Lots of Stuff...

Well, it has been an exceptionally long time since I blogged... we had about three weeks of sickness (all of us), stress (on my part), sleepless nights, and winter time depression (again, on my part). But we seem to be getting all better in all manner and now I am back to blogging. Here are a bunch of random pictures from way back stating in the fall... Captions provided for explanation:

Anna wearing a Frosty the Snowman hat... we seem to have a lot of holiday hats.Super model Anna again. Notice she is wearing jeans? This is a new horizon for us... she thinks she looks like Aunt Sara when she wears jeans... Cow girl Emma-Grace at Nana's house.

Cousins Anna and McKenna at Nana's house on Thanksgiving.When Anna was little she got the Elmo tool bench, but never was into it. Emma-Grace is all about it and loves wearing the tool belt.

Ken's giant leaf pile for Anna.

Here is a picture of sick Emma-Grace. Considering she operates in two modes: asleep and 100 mph, getting her to lay like this while awake is a rare occurrence. I knew she wasn't feeling well when she did this. Poor baby.

Fall fun in the leaves.

2009 Christmas Card - If you didn't get one, let me know. I lost my card list from last year and am scrambling to be sure to get everyone!

2009 Failed Christmas Card Picture - I really wanted to get a picture of Anna wearing a Santa suit and Emma-Grace wearing this reindeer suit. But kids Santa suits are $30 (I am not interested in paying that much for one), so we went with the Santa had. I envisioned a picture of the girls on our outing to cut down a live tree, but Emma-Grace would have none of it and this is the only good picture I got of her.

Super model Anna was all about her picture...Here is a picture of Emma-Grace having a tantrum when we tried to set them up:

Running away...Temper tantrum
The funny thing is, is that Emma-Grace LOVES wearing the reindeer outfit. She thinks it is a bear and as soon as you put it on her she starts growling and roaring... Then she throws a temper tantrum when it is time to take if off. So here is Emma-Grace wearing the reindeer suit, and being equal opportunity type parents, below are pictures of Anna from December 2006 when she was blessed to wear the reindeer suit... Santa Love...Anna 2006... we were in Florida, hence the palms.

When it Rains...

Life always gets really fun all at the same time. This is how our holiday weekend finished up:

Saturday Night/Sunday Morning - Anna not eating, having a tummy ache, totally out of it. At one point she had a fever, but I took her temperature right after a crying jag because Emma-Grace rolled over her foot with a push car. Emma-Grace developing a case of conjunctivits in both eyes. (Once you see it you know exactally what it is when it comes back).

Sunday Afternoon - Take Emma-Grace to emergency to fix her toe that she split open.

Monday Early Morning - Ken spending quality time in the bathroom. However, no fever.

Monday Afternoon - Olivia take Emma-Grace to doctor for eye medicine, which they do not have a generic for, so with insurance it is $20 copay for a 0.5 oz bottle. Ken done needing to live in the bathroom, but now has a low grade fever and pretty much incapaciated. So Ken definately has the flu, but is it the dreaded swine flu? Lets just pray that the girls regular and swine flu vaccines work... although Ken got the regular flu shot ... so lets pray for science to work!

4 Years and 2 Months

Well we made it Four Years and Two months without an emergency room visit for the KIDS (Ken had his trip in the summer!). I think 4 years and two months is a pretty long time with all the acrobatics that kids do. Anyway, Emma-Grace was in her and Anna's room opening and closing her closet door and she must have rolled over her big toe, as the door is a sliding door... she sliced it right open! I was putting away clothes right next to her and the next thing I know she is screaming and blood is shooting everywhere from her toe. Anna was napping in my room and Ken was working outside. I run and grab a towel, dripping blood all over the carpet yelling for Ken. He comes in and we call my aunt who lives down the street from us. Meanwhile Anna is crying because she was woken up from a serious nap from Emma-Grace crying and me yelling for Ken. So my aunt arrives and we whisk Emma-Grace to the hospital, dripping blood all over the house on our way out. We felt bad for Anna because she was all confused after waking up from a nap, but thankfully the lure of making cookies with my Aunt settled her down.

Good advice from our friends: If you ever have to take your kid to the emergency room, don't make them stop crying. Nothing will get you faster through the emergency room than a screaming kid.

Although hectic, I was able to recall their advice. Thankfully, Emma-Grace is of the age that she screams at ALL people she doesn't know, so our simple entry into the emergency room escalated her to full alarm. True to what our friends said, I stood in the entry no more than 5 seconds and we were taken back, registered, checked in, and ushered to a room. Less than 10 mins later, Emma-Grace's toe was glued beck together and we were getting discharged (with Emma-Grace screaming the entire time). On our way home, I was telling Ken how much blood there was and how I was sure that there was a lot that we would have to clean up. I guess my adrenaline kicked in, because when we got home, there was only three drops on the carpet and some smudges on the kitchen floor.

Funny note, when we picked up Anna from my Aunt's house she asked me what was the "new red colors on the floor..."

We are all fine now... (sorry, no pics of the event). We ran out of the house with no coats, no diaper bag and Emma-Grace was barefoot. I did not remember the camera.

A Blog Worthy Fortune

We had Chinese for dinner last night and I wanted to share Ken's fortune with you all from his fortune cookie. We have both been stressed out about jobs, economy, work and all that, but this puts things in nice perspective:

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia."

I love how God helps puts little things like this in our way.

Temper Tantrum, the Donald Look, Catching Air and Extras

Here is a bunch of random stuff...

Emma-Grace has Donald Trump hair in the front and a mullet in the back... business during the day, party at night! Aunt Sara got Anna a "sign peace" (as Anna says) shirt. Anna loves peace signs... This is Grammy's influnce! Thanks Aunt Sara! Anna loves the shirt!

This is what Emma-Grace would look like with hair.

Emma-Grace also learned how to stick out her tounge on cue.
Just a left over pic of the girls on Halloween.

Saturday night, Anna and I went grocery shopping at 7:00 pm. Emma-Grace, who goes to bed at 7:30, did not want us to go and had a tantrum that Ken taped. Notice that when he says "bottle" how fast she gets up and goes to the stairs. He thinks she is getting the Kitty, but she wants to have a bottle and go to bed!

Here is Emma-Grace roughing up Gus. She loves him and we are lucky that he is a dog trapped in a cat's body!

Check out the air Anna gets on her purple Ariel bouncing ball.

Stats & Movies

Yesterday I took the girls to the doctor's office for Anna's 4 year (a little late) and Emma-Grace's 15 month check ups. Anna and Emma-Grace are doing great. At our office, they give you this little packet of information about your kid and the age they are at. At the top the write the height, weight and head circumference and the percentiles that the kids are in... Well Emma-Grace is 90% for weight and 90%-tile for head size, which means that she weighs more and has a bigger head than 90% of the kids out there that are her age. Then I noticed that she is in the 100%-tile for height... so what does that mean? That she is taller than every kid out there? She is the tallest 15 month old EVER? Should I give Guinness Book of world records?

Hmmm... It makes sense, she is only 15 months old and most of her 18 month clothing is too short... She also thinks she is four and not 15 months old so when the doctor was asking all the things that she does the answers were all yes.

Here are some videos of the girls. This first one is of me last weekend taping Emma-Grace going down the big slide. Apparently, Ken has been doing this with her for a while and I didn't know it. You can hear my apprehension in the background.

Although I am guiding her, it is just for her protection. I had nothing to do with the bucket on her head. She did this all on her own.

Anna and I play this game where we take a song that she knows and make up new words to it... usually the words are about how much we love each other. Here is one of Anna's songs. Lucky you, I will not be performing on this video. She is my favorite singer.

I love this one with Emma-Grace sharing her sticker. Good thing it wasn't too sticky! Ouch!

This is Emma-Grace being "warm and cuddly". She loves doing this. Even though Anna thinks she looks like a "bag".

Halloween Surprise

On Friday the four of us went to Kohl's to spend some Kohl's Cash. On our way home we were going to go to Boston Market to use our $1 meal coupons, but it was packed. So we decided to go to Kroger to pick up some dinner. They were having a Halloween party and giving out candy and whatnot. So Ken too Anna to go get free stuff and Emma-Grace and I went shopping. One of the events they had was a skittle candy guess. The prize was a light up Halloween yard inflatable. "Anna" guessed 1,526 skittles in the jar. I finish shopping and we go along our merry way. Around 9:00 pm that night we get a phone call and I answer. They ask for Anna's mom and tell us that we won the Halloween yard inflatable! "Anna's" guess was only 5 skittles over the actual number! So this is our Halloween surprise:

The ghost goes up and down in the pumpkin and it lights up... this was a HUGE hit with the girls. Clearly, it is also a promo for Hershey's candy. But, whatever, it was free!

Field Trip

Anna's preschool class went on a field trip today and we took both girls. Amazingly, it cleared up for the trip and although we had our rain jackets on, when we were out and about at the orchard it didn't rain.

This picture is great. I snapped it when Emma-Grace was being shy because a stranger was talking to her.

Carving Pumpkins

We carved pumpkins tonight. Both girls got into it. Anna wanted her pumpkin to be scary and Emma-Grace's to be nice. So here we go...

Pretty nice and pretty scary!

Brushing Teeth and Hop Scotch Lessons

Anna was trying out for the hop-scotch olympics and teaching Emma-Grace.

Emma-Grace's favorite past time is brushing her teeth. Watch how fast she runs when we tell her she can brush her teeth.

And just a cute pic of EG!

Pumpkin Picking and Photographer Mommy

We went to Blake's Orchard again this weekend to find the perfect pumpkin. As soon as we pulled into the Orchard, Emma-Grace immediately started yelling "bopple, bopple, bopple!" which is baby-ean for "apple". Ken jumped out of the car and picked both girls an apple to eat while we looked for the perfect pumpkin.

Anna found hers first.

Emma-Grace found hers shortly after. She can't say pumpkin, but I knew she found the one she wanted because it was the only one she sat on... Good thing it wasn't rotten or semi-squished. Since it was the only one she sat on, we got it for her.

Daddy and the girls...

Emma-Grace fell asleep in the car... tired baby! Hi old lady in the background of my picture! Hope you like being memorialized on my blog!

After indulging in donuts and cider slushies, we rounded out our healthy morning by going to McDonald's for lunch, a request that Anna made yesterday.

After we got home, it was too nice to stay inside so I played photographer. Anna was all about it, but Emma-Grace wasn't. I did manage to snap a few of them together. Something that I was not successful at at the pumpkin patch.

We had a fun filled day and were pretty much outside from the time we got to the orchard, around 9:30 am until 5:30 when we came in for dinner. After we got home from the orchard and McDonald's our neighbors came over for a few hours of kick ball and soccer, of which Anna did participate in for a little bit, then played house with her friend. Needless to say, during dinner when I told Anna that she had to eat all her fruit and salad before she could get dessert, she told me that she was too tired to eat her food and too tired to eat dessert. I asked her if she just wanted to go to bed, and she said yes. A bath, a book and 30 mins later, both girls were in bed asleep. The only nap Emma-Grace had was the 30 min car ride between the orchard and McDonald's... poor babies! However, the 7:30 pm bed time is what has allowed me to download both cameras, edit the pics and post them all in one night, a process that usually takes 5-7 days.

Zoo Boo

We went to the Zoo Boo again this year, for the third year in a row. We will definitely make it a tradition. It is a "Merry not Scary" Halloween Event. Anyway, we went on Friday, and as you may remember Friday was horrible outside. All day it was windy, rainy and cold. I was determined to go to the Zoo Boo, mainly because I already bought the tickets, and I hate to waste money. Our tickets were for 6:00 pm... and wouldn't you know it, it totally cleared up, the wind and rain went away and it was a really pleasant evening... an hour and a half later as we were leaving, the rain and wind started and I am pretty sure the temperature dropped about 10 degrees. So I sure am glad we went. Even better, it was pretty empty because I think most people ditched on the event thinking that it would be horrible outside... their loss our gain! It was empty and we had a great time.

The only thing is, is that when it was time to go to the Zoo Boo, I couldn't find Anna and Emma-Grace anywhere... all I could find to go with me was a cute little pink leopard and Daphne from Scooby Do. I ended up taking them since I couldn't find my girls anywhere.

Daphne sure did love the pink leopard.

We planned for our parent group to go with us, but only one friend came. We had fun anyway!

Lots of Sister Love

I guess I am on a blog kick... that is ok because I do have a lot to catch up on and I love looking at my girls when I am on lunch break at work.

Super Model Anna

Sister Love! Love Birds

Say What?!?!

More Sister Love!

Too Much Sister Love!!! Cutie Tootie!

The other night I was taking pictures of Anna and she kept closing her eyes in anticipation of the camera flash. I told her to keep her eyes open for the picture. So she did...

Fishy Face!

I love this picture of Anna making Emma-Grace laugh. Yes, the background is all of Anna's princess dresses hanging up and yes, Emma-Grace is wearing fairy wings.

Again, with the box... seriously, Christmas is going to be empty boxes.

I love this face. Too bad the picture is a little blurry.

Big Girl Playing on the Slide

Sister Love!