And lots more pics . . .

My sister, Lindsey, put a pool in her backyard this summer, so Emmy and I have taken advantage and gone down to visit a little more than usual :)

All you Speechly's, can you believe this was grandma and grandpa's backyard??? It looks so good! I posted some pics of the backyard so you can see what it looks like.

Ok, so this isn't a pic of the pool or anything, but I had to post it. She loves wearing this bandana that she got from her cousin Grey's bday party! She says "aaaargh!" when we put it on her!

These first pics are just of Lindsey's pool & hot tub. I wanted to post them for the family. It's in the back right of the yard if you are looking out the back door. She bought my gma's house and totally re-did it, and the backyard! Maybe I can get her to post pics of the house . . .

They put this play area in the back left side of the yard.

Another pic of the pool w/ the fun waterfall and slide

My sweet girl . . . she has the darkest eyes, almost black. They are beautiful!!!

She does this when I say to her "Emmy, go like this." She doesn't even look at me anymore when I say it, she just poses! It's so funny!

Playing with Ella. Dylan and Ella are both Ella now. When she see's Ella, she screams, "Ella!". When she see's Dylan, she screams, "Ella!" So funny . . .

Ella's sweet little face :)

Some recent pic's

We've been pretty busy here at our house. Between me going back to work part-time and doing "summer" things, I haven't had too much time to blog, so here's some pic's to catch you up. I'll have a lot more to post later this week. I just can't keep up! I was just going to post a couple pics but there were too many cute ones, I couldn't resist!

She looks like a little angel here!

I LOVE this pic, she's totally squising her mouth and nose against the window - she didn't want to come inside, just wanted to peek inside :)

We got her a little pool. She started splashing - the next couple pic's go in sequence w/ this one . . .
Having fun splashing . . .
LOVING splashing!!! I absolutely love her face here! Classic!

Footprints . . . why is she so sweet?
Look at those squishy legs!
My sweet girl . . .

Happy Father's Day!!!

The day Emmy was born
Our first glimpse of Emmy's curly hair. I love this pic!
So cute, she fell asleep like that
Bridal Veil Falls last Memorial Day Weekend
A couple of weeks ago, playing dress-up. She had on 2 pairs of pants, a shirt, a dress and others that we had taken off before this pic was taken. Oh, and daddy's shoe :)

My husband is the BEST DAD EVER!!!! So I'm so glad I have a day that I get to let him know how much I really appreciate him. He is so involved in Emmy's life, she is so lucky to have such a great dad. He never hesitates to change a diaper, give a bath or just spend some quality time with his little girl. We love you so much and feel so lucky to have you in our lives!

And I also want to say Happy Father's Day to my dad. You are so amazing, funny and just fun to be around. Jake and I both love you so much and are so happy to have you in our lives!!!

So sweet

Proud to be an American

Yesterday, Jake was sworn in as a citizen of the United States of America! It was really exciting going to the ceremony and seeing how many people were being sworn in (199, with 202 more people being sworn in later yesterday afternoon). There were people from 55 different countries becoming US citizens.

The Daily News/The Spectrum did a story on Jake and his journey to citizenship.  It was on the front page with a big picture of us!

Congrats, honey, I'm so proud of you and so happy for you! I'm so glad we have this behind us!

Finger Painting

Yesterday, Emmy and I decided to do some finger painting. So I put one of my old shirts on her and we got started. We paint with pudding so that Emmy can eat it, too. And she really loved eating it! More than she liked painting, I think :)

Finger lickin' good!

Good thing she has my old shirt on :)

At one point, she wasn't getting enough pudding on her fingers to lick off so she picked up her paper and licked the paper. That's how she got pudding ALL OVER her face (that's the pic above). It was so funny!

Here's the masterpiece! Beautiful :)

Oh, the joys of motherhood

Yesterday, I got Emmy some oatmeal, put her in front of the tv to watch her morning shows while she ate (SuperWhy and Dragon Tales) and went into the kitchen to get myself some oatmeal. Now, the kitchen is open into the family room so we were basically still in the same room, but my back was to her. I made my oatmeal and put it in the microwave to cook, I turned around and what do I find? Emmy, with oatmeal all over herself (no surprises, right?), all over her highchair (again, no big surprises), all over the carpet and all over the couch. The thing that really gets me is that I usually put a towel underneath her "just in case" but I didn't do that yesterday. Why? I have no idea! I was so mad! She had taken handfulls of oatmeal and just started shaking her hand so that it went everywhere!!! It's messy enough cleaning the oatmeal off of Emmy when she eats it because it's soooo sticky. But cleaning it off the carpet and the couch? Not a fun job, not a fun job at all. So, like the post title says, oh, the joys of motherhood!

The look of guilt! Notice the oatmeal splotches on the back of the high chair, in her hair (I had already cleaned up the tray), and on the couch behind her. And of course all over her face!
Such a fun mess to clean up . . . little spots EVERYWHERE are a lot harder to clean up than one big mess!
Not so bad on the couch, but still not fun to clean up!

New Words

Some of Emmy's favorite new words:

Help! Help! - when she needs help with anything, especially getting toys

Hot - says this w/ any of her food that has been in the microwave or that she knows is hot

Three - when we count (we count everything lately) every number to her is "three!" I say, "one," she says, "three!" I say, "two", she says, "three!" - you get the picture!

Ouch! Ouch! - says this for different reasons, but especially when I do her hair. She's never said it until this past month. I know it usually doesn't hurt, she's just saying it, the little stinker!

A picture paints a thousand words . . .

I wanted to post some recent pics of Emmy. We love her beautiful smile and her unique and wonderful personality so much! She makes us smile every single day!

Love that sweet smile! It makes me happy :)

I had to wake her up the other morning (of course the one day she sleeps in is the day we have to be somewhere in the morning). She was making this face when I was changing her diaper. It was so funny! She pulled this face for at least one full minute!

My parents came home from Mexico and unpacked their bags. We turned around and there was Emmy, playing in the empty suitcase having so much fun!

Citizenship!

Jake FINALLY found out that he will become a citizen on May 21st!!! Hip hip hooray! It's been such a long process, we are both just so excited. Emmy and I get to go and see him get sworn in. It will be a great day! I'm already planning a trip to Mexico . . . (: