Mulleticious

Emmy has the worst mullet!  Luckily her super curly hair hides it pretty well.  I'm posting a pic of her in the bath - that's the only time you can really see how long her hair really is.  But it's short on top and I don't know why!  She's never had a hair cut, only her bangs.  So, until the top grows more, she's stuck with a mullet, that's right, she's mulleticious!  (Mulleticious = a wonderfully delicious mullet)  (:

Young Love

Emmy has a boyfriend. His name is Max. He is such a cute little guy! It's my best friend Jessica's little boy. They like playing together (although we have to keep an eye on them because Emmy is kind of scared of Max and Max knows it - sometimes he takes advantage of that, but Emmy is learning to dish it right back). But more than playing together, they like to hug and kiss! It's so cute! I had to post some pics I got last week of them. After they're done fighting over toys, they make up with a big hug and kiss! I'm so glad Jess and I had babies so close to each other - it makes it that much more fun!

Going in for the kill!

A little cheek/ear action . . . hmmm . . .

Tubes

That's right, tubes. We had to get up early today because Emmy had to go in for surgery to get tubes put in her ears (I'm such a weirdo, I was taking pics of her before the surgery but the nurse assured me that a lot of moms do it). Our poor little Emmy has had an ear infection since January that just didn't want to go away. It liked her as much as we do :) So the doctor FINALLY recommended tubes (we'd been waiting for this but they wanted to try out all the antibiotics, first). I know she is going to feel so much better now! And she's so happy all the time, anyways, we'll just be able to sleep through the nights now - YAHOO!!!! She seems to be doing great, was so happy and energetic tonight. Probably because we had a pajama day and did nothing but watch movies (I love those days!).

And my wonderful friend Jessica made Emmy this BeAuTiFuL cake!!! Isn't it awesome? She has a cake making business called Sugar Baby Cakes.  Thanks so much, Jess! Emmy and I had some before dinner, it looked too good to pass up! And then we had some after dinner, too . . .

Emmy Update

I decided it was time to do an update on Emmy! Here are some of the cute things she does . . .

- Says the name of animals w/ the accompanying sounds ( my favorite is when she neighs like a horse)

- Points to her eyes, nose, mouth, belly button (or "belly butt" as our tour guide in China called it . . .)

- Loves wearing glasses of any kind (especially grammy & papa's reading glasses - she can always find a pair laying around)

- Dances to any music that is on. If there's music playing, she's a-boogying!

- Puts on shoes all day long, but not hers. I can always find her walking around the kitchen in a large pair of shoes

- Gets sooooo excited when her cousins come! She loves running around w/ Dylan and Ella and they love running around w/ her!

- Talks on the phone all the time. She'll find any kind of object and it will be her phone. She holds it between her head and her shoulder and says "hello!" w/ some accompanying jibberish.

- Loves watching Enchanted, her new favorite movie. We just bought Annie so that could be a favorite soon.

- She does NOT like eating vegetables!!! Sometimes I can get her to eat some cucumber and she had a bite of spaghetti squash last night (but she wouldn't eat anymore after the first bite, the little stinker!). Other than that, she just spits them out. But I will keep trying, dang it!

- She loves when we read to her and she loves sitting in her Dora chair and reading out loud to herself

- She loves saying hi to people. When we go anywhere she is constantly saying hi to anyone and everyone. She's such a social little butterfly!

We just love our little Binga!!! She brings so much joy into our lives and makes us laugh and smile everyday!

New Words

I lied, here's another New Words post :) I knew there were some words that I forgot . . .

"Backpack" - Sounds like "ba pa". I absolutely love it when she says this.

"Hello!" - the way she says this is oh so cute!!! With personality and all!

"Nemo" - sounds like Mo Mo

"Max" - sounds like "Ma". Her boyfriend's name is Max :)

"Bop bop bop" - says this when she wants to hear "The Nicest Kids in Town" from Hairspray

That's all for now. I'm sure I'll have another post soon. I guess I'm not retiring the New Words post after all!

New Words

I think this will be my last post on new words. She's learning so many words, its too hard to keep up! So here are her newest words:

"Knock knock" - she knocks on the wall or door, or me, or shopping cart, whatever she can knock on while she says it.

"A bite" - she continues to say this when she wants a drink or a bite of anything

"Hi baby!" - I always say it to her and she started saying it to us now :)

"Apple"

"Dog"

"Woof woof"

"Meow"

"Moo"

"Neigh" - basically a lot of animal sounds

"Why" - for Super Why

I know there are more that I can't think of right now. And she basically repeats what we say to her. She'll say our names (it sounds so cute when she says my name, "Chelle!"). We were watching Enchanted the other day and she said "Giselle". How funny! She is just growing up so fast and learning so much!

Here, horsey

Emmy got a rocking horse donated to her (in other words, my sister didn't want it taking up space in her house any more so she gave it to us). She was kind of scared of it at first but now she loves it! She runs up to it and gives it hugs (pic above) and feeds it crackers and water (pic below). It's so cute!

Let's go fly a kite!

We decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather on Saturday and went to the park to fly Emmy's new Dora kite. We had such a fun time! Jake helped Emmy with his kite flying skills while I took pictures on my new camera. She was interested in the kite for a little while but was more interested in running around.

She can see her Dora kite flying high in the air!

I think Jake had more fun than Emmy flying the kite!

She's a tree hugger!

Eating a rock. She does this a lot.

She didn't want to leave the park. We said bye to her and turned around to leave hoping this would get her running over to us. She just turned and waved bye-bye right back to us!

I just liked this picture. Her feet are so little and cute!

A plumber in the making . . .

The other day when I was cleaning my room, I noticed it was really quiet and thought, "Uh-oh, where's Emmy?" Any of you moms out there know that when you can't hear your child it's usually not a good thing. So I started calling her name and looking around for her. I found her in our bathroom and there she was, plunger in hand! She had seen us using it a few days before and now she apparently wanted to use it, too. She has been copying us a lot lately, she's such a big girl!

Happy Birthday to me!

My birthday was this past week and I just have to say I had a GrEaT day, thanks to my wonderful family!



I have such a wonderful husband who will do ANYTHING for me - I'm so lucky!!! I really like photography so he got me a new camera! I'm so excited to learn all about it so I can take some awesome pictures! It's a Canon Powershot SX100 IS. Doesn't it look nice? Stay tuned for some pics from this baby.









My sister got me this charm bracelet from Lea Sophia - I LOVE it!



And I'm anxiously awaiting a gift card from Joann's from my sister-in-law.

And my mom went way overboard, of course, and got me some much needed new clothes!

Thanks to my family for such a great birthday!

Highlights from my trip to China Part 1

Well, I'm back from my adventures in China! It was an amazing trip, I'm definitely glad I went. I love learning about new cultures and seeing the way people live. I've posted a lot of pics to show you just a little of what I saw on my adventure. I do have to say that I NEVER want to be away from my family for that long again - 9 days is WAY too long!!! I was ready to come home and see my baby and husband!

We started in Beijing, then went to Suzhou, Hangzhou and ended in Shanghai. I didn't like Beijing that much, but the rest was awesome.


Here is a picture journal of what I did and saw:

All the Chinese people thought my sis and I were twins there. What do you think?

The Temple of Heaven. It is a circular building built with no nails.

The architecture there is so awesome. They have so many beautiful colors and I love the roof lines.

Another awesome roof line. They would build animal statues on their roofs to keep evil spirits away.

This is the Olympic arena where the 2008 Olympics will be held in Beijing this summer.
Lingering Garden - there are more pic's of Lingering Garden in the next post.
They need help translating, I think . . .
The entrance to The Forbidden City, where emperors lived for many, many years.

Inside the Forbidden City. They have these grotesques everywhere to keep evil spirits away.
Garden area inside the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was seriously huge. It just kept going and going, courtyard after building after courtyard.
Rickshaw ride - a guy rode his bike w/ us in this little carriage behind him
We ate in a Chinese person's home. He cooked us lunch and it was soooooo good! I was a little scared about what we would have to eat but it was the best meal of the trip, by far.

Highlights from my trip to China Part 2

Summer Palace. Where the Dragon Lady used to go for the summer. It was really cold and overcast again this day so the pic's didn't turn out too well.

Trying to translate into English - there were many signs like this! It was hillarious!
The Great Wall - it snowed while we were there! That's why the pics are not very clear. But we still climbed the wall. It was amazing! And it was really steep. And cold.

We were seriously frozen! We didn't know it would be snowing so we didn't bring any coats, just wind breakers.

See how steep? And cold?
A ton of Chinese people wanted to get pic's with me! Usually one by one. So I decided to get a pic w/ a group that wanted pic's w/ me. I guess because I'm tall and white :)

Lingering Garden. It was so beautiful!

Turtles for sale in a market. They are not pets, they eat them - yuck!!!!

Notice that the child is wearing split pants w/ his diaper sitcking out. All babies wear these there. When they get a little older, they don't wear a diaper underneath so you just see their bum. When they have to go potty, they just squat wherever they are and go!

So cold! In front of Tiger Hill

Tiger Hill. It's a 7-story leaning pagoda on top of a hill that is over 1,000 years old.

This is a neighborhood where people live. All the houses are at least 2-5 stories high. They don't have enough land to build out so they have to build up.

The Oriental Pearl Tower - it's a tv tower. Cool, huh? At night it's all lit up and pretty.
People working hard in the tea fields, that's right, tea fields. Those are all tea bushes.
In Suzhou, they call this area the Venice of the Orient - there are bridges going across and people live right on the water, just like in Venice
There were so many BeAuTiFuL gardens
You can always count on McD's to be wherever you are!