MOMS Club Retreat

I joined our local MOMS Club a few years ago. It's been invaluable to me and my girls! We have made so many friends and we keep pretty busy with activities & play dates.

Our chapter just returned from our first MOMS Club Retreat! We got several ladies together and rented a house in the NC mountains for the weekend.

It was a great trip... full of laughter, eating and exploring the area. Hopefully, this will be the first of many. We're already talking about doing a Fall retreat at the beach!

 

One of the things we munched on all weekend was this Sombrero Pasta Salad that Kelly made. It was really good!

11 months old

Yikes! It's been two months since I last posted. :(

I hate "catch-up" posts for several reasons... it's overwhelming, I never know where to begin and I always leave something out. So, I am just going to ramble a bit...

Let's start with Miss Emma, shall we? She is almost ONE!  I can not believe an entire year has passed since she was born. She is finally cruising around on the furniture. (I say "finally" because it took her a lot longer then it did Lea....but that's ok.) Emma is very cautious and careful. She is not a big fan of thrills or lots of action (the opposite of Lea). Actually, Emma is pretty much the opposite of Lea in almost all aspects! She keeps us on our toes.

Emma's first time pulling up to standing - 10 months old

Although Emma is pretty quiet, she babbles a lot, quietly. It's adorable! She points at everything and says, what sounds like, "That?" as if to ask "what is that?" She knows who Mama, Dada, Lea and Bailey are but hasn't really tried calling any of us by name yet. She nods and shakes her head all the time. Just recently, she has started doing it at appropriate times. For example, when I ask her if she is hungry, she always nods!

Emma is still very petite. I am guessing she weighs less than 20 pounds. She can still fit in some 9 month size clothes but is mostly wearing 12 month. Her feet seem small...she wears size 2 and/or 3 in baby shoes. I think she might have an "outie" belly button! When she stands or stretches out when laying down, it pops out ever so slightly. I love it!! She looks more and more like Kevin every day. I think the only thing she got from me is my large ears. :)

Emma LOVES books!

Miss Lea is an independent, strong willed and sometimes bossy 3 1/2 year old. She is so energetic. She loves action and can not stay in one place long. One of her favorite things to do is to run in circles through our kitchen and living room after dinner... every single night.

Sassy

Lea is still in preschool two days a week. She loves her class and her teacher! It's usually hard to get her to actually talk about school and what she does, but I love getting her little works of art each week... everything from finger paintings and drawings to a homemade candle and the life cycle of a frog collage. :) She has made several new friends, most of them all boys since she is one of three girls in the entire weekly class! Her best friend, Jackson, is in her class, too.

Emma's first Easter was a lot of fun. Like all holidays, we got to have three "celebrations"; once at our house, once at my in-laws and once at my parent's house. Lea went on several Easter egg hunts...and Emma enjoyed playing with the plastic eggs. I made a large, crocheted bunny for Emma just like the one I made Lea a couple years ago.

 

We recently took a nice, long trip to the zoo with my brother and sister-in-law. We were there from 10:30am until almost 5:30pm. What a looong day! We had a blast, though, and both of the girls were such troopers. There was a special, animatronic dinosaur exhibit there that Lea really enjoyed. (As much as Lea loves princesses and jewelry, she equally loves dinosaurs and Spiderman!)

Lea was serious about reading the map!

The highlight of our zoo trip was definitely the gorilla and chimp babies. We spent a lot of time watching them. The two gorilla babies were being slung around by there moms while the HUGE, silver-backed dad stayed close by. The chimp baby slept safely in his mother's arms while she rested her chin on his little head. I think she purposely sat right at the window so she could show off her baby!

 

Exhausted family!

Busy Family/ 9 months

It has been a LONG time since I last posted. Sorry! We've been busy... and when we're not busy, I admit, we've been lazy. ;)

I'm working on a couple projects... still trying to finish Emma's crochet bunny (like the one I made for Lea). I am also trying to motivate myself to work on/finish Emma's first year movie. (I made a movie of Lea's first year that included photos and videos from her birth to her first birthday, it is an hour & a half long - i.e. lots of editing! - so, I want to do the same for Emma. It just takes a lot of time.)

Kevin has been working from home a LOT recently. At first it was a bit annoying as we don't have a dedicated office in this house. He works in our bedroom. But, the pros far outweigh the cons. He can pop out and see the girls throughout the day, he doesn't have to waste time commuting and he is home for dinner at 5:30 (rather than 6:30).

Lea had her first sleep-over at Uncle Dave & Aunt Sarah's house. They said she was good. ;) She seemed to have had a great time so hopefully she can do it again soon. I love having them back in NC!

Lea with Aunt Sarah the morning after the sleep over.

We took a mini family 'vacation' recently at Great Wolf Lodge (thanks to a Groupon deal!). Poor Emma was really sick the entire week before we planned on leaving. She had a fever for five days in a row! Other than that, though, there were no other symptoms. The actual morning we got up to pack the car, she was much better, so we headed out. Lea (and Kevin & I) had a blast! The water park was pretty cool. There was a fenced in toddler area, a big "tree house" area, a wave pool, a regular pool and a few big water slides for the adults/big kids. Everywhere you looked there was water dripping, spraying and dumping. Lea really enjoyed exploring and even some of the bigger water slides. Kevin and I took turns watching the kids so we could go on the big slides... a couple of them were HUGE. It was so much fun!

(I forgot to take a single "real" camera so all I had was my phone. It takes terrible photos... I have no idea why b/c it wasn't a cheap phone! Oh well... here they are...)

First she tried the toddler slide...

Then she tried the bigger slides!

And she rode them over and over again!

Emma wasn't such a big fan of the water (or the noise).

I made Kevin stand under the big bucket dump!

Emma had her 9 month well check after our trip. She is a petite 15 pounds. :) Other than a tiny delay in her gross motor skills (she doesn't like to stand on her own and shows absolutely no signs of trying to cruise around the furniture), she is as healthy as can be. She's a pretty cautious girl. She's not into "thrills" and observes her surroundings carefully. She very well may not be walking by her first birthday... the opposite of Miss Lea who is quite the adventurer and risk taker! Lea was walking at 10 1/2 months old.

Emma says "buh" and "blah" a lot. She likes making non-consonant sounds, like growling, raspberries, humming, etc. She waves when you say "Hi" to her. She tries to clap her hands when you say "Yay!" and if you say "How big are you? So Big!", she throws her arms up over her head. Believe it or not, she loves to eat! Every meal time, she likes to grab the sides of her hair, too. Not sure why... but it's pretty funny! She ends up with sticky, dried food in her hair every night. She can be a little bit picky sometimes, but once she has something she likes (avocado, banana, black beans, peas, puffs, strawberries, bread, chicken) she will chow down! She has three teeth; two on the bottom/front and one top "vampire" tooth. I call her snaggle tooth!

 

We had a couple snow days recently. Emma was indifferent but Lea & Bailey enjoyed playing in it!

Eating an icicle after the first "snow"...

It wasn't really snow... mostly ice. But we had fun ice skating on the sidewalk!

Making tracks through the second snow!

Daddy and Miss Emma

A happy dog!

Valentine's Day was fun this year. Lea got to take cards into school for her classmates. She made butterflies with tootsie roll pops as the heads. :) That night after dinner, we had chocolate fondue. Our favorite was dipping a marshmallow and then rolling it in crushed graham crackers. YUM!

We're slowly beginning the process of putting our house on the market. We have spoken with one realtor and have another one lined up to meet. We've been brain storming on things we want to get done beforehand, like power wash the house, steam clean the carpet and take a BUNCH of stuff to storage. We have been in this house for eight years this summer. While we haven't exactly outgrown it, we are very close! We want a house with a dedicated office for Kevin and a separate playroom for the girls. I also dream of having an actual laundry room (rather than a closet) and a big master bathroom! :) We've been looking at homes online for years now. We just found a new neighborhood that is the perfect location for us and the thought of building new is SO appealing. :)

Other than that... as if that's not enough... we're just trucking along!

Disney on Ice

Last week we took Lea to see Disney on Ice. It was a special night for just Lea... Emma stayed home with Gaga & Papa.

We had a blast!

Before the show, I stopped by the dollar store and got Lea a big glow stick, a couple small princess dolls and a Ring Pop. I didn't show her these things until we were in our seats, just before the show started. She was thrilled... and actually asked if I had gotten it while we were looking at the gift items there. lol

 

We had great seats... less than 12 rows from the ice!

The show was better than I thought it was going to be (we had never been before). It was kind of like a musical... played out on ice. I'm not sure what I expected but I liked that they acted out the stories. We saw The Little Mermaid (my favorite!), Tangled (not my favorite...we actually haven't even seen it), Brave and Beauty & the Beast (Lea's favorite!).

Family Time

We've been spending some quality family-time together lately. It's been great!

A couple weekends ago we went apple picking. We got Pink Lady and Golden Delicious apples. They are so juicy and crispy! You can not get apples like that at the grocery store. I made a ton of apple sauce and some dried apple slices. Tomorrow I am making some apple dumplings. Yum!

We spent last week at the beach with my parents, brother and sister-in-law. The first couple of days were chilly, windy and rainy. But after that, the weather was PERFECT! I love the beach in October! We spent a lot of time on the beach but also went to the aquarium and got to go out in Papa's boat. Lea loved to "drive" the boat. ;) She had a blast playing with her Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dave, too!

Emma didn't sleep so well away from home. I'm not convinced that it was because we were somewhere new, though. I think she was having some stomach/gas/reflux issues. Lea slept great. She always does away from home.

Here are some highlights from the trip...

Swimming with Papa

Watching the rain

Snuggling with Gaga

Looking for sand fleas...

we found a ton!

 

The guys; ready to catch some crabs and clams!

Exploring Bogue Inlet



Driving Papa's boat!

 

My pretty girls

Lea

Emma

This is the best I could get of them together on the beach.

And these two pics are the best we could get of the family.

Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dave

The whole family!

I had to get a shot of cute, sandy toes.

 I took a TON of pictures on the beach. It is not easy to get a nice shot of two, young children together! So, just for fun, here's a nice blooper for you. I believe Lea was putting sand on Emma's head. Poor Emma!