Playing Catch Up

It's become a tradition for the kids to make a trap to catch a leprechaun on Saint Patrick's Day. Maddi and Cade both starting making a trap but decided to just use Cade's trap. They made it about 2 weeks before St. Patty's Day and I thought they might forget about the trap as the day got closer, but they certainly didn't forget about it. Cade knows a lot about leprechauns and said they like to break rules so Maddi wrote a sign "Don't climb the latter (spelling is not her thing)" They had rocks they colored with gold marker on top and then when he gets to the top to get the gold, the leprechaun falls in the trap.

They almost caught the leprechaun this year. The leprechaun that visits our house is named Hank. He wrote the kids clues to look for him around the house. The kids followed the clues and found that they didn't quite catch him this year but he left them some cookies, sprite, cups and $5.00 each in Maddi's backpack.

Chris came to visit Brett last weekend. Texas A&M basketball played at United Center Friday so they went to the game. They lost, so they didn't play Sunday as they were hoping they were. Saturday Brett and Chris went to play golf and I took the kids to the zoo. It was 50 and sunny and a great day to enjoy the sunshine. When we got to the zoo, this was Miss Thing. Crashed out alseep!

And this was Maddi and Cade. Crashed out too! I picked Cade up from a sleepover on the way to the zoo and the mom said that Cade and the birthday boy were the only ones who slept, and it on was for about 2 hours. Crazy! I don't understand why parents let little kids stay up all night. And that is why I will not have sleepover parties here.
I let the kids sleep for about 30 minutes once we parked at the zoo. I enjoyed sitting in the car in the sunshine and may have rested my eyes for a few minutes too. Once Emalyn woke up, I woke the other two up and we were on our way to enjoy the zoo.

The kids were hungry and cold so we ate our lunch and then went to the Children's Zoo, which is indoors. My 3 little monkeys looking at the lemurs.

Emalyn saw the lemurs and was so excited. I love the smile on her face.

Maddi's favorite part of the day was playing vet. I think Emalyn enjoyed it too. Pretend shots for the animals.

Kisses to make them feel better.

I can totally see Maddi doing something in the medical field when she gets older. I'm just not sure she could handle the sadness that can come with it.

They all enjoyed petting the guinea pig. It ended up warming up nicely and we all enjoyed our time outside at the zoo.

The bears were so cute together. It was fun to see Emalyn's reaction to all of the animals. Maddi and Cade were so great with her and are so helpful. Cade fell asleep on the way home and slept pretty much the whole day. He was so exhausted.

The next day we took Chris for some lunch and ice cream. I love to see the interaction with Cade and Emalyn. He is constantly kissing on her and you can just tell that he adores her with every bone in his body.

Emalyn is getting very fond of him too. She's always had the connection with Maddi but as Cade is getting more comfortable holding Emalyn and playing with her, Emalyn is getting more comfortable around Cade too.

Emalyn is having a hard time understanding spring in Chicago. We've had a few nice days and she's been able to swing and play outside. Well, now she wants to go outside all. day. every. day. She thinks if she has her coat on, shoes on and a bow in her hair, then she can go outside. She bangs at the back door or garage door and says "mama" over and over.

This morning it was raining and we wouldn't take her ouside and she was not a happy camper about that. It's going to be cold later this week and possibly snow again, but she'll still want to be outside. Good times....

Some Funny Things

I've said it before, but Emalyn LOVES her baby! It was bad enough when we had to take baby everywhere but now she has to have baby and the 2 bottles. This particular day she was playing with baby, the 2 bottles, her sippy cup and a burp rag all. day. long!
She is also obsessed with the shoes she's wearing. She gets very upset when we take them off of her. Some days she'll wear other shoes, but if she sees those pink tennis shoes, she has to wear them. She loves everyones shoes, really. I took Cade to buy new tennis shoes the other day and she was wearing Cade's old shoes around the store and tried on some other shoes she got her hands on. By the way, Cade now wears a mens size 8 shoe! He just turned 8 1/2! He is going to have very big feet like his Uncles Todd and Cody.

She was sharing her burp rag with baby. Emalyn sleeps with her burp rags and I guess she was putting her baby to sleep with one too. Suffocation?

Emalyn was so proud of herself for caring for her baby.

This was Saturday morning. Brett and Maddi and Cade were watching tv and Emalyn wanted on the couch too (with her baby, of course). She set her baby like this to watch tv too. So cute! You can really tell that she is picking up so many things in her world and mimicks it all.

Maddi and Cade were playing the game, Matermind. Emalyn wanted to play too. I was surprised that she was able to manipulate the little pegs into the holes so well. Her fine motor skills have always seemed pretty keen.

Notice the bow in her hair? When she wakes up from a nap or in the morning she pats her head and says "bow". She says it like bououououw (I don't know how to type it). It's very southern and drawn out. We make her say it all the time. So the words she says now are all her favorite things, I guess: mama, dada, bubba, sissy, cocoa, and bow!

She also fake laughs and we pretended to laugh in this picture and she was copying us. She makes us laugh all the time!

Sweet 16....months!

Another month older. Sniff, sniff!

Some things about our sweet 16 month old...Emalyn still loves Cocoa. She's giving her a kiss here. Emalyn now says Cocoa. It's so cute! It's started out as Doa-doa, but she's got the "ck" now. Cocoa likes Emalyn too because Emalyn will drop food from her high chair to her and sometimes Emalyn will even give Cocoa cereal from her snack trap. One day I had just filled her snack trap and a few minutes later she came back signing for more so I filled it up, thinking she must have been quite hungry. Emalyn walked right over to Cocoa and started feeding Cocoa her food. I quickly realized where all of her food went so quickly. At least she's learning to share, right?

Her very favorite thing is still her baby doll! She calls it baby. She always has to have a bottle or two or a sippy cup or a bottle of body spray to feed to her baby. If she's at home, she's putting baby in and out of the stroller and ocassionally pushes the baby around. Most of the time she just puts her in and out or carries baby around with her. When she sees something she wants, she'll just throw/drop her baby and whatever else she's holding for the new thing she wants. She still loves books and likes her play kitchen. A new favorite thing is Maddi's easel with the white board. She likes to erase what Maddi has drawn/written and Emalyn has now learned how to open the dry erase markers and draw on the white board. We try to keep Maddi's door closed because of this reason, but if Emalyn sees the door open, she runs into Maddi's room looking for some dry erase markers.

I have no idea how tall she is or how much she weighs. She lost a little weight from the stomach bug and days of not eating much. Some days she'll eat a lot, other days not so much. I'd say her favorite thing is fruit, pretty much any fruit. She also likes chicken, but she wants to dip it in ketchup. You can see some leftover ketchup on her face in the picture below.

She is starting to get a lot of personality. She does things to make us laugh and then she'll laugh at herself. The ladies at the child care at the gyms have also said how she's so smiley and happy lately. She's usually happy at the gym, but she's always been quiet and reserved, I guess she's coming out of her shell a bit more.

Still not talking too much, but has some new words. The words she says now are: mama, dada, bubba, baby, cocoa, sissy (only said it once) and she's said up a few times. She doesn't say "no" but she shakes her head "no" all the time. The kids love to ask her things like "are you skinny?", "do you want a million dollars?", etc. and crack up because she always shakes her head no. When she wants something she just says ma or mama. Sometimes she won't say anything but she'll sign "more", "please" or "eat". When she's happy and playing she just coos and makes the most angelic sounds. Overall, she's a very quiet baby. She's even starting throwing silent fits when she doesn't get her way or has been told no. She'll just lay down on the ground and that's it. No crying or screaming, it's funny and quite nice to be honest. We'll enjoy our quiet little baby now because we know once she starts talking there will be no stopping.

I love this little face, even if the picture is blurry! Sometimes I just want to take a bite of her. Maddi has said she wants to eat her sometimes too. Wierd, I know. She's just such a sweet little chunk, we want to eat her up. She still sleeps great, from about 7-7, depending on our schedule. She takes 2 naps/day if we are home for her morning nap. Such a sweet little 16 month old baby girl!