Sundays

Sundays are hard with 1-4 pm church. I think the nursery leaders that serve during 1-4 church earn themselves a special place in Heaven.

Here is how many Sundays go:

E goes down at 11:30 for nappy-nap
We wake E up at 12:25 from nappy-nap

(Yes that is a pink blanket he's sleeping with. It's actually MY blanket but he likes it. I'm not worried though because pink blanket is always accompanied by trains and cars and manly things.)

He's usually not ready by then since he's been napping for about 3 hours every afternoon...

Then we scurry around, get his church clothes on, convince him that his tie is handsome like daddy's (sometimes we have to do that by making Beah wear a tie too), shovel lunch down his throat (or let him eat it in the car with his bib on) and try to be out the door by 12:45. Then we do the whole meeting thang, and pick up E from nursery where he has inevitably burst into tears the last 5 minutes because he was worried we weren't coming to get him. You know, we're always just leaving him places.

Then, we come home, have a little feeding frenzy, and break out the Wii before dinner.

I love me a good day of rest.

Prayers

Emerson has really gotten into saying prayers recently. He doesn't really care about bedtime prayers, just mealtime ones. He's been getting upset with us if we try to say it without his help, then he'll start crying and we'll try to figure out what's wrong and he'll sob, "blessing food!" so we'll have to give him a turn. And he's just like every other kid when all he says in the last line is AMEN! with all the gusto he can muster. Then sometimes he'll add a "Good boy!" to compliment himself afterward.

This morning he wanted to help with the prayer over breakfast, so we began our simple, vainly repetitious prayer and he threw in "happy dreams" all by himself because that's what we say at bedtime and we finished the prayer. Then this is the conversation that ensued:

"Mommy, blessings."

"That's right, we say thank you for our blessings."

"Uh uh uh blessings."

"Right, we say thank you when we talk to Heavenly Father, don't we?"

"No, uh-Mike!"

"We talk to Heavenly Father when we're saying our prayers, huh?"

"NO, MIKE!"

Apparently Emerson thinks we've been praying to Mike (Richards). He's a great guy and is the father of E's two favorite people, but I'm not sure where the praying-to-him thing came from. There's just no reasoning with a 2-year-old. But I guess Mike should feel good that Emerson looks up to him that much. Maybe we'll start emphasizing the "Dear Heavenly Father" part even more now.

Awkward Duck

So we have this group of 4 mallards that like to come chill by our garage. I have no idea why. We don't feed them, and there aren't any female ducks hanging out. It could be that both of our neighbors have bird feeders by their garages, but we don't. Dumb ducks. They kind of move in a coordinated pattern, swinging their heads the same way at the same time and it got me thinking about the movie, The Birds. For some reason I don't think it would've been as menacing had ducks been cast instead of those creepy crows/blackbirds.

The other day we looked out our back window and saw one of these said mallards on top of our garage. It didn't look like the cool cardinals and other small birds that usually grace the garage, so I just thought it looked awkward. And it looked like it felt awkward, too. Kind of like it had landed there by accident but wasn't going to tell anybody that.
I hope some girl-duck will see past your awkwardness and be your mate someday, big fella.

Park of Roses

We made a little trip out to the Park of Roses again, but our timing wasn't perfect for the full blossom effect. I think we're going to try to go back in a couple weeks. That didn't stop E from having a good time though. I don't think we passed one color of rose that he didn't stop and smell (without any prompting from us, might I add.)

Goop

One rainy day last week I was trying to think of something for Emerson to do so we both didn't go crazy. I decided to whip up some goop for him to play with. The best part is that there are only 2 ingredients: cornstarch and water. You can add a drop of food coloring if you want, and I did because E's favorite color right now is pink. :) I'm glad he's comfortable with his masculinity.

Although it doesn't look like it in the pictures, he really really enjoyed playing with it. He thought it was hilarious to try to pick it up and have it drip through his fingers. (If you've made it right it should look about the same consistency as white glue. It doesn't feel like white glue though...it feels strangely solid and liquid at the same time.)

Another benefit was the easy cleanup. It even comes out of hair easily. I would know. While I was leaning over a small boy let some carefully drip into my hair. I couldn't even get mad. I just let it dry and then brushed it off.

When E finished playing with it 45 minutes later, I just took him and the tray to the sink and washed both of them down. Done.

Pet Store

Before Daddy disappeared for 5 weeks to study for Boards, we had one last day o' fun after he finished his last test as a Med 2. We cooked breakfast, went to Sam's Club for samples (woo hoo! and bought eclairs for Mother's Day) played trains, went to the pet store, and got pizza for dinner, all with little or no talk of studying. Those were the days...or rather THAT was the DAY.

E excitedly spotted Nemo at the pet store and couldn't get enough of him. I was almost tempted to get him a cheap little goldfish, but then I remembered at least two of my friends complaining about having to take care of the stupid thing and how expensive it turns out to be, so I restrained myself. We get to see them on our weekly trip to the grocery store anyway. Every time we're getting yogurt at Meijer, E starts yelling "FISHIES!!!" at the top of his lungs and we have to go over and say hi. It leaves him a very happy boy.
I heart this picture because it shows him cowering away from the puppy. Just like Mommy. :) In fact, Mommy didn't even go in the little cubicle and took pictures from outside. I'm not a dog person. Really not a pet person at all. Got that from my mom too! I'm going to start uttering the phrase "You can get a dog over my dead body" when Ben tries to convince me we need one. Did I mention I'm not a dog person?
Ben had the best time of all of us at the pet store, I think. E petted this little white fluffy puppy because it was so mellow but then quickly became much more interested in the scab on Daddy's forearm and wouldn't stop poking it.
It was fun to see you that day, Daddy! Hope we can do something again soon. You know, after Boards and all that fun stuff. If anyone wants to socialize, E and I are available. :)

Officially A Kid

It's official. Emerson is finally a real boy. He finally discovered how fun it is to put olives on your fingers.





Don't pretend you don't still do it too.

I Made Myself Do It

I was talking to my good friend Natalie Humpherys from Logan awhile back about whether it's normal to dislike the pattern of your carseat from your first child. She assured me that she doesn't like hers either, so then we discussed whether or not you could make/order a new cover. I didn't really want to drop $100 on a whole brand new carseat or custom-made cover, so I made myself figure out how to redo the the carseat pad. Of course I didn't do an official "before" picture, but this one includes cute baby E at 4 months. Was he ever that small!?

Yes, try to see past the cuteness of this boy and notice the carseat pattern.

The challenge was finding a girly pattern that also coordinated with the already-green trim and canopy. I probably did the first frugal thing in my life by buying the fabric on sale at Hobby Lobby for just over $4.00. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It only took me four days...and what a four days it was. I only bled a little from all the pin pokes.

After

Now I just need to go buy some Scotch Guard fabric spray so baby girl's spit-up will wipe off fairly easy, and I'm good to go! (You can do it, Natalie! You know you want to.)

If you are thinking about doing your own, I used just under 1 1/4 yds of fabric and I sewed it to the original carseat pad and canopy. But if you're having second thoughts about doing it, you're probably right and should turn back now.

Sing-A-Long With Emerson

I shot a little video of E helping me sing songs.

A few observations:

*He likes to say the "shut them" part of the song, but says it "shup dem".
*He claps with the back of his hands?? (Not usually, but during this song for some reason...)
*He says "lay them in your lap" about 5 seconds after I've moved on.
*He does the actions to "Popcorn Popping" with only one hand since that's what I'm doing while holding the camera.
*His favorite part is smelling the treat. Listen for him drawing breath into his nostrils. :)

E-Isms

E's been doing lots of things to make me laugh lately. Some favorites:

* I told him to push his chair in at the library, and he did it with his two pointer fingers. (You must understand though, that to him "push" always means pushing a button or something that only requires one finger. Hence the double pointer finger pushing of the chair.)

* He had his little friend William or "Iam" over to play and when he came in the door E handed him some trains and said "Come on!" so William didn't even have time to miss his mommy.

* E insists on being a big helper and now knows that is what it's called. So he'll come try to take something from me and look me in the eye and say "helper".

* When Ben or "Daddyfriend" as E calls him comes home at night, E wastes no time grabbing his finger and pulling him over to play trains. This is always accompanied by E saying "Daddy, pay trains".

* This week he has asked for Aaden every single day. (Aaden is a big older boy in the ward that shares his trains with E. 4 years old is a much older boy to Emerson. :) )

* E asked to go potty in the toilet last week, so I stuck him on not thinking anything would happen. I was wrong. I heard a little plop and the deed was done. We bought him a little potty to practice with and now he asks to sit on "froggy potty" before naptime and bedtime and has been successful with going wet in there almost every time. I don't think I'm going to seriously potty train him yet though...he still doesn't have any idea of when he's going to go #2 and I have horrific images of cleaning out undies and that's just so much grosser to me than a diaper.

* E has also asked every day this week to watch "carrace show" also known as Cars. He's completely obsessed and will sit through the entire movie.

* E spotted a Hispanic man at the grocery store today and shouted at the top of his lungs "MANNY!" (from Handy Manny) and then proceeded to yell "Manny, where you!?" as we went up and down the aisles. I hope the man couldn't understand his jabberings.

* E often thinks he spots aunts, uncles, or grandparents around. Recently he's called random people "Papa" and "Nat" and said sadly "See Steffy" when we were driving in the car today. Whenever I'm on the phone he assumes it is with "Mama J" and sometimes yells "Hi Mama J!" but never when it really is her.

*Whenever he sees anything pink or remotely girly he excitedly points it out and tells me matter-of-factly "bebe sister".

*Speaking of pink, it's his favorite color. You wanna know his second favorite? It's purple. He says it "people" though.

Oh E, we love you and your two-year-old self!

Friends

Emerson just loves his little friends. He asks for certain friends every day, whether it's "EvanClaire" (a brother and sister), Tucker, or "TayeeManis" (Taylee and Mathis). Lucky for him, we got to go the zoo with Taylee and Mathis last week and had a great time. They were so stinkin' cute holding hands and saying the animal names. Apparently he's not intimidated by the fact that she's an older woman, because he insisted on sitting by her while eating his lunch.
(And apparently Emerson is blind at 2 years old, or so it appears from his sunglasses and blank expression.)

Thanks for the fun zoo trip, guys! We'll have to do it again soon.

Not So Handy Manny

You know that show Handy Manny on the Disney channel? Is anyone else disturbed by the fact that he only has 8 fingers? I mean, all the characters only have 8 fingers, but would it really be that hard to add 1 more to each hand? I would think that would be pretty easy for the animators of a DISNEY show, for crying out loud.

And why is he always wearing yellow rubber gloves? That has nothing to do with being a handyman. Maybe leather ones would suggest an ability to fix things? Every time I see the yellow gloves I just can't help feeling that all Handy Manny is good at is doing dishes, and I am even starting to doubt that due to his lack of a full set of fingers. I've dropped plenty of plates and I have all 10 of mine.

Also, the levitating eyebrows on the tools make me nervous. Couldn't they have eliminated that altogether and put their efforts toward ANIMATING MORE FINGERS!? I think most people are going to notice missing fingers on a human more than they'll notice missing eyebrows on a screwdriver or pair of pliers. But maybe that's just me.

McQueen

Emerson was a lucky duck and got a Lightning McQueen car from Uncle Brad's trip to Disneyland for choir tour. He got lost in the diaper bag (McQueen did...not Brad) for awhile, but was rediscovered last week! E's love for this car was so strong that it caused him to share equal time between trains and cars! Crazy!

We were picking out a birthday present for his little buddy Tucker (you can see part of him in this picture cut off...sorry Tucker) and E saw Dinoco Lightning McQueen. He started squealing and got so excited that I just couldn't say no and had to buy it for him.
I handed him Dinoco McQueen when we got into the car and he exclaimed "Oh! AMAZING!" and I about died laughing. I don't know where he picks up so many words, but I love it. So he was running around the house with his two McQueens, calling the red one "McQueen" and the blue one the "Amazing blue McQueen".
However, in the last few days he's distinguished between the two of them by calling the red one "Rusteeze" and the blue one "Dinoco" and he must sleep with them every night. So thank you Uncle Brad for helping us mix it up a bit!

Mommy's Big Helper

I think I've mentioned this before, but Emerson loves to help me around the house. He's an expert duster, sweeper, and mopper. He's going to make someone a good husband one day. (Of course, realistically, I'm sure he'll have grown out of it WAY before then.)
He loves to dip the mop into the bucket of water, so I've learned to let him have a turn first with the dry mop and let him pretend to dip it in water.

I almost didn't get him in the picture here because he has to back up so far to be able to get the mop into the bucket.

Does the handle look really far back there, scraping the door of the fridge? Well that's because it is. He's a very small boy on a very big mission.

Little satisfied face.

I love my big helper, but I have to admit that today I decided to do the mopping during naptime...and it only took a fraction of the time. :)

26 Weeks

Little Miss C and me. Even if I don't love this picture, at least it documents possibly my favorite shoes of all time. I heart them and I heart my mom for taking me shopping when I was there visiting. I'm getting a bit freaked out that the baby ticker thing is down to double digits instead of triple! I can't wait to meet this little girl. Any name suggestions? We're kind of struggling here.

BIG Train Tracks

We discovered some train tracks close to our house and knew of a certain little boy who might just get the thrill of his life going to see them. He got to bring Thomas and Percy along for the ride, and what a ride it was for all three of them (and let's face it...Ben too).

I told my mom the other day that I often feel like I have more children than I do because I'm constantly keeping track of all of Emerson's trains. I know the name of each one and I get worried when I haven't seen a particular one for a few days/hours. Then I'll say something like "Ben, have you seen Gordon around? I mean, he must be here somewhere. And I noticed Toby isn't over with the crowd either. Where do you think they could be?" Dorky, I know. And this is usually after E has gone to bed, so we should be done talking about trains for the night, but we're not. So far they've all turned up in good time without having to issue an Amber Alert.

E and Percy. Percy is often chosen as one of the engines E gets to sleep with at night. He doesn't play with them, he just sets them all up to watch him sleep. If I go right in when E first wakes up in the morning then they will often still be lined up just how I left them unless he's accidentally rolled over onto them. If I need E to stay happy while I shower real quick, he carefully unloads them over the side of his crib.

He LOVED trying to walk on each of the railroad ties. They were just a little too far apart to do in one step though.

A very solemn occasion

Losing his cool for just a second and cracking a smile because he's so excited. He would occasionally burst out with "TRAIN...COMIN'!!!" just because he thought there should be a train on these cool tracks. Don't worry though, there weren't any trains at the end of the line where we were.

Dumb Little Rake

I leave Daddy tending Emerson for two hours while I go to a baby shower and what happens? He buys him a dumb little rake. Actually, I was completely cuted out and Ben totally redeemed himself from when he told me it wouldn't be practical to buy Emerson a dumb little snow shovel last winter. I wanted to, bad. (But how is a rake any better?)

We finally decided to work on our yard and getting our lawn not to be so hideous. I think our neighbors are thinking "FINALLY!". So we raked the heck out of it to get all the dead stuff out and put some seeding soil down and then reseeded it. E was accidentally helpful sometimes during the raking part. Mostly it was just to keep him occupied so we didn't have to worry about him running into the road. (Even though he knows better.)

Big helper. He was very solemn during the whole ordeal. He'd set his rake down occasionally and find some other task like picking up rocks and then would run around the yard yelling "Rake! Where you? Oh! Hi rake! Silly rake!"

Not sure what gang sign Ben is flashing here, but E is intent on his raking.

We really hope our little grasslings grow. Don't be surprised if I post some pictures of our little grass children. I will be proud indeed. We're such dorks that we kept looking outside today to see if anything had happened. We both know that logically nothing would've happened, but neither of us can help it. (And let me clarify here that it was Ben and me doing this, and NOT Emerson. He's the only one with some sense in this family. Which probably explains why he was trying to run away with his little red wagon.)

Running Away?

Emerson loaded up his wagon when he thought I wasn't looking. Is it really that bad in our family that he has to run away from home? Well I guess he is 2 years old now, and at least he packed the essentials:

-Sippy cup
-Cheerios
-2 balls so he's not bored
-Plastic log...which maybe suggests shelter?

I guess I'm going to have to watch him more closely; especially when Baby Sister arrives.

*Cute Note: He tried to share his sippy cup with "Bebe sisterrr" yesterday by putting it up to my stomach and seemingly aiming for my belly button. I'm sure she appreciated the gesture. :)

Easter 2010

Yes, we did celebrate Easter. I'm embarrassed that this is over one week old. We didn't dye any Easter eggs this year because, well, I got back from Utah late Wednesday night, and had a birthday to get ready for as well as all the regular stuff that you have to do when you get back from a trip. Ok ok, I guess it was partly poor planning too. Then Ben was gone to dinner with the Young Men before Priesthood, then was at Priesthood until from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. (for those of you who have the luxury of General Conference at the normal time.) So it just didn't happen. Luckily Emerson didn't know the difference.

It was like pulling teeth to get him to find the eggs. The Easter Bunny only hid a dozen, but you would've thought there were hundreds by how long it took. I made the mistake of showing him what was inside the eggs thinking it would motivate him to look a little harder, but I was wrong.

Instead he insisted on sampling a piece of candy from each egg he found so you can imagine how fast it went.

Then after we had found the eggs, he figured out that if he threw the eggs against the couch, they would eventually break open and he would no longer need Mom and Dad to open them for him and decide how much candy he could have. Clever boy.

Yes, I...I mean the Easter Bunny, hid the basket in the bathroom on the toilet. After the rate of finding the eggs, I was glad it was in such an obvious place.

Little Cheeser

Lucky duck got a kite in his basket. We decided it was a good Sunday activity and he loved it.

Ben quickly figured out that you can't let a 2-year-old hold a kite string by himself, so he tied it around his waist first and then let him hold it.

He thinks he's so freakin' cool.

Mom was even fun too!