She's growing, growing, growing!!

Emmi had her one year appt on Monday. She's now 20lbs 9oz and 30 1/2 inches. Growing like a weed, but still long and skinny. She only cried for a few seconds with her shots. And she just flinched when she had a finger poke done for labs. She was more interested in why this strange lady was squeezing her finger and watching what was coming out of it!!

Developmentally, she's right on track.  Not really talking a whole lot though.  In fact, I think she started saying "mama" for real within the past week or so.  But that's about it.  I'll blame her older sisters for never letting her have a chance to speak!!  Haha.  Her fine motor skills are above average and she's a great problem solver.  As for gross motor development, she's SOO close to walking!!  She's fairly comfortable now just hanging on to my finger with only one hand.  The other hand is usually pointing us in the direction she wants to go!!  It won't be long now and then she'll be off!

She really, really enjoys shutting doors right now.  She's a little stinker that way.  The other day, she crawled into my room and I heard the door close.  So I walked down the hallway and slowly opened it up to let her out.  Not 3 minutes later, I heard another door close.  This time, she shut herself into her own room.  So again, I opened the door for her.  And not long after, she went into the bathroom and shut the door.  That's a daring move because the light was off and there isn't a window in that bathroom!  She's obviously not afraid of the dark yet!!

Overall...she's healthy, happy and...perfect, of course.

Some sweetness.

Some sass.

Such a little beauty.

And yes, sometimes she's a health nut (helping me pick raspberries).

Happy 1st Birthday!!

This little ray of sunshine turned a year old today.  How is that even possible?  I still remember that day so well.  It was definitely a whirlwind of a delivery.  Which reminds me, I still have to share her birth story like I did for both the twins and with Elli.  Her story will likely be much shorter because there wasn't a whole lot of hours involved it!  Pretty much two hours from first contraction to baby!

At 11:39pm, one year ago, her 7# 10oz self brought so much happiness and joy and amazement to the family.  And that has continued for the last 12 months.  I simply cannot believe that she's already a year old.

A little flashback in time.....

Just 4 minutes old and not entirely sure of this world.

After an hour, she's settling right in.

Two hours old and as content as can be.

One day old and so, so peaceful.

Just some randoms

Well, it didn't take long at all for Emmi to realize how to cruise around furniture.  She just started pulling up to standing and now she's already walking along the couch, the toy kitchen set, the big girls' picnic table, etc.  She's a little unsteady at times, but for the most part, she does great!

It was a sad day today. I took the kids to daycare and dropped the big girls off in the 4yr old room like I always do. Then I took Emmi to the infant room...but they told me she wasn't on their list anymore. She's now officially in the toddler room (at a little over 11 months). I knew they had been transitioning her the past couple of weeks, but I really didn't expect her to be in the toddler room full time already!! How did this happen so soon?!?

Her latest favorite thing to do is to point...at everything.  I mean, she still loves to play the sharing game where she hands you everything she picks up.  But she's incorporated a little extra piece.  Now she spots things from across the room and points.  Or she sees something on top of the countertop and points.  So I carry her to whatever object I think she MIGHT be pointing at and she grabs it.  To which she promptly hands to me.  It's so adorable the way she points.  Because she sticks her arm way above her head and then points...she doesn't just stick her arm out.  She sticks in waaay up in the air like she's raising her hand to be called on.  Just precious.

Yay...pictures!!!

The first time the girls ever played in a lake!!

She was amazed that her one little finger could make the balls spin and pop!!

Makeshift water slide!!

Hey gorgeous.

Just kickin' back and eating a snack.

She's just surprised as I am that I let her (attempt to) eat yogurt all by herself!!

Never enough time

It's so cliche, but it's so true.  There are simply never enough hours in the day to get everything done that I want to get done.  As far as the blog goes, I've been having trouble keeping up with it because as the days have gotten longer, the kids have been going to bed later and later.  The older two are essentially going to bed with the moon and getting up with the sun.  So by the time everyone is in bed and soundly sleeping, I don't entirely feel like writing. 

Anyway, Emmi has been able to pull up to standing for a week now.  The big girls are quickly realizing that nothing is safe from her grasp anymore.  Coloring book on the couch?  Nope.  Doll on the toy box?  Absolutely not.  Bowl of cereal on the picnic table?  They wish.  Those little arms can stretch pretty far now!!

Ok, I'm tired.  Pictures to come hopefully in the next few days.  I haven't even downloaded any recently from the camera.  Good night!!

Emmi update

Little Emmi has developed a mind of her own.  Holy moly!  If you dare pull her away from something that she wants to be playing with, she screams, arches her back, throws her head against your chest, you name it.  She's even (accidentally) slapped me in the face!  It's a pint sized temper tantrum!!  Fortunately, since she's only 10 months old, I find them to be kind of funny.  My strong willed little girl.  Just ask me what I think of that strong will in 6 more months!!

She's starting to display a little bit of separation anxiety.  Last week when I dropped her off at daycare, she crawled after me as I was walking toward the door and cried.  So sad.  Of course, I had to stop and pick her up.  She tore my heart out.  So I gave her several more kisses on her head, put a few toys in her lap and rushed out.  She ended up having a great day, so that made me feel better.

I think she's slowly phasing out any foods that she cannot feed herself.  It sure is a struggle to get her to take a spoonful of pretty much everything.  She really, truly acts like she's not hungry.  But if you throw some finger foods on her tray, she gobbles them up!!  Maybe it's that stubbornness coming out again!  Little miss independent.  Isn't she too young for this?!  Good gravy.

'Tis the season

For camping.  We went on our first camping trip of the summer a week and a half ago (hey, I told you I've been lacking the motivation to blog lately).  The weather wasn't the greatest, but the girls had fun anyway.  It was about 60 degrees and overcast but at least it didn't rain - it actually rained for the 5 days leading up to the camping trip and the 3 days after...but not during the camping trip.  So we had to compromise and be happy with the kind of chilly temps!!

The girls rode their bikes, played at the campground park, went swimming (in an outdoor pool when it was 60 degrees - they're crazy), made s'mores over the campfire, played with bubbles, drew pictures with chalk, etc.  Essentially, they did a lot of activities they can do at home...but for some reason, doing it when they're camping on "the bus" (aka: RV) is so much more fun!!

She knows she saw bubbles come out of this thing.  Now she's trying to figure out how!!

Watching grandpa get the fire started.

Last year they weren't remotely close to being able to walk on a balance beam.

 

Racing...one on a motorcycle...

 

And one on a dinosaur.  A little unfair, but oh well!!

And swimming by themselves!  Getting too big, too fast.

Good gravy, I'm slacking

And for no real good reason other than I've been lacking motivation.  So here are some pictures to tide you over until the next time I actually feel like writing something.

 

Mmmm.  Turkey and cheese.

What a little dare devil...look mom, no hands!!

I think she's telling me it's time for lunch.  And before you freak out about germs, this is our own personal swing in our backyard!!

A rare moment where Addi actually wanted to hold her AND have her picture taken!

Told them I had a surprise for them.  They asked the whole way there what it was.  Apparently they were none too pleased that their surprise was a trip to the zoo.  Hmm, mom fail.

They did perk up though and loved watching the tigers.

 

And Emmi thought the whole experience was great!!

 

After we took a break for some food, we went to a park under construction.  Holy mud puddles!

Just looking cute.

Waves, Cats and Halloween

Random, I know.

Emmi loves waving at everyone.  Hi, goodbye, just because...she waves.  At times she says "hiiiiii" when she's waving.  Other times she doesn't.  When someone enters the room...wave.  When someone exits the room...wave.  She'll wave with a toy in her hand.  She'll wave with food in her hand.  And it's all so gosh darn cute.

We adopted two cats from the Humane Society two weeks ago.  We got a mom and her kitten.  The mom is anywhere between one to two years old.  The kitten was just shy of 8 weeks when we adopted them.  They've gone through several names because the girls were a bit indecisive.  Belle and Ariel (none other than the Disney princesses) stuck for a little while.  But currently, and I think this is what their names will remain, the mommy is named Daisy and the kitten is named Dory.  However, most of the time the girls just refer to them as the "mommy cat" and the "baby cat."  Below are their pictures that the Humane Society had posted.

Daisy the mom

Dory the kitten

Lastly...Halloween.  Yes, it's only May.  And yes, Halloween has been brought up on more than one occassion in the last week.  My little girls, my princesses, my pink and purple wearing kids, my play dress up with jewelry and high heels children.  Well...Livi wants to be a princess.  You could see that coming from a mile away, right?  Addi wants to be Spiderman.  Like, desperately.  I'm not entirely sure where the idea came from.   But she's adamant that we find a Spiderman costume for Halloween.  That's fine.  I'll let her be anything she wants to be.  But it kind of came out of the clear blue sky!!!

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.