Emily at Age 2!

In early September, Emily had her 2 year well child visit at the doctor.  She did great and is no longer afraid of the nurses and doctor!  She even stood on the big-kid scale instead of laying down on the baby scale.  Here are her stats:
Height - 33.25 inches (32%)
Weight - 25 lb 4 oz (30%)
Head - 19.3 inches (86%)

She's looking great, and the doctor was happy with her growth charts.  Still short for her age, but she's definitely gotten taller this summer!  Emily is talking more and more every day.  Some cute words...
NeeNee (Andy)
'Mere (Come here)
B-lo (Bailey)
Ny-Ny (Night-Night)
Peese (please)
Dar (Car)

She can also say puppy, bus, kitty, downstairs, cup, ice, water, Jack, Mommy, Daddy, Ball, and tons of other words.  She's definitely putting sentences together too. She says her friends' name Tyler and is always happy to see him.  She's taking a gymnastics class with me this fall at the Y, and she does an excellent unassisted somersault!  She loves to swim and is quite daring!  Her 2 year molars are coming through now.  She still takes about a 2 hour nap every day and is still sleeping well in the crib (we're not going to mess with that yet).  She stays still pretty well to get her hair done, and once it's up and out of her face, she doesn't mess with it (yay!)  She doesn't watch tv much at all - just isn't interested in it yet, but she puts up a good fight to get a turn to play the Leapster.  She still plays more with the boys' toys than hers, but she likes her Duplo legos a lot, and is starting to play with her baby dolls.  Although - we did find her trying to put a diaper on one of the boys' Captain America big action figures!   She loves shoes and is really good at putting them on (and taking them off) by herself.  She is such a sweetie!!!  Also loves bike rides, library story time, playing with her brothers, and reading books.  She's a pretty good eater, will try most anything :)  Loves waffles in the morning, noodles and quesadillas for lunch, and pad thai for dinner.  Also likes ice cream and popsicles of course!  She likes all sorts of fruits (grapes, apples, watermelon are faves) and crackers (wheatables, animal, etc.)   There hasn't been a day where we have gone out in public and someone hasn't commented on how cute she is!!!  She definitely knows how to get attention :)  She's got daddy wrapped around her little finger too...  She had a great first full morning of school last week - yeah!  Anyways, here are a few pictures of our super cute Emily!

After hiking...

 

At an Aunt Marianne photo shoot...

Playing with Grandma Graham...

 Going for a hike yesterday...

 Swinging on the swing (another favorite activity!)

First Days of School

 One by one, each of the kids have started the new school year.  So far, so good!  The kids are getting used to the new routine, and each of them has friends in their class that they knew prior to this school year. 

Andy started the day after Labor Day!  He's now in first grade and got really lucky with his teacher (again!)  Mrs. Martis is a self-proclaimed goofy teacher - they have jokes of the day, and she knows how to make 6 year olds laugh.  They have class pets (right now I think they are fish and some caterpillers turning into butterflies) and Andy has a couple of friends from kindergarten in with him.  He knows where everything is at school and is an old pro!  He's already getting back into the routine of reading every night, and is becoming very quick! 

 Getting on the bus - he's the last one to be picked up in the morning and the first one to get dropped off in the afternoon.  He gets home 10 minutes earlier this year! 

Emily's first day of school was yesterday - and it wasn't really even a full day.  She was in the classroom for about an hour while I attended an orientation meeting with the other moms. She was not nervous going into school and sat right down and started playing playdough.  When I came back in after the meeting, one of the teachers was holding her and she was asking where mommy was.  But she wasn't inconsolable or really crying.  They said she was having fun playing with her friends.  She has seen a couple of the girls in school, because they are younger sisters of boys in Jack's class.  Her class consists of 7 girls and 1 boy!  She'll finally have kids to play dolls with :) 

I hope next Wednesday goes well for Emmie when she is there for the whole 2 hours.  They can always call me if she misses me too much, and once she gets used to it I'm sure she'll be independent and comfortable.

Jack had 4K preschool this morning.  He got to bring his lunch to school!  (And he ate very well - peanut butter sandwich, yellow bell peppers, yogurt drink, crackers,)  He said he remembered kids from last year and his favorite part of the day was playing pretend Spiderman with some boys :)  He said there was also music, storytime, riding the bikes in the gym, and doing an art project.  He was easy and happy on his first day!  Well, easy once he got his way on what he was wearing to school on the first day.  I wanted him to wear jeans and a nice t-shirt - he wanted to wear shorts and a favorite t-shirt.  We finally settled on running pants (he was worried about having to go potty and not knowing how to button the jeans - well at least that was his argument for needing to wear the comfy pants) and a newer t-shirt.  I decided I'd rather have him be happy on his first day than mad and in tears over jeans. 

 Wanting a picure with his baby sister.

 Putting away his new lunch box

Emily, running to the park, in her favorite coat.  Even if it's not rainy, I don't think she'll be wearing any others this fall! 

Andy won his soccer game tonight!!  They played really well.  I have to get pictures of him playing next week.  He's in a school league with first and second graders.  He likes to play defense and had some really good plays this week.  Chris has his hands full being the coach of about 15 kids! 

We're still here!

 So, we're having a great summer!  So great, that I've taken a mini-vacation from the blog.  But we're here and are having more fun than ever.  Here are some pictures that I took tonight to send to Chris while he's in China for work.  We had a nice walk to the park after dinner and stayed outside playing until dark.   70 degrees and no bugs - perfect weather! 

Jack and Andy took turns on the scooter to the park.

Emily's newest smile - her super-cheese smile

Jack and I (Andy is quite the photographer now)

Andy and his baby sister.  He's soooo good with her. She's got him wrapped around her little finger :)

Jack is looking so much older!

My handsome almost 1st grader!

Emily will be 2 next week!  She is seriously talking so much more now - just this week she started requesting going to the park :)

Good buddies

showing off his new tree climbing skills

Again with the super-cheese smile

Scootering at night - his Sparks scooter was pretty cool

So much to catch up on  - our first family camping trip in Door County, the NEW zoo, Jack's Karate course, swimming, and more!  But for now, we'll enjoy the rest of summer because school starts in only a couple of weeks!

Happy 4th of July!

We are having a super hot July 4th this year!  We got out for a family bike ride in the morning, before it broke 90.  The boys and I went to the activities in Neenah for a short while in the afternoon while Emmie napped (Chris stayed home with her).  It got warm - so we left early and picked up Dairy Queen for everyone on the way home.  Before we left, they did enjoy a swing carnival type ride, a throwing darts at balloons game, slushies, and watching the water skiers put on their show.  We saw the parade of lights last night and may go to fireworks tonight.  It's been a nice holiday mid-week - but I wouldn't mind less heat!   

 This was at the fireworks on Friday night...  Jack was NOT a fan of the loud noises (we sat super close)  but Andy LOVED it.