually nothing compared to what the totals were about an hour north of here.  Some areas received an astounding 18 inches!!  About a half hour away, the totals were 14-15 inches!  Incredible.  So we were somewhat spared.

 

The girls were shocked (and mad!!) to wake up to this.  The pool they were swimming in just 4 days earlier was covered with about 1 1/2 inches of snow.

When we got home from work/daycare, the total was about 7 inches.

 

 Luckily, we made good use of the sun that we had a few days earlier.  Swimming on Sunday (pictures in the last post), in the backyard and at the park on Monday, and we enjoyed more time outside going for a walk on Tuesday.  Hopefully we can get back to the warmer temps.  When the snow first fell back in November, the girls were absolutely thrilled.  But now that they've gotten a taste of being able to wear shorts (in fact, Addi proclaimed Tuesday as the "BEST day EVER" because she got to wear shorts to daycare - it was 80 degrees), they don't want to go back to snow gear.  They both said on the way home from daycare that they HATE the snow.  I agree.  It's nice for Christmas.  But not in May.  Snow, snow, go away!!  Since I will continue to "think spring," here are some pictures from before our snowstorm.

 

I have no idea what you're talking about.

At the park, collecting pine cones!

Such a sweetie-pie.

I remember just a year ago, they somewhat struggled to walk on this...not anymore!

She thinks she's going to attempt the monkey bars.

What a look!!

So focused.

Emmi's wondering why Livi is trying to dump out her water.

Always willing to smile for the camera.

 

Playing follow the leader.

 

Concentrating on getting the lion!

Playing with sissy's sunglasses.

New camera!!!

So my birthday is in a couple of days...and I decided to splurge and get a new camera.  This is the first time that I've had a camera that's not just a point and shoot.  Luckily, there IS a fully automatic setting which essentially makes it like a point and shoot.  In fact, that's the setting that all of these pictures were taken in.  I have a steep learning curve ahead of me to really figure out the ins and outs of this camera.  Aperature, ISO, lighting, movement, framing, etc.  So while I learn and play around with it, I still have the option of the camera pretty much doing everything for me in its automatic setting.  Apparently, once I *really* learn how to use this camera, the quality of pictures will be even better than what the automatic setting can do.  I'm pretty excited about that because I'm really impressed with the quality of pictures taken in that basic setting!!

 

Taken with the old camera but had to include it because it's just too cute.  As you can see, our old camera did take some nice pictures, but I had to try hard.  Really hard.  The new camera gives me a nice picture with almost every shot!!

New camera.

 

 

 

As you can see, the weather is finally warming up!!  I think the last of our snow melted on April 26th.  And we've been in the low 70s the past few days.  However, it looks like it's too good to be true.  Because in just a couple of days, we're going to drop back down to highs in the mid 40s.  Now that the girls got a taste of summer activities, I'm not sure how they'll handle being cooped up inside for the next week!  In addition to the lower temps, it's supposed to rain all week.  Ugh.

Mostly pictures...and crawling

We were at the waterpark the other weekend.  Livi loved this big chair!

 

Addi sticks her tongue out whenever she's focusing.

Sweet Emmi.

Thinking about crawling!!

Nah, just kidding!!

Patiently waiting for supper.

So excited to see her favorite...Cheerios!!

And yes, Emmi is now officially a crawler.  She doesn't move fast by any means, but she puts one little knee and one little hand in front of the other and actually moves forward.  For several days, she moved backwards quite well...and would then get pretty ticked off for backing herself into a corner.  But now she's figured out the forward movement.  I'm not ready for this.  I mean, she's our slowest crawler out of all four girls (probably because we really didn't encourage it!!), but I'm still not ready.

All about Miss Emmi

Wow, so this baby is a hair puller.  I don't ever remember the other three girls being quite as bad as she is.  I swear she seeks out the hair on the back of my neck.  She touches my face, touches my chin, touches my neck, BAM!!  She found what she was looking for!  I notice it more when she's getting sleepy.  I don't know if it's a comfort thing for her or what.  But ouch!

She cut her second tooth about a week ago.  She seems to be handling the teething process quite well.  I would never know she's getting teeth if I didn't put my finger in her mouth.  She's not any fussier than normal and she's still sleeping the same - getting up 2-3 times a night.

Eating wise she's a little roller coaster! She eats really, really well for a few days, followed by a couple of days where she won't eat what I thought had become favorite foods just the day before.  Overall, she's being a little more adventurous with her tastebuds.  Carrots, sweet potatoes, blueberry and strawberry yogurt, Cheerios, pancake and even peas!  Peas are a big deal.  Not a single one of the other girls liked baby food peas.  In fact, none of them liked beans either (I haven't tried with Emmi yet).  So here she actually likes peas...well yesterday she did anyway!!  The other girls despised peas.  Emmi refuses to touch baby cereals like rice or oatmeal.  The other three girls absolutely adored the stuff.  Hmmm.

I could swear that she is starting to say "mama."  It's quite possible that it's the mommy in me desperately wanting to hear it.  Sometimes she'll be in my arms just babbling away.  And if I put her down when she doesn't want to be put down, the "ba-ba-ba" and "ga-ga-ga" quickly turns into a "ma-ma-ma-ma" as she seeks out which direction I went and will continue to say it until I pick her back up.  Then she returns to the previously aforementioned babbling.  Yeah, I'm probably crazy.  But it sure does sound like she's calling out for me!!

Lastly, she's soooo close to crawling.  And I'm soooo not ready.  Just twisting in circles, she's able to get into some of the twins' things that they leave laying around.  Like tonight, she saw a bowl behind her, turned around, dumped it over and promptly put a Sweet Tart in her mouth.  Ugh.  The thought of her crawling is daunting.  I'd be quite content if she would just stay put.  But I'm guessing that it's a matter of maybe a week before she'll be taking off.  Look out!!

Farm Days

Today we took the girls to a local farm that had their annual spring lambing going on.  There were probably over 100 itty bitty lambs.  Some of them were old enough to be in a general viewing area with other lambs.  But most of them were small enough that they were still in the same pen as their mothers.  It was interesting to see how many of the sheep actually had a set of twin lambs!!

The girls also got to see HUGE mommy pigs with their little piglets.  And then we went over by the baby chicks.  There was a little coop there that probably had a hundred chicks in it that the girls were able to pick up and hold!!  Addi was a little gun shy.  She would make an attempt to pick one up, but when one of them would flap its wings, she would jump away.  Livi, on the other hand, wasn't afraid at all!  She probably picked up more than 5 of them by herself!

Lastly, the girls each got to ride on a pony.  Both of them chose to ride Molly...a cute little black pony.  They squealed with excitement and hollared out "yee-haw!!"  Too funny.  Oh yeah, and they also got to hold a baby goat!!  How awesome is that?!

Addi is contemplating picking up a chick.

Livi didn't hesitate to do so!!!

Look at Livi's smile when holding this little goat!

Brave little devil...going one-handed so she can wave for the camera!

Enjoying the ride.

 

She's inspecting the M&M's container.

Such a concerned look!!

She was whacking the block on the box so hard she kept squinting her eyes!!

 

This is her teething face.  She bites her tongue and plays with her new teeth.

A moment of getting along!!