Catch-up on Emory

I have a couple of random pictures of Emory and some really funny videos, so here is a post all about her. She is such a girlie girl! Seriously, she takes a purse with her everywhere she goes (it's one of my old ones, so she calls it her grown-up purse) and she fills it with all the necessities. This morning when I helped her clean it out she was very insistent we kept her cell phones (yes, that's plural because she has a lot of people to talk to), all of her lipstick (which she ALWAYS has on. She's better at getting it on her lips than most make-up artists), keys, gum (she chews gum almost non-stop these days), rubber bands (not sure what that's about) and money. She is still the most kind-hearted and sweet person I think I have ever met, but she is oozing with a little more sass each and every day. Last week Greg was correcting her behavior and she said, "Daddy, please stop speaking to me that way. I just don't like it." Okay, seriously she's barely three! At least she was polite about saying she didn't want to do things his way:) Her favorite past time is cheering. It's really more of a cheer/hip-hop thing, but she's actually really good at it. She is CRAZY coordinated! We have discovered more of her personality is really black and white. It's amazing how this influences her view of the world. She is doing really well at recognizing letters and numbers and at her one-to-one ratios (that means counting objects for all you non-education majors out there) because they just are what we tell them they are, she doesn't question why they are the letters or numbers we tell her, she just accepts it, memorizes it and moves on. She is also really grasping spirituality because of the whole b/w perspective; she says some amazing prayers every night and the other day said something along the lines of God is in my heart and all around me, you can see God when I'm nice to other people. It really seemed like she understood what she was saying, not simply repeating what other people had told her. It does get frustrating when we tell her her food or drink is warm, not hot and not cold; she just doesn't get it. We will go on and on with her about how it's warm and in her mind that's just not an option, if it's not hot, then it's cold. She's going to be awesome at math and science!

Okay, so back to what you really came to see, here are a couple of cute pictures of Emory and all her sass:

Here are a couple of videos of her dancing. These were a couple of months ago, before she started her daily cheering sessions- I'll try to get some of those on here too.

Catch-up on Addison Pictures

I have quite a few pictures of Addison doing various things, so I'm going to make a post dedicated to her pictures. I can't wait to be caught up with all these pictures, this is crazy work! Addison is growing and changing every single day! She is getting better at taking a step or two at a time, but nothing like she did last week when she took 8ish steps.

So let's get started...

The bows are back in town!!!!

Addison finally has enough hair to pull it up into a "pony tail". I know it's not much, but it's enough to put a bow in and it's getting longer and thicker every single day!

Hey guys, wait up!

She loves to play peek-a-boo and always finds somewhere to hide and start the game.

She has started entertaining herself in her bed if she's finished sleeping or not ready to go to sleep yet. Check out what I found the other day

She had pulled all the wipes out of a brand new package, pulled her blanket down from the wall, her pajamas from her changing table, and dropped her Mister Frog and Trinity's monkey out of her bed.

She is starting to get into babies. I don't think anyone's obsession could be quite as extreme as Emory's, but she is enjoying them. She was putting this on its potty when Greg found her

This is when Emory covered her hair in lotion on Valentine's Day. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but it gives you an idea

I hope you have enjoyed this round of catch-up on Addison. I'm sure there will be more to come in the near future:)

Pictures from the Arboretum

A few weeks ago we headed to the Arboretum for a picnic lunch (I already mentioned it in a previous post, so I won't bore you with the story). Here are our pictures from the fun day:

I sure so have a beautiful family! I am truly blessed!

Addison's birthday pictures

I know I posted about Addison's birthday celebrations quite sometime ago (since it was now over a month ago!), but now you can see the pictures of us celebrating too!

These are from her actual birthday. We celebrated after dinner with cupcakes. She really enjoyed them, but wasn't so sure about the crown!

These are from her Party:

Getting everything ready, a mother's job is never done! I think I was making homemade ice cream, playing walkie-talkie with Trinity, helping Addison get ice, keeping an eye on Emory's fingers around the icecream machine and answering a question to Greg all at the same time...no wonder I was so tired that night!

Trinity and Greg made fruit skewers with Addison's favorite food: pineapple and bananas...they were DELICIOUS and beautiful too!

My mom helped entertain while I finished getting things ready

Opening gifts!

Trinity enjoyed getting some attention from her grandfathers

She LOVES her piano from Pappy and Gommy!

CAKE TIME!

She wasn't a big fan of everyone standing around her and singing. I guess she hadn't been so close to a candle before because she put it out with her fingers! Oops, guess I should've talked with her about that before the party, huh?

'Okay, this is pretty good. Guess I can listen to your singing if I get this after.'

'All done! That was delicious! Now to play with all my new toys!'

Cousins playing together, what a beautiful thing!

Yipee!!!!!!

I finally made it to Fry's today, so now I can upload my pictures and videos. I am really far behind, so sit tight and enjoy the ride!

You might remember the video of Greg pushing Trinity and Emory around the backyard in their Jeep, well here are some fun still shots:

For Christmas Emory got an American Girl Doll Baby and some matching ballet clothes. Her Nana was the gracious gift giver, so she has named her Baby Nana. Here is Emory and Baby Nana in their matching clothes:

Back in January Trinity had a Friday where she was dismissed before lunch, so my sister and I loaded the girls up and took them to Chuck-E-Cheese. We all had a BLAST!

Emory had a very unfortunate collision with the corner of a game which led to a HUGE lump on her forehead. She laid with Nini for a while instead of playing:

Also back in January I took Emory and Addison to the zoo to enjoy the beautiful weather, here are a few of the pictures I snapped that day:

Watching the penguins enjoy their breakfast

Addison loved these Gorilla statues! She played with them and talked to them forever!

Nini, this one is for you: Your monkey watching monkeys!

Addison LOVED the play area, especially this tunnel!

I set Addison down on the ground and went to get something from the stroller, when I turned around this is what I saw (this is actually a recreation, but I had no idea she could do this!) Sorry it's sideways, I always forget I can't rotate a video. Hope you don't get a neck cramp!

Greg took Trinity to a Daddy-Daughter Ball the last weekend of January. She had a great time and loved being all dressed up with her friends. Here are a couple of pictures of her dress:

It passed the "Spin Test"!

Emory is silly! Here she is with her body sparkles (her prize from Chuck-E Cheese) stuck all over her face. You should've seen her arms and legs too!

Can you tell which baby belongs to me?

Addison LOVES her piano!

Thank God for miracles!

Check out this news story. It's about one of Greg's fraternity brothers, Kyle Stansbury. This could have been so much worse!
http://www.durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_type=news&article_path=/news/08/news080206_1.htm

http://www.cbs4denver.com/video/?id=38782@kcnc.dayport.com

...and she's off!

I've been trying to hold on to every single second of Addison's babyhood I can and they just keep slipping away! We were at the post office today getting our passports (woo-hoo, Bermuda here we come!!!!) and during our LONG wait (and rediculous process- seriously that could be a post all by itself) Addison was walking around holding Greg's hand. She saw me and got excited so I asked her to walk over to me all by herself, and SHE DID IT! She let go of the wall and walked the four or five feet over to me without holding on to anything or falling, or having any problems at all! She has NEVER taken a step by herself before so I was shocked! In fact I was so in shock I didn't even count how many steps she took, but it was at least seven or eight! She is growing up WAY too fast! I haven't been able to get her to do it since then, but I'm sure she'll be all over the place in no time at all. I'll try to convince her to do it again and video tape her for all to see.

Greg and Trinity's weekend

Greg and Trinity had the awesome opportunity of another campout this past weekend with their Adventure Princess Group. In case you don't remember, this weekend the weather was pretty miserable around here- thunderstorms and really cold! To add to the pleasure of that weather, they were actually in Oklahoma...crazy cold! I haven't gotten too much information from the two of them about what all they did, but he did finally send me an email he sent to someone else when describing his weekend. I had to post it...it's too funny! I guess if I had been there it wouldn't have been too funny though.
Well, Trinity and I made it back to Dallas yesterday around noon, but it took until about 10 last night before my toes felt like they were back to normal. We got up to Camp Classen around 7:30 Friday night. Our cabin was the furthest from the parking lot and they didn't have any roads that went directly to said cabins. They did provide little 2-Wheel carts that we used to load up our gear and take to the cabin, but they weren't very big, so we had to make multiple round trips. Luckily for us the rain hadn't started yet, it was just cold and windy. Now on our last campout to Grady Spruce we had nice cabins with kitchens, tables, refrigerators, and multiple bathrooms/showers.......I was expecting something similar. Instead we had one room with 6 bunk beds and a bathroom that had 2 sinks and one toilet which did not have a door that would close all the way. Ithink we lost a bet or something. Woke up Saturday morning and all of the trees were covered in ice....the ground, which had been reddish/orange dirt the night before, had turned into mud. Went to breakfast, and the rains really started coming down. Left there and went to the BB gun range........added thunder and lighting to the rain. Back to the cabin to change out of wet, muddy clothes...just in time to head back to the Mess Hall for lunch and then to see the"snake Man". At this point it's about 3pm on Saturday afternoon and mys houlders/arms/legs are starting to hurt because I've been carrying Trinity everywhere we went. We went back to the cabin, and the rain slacked up a bit to a slow drizzle. With the tree covering, not that much water is getting through, so we decide to build our fire again. (Did I mention we are under a wood-fireban. Even though it's currently raining on our heads, we can only burn charcoal). That lasted for about an hour (I did start throwing wood on, but it was so wet it filled our whole area with smoke) then the rains came back and we scrambled to get back inside the cabin without slipping in the red goop they call mud. My toes have been wet and cold so long I can't feel them. Went to dinner....more rain. Went to the "bonfire" without the fire.........more rain and wind. Got back to the cabin, girls fall asleep quickly and the Dad's decide to try the fire thing again. We start our charcoal burn and look around. Through the trees we see the other tribeshave large wood fires burning so we decide to join in. One guy lets us have the rest of their lighter fluid and we scavenge some big logs out of the woods and stand around the "fire" for a couple of hours shivering. We'd have gone inside to talk, but there wasn't enough room to keep the girls from waking up. When the lighter fluid ran out, so did our enthusiasm for standing in the freezing cold. One of the Leaders came by and said he had never seen mud like we had around our campsite. I've never been so proud. then he tells us that someone should volunteer to be on the Council so that we'd get a better choice of campsite. Sunday we were up and packed early. Made multiple trips with the 2-wheeled carts again. The sun was out and the day was already warmer at 7:30am than it had been the past 2 days combined (maybe an exaggeration). We ate breakfast and left. Trinity had a pretty good time with her friends, and I'm sure that's what she'll remember.

We were glad to have them home yesterday and I know they were glad to be here too! Trinity took a LONG nap yesterday and I think Greg wished his nap had been a little longer.

Last night when they got home they handed me a registration form for a family campout at this same conference center. I guess he doesn't know me quite as well as I thought if he actually thinks I would go for an entire weekend without a shower! YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!!