Pillows

First off, allow me to brag on my man :) 'cause I don't take him for granted!

The moment he walks into our door, he takes full responsibility of our child.  You'd think Santa was walking in through our door the way Emma squeals and runs with excitement to greet him!  He helps keep her busy while I finish off dinner prep, gets her cleaned for dinner time, then cleans her off after dinner.  If it's bath night, he ALWAYS gives her a bath and puts her PJs on.  He is who reads to hear and prays with her before bed.  I do still have "rocking privileges" though :)

One of their favorite games to play in the evening (and mornings too, sometimes) is the "pillow game."  It's a very simple game.  All you need is a long, comfy sofa and four pillows.  Emma normally gets everything ready and goes get daddy.  She lays on the sofa and has daddy stacks them on top of her:  "one.... two... three... four!"  Just like this:

This game has really encouraged her to begin counting.  Her favorite number is "fow" (four).  You can hear her counting with one of the following versions (Spanish is sometimes mixed in):

-  "fow, fye, sits"

-  "dos, fow, fye, se'en"

-  "tee, fye, sits"

-  etc...

We've also been working on her colors.  Orange is one color she ALWAYS gets right.  Everything else seems to be "zul" (for "azul" - blue).  We've been noticing lately she can recognize other colors as well (she says most of them in Spanish):

-  Gris (gray)

-  "Fe" (brown - cafe)

-  "vede" (green - verde)

-  "zul"

-  Black (normally in reference to shoes -- "back shoes")

She can also point out a few other colors if we ask her to find them without saying them, colors such as yellow, red, etc.  These are not as consistent as the others though.

She has also started to take a real liking and interest in reading.  After reading through her book collection about six times over the past three days, we finally made it to the library today to expand our collection (more for mama's sake -- she would have continued to be happy reading "Let's be thankful" 20 times in one day if it were up to her). 

One last thing -- she has started recognizing places.  Even though she is still facing back in the car, she can normally recognize where we are going.  She'll shout:  "casa!" (home) when we are arriving to our home, or "Kroc" when we arrive to the Kroc Center.  She'll even recognize places such as Kroger or Costco (which sadly reveals how often we go there :p).

Going through drawers

Emma's newest thing is to open drawers.  This is something that does not necessarily thrill me, especially since it always ends up in one big mess, but I have decided on the following -- if it can keep my child busy for about 10 minutes, and will only require about one minute of clean up, well then... you do the math -- this gives me 9 un-interrupted minutes.  I'll take that any day.

So this morning, while mommy and daddy were getting ready for church, this is what Emma decided she would do to entertain herself -- go through mommy's swimsuit drawer and "put them all on."

Daddy's shoes and socks

Emma loves shoes and socks -- no secret there.  What you may not already know is that she also likes to remove them.  Yesterday afternoon she went through the trouble of taking daddy's shoes and sock off (and immediately pointed out that there was "trash" between daddy's toes, even though there wasn't), and then proceeded to put them on herself.  With a little help, this is what we got --

Of course, she did not get very far this way.

Atlanta Aquarium

Last Saturday we enjoyed a little family date by visiting the Atlanta Aquarium.  Emma had already been there, but had not really been able to appreciate it.  Now that she is obsessed with fish, we thought it would be fun to take her and watch her enjoy our time there.

I have been doing a terrible job taking belly pictures this second pregnancy, but this picture shows my 22 week belly quite well.  And just for record sake, my weight gain so far has been 15 lbs.

For the special occasion, Memma whipped out her sewing machine and sewed a "fish dress" for Emma to wear on her special trip.  Many people commented on how cute and appropriate her outfit was.  Sadly, we didn't take a good picture that shows off the dress.

If you've been around Emma long enough, you'll have noticed that she makes a lot of facial expressions, especially using her lips.  Who do you think she got that from?

A few fun short sentences that Emma developed during the trip were -- "pez gande" for big fish, "pez tico" for little fish, and "pez arange" for orange fish.  We did not teach her to say these, she just began saying them while we were there.

Good friends

During our week away from home, we were able to stay with Memma and Poppa at their home.  This was a lot of fun for all of us since it basically meant one big family vacation.  Emma got to enjoy lots of time with Ames.  It was fun watching her be so motherly towards him.

Here she is making sure he drinks his milk.

Emma and Ames also had their first bath together.  Emma liked to take the soap and "wash" Ames' hands.  

 She enjoyed pushing him around the house in the grocery cart.

And insisted in helping him walk outside with her when it was playtime.

Froot Loops

I am a couple of weeks behind, sorry about that.  We rented our house out two weeks ago, so we were busy getting ready for that before hand, and then it took us a while to settle back in.  But here we are!  All that to say, the following picture is about 2 weeks late -- 

We were enjoying dinner one evening together, and in order to keep Emma busy after dinnertime, we tossed some Froot Loops her way as some kind of dessert.  Byron and I were busy chatting when Byron turned, looked over at Emma and said:  "Lauren, look at this" and pointed at Emma.

This is what we found:

Our 19.5 month old had not only perfectly lined up her Froot Loops, but had also done so by colors.  We chuckled at each other, knowing that this was very much something Byron would do.

Even though I often times wonder if they gave us the right child at the hospital (I really do!), it is fun to notice personality traits that strongly resemble one of us.

Oma came to town!

At the very last minute, my mom decided to bless us with her company for a full week last week.  

On her first day here, she helped me nanny Julia for the full day.  The only sad thing about the day was that Emma did not go to hear AT ALL!  She refused to be held by her. 

By the end of the day, she finally sat on Oma's lap, but it was only when she got to watch videos of fish on the iPad.  Throughout the week, Emma was pretty hesitant to go with Oma, but we quickly found out that as long as my mom asked her if she wanted to go look for fish, Emma would always go to her  *sigh* 

During Oma's visit, we got a package from Great Gram in the mail.  Emma loves the mail, and we had fun opening it after supper one night.

Every Friday for lunch, a group of mama friends get together at Chick Fil A.  Oma joined us on the Friday she was in town.  Here is a picture of Emma dipping her strawberries in the ketchup.  Ketchup is soon becoming one of Emma's favorite foods.

After CFA lunch, we crossed the street to PetsMart to look at fish and other animals.  Here is Emma mesmerized by the hamsters.

Pointing at the turtle.

Taking a short break and sitting under the fish tanks. 

On Saturday, we hit a few yard sales together with my sister who came to visit.  Our greatest find was this $5 car. 

Here is a picture of all our yard sale finds!

Emma picking flowers for her mommy.

Family picture on Easter Sunday.

At Old McDonald Fish Camp for dinner on Saturday night.

19 week baby boy belly on Easter Sunday.

 Easter Sunday dinner.

Visiting my sister at school right before an exam.

A visit from my mom wouldn't be complete without her bringing some of my old clothes as a child.  Here is Emma wearing one of my dresses I wore as a young girl (this is also Emma's new way to pose for pictures -- silly girl!)

My mom wanted to try this dress on Emma while she was here visiting.  She got this dress for Emma last Christmas while we were visiting in Mexico.

Our little Bunny

Later on Easter morning, we found Emma's Easter basket from Memma and Poppa filled with Emma's favorites -- Bunny related things.  A stuffed bunny, bunny stickers, a bunny hat for her baby brother, a chocolate bunny, bunny toothpaste, and the greatest hit of all....

......  bunny ears!!!!!!!!!

Emma wore her bunny ears all day.  Needless to say, she was a hit!  We even had strangers come up to me asking if they could take a picture of her :)

 

We had an Easter egg hunt at church.  Here she is with two of her most favorite friends -- "Mas" (Thomas) and "Ju" (Julia).

Emma and Julia.

Oh!  And have we mentioned that Oma is in town visiting this week?  More pictures of Emma/Oma time to come!!!

Morris cousins.

Easter morning

 Although this is Emma's second Easter, this year she received her first Easter basket.  It mostly contained plastic eggs filled with Fruit Loops, which are a real treat since she never gets them.  She ate just about all of them within the first 10 minutes of having them.

"I think I need a bigger mouth to better be able to stuff all these all at once, Mommy"