So Much Excitement

As sad as we were to see the end of summer come and go, fall has been an amazing time for our family so far. We have had lots of first time experiences and it has been so exciting for everyone.

To start, Ems got her first teeth! Same first two as Luci on the bottom right around 7 mos. She is rapidly soaking up her environment and I am counting down the days until she becomes mobile and chaos ensues. I'm pretty sure she wants to crawl but hasn't figured it out yet, I think like Luc she might skip it entirely and go straight to walking. She is officially out of the helmet and daily I admire how nice and round her noggin' turned out...it took way less time than expected and I'm so thankful we did it.

Below is Luci in her first official "new school" outfit! She started a 2 day preschool program this year at a church close by. She totally loves it and has had no problems adjusting, due largely in part to the school-like program she was in two days a week last year. For the first day of school I got to go with her, it was such a treat to see her interact with everyone in that setting. She is proving to be very outgoing and outspoken...shock.

Our good friends Jim and Stephanie had us over a few weeks ago to visit and ride the pony! Luci was so excited and did great. She was slightly disappointed that there wasn't a pink unicorn for her to ride but quickly fell in love with Belle below. She has already started asking for a dog and a cat, I'm sure a pony won't be too far down the list.

Our First Ballerina

So this was a long anticipated, very exciting day for Luci and myself. Her first official ballet class! A "first" so special that it needs its own post :). So I have been talking up dance classes to this girl since she was in my womb. No small wonder that she was beside herself with excitement to go. The class itself was probably the cutest thing I have ever seen...Luci unfortunately has been blessed with my coordination but luckily only fell down once. At the end of the class she immediately broke into tears because she didn't want it to be over. Today, in her second class, they were asked if they could pretend to be bears and bear crawl across a mat. Luci responded...princess bears? and we could wear a crown? Love. Her.

Three Already

Three years since the birth of my first sweet baby girl. Who is now a bubbly, quirky ball of energy that frustrates and delights me simultaneously. Words can not describe how fascinating it is to watch her grow and yet there are times I wish I could freeze the clock because she is changing so fast. A few things I hope to remember about Luci at age three years down the road...

1) She is unbelievably loving and affectionate, always wants to hug on everyone (to the point of irritation sometimes :)

2) The entourage that traveled with her as a baby has stuck by as she is never without a grouping of stuffed animals, barbies, princesses - you name it. The girl loves to gather.

3) She loves books and has an incredible ability to memorize them, I think because she wants to be able to read them herself.

4) Order and predictability make her extremely happy, she asks me every night what we are doing the next day and doesn't usually like to deviate from the plan.

5) She will only wear dresses and prefers to wear them with shorts or leggings underneath. I have no idea why?

All in all she is one of the greatest loves of my life.

Happy Birthday Luci Lu.

The Birthday Girls!!

Playgroup Third Birthday Party - thanks Wolfe family for hosting!

Helmet Update

Wow. You would not believe how amazing the helmet is turning out to be...and I'm actually not talking about my decorative skills this time. Her head has changed DRAMATICALLY in just one month! Its working! HOORAY! She won't be crooked forever...YAY! Also, her therapy is going really well and her neck is remarkably stronger too. Way to go little Ems! (And yes, I may have gotten a bit carried away with the flowers...but hey, why not?!)

Pool Days

We have had the most amazing hot weather summer this year! Given that I refuse to be outside when it is over 80 degrees unless I am by a body of water, we have spent lots of time at the Gio pool the past few months. Luci is completely fearless when it comes to the water (which is terrifying) and her and Jeff are getting a little out of control with the water tricks...Ems is her usual happy go lucky self...loves splish splashing in the water and trys to drink as much as possible!

My bathing beauties...

Why do I allow this?!

One of my favorite new baby gifts...A BABYKINI!! (Thanks Hetus :)

Bedazzled

So, Ems has a crooked head. I'm sure there is a nicer way to say this but they gave us some explanational phamplet for siblings at the doctors office called "My Brother has a Crooked Head" and it has stuck. All kidding aside, our littlest princess has been diagnosed with Torticollis and Plagiocephaly. This is all completely cureable and in layman's terms means that she has a tight neck muscle (Torticollis) that caused her from birth to lay her head predominately to the right side. As a result she got a flat spot on the back right side of her head (Plagiocephaly) and this flat spot has caused her head to be a little crooked. In order to fix this she has been in physical therapy to strengthen her neck and she will be wearing the helmet below 21 hrs a day for the next 4-6 mos (which she has adjusted to with no problem at all).

As you can imagine when I first put this helmet on her I felt like my heart was going to break into a thousand little pieces, because although I know it is to help her, it just looked so uncomfortable and obviously no mother likes to see that....But I figured, if we must all look at this helmet for the next 4-6 mos we should at least do some BEDAZZLING!! Here was our initial product...And my my my, wasn't I pleased with myself!! Until 2 hours later she managed to pull one of the flowers off. Well, that figures, anything cute usually is wildly impractical...but no problem, I will use Velcro (thanks to the great suggestion of a facebook friend) so I can take the flowers on and off. Then I put her to sleep that night...flowers off, butterflies, jewels and "S" on. I awoke from a dead sleep at 2am certain that she was going to get the "S" off and choke to death. Tore everything but the jewels off right then (waking her up of course) but at least sure now that it was a bit safer. Here is what it looks like currently...although I have one more idea...stay posted!

This Girl Can EAT!

Although I thought I would wait until 6 mos to give Ems food like we did with her sister we ended up jumping the gun. Perhaps it was the drool and longing looks she gave us when we ate(totally not exaggerating about this) or maybe it was the consistent call to eat at 3am that I was hoping to cure her of, either way, she was ready. We started with rice cereal and at first taste she was pretty unmoved by the whole experience. This lasted about a week. Then she started inhaling the stuff....so next we moved on to peaches. Perhaps a little tart for a first food (note to self) and we got some hilarious looks but she managed to eat about half the baby food container. NOW - approx 3 short weeks later we are going thru 2 containers of baby food plus about a 1/4 cup of cereal A DAY! This seems like A LOT to me for a 6 mo old, but I'm not complaining...we're on day 3 of sleeping thru the night...HOORAY!

Ready...Set...

GO!!!The peaches faceYummmm!

Summer Kick Off

It was so nice this year to be invited back to the Aubry's lake house over Memorial Day weekend! The weather was awesome and we all had a great time playing on the beach. Thanks so much Tom, Julie and family we loved our trip!!

Apparently Luci didn't think my boating skills were quite as good as Julie's...

Where is the Time Going?!

Time is flying by. Literally. Sweet Emme is already almost 6 mos old and Luci turns THREE in a month. How did this happen? I have no idea. I also thought I had missed about a month on the blog - turns out its more like two. So sorry, I'm going to start posting like crazy to catch up to now, or so I think....at some point I will accept that it will always be behind but I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet! Stay tuned....

Our Littlest Angel

I have not spent nearly enough time on this blog talking about what an amazing and wonderful addition our little Emme is to our family. She simply could not be a sweeter baby and has made my life so much more complete....I don't know how I lived without her.

What a GOOF!

For those of you that haven't spent a lot of time around Luci lately, man she is a CHATTERBOX...she talks and talks and talks all day long. Lucky for me she is quite entertaining, here's a few snippets from some recent conversations:

Grammie: Luci, can we get a hug before going bye bye?
Luci: One minute. I can only do one thing at a time like my mom.

Luci, the day the oven repair person came to our house: That's not Miss Michelle. (The previous oven repair person that had come the week before)
Me: No, its not, it's a different person.
L: What's his name? (of course loudly enough for him to hear all of this)
Me: Mommy doesn't know his name.
L: Can you ask him if he knows his name?

Me: What are you thinking about Luc? (asked after she had been quiet for several minutes in the car...rare.)
L: My mentos isn't coming out of my teeth.

Of course there are millions more and I wish I could remember them all....she's quite a goofball sometimes....clearly takes after her dad.

Family Fun

On a whim Jeff got some Tigers tickets so we decided to take a family trip to the ballpark, it was lots of fun complete with hot dogs, carousal rides, cotton candy and pint sized cheerleaders...