Like Mother, Like Daughter

Our ward had a Talent Show last week.  A couple of friends and I thought it would be cute to get our girls together to sing some songs.  The girls sang "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" and "If You're Happy and You Know it".  They were so cute!

The MC was holding the mic out for the girls and Emmy just reached out and grabbed it.  Classic.

The funny thing about Emmy is that she won't give a talk, scripture or anything in Primary.  But put her on stage in front of the entire ward and apparently she'll grab the microphone and sing away!  She's my little performer.

{Megan, Emmy and Skye - 

I know the pics are blurry.  My dad took them w/ my camera and thought the flash would automatically go up when he was taking a pic}

BTW - there is an awesome giveaway going on over at Natalie's Sentiments!  Check it out HERE.

Kate {10 months}

Wowza!  This little one is already 10 months old!

She weighs 22 lbs 2 oz! 

{No wonder my back is hurting all the time!}

I didn't record how much Emmy weighed at 10 months, but at 9 months Emmy was 18.5 lbs - so Kate is definitely bigger than Emmy was.  I already knew this since Kate is wearing clothes that Emmy wore when she was around 15 months old!

Here is what she's been up to:

- She's crawling!  She has been so close for two months and she finally got brave enough to do it.  She's not a little tornado or anything (so opposite from her sister!) but if she wants to get somewhere, she just crawls this cute, little crawl.
 

- She is starting to pull herself up.  At least she tries a lot.  She has only been successful once :)  I went into her room to get her up from a nap and there she was, standing there.

- She has been teething for the past two weeks and the dang teeth won't break through!  Her poor mouth.  And her poor nose - it has been running non-stop for the past two weeks.  We have to watch out for snot-rockets!

- I've been letting her watch the My First Signs DVD from Baby Einstein and she is learning some signs!  The other day I was saying "daddy" to her and she brought her hand up to her face and totally did the sign!  I was so proud :)  She tries to do the "ball" sign, too, but she doesn't quite have it yet.  Does she do the "mommy" sign?  Of course not!

- She LOVES her bottle and she LOVES to eat!  She is eating a lot of finger foods now and her favorites are strawberries, bananas, those little dried yogurt bites and Cheerios.
 

{Emmy and Kate have twin Dora chairs, thanks to Ella!  She gave us her old one}

Like I always say, she is SO MUCH FUN to have around!  We LOVE our little, laid-back Kate!

Easter 2010

We had a great Easter this year!  

We taught Emmy about the Resurrection and now she tells me all the time that Jesus died on the cross but He came alive again!

The Easter festivities started on Saturday when we went to my sister's house for a BBQ and Easter egg hunt.  The kids had a blast looking for the eggs we hid all around the yard.  Thanks to Lindsey and Ella who stuffed all the eggs!

{The girls wanted to dress-up for the Easter egg hunt}

{Hunting for eggs}

{Look at all those eggs!}

As if the candy wasn't enough sugar for the kids, after the Easter egg hunt they decorated cookies and cupcakes.  Yum yum!

{Ellie and Emmy, still dressed up, of course}

On Saturday night, we left a plate of carrots and a note for the Easter Bunny telling him thank you. Emmy wanted to draw on the note so she drew a funny little "smiley" face.  I say "smiley" in quotes because the mouth isn't really smiling.

{The artist hard at work}

{See the "smiley" face?  It's right under (or above) "Love, Emmy" - two big eyes and a squiggly mouth}

On Easter morning, we woke up to find that the Easter Bunny had visited our house!  He left treats, toys and a book for the girls and he left eggs filled with candy all over the house.  Emmy had fun collecting the eggs for her basket.  I forgot to take pictures of that Easter egg hunt - I think I had the video camera.

{Emmy loves all things princess, so she, of course, got a princess Easter basket}

The kids decorated Easter eggs after conference.  Gotta decorate Easter eggs!  Emmy loves that she can do a lot of these things with just a little help these days.  Last year I basically decorated the eggs for her.  She's getting so big!

 {Emmy's fake smile :) }

{Working hard to decorate those eggs}

{So colorful!}

It was wonderful having Easter fall on General Conference Sunday.  I thought it was such a special way to spend the day, listening to our Prophet and Apostles.  We didn't get pics of the girls in their Easter dresses because it was SO windy outside, but we will be having a photo shoot soon.  

Hope you all had wonderful Easters, too!

Waiting for her Prince . . .

Getting Healthy

Since I had Kate 9 1/2 months ago, I've really been wanting to get back in shape.  And not just so I can be "skinny".  It's not about that.  I want to be healthy.  I want my family to be healthy.  I love working out and I feel good when I eat right.  I've lost all of my baby weight plus five more pounds.  Hopefully I'll be losing 10 more!

Here are some helpful websites I've found to help me in my quest for being healthy!

-  My sister-in-law, Mary, just became a Certified Personal Trainer - Go Mary!  She just started a blog that will help you optimize your fitness goals.  She updates it weekly and has all kinds of fitness tips.  Her website is called Personal Fitness Trainer.

-  My friend, Dearie (really Deirdra, but I call her Dearie), is a Registered Dietitian.  She has a blog that has all kinds of wonderful health facts about food.  She updates it daily and I love reading her tips!  Her website is called The Daily Weigh.

-  I've recently found a website called My Fitness Pal.  It helps me track calories.  I have a fitness goal and it tells me how many calories I should eat per day in order to reach that goal.  I just enter everything I've eaten that day and it tells me how many calories I've had.  Easy!  And I love that it calculates everything for me.  And I do enter everything.  If I have a handful of PB M&M's, it gets entered.  I want to be honest!

-  This one is awesome - you guys are going to love me for this!  Have you ever wondered how many calories/fat grams your homemade recipes have?  I found a free recipe calculator!   You enter the ingredients, how many servings the recipe makes, and voila!  It calculates the nutrition info for you.  It is the best!  Knowing the nutrition info helps me only eat one homemade cookie, instead of eating 4 or 5 cookies worth of dough, then two or three cookies when they are done (you think I'm joking???).  The calculator is at Sparks Recipes.

For those of you who want to be healthier, I hope these websites will help!  I just registered for my 2nd 5K today!  And I'm already planning my 3rd and 4th . . . Who would've thought I'd ever be a runner?  Not me!

Randomness . . .

{Cute pic of my Kate}

I will be posting Easter pictures soon, but I wanted to post some random pictures first.

Alex and Mary, Jake's brother and his wife, came down Easter weekend to visit.  It was great to see them and of course Emmy and Ellie had a blast playing together.  The Phantom mask got pulled out and the girls had a fun time playing "Phantom".

{Emmy was the Phantom and Ellie was Christine}

Since the Phantom mask was out, Ella, my niece (my sister's daughter - yes, a lot of "E" names!) put it on Kate:

{Baby Phantom!}

The Saturday before Easter, we went to my sister's house for a BBQ.  The kids swam and had an Easter egg hunt.  Alex and Mary came, too.  So fun!

 {Emmy and Ellie playing dolls in Ella's dollhouse after swimming - no time for putting on clothes, Emmy had serious doll business to take care of!}

And since Emmy is in preschool in the mornings, I get to spend some one-on-one time with Kate!  She was playing with toys and I had to take some pics.  She LOVES it when I sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" to her.  I was singing it when I took this picture.  I knew it would get me a big smile!

{Sweet baby girl!}