Crawling Down Stairs

After one fall down the stairs, Erin learned pretty quickly how to go down the stairs the right way.  She loves climbing up the stairs ALL THE TIME.  I have to block the staircase off with the ottoman most days otherwise she would be on there all day long.  I showed her how to crawl down the stairs on her tummy.  It took her a few times to get it, but now she knows and gets really excited when she does it by herself. 
Tonight she was at the top of the stairs and wanted to come down, but she was scooting backwards towards the bedrooms...not the stairs.  Goofy girl.   I turned her around and slid her over the first step and away she went...all the way to the living room. 

Mama & Dada

Erin finally started talking a few days ago!!  She was just waiting to talk until she could say it right, I guess.  It's so cute to hear her voice.  She now says with excitement:

• Mama 
• Dada

I think she said mama first though!!! :)
Emmy said this morning, "Hey mom!  Erin said dada!  She's talking!"
The girls are starting to play really well together...with the occasional head bonk that Emmy gives to Erin when she gets annoyed with her.  Erin has a really good set of pipes on her when she wants something that is out of reach or when Emmy takes something away from her she gets upset.  She will scream at the top of her lungs.  Emmy does pretty well with Erin for the most part and likes to "mother" her.  Sometimes she'll come to me and say, "Hey Mom, Erin's hungry."  or "Mom, Erin's stinky." 
Emmy likes to feed Erin, but we have to watch closely in case she gives her something too big.
We're still working on sign language with Erin.  It helps a bit when she's so little and can't say what she wants.  Emmy did really well with sign language when she was younger.

Tutu Time!

The girls got these adorable tutus, shoes & hair accessories for Christmas from Scott & Rachel.  They are just too cute and I couldn't wait to get their pictures taken! 

Our friend Laurie and her mom are making these adorable tutus, etc in Monte.  I just love them. 



 I purchased this pettiskirt online a few months ago after I found Erin's 1st pair of high heels.  I knew it would make a great photo! 

 Gotta love the heels!



The Santa Experience 2010

I had trouble with my scanner and just came across this photo again, so I decided to give it another try.

Last month I had made an appointment to go see Santa at the MOA.  It's usually really slick, but this year they changed the location inside the mall and fancied up the place a bit.  For some reason, the staff has taken more appointments during the half hour slots.  Isn't the whole reason for making an appointment so you don't have to wait in line?!  The line went out the door!  A lot of people were complaining about this and my kids were getting restless. 

I wasn't sure how the girls were going to react to Santa.  I wondered if I should keep it a secret and surprise Emmy or do I tell her we're going to see him?  As we were getting closer, we could hear Santa from behind the curtain.  Emmy tried to scurry out of Santa's Workshop.  She wasn't going to have any part of this what-so-ever!

It was finally our turn...Santa sensed that Emmy was a little frightened, so he went around the corner to get out of her sight for a moment.  This gave me some time to put the kids on a rocking chair together in front of the camera.  Santa tried to sneak back into the room behind the girls, but Emmy saw him creeping up on her.  She started screaming and ran towards me.  I had a little chat with her while Erin sat getting her pictures taken with Santa.  Erin whimpered a little bit, but was fine sitting in his lap.  Santa then was able to coax Emmy back over to him with a toothbrush and then {sound the bell!} she gave Santa a HUG!  How precious!

Restless and Cranky

Erin has been a little fussy the past couple of days.  She just hasn't been herself and hasn't been sleeping well.  I've also been hearing a little wheeze coming from her as she exhales.  I had a feeling that she had another ear infection too, so off we went to the clinic again.  Do they sell stock in Partners in Pediatrics?  Because I think we need it. 
We checked into the clinic this afternoon around 5:30.  Our clinic has a "ready care" option where you can just walk right in without an appointment (for minor things, of course).  The only drawback to this is that you don't know who you are going to get for a doctor and this doctor might not know the child's history, etc.   
Tonight we lucked out.  As we were patiently waiting in the doctor's office, and praying I wasn't going to get Dr. Death, we heard a knock on the door and in walks our regular pediatrician!!  Yeah!  We were so excited to see her.  She wanted to hear all about Erin's hospital visit, etc.  I filled her in on all of the details and then she checked Erin's breathing and ears. 
Erin has a little bit of wheezing and her doctor prescribed a steroid and neb treatments twice a day.  She also has an ear infection in one ear so she'll be on Augmentin for ten days. 
Augmentin has always been rough for Emmy.  Let's cross our fingers that Erin doesn't have trouble with it too.  It's a pretty powerful antibiotic.

Colors

Emmy is learning all of her colors.  The first color that she learned was orange during the halloween season.  I think with all of the orange pumpkins and other things that were orange, that color came pretty easy to her.  She points out everything that is orange and says "ORANGE" (with excitement) every time.
With the help of her colorful bath toys, she has learned yellow, red and green.  I also use M&Ms to teach her the different colors.  She knows that yellow is the color of the sun and associates red with "Elmo." 
She also points out food colors...like raspberries and strawberries being red and green beans being green, etc.

Erin's Hospital Stay

Here's some pictures of us while Erin was in Children's Hospital at Christmas time.

 Here...you can see she's starting to feel a bit better.

 Going Home!!

 Merry Christmas My Love!

Sippy

Erin's been learning to use her sippy cup for some time now.  She doesn't really like it.  I've tried giving her juice & water, but she would rather just chew on it instead.
She's still not saying any words yet.  We are working really hard to get her to talk.  She moves her lips up and down like she's going to say mama, but nothing comes out.  I think she's just whispering. :)
She loves to wave and give "hi five's."  She knows what hi & bye bye are and waves constantly. 
She loves music and bops her head back and forth when the music is on. 
She's starting to stand on her own.  Sometimes she lets go of my leg and doesn't realize she's not hanging onto anything.  And then all of a sudden, plop...there she goes...down to the ground. 
She cries when I'm not in sight.  She likes to be very close to her momma. 
She still loves to suck on her thumb and is a great sleeper.  She goes to bed around 8:00 and wakes up around 8:00 am.  She loves her woobie.  Anytime she has her woobie, she immediately puts her thumb in her mouth. 
She loves all of her baby food.  Soon we will not have to buy formula and baby food.  She's eating lots of table food and is really interested in what we are eating at all times.  She loves to feed herself and likes to eat puffs.  She loves food!  I can't wait until we don't have to buy formula and baby food!!  This will help cut some costs down.  Now, if we can get Emmy potty trained, we'll be much better.  She's getting really close!

Christmas 2010

We celebrated Christmas with Brad's family the weekend before the 25th in Hoffman.  We all had such a great time.  As always, Deb put out such a great meal & Christy helped make tons of awesome munchies! 
Grandma Debbie sat with all of the grandkids and explained the meaning of Christmas.  Then we all gathered in the living room and played the dice game with some gifts that Deb had wrapped.  We all had so much fun and it got pretty intense when the timer was running out.  We were all trying to roll doubles to steal the best gift.  Each of us wanted the same thing...Tupperware.  :) 
After the dice game was done, we opened more presents.  Emmy had just woken up from her nap and was not very interested in gifts at that time.  She was complaining about her ear hurting again.  She cried through gift opening and then she kept complaining about it throughout the night, so we decided to bring her to the ER in Alex.  The week before, Emmy's ear had a bunch of drainage coming out of it.  I thought maybe her ear had ruptured so that's why we decided to bring her to get checked.  There wasn't much that they could do.  They just gave her a shot and another prescription and told us to follow up with her doctor who put the tubes in her ears last year. 

Erin started getting a fever on the Saturday before Christmas.  It came and went throughout the day and I figured that I would just monitor her and if she still had a fever I would bring her into the clinic on Monday.  Well, on Monday she seemed fine.  Her fever was gone and she was happy.  But Monday night she got sick again so Brad brought her into the clinic on Tuesday.  That's when all the hoopla started. 
Because of Erin's pneumonia and hospitalization we put all of our Christmas celebrations on hold until we knew what was going to happen with her.  We were going to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Monte with my  family.  When Erin was discharged from Children's hospital on Christmas Eve, we decided that it was probably best if we postpone Christmas with my family until the next weekend. 
But...after talking with everyone about their schedules, etc we quickly found out that we wouldn't be able to celebrate until February. 

Our Christmas with just our girls ended up being Christmas Eve night.  We missed our church service because we just got home from the hospital and didn't think it was best to bring Erin back outside and just wanted her to rest.  So, the girls never got to wear their beautiful Christmas dresses.
Brad got me a new camera since I broke our last one.  I got him a popcorn maker and some other odds and ends.  Emmy had fun unwrapping all of the presents.  She kept saying, "another one?" 
I forgot to use my point and shoot camera and ended up just video taping the whole thing so I don't have any photos of us opening gifts.

We monitored Erin overnight and by Christmas morning she was fine and very much back to her normal self. 
So we called back home to Monte and decided we would venture out back home....against both my parents' wishes.  They soon found out how happy and normal Erin was feeling.  My mom couldn't believe how good she looked.  She saw her just a couple days before and Erin honestly wasn't herself at all.
We celebrated Christmas with my dad during the day and had our annual King Crab dinner.  The girls got so many fun toys.  Grandpa Brad knows how to spoil his girls.  Tyler got a new gun from my dad.  How many does he have now??  I don't know, but I do know that they built a new gun cabinet last year because they had so many guns between my dad and brothers and now Tyler too. 
The girls got the cutest little TuTu's from my brother and Rachel.  We'll show those in another post soon. 

We celebrated Christmas with my mom at her house when she got done with work at 8:00 pm.  Grandma spoiled the girls too.  They both got "pillow pets," adorable clothes, toys, books and the cutest lumberjack jammies.  They even have a "trap door" in the back. :)  They are pictured above of the girls in the crib.

I feel terrible...since I got the new camera, I guess the battery wasn't fully charged.  So, we never got any pictures with my mom.  I was so bummed.