Half of Ten on Tuesday

1. I forgot I had pictures of our one 80 degree day we had this year. Maddi and Cade both got new bikes because they have outgrown their old ones (again). We went on a family bike ride to Culver's for lunch and pretty much spent the entire day outside enjoying the nice weather.








2. We have had about one week of spring and it was so wonderful! We went on bike rides, the kids played outside, it was glorious. And now...it's winter again. It's April 19th and we had a high of 39 this morning, the temperature has dropped during the day. It's very windy and it's raining. Guess it could be snow and that's the only thing that would make it worse. I am so tired of the cold. Sunshine, please come back and bring spring.

3. Mama, Dada, Sissy, Bubba, Cocoa, Baby and Jesus. That's the names Emalyn says all the time. I sing Jesus Loves Me to her when she goes down for a nap or to bed at night. She now says Jesus quite frequently and names Him right along with the rest of our family members. Oh yeah, and she's Baby. We call her Baby Emma and right now she only says Baby, not the Emma part. So cute!

4. Yo-yo. We bought Cade a yo-yo when we went to Las Vegas. It broke a few days later and he really wanted another one. I found one at Learning Express for $20! I'm way too cheap to pay $20 for a yo-yo so I bought one on ebay for $.99 and $.67 shipping. It got shipped from Hong Kong 2 weeks ago and it still isn't here. Cade looks for it everyday. I can't wait to see how long the $1.67 lasts before breaking.


5. Maddi's had 2 dance competitions the last 3 weekends. She has done well and had a lot of fun. This is from the dressing room. Maddi and her little friends are ready for a dance and the other girls are getting their hair and makeup done before their dances. This next one is from this past weekend. Emalyn wouldn't let Maddi put her down so she got in the picture too.

17 Months

Little Miss is 17 months. Every month I can't believe she's that old and then I blink and there she is another month older. Time flies! She is turning into a little toddler and not much of a baby anymore. She is really funny and we laugh at her all the time. Even when she's being a stinker we try to laugh and enjoy it and remember that this age doesn't last long.

She entertained helself playing with markers the other night. She can take the lids off but she was much more interested in putting them in and out of the box.

Look at that look on her face!

And now the pouty lip. I guess it helps her concentrate?

This is pretty typical of her. She'll find something around the house and play with it for a while and then she'll leave the mess and move on to something else.

She has outgrown most of her 12-18 month clothes so we are hoping the weather gets warm and stays warm so she has some clothes to wear. The only clothes at the store is for spring/summer right now. I don't know how tall she is or how much she weighs, but she has grown taller for sure. She is so funny about getting dressed. In the morning, she's fine putting her clothes on. You have to put her clothes on and then she picks out shoes and wants a bow and then she's ready to go. If I try to put anything on her any other time during the day, like to try something on for size, she is not having it. She will pitch a huge fit. She loves shoes and wears our shoes around all the time.

Some of her favorite things are going outside to swing, jump on the trampoline and pushing her baby stroller out front. She also likes to ride in her car and everytime we get in or out of the Expedition she sees her car and says "vroom, vroom" because she wants to ride in her car. She is saying so many more words now. She says "c, c" for coat, "buppy" for puppy, "oosh" for shoes, "n, na, n" for no, yes, "peace" for please, "baba" for bottle, "booob aaah" for burp rag, "baa" for birds, cocoa, mama, dada, bubba, sissy, "na na" for night night, "dis" for kiss, uh-oh (as she's dropping or throwing something), juice, "bore" for more. She said "bubba, sissy na na" this morning for Bubba and Sissy night night. She's really trying to talk a lot. We can ask her what she wants and say "yes" or "no" and she'll shake her head yes or no to answer us.

She loves routines. When she wants to eat she'll go over to her high chair and say "mama" until I put her in it. Then she wants to be buckled in and the tray on. Then she'll say "bubba" for bib. She has to have a bib on but it has to be one that goes over her head. She'll rip off the velcro ones. When she gets dressed, she has to have shoes on and a bow. When I get her out of the car she tells me shoes and bow and makes sure she has those back on if she took them off during the car ride.
Sweet baby with the little curls. I can't imagine her without them.

Here she is hanging out with Maddi, Cade, Jack and Liam on the trampoline. Maddi and Grace taught her Ring Around the Rosie and now that's her favorite thing to do on the tramp.

When she has a bottle, she has to have a burp rag too. She won't let us hold her to have her bottle anymore. She sits by herself and plays with it before finally drinking it. When we went away to Las Vegas she got all weird about the bottle thing. I guess since she won't snuggle with her bottle anymore, it's time to take it away. That was the only reason I let her keep it was for snuggle time.

We love you little Emalyn!

Viva Las Vegas!

While the kids were having fun with Omie and Al, Brett and I boarded the plane headed for Las Vegas!!! Neither of us had ever been before and we were so excited!

The first night after we got there, we were starving so we walked accross the street to Ceasar's Palace and found an awesome Mexican Restaurant to eat at. We were so hungry and there was no wait and it was delicious. We walked around the mall and bought Brett some new shoes and enjoyed a low key night. We took a picture of this particular statue because Cade likes reading about Greek mythology and Brett recognized this as Poseidon (Cade really likes Poseidon).

My cousin, Alexa, was in Las Vegas at the same time so we met up with her at our hotel Friday afternoon. She lives in Colorado and was there with some friends from California that she went to high school with. Always fun visiting with my cousin.

These were the flamingos at our hotel. I didn't take a camera, and only took pics with my camera phone. Alexa has some better pictures but I need to get them from her.

Friday night was our big night. Last year for my birthday, Brett talked to Kim about doing something big for me. They decided the Lady Gaga concert in Las Vegas would be a fun gift. So that's how we all ended up in Vegas seeing Lady Gaga. I owe it to Brett and Kim for having such a great idea. This was at dinner before the concert. We ate at Pearl, a Chinese restaurant, and it was sooooo good!

Courtney and Travis joined us on the trip for a few days too. It was a blast. Kim and Dan just recently got divorced and this is her new boyfriend, Michael. Michael was a really nice guy and fun to be around and we all got along so well. Makes me wish we were in Texas so we could all get together more often.

Since Courtney and Travis got tickets after us, they weren't with us at the conert. We had general admission on the floor. Travis bought the tickets for the concert for Courtney for Christmas and at that time, the floor tickets were going for $800! So, they had regular seats and we were on the floor. It was so cool, because we were so close, but we had to stand the whole time. There were some very interesting people at the concert. Like these guys...

...and this guy....and plenty of others I didn't get pictures of/with!

Kim and Michael at the conert.

Brettley and I at the concert (these are all iphone pics)

This was the beginning of the concert. Lady Gaga! My phone doesn't zoom, so this shows how close we were. Insane!

Lady Gaga is a very odd person, but she is crazy talented. She sounded awesome and put on a very entertaining show.

The name of the concert was "The Monster Ball" after her song "monster" and she calls her fan "little monsters". This was the monster on stage during that song. I've never been to a concert like that before, and it was eye opening and so much fun. An awesome birthday gift, for sure! Later that night we went from MGM (where the concert was) to New York, New York for some black jack. We stayed out way too late, but had a great time.

The next day we walked around taking in the sights with Kim and Michael and later met up with Travis and Courtney at The Hotel to watch the basketball games. This was a very cool chocolate fountain at the Bellagio.

The fountains at Bellagio. Everything is so big and grand and cool in Vegas.

Saturday night we had a nice dinner at a Steakhouse with all 3 couples. The girls were all wearing heels and we didn't want to walk so we took a cab to the Aria to see Kim and Michael's hotel and play some black jack. Brett had a very lucky night and was up almost $400 after that night. We (mostly I)eventually lost all that we were up, but we ended up even or up about $50-$100 overall. Not bad.

Sunday Courtney and Travis flew home early in the morning. In the morning, Brett and I went to see some other hotels and ate lunch. Then Kim, Michael, Brett and I went downtown and played more black jack and roulette. That's when our luck went from winning to losing/even. It was fun anyway. That night we had a nice dinner at Mesa Grill and played Black Jack. Kim and Michael left early Monday morning. Brett and I didn't fly out until Monday evening, so we walked the strip and decided to eat lunch at the Eifel tower restaurant. We had and amazing view from our table and we laughed about the trucks, like the one in the picture, that drive around and say "Hot Babes Now. Direct to your Room." So many funny little jokes that make for great memories from our trip.

The chef/owner at Eifel Tower is a customer of Brett's in Chicago. We talked with them to see if the chef was in and it came up in our conversation that we were visiting as a birthday gift from last year and they brought out a birthday dessert.
After losing some more at black jack, it was time to head to the airport. We had to get one more picture with the slot machines. We really didn't play many slots, but they are everywhere you go and you start to not even notice them anymore. It was such a fun trip and it was just what Brett and I needed.

Spring Break

Spring Break was March 21st-25th and for the first 3 days, the kids played with friends, I taught classes and we just enjoyed having some down time at home. Wednesday night Omie and Al flew in and the fun started. Brett and I left for a trip to Las Vegas and Omie and Al watched the kids. The kids were thrilled that they got to see Omie and Al and Brett and I were thrilled to have some time away together.

Omie and Al were so good to the kids and took them to do all kinds of things. Here are a few pictures of some of their adventures. This was at Petland. Emalyn is just like Maddi girl and loves animals, particularly dogs. I think this was little maltese.

It looks like Maddi is showing Emalyn how to pet gently. You can see Maddi's hand in the picture. Emalyn is all smiles.

What a cute little husky. Emalyn is trying to give it a toy.

I think Cade liked this little guy. Too bad husky's don't stay small and they shed. They're so pretty.

This is the day they ventured out to the Field Museum. This picture made me laugh because they all have an interesting look about them.

I forgot the story but Al had heard about these man eating lions or something and wanted to go to the museum to see them. Apparently Cade and Al really enjoyed learning new things at the museum and Maddi was little bored and Emalyn kept my mom on her toes.

This made me laugh too of Al. He's such a nice guy. The kids really enjoyed their time with him and Omie. I am so happy for my mom that she has met such a nice man who treats her well and her children and grandchildren too.

Not sure what this is from, but I love it with the girls loving on each other. I know that Maddi and Cade were both so helpful with Emalyn while we were gone. Emalyn kind of freaked out and turned into a difficult baby and wouldn't drink her bottles and didn't want to sleep like normal. Stinker!

Emalyn also decided she wanted to wear lots of bows in her hair all the time. She tried to get me to put lots of bows in her hair when I got back, but I put a stop to that pretty quickly. Once she has a way of doing something, she wants it that way all the time. As much as I love bows in my babies hair, I'm not a fan of the head full of bows on a daily basis.

Some trampoline time before going back to school on Monday.

Brett and I got home at around midnight Monday night. Tuesday morning the kids had to say goodbye to Omie and Al before they went to school because they flew out Tuesday afternoon. Maddi looks so grown up with her Cocoa puff.

Cade enjoyed playing with is yo-yo we brought him. Al gave him some pointers on how to yo-yo better.

I am so thankful for my momma. I had no worries at all leaving my 3 babies with her. She is such a wonderful mom and grandmother!

I know my mom would have handled 3 kids alone just fine because she had 3 kids as well. However, I am so glad that Al joined her on the babysitting adventure because the kids really enjoyed spending time with him as well. They have taken to calling him grandpa at times because he treats them like a grandpa would. I'm not sure who had more fun: Brett and I getting away to Vegas, or the kids spending time with Omie and Al.

And this is how it ended! I think overall Emalyn was good, but was out of sorts for them. She still isn't quite the same and we've been back a week. Could just be a stage she's going through and the timing worked that it was when we left. There is a joke in our family about my dad's mom saying she could watch the older two kids (me and Todd) but not that third one too (Cody). I think Mom might have felt the same way at times. Ha ha. We are forever greatful to my mom and Al for taking such great care of our kiddos and can't wait to see them again in July at OMIE'S HOUSE!