I miss Thursday

Thursday was so ridiculously beautiful and now today it is COLD, COLD, COLD! I miss Thursday! We went to the park in the afternoon with 2 of my nephews and my niece. My nephew and I climbed a tree, which I have to admit was more difficult than it used to be... gravity seems to pull much harder now! Then we played soccer in the field for a bit. Actually my older nephew, Ty, and I played keep away from Garrett, Lily and Emilia... but the little girls called it soccer. Ty was so sweet with Emilia and followed her around the playground, helping her down slides. He's such an awesome big cousin!

Ty and Emilia

Garrett

Emilia teaching Lily how to wink!

Soccer

Missed but not Forgotten

As many already know, Kim Malone passed away this week after a tough battle with cancer. She was truly an amazing woman, mother, and friend to many. I will always remember her contagious smile and feel blessed to have known her. Please keep this family in your thoughts and prayers... she leaves behind her husband and three children.

Is it a cold or allergies?

Emilia had a runny nose all weekend, and a cough when she layed down, but then Sunday evening she broke out in hives, and did it again twice on Monday. I took her to urgent care Monday morning with the 1st set of hives because they were so bad... head to toe. I gave her benedryl before we went, and by the time they we saw the pediatrician, they were almost gone. She broke out again after nap time. Our pediatrician says it is one of two things... an allergy to honey (this was the 1st weekend she had uncooked honey) or the other option is an allergy to the cold virus. I had never heard of this before, but leave it to my child to do this! :) She is feeling much better now, though. In the spirit of upcoming Valentine's Day, we baked and decorated cookies with red and pink sprinkles.

Emilia has also been dressing herself lately, and we have left the house with some quite interesting outfits.. such as this "movie star" look! The funny part was, she said, " I mommy!" I assure everybody that although I do wear my boring gray scarf and black sunglasses often, I don't look quite so sassy!

We miss you Uncle Danny!

It was so great having my Uncle Danny up for the holidays, and from what a "little birdie" told me, he might be making the move back to Kansas City. He lives in a small town, Paris, TN, and is retired from the Navy. He likes the lake, fishing, and the quietness of a smaller town, but because almost our entire family lives here, we worry about him being down there by himself... plus we would all enjoy getting to see him more! He came up to visit when I had Emilia, and was here until after we brought her home. Because Chris had used up his vacation time while Emilia was sick in the hospital, he had to return to work the day after we brought her home. It was so nice to have my Uncle here, because he came over many days to hang out! He usually comes for the holidays, but this year he stayed past the New Year, and we were able to celebrate his birthday. We went to Bravo's... yummy!

My niece, Hannah, is 7 and was my "first child." When she was born, my sister was still in college, and I was lucky to watch her often. I have been lucky to be the "fun aunt" since until 2 years ago, I had no one to spoil but my niece and nephews... and I only had 1 niece and 2 nephews... now I have 4 nephews and 3 nieces! I painted her nails at 6 months, took her to get her ears pierced at 11 months (with her mom's permission), bought her 1st diamond earrings for her 2nd birthday, and her first car at 3... a Barbie jeep. She is such a sweet little girl, and Heather and JB have been a great example of how to raise a sweet and confident child, which is harder to do than one might think! I love it when she says, " Aunt Beth, remember when it was just you and me?"... I think she's referring to before Emilia :) She loves Emilia, though, and plays little mommy with Emilia, and Emilia thinks the sun rises and sets with Hannah. I love watching them together!

lunch date

Today Emilia and I were itching to get out of the house so we wondered around Target drinking hot chocolate for over an hour then went to have lunch with Chris. It was rediculiously cold out and WINDY. I cannot wait until the weather gets a bit warmer!

Making bread

Emilia decided she wanted to help me make our home made bread today. I was a little hesitant at first but then figured... why not? It wasn't until she had dipped her hands in the flour and licked them several times, and then dumped oatmeal on the counter top that I realized... oh thats why NOT! :) At least she seamed to have fun and she really likes to eat plain wheat flour... weird!

Girls Day

I knew today was going to be a good day... how can you not have a good day when it starts off with a homemade by Emilia "banana birthday cake." (That's what she calls this creation.)We had plans to run a few errands with my sister, Melissa, who was kid free today... this doesn't happen often with three kids! For our "fun" day we had planned a Costco run, lunch, and then back home for Emilia's nap. As it turned out we went to Costco and then Emilia fell asleep on the way to lunch, so we grabbed food to go and headed back to my house so Emilia could finish her nap. By the time we got back to the house, Emilia had been asleep for almost an hour and did not seem like she wanted to lay back down, so we headed to the park instead. It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL outside and today made me long for spring (minus the tornado season)... not summer... not winter... spring and fall are my favs. One of Emilia's new obsessions has been geese so it was her lucky day at the park because the geese were EVERYWHERE! The geese kept flying right over us, and Emilia, of course, was standing there staring at them... mouth wide open... so aunt Mimi (Melissa) taught her how to watch them with her mouth shut...

The geese "party"

Geese flying overhead!

Mouth shut!

Silly girl

Aunt Mimi and Emilia

Melissa, Markus and the kids came over tonight for manacotti... it was yummy! Garrett and Lily had not seen Emilia's new playroom yet, so they were quite happy to play with all the new toys. We had stripped the girls down for dinner since red sauce is not clothing friendly... and they were both too busy to put their clothes back on... hence these pics!

Emilia thought the gardening gloves matched her apron!

Lily vacuuming!

Grocery shopping.. fun?

How weird does it sound that grocery shopping has been one of the highlights of my week? This morning Emilia slept in... which is VERY unusual, so I went in to check on her at 0830, and tripped over her gate and accidentally woke her up... oops! She was happy to see me none the less, though. We left to go to the grocery store around 0900, and I decided to go by Starbucks on the way to the store and get my new favorite drink, the espresso truffle... yummy! (and thank you to my mom and Chris for the Starbucks gift cards for Christmas!) Emilia, of course, wanted to take her baby to the store along with her purse and keys. I did not think it fair to say no since I, too, had brought my baby, purse, and keys! She was quite the social bird, and wanted to talk to every elderly person she saw... which if you have ever been to Hy-Vee during the breakfast hour, than you would know there are many elderly there! There was one "grandpa duck" as she called him, that kept talking to her in his best Donald Duck voice... thus the title grandpa duck. Her amusement seemed to make his day, too! Everybody we walked by that happened to glance her way got quite the ear full of whatever she was thinking at that point. What was even cuter was the fact they all had time to listen and seemed to enjoy my noisy toddler. When we got to the produce section, she informed me that she would be picking the fruits and veggies that we would buy... apparently my grocery list was worthless to her! Each time she decided on a fruit or veggie, she would tell me how many to get and then count them out for me! We ended up buying 1 zucchini, 2 squash, 2 avocado, 1 green apple, 5 red apples, 5 handfuls of green beans, and 1 package of green grapes. She originally wanted to count each green bean, but kept getting frustrated around 20, so she decided hand fulls were a better idea, and so did I! She also spent 10 minutes looking for orange grapes, although I had already told her they only came in green or purple. After 10 minutes of wandering the isles, and asking 2 other adults (since mommies know nothing!), she settled on the green grapes. We spent close to 2 hours at the store, and came home with only 4 bags of groceries, but it was actually the most fun I have had at the grocery store! I am constantly amazed at the little girl she is becoming and love having the time to just slow down the pace and enjoy the day to day things with her... like grocery shopping!