Awa!

"Awa! Awa! Awa!" is all I hear these days, because that's what Emerson calls Ophelia and he wants to play and be around her all the time! Sister and Brother love is so special and so neat to see. Here is Ophelia reading Emerson's favorite book to him:

I love that Emerson barely fits into Ophelia's tiny lap and she has trouble seeing the book around his big head! He has absolutely no reservations backing up into her lap when they're watching TV, reading books, or at story time at the library. Absolutely melts my heart to see them being kind and loving to each other. This must be what our Father in Heaven feels for us looking down on how we treat our earthly brothers and sisters.

Another month and then some passed before I am sitting down and catching up on our summer life. But here is what we've been up to lately...

Until the mosquitoes got really bad and the temperatures unbearable, we played in our backyard. Slip'n'slide!

Father's Day 2013. We had Grandpa and Grandma over here and had a nice dinner. Emerson has been all about Grandpa lately. He runs to him when Grandpa first come in and snuggles up to him whenever he gets a chance. So sweet :)

This is one of our new kid-friendly dinner ideas - octopus pasta. Angel hair pasta poked through a turkey dog and boiled. Fun and easy to make, and most importantly the kids eat it! The kids have not been very good eaters lately, so this saved the day.

The only thing that the kids DO eat any time of day is fruit! Emerson loves it all. Here he is working on an apple:

Also, there are two little mice living in my tupperware cupboard lately:

We have been having some lovely family get-togethers. The kids love playing together. They giggle, laugh, run around, and get so excited being around each other. Love it!

Ophelia has not been going to dance classes in the summer, but she still loves dancing. Here is a little impromptu freestyle dance from her:

We have been going to lots of splash parks and pools this summer and that has allowed us to be outside and not be scorched by the hot Texas sun. Since PJ has been on vacation, he has been joining us, so I have an extra hand to snap a picture or two:

Emerson has been getting so brave and fearless...of anything. It's not a good thing when we're talking about him running around a pool or running in the pool. I've caught him dozens of times just taking a step into the pool with no regard as to whether there will be a step or shallow water in the pool or NOT!!! Also I've pulled him out of the water a dozen of times, when he was completely submerged under and freaked out...The trouble is that the little stinker will not wear any sort of floaties or vests either. Is that normal for boys not to learn from their past experiences??? I'm learning that with this guy, it is :)

I have signed up Ophelia for her first ever swim class this summer. She has mainly learned how to go down into the water all the way and hold her breath. Also they've been working on their kicks. She has loved her class! Her confidence in the water has definitely increased and she loves showing off how she can go under water. At least with her, I have no trouble having her wearing her floaties when swimming in the deep waters.

Here they are doing their class "cheer" at the end of a lesson:

One of the splash parks that we went to has a little "dinosaur dig" area. The kids had a good time exploring it:

I did have 3 relaxing days this summer :) Grandma and Grandma came to stay for two night at our home while PJ and I escaped to San Antonio. Oh, it was sooooo nice! So nice to talk to each other uninterrupted, to eat a meal at a restaurant without being rushed out by some fussy kids, to truly enjoy being with your eternal companion, focusing only on each other. Ahhh! This is what we have to look forward to in...16 or 17 years :)

We got into some crazy downpoor on our way there, but that didn't stop us from having fun. We stayed at a Bed and breakfast in the King William district, ate out all we wanted, went to the temple, shopped at the mercado, watched a movie in a movie theatre, took a boat ride on the riverwalk. It was a blast! Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa! When we came back home the house was spotless, kids still alive, and Grandma and Grandma all packed and ready leave :) They were ready for their break, that's for sure!

A Day in the Life of Emerson

I have been trying to take snapshots of Emerson's daily activities, so I could make this blog post. At this point in my life the stuff that he does seems routine, but I image looking back at this in five or ten years and remembering all these cute things with tears of love and joy in my eyes! So, here we go...

Emerson's To Do List

Go through Emerson's and Ophelia's shoes.

At least once a day, Emerson goes up to the shoe bench and checks out the shoes. Mine and PJ's are not nearly as exciting as his and his sister's. As he finds his shoes, he says in a high-pitched voice "choe!" at least half a dozen times. Then tries to put them on. Sometimes brings them to me.

"Read" books.
This little bookshelf that we got with our Craigslist couch is one of his favorite spots to be by. The books on that shelf come off of it every time he happens to pass by, which is every ten minutes or so. This leaves me cleaning these books up about 100 times a day, or so it seems! The books scattered on the floor tend to be a hazard to this newly-walking man and he slips and falls on them regularly. Good thing he has lots of padding on his back end! He has a few of his favorite books that he brings to me, wherever I may be in the house, so that we can read it together. Sometimes he just sits there and flips through book pages all on his own. Other times he pushes books down between the book shelf and the wall behind it.

Watch "Singing Time".
He loves Singing Time! And I love watching it with him, because he usually sits still on my lap, so I can cuddle/hug him, play with his hair, smell him (is that weird? I love the way he smells! He still has that "baby smell" to him), and massage his little feet.

Do naughty things (when Mama is not looking).
Now that he walks so well and toddles all over the house, things go missing pretty regularly. Dry-erase markers from his big sister's room end up everywhere and pretty easy to spot on the floor. But it gets trickier to find things when he tosses them in the trash! The time when he threw away the remote control, it took me a good 20 minute to find where he put it... I have not been able to find a couple of markers and one of his slippers, and I'm afraid it's gone in the trash and now is gone forever!

He also figured out how to open the dishwasher, so utensils go missing unless I remember to shut the dishwasher door tightly.

Play outside.
He is growing to be such an outdoorsee little guy. He loves to go to the backyard. The minute he hears that backdoor creek, he is right there, ready to go out. We have a dirt pit for him to dig and play in. He also loves to find various rocks, pebbles, and balls, and puts them in his mouth. He is so used to me making him spit the stuff out that he carries an second helping in his hand, so as soon as I ask him to spit the first rock out, he put the one from his hand into his mouth!

And, yes, he can stuff the whole golf ball into his mouth. Ophelia tried it and turns out she has a tiny mouth and can't open it nearly as big as Emerson can.

Eat snack grapes.
Grapes have become a staple food item in our home. Emerson signs "grapes" and says "bow", which means grapes, as soon as he sees them. He can pack down a ton of them. And then ten minutes later come back and get more!

Besides grapes, he will eat any other fruit. I have yet to see a fruit that he doesn't like. He also often enjoys his snack time entertainment - Ophelia. It totally cracks him up when Ophelia sticks out her tongue at him and closes her eyes:

Being the sweet boy he is, he always shares with his sister whenever she comes up with an open mouth:

Throw a tantrum when Mama does not let Emerson out.
There are not many things that upset him, but not being able to go outside is one of them. Another one is when this mean Mama does not let him bang on the laptop keyboard!

Playtime!
At this age he is all about playing with toys, exploring them, and learning with them. This wooden tower is still one of his favorite toys, ever since he mastered doing that at the age of 9 months.

Go to the library for baby story time!
What a blessing it is to live so close to the library! We have been going there every week for story time when Ophelia is at preschool. It is such a special one-on-one time for me and Emerson. He enjoys all the little nursery rhymes and songs so much! His favorite are "itsy-bitsy" spider and "twinkle, twinkle". During toy time, he loves to find various balls or crawl through the tunnel.

Run errands with Mama.
I guess that's the destiny of all younger siblings: to get tagged along wherever their older siblings need to go. About a month ago, I switched Emerson into a forward-facing seat. He has been loving it so much! He loves to see and point and me and PJ in the front seats, he looks and checks out things outside, he makes faces and silly noises with his sister, and I can easily now give him things to keep him happy and content.

Play with sister.
He loves to do whatever Ophelia is doing. If she is having snack at this little table, he tries to flip another chair over, so that he can sit and have snack with her too. When she was coloring, he wanted to color too. Lasted for about 20 seconds:

Play at the park.
He loves going to parks. He has been mastering climbing the stairs on all playgrounds. Going down...not so much yet. So I feel like going to play at the park means a lot of work for me: chasing Emerson around making sure he has nothing in his mouth and is not about to fall off the playscape or get trampled over by a bigger kid. Swings are pretty nice and safe though:

Get a haircut.
Emerson's first ever haircut was more of a head buzz. But this time I actually took him to a real kid-salon and  got him his first "real" haircut. He did so well too! The lollipop was definitely a winner! Kept him completely preoccupied and calm the whole time:

Bath time.
If we just mention the word "bath", Emerson walks as fast as his little legs carry him to the bathroom. I have been even censoring the word "bath" in his books when I read them to him, because it makes him run to the bathroom. He LOVES baths!

Sleep time.
Most of the time, Emerson is really good at going to sleep when he is feeling tired. His favorite sleeping position is on his tummy, knees tucked under himself, thumb in mouth. It is so funny to me that this same position was likely his favorite from his very birth. I swaddled him and put him to sleep on his back for four months, and he was a terrible sleeper, until one day I didn't swaddle him and he turned onto his stomach to sleep, and he slept for 6 hours straight!

This is one of my favorite times because sleep time means mama time!

When mama goes to work...

And here is another milestone in the life of Ophelia: climbing chairs and figuring out that you can scoot a chair over anywhere you can't reach. Thus mama is having to watch her pretty closely! One time I didn't, I heard the water turn on in the bathroom, turned out she climbed the toilet and was "washing hands", as she explained to me.



Note the proximity of a hot pan full of dinner pasta. See what I have to deal with!



On another hand, she can also do a head stand :) Maybe this will keep her from becoming smart so dang quickly! Just kidding, sweety pie Ophelia :)



PJ won an award at UTA for his presentation about the Triqui language that he studied last summer, so Ophelia and I went to support him for the award ceremony. There were 200+ people awarded and PJ was almost the last one up. But as soon as the first person was announced, and everybody clapped, Ophelia exclaimed "YAY, papa!". She said that after the second person too :) I had to tell her that "yay, papa" will have to wait for a while. She had fun saying hello to the row of people behind us and clapping and getting in and out of her foldout chair (which I had to hold down myself, because apparently they are not designed to hold down a 21 lb person). I took more pictures with my ipod, but have not uploaded them yet. But these pictures (kinda like graduation ones) never turn out good from the audience.



We've been visiting friends' houses with Ophelia and she loves having little buddies to play with. Here are pictures from our visit to Kayden, Alysha, and Mackenzie.



Hugs and friends - are such wonderful things to have!



It looked like fun, but Ophelia didn't get into it as much as I did:





I love her long eyelashes!





So hard to take a still picture of her!



It seems that during the week, since we don't see PJ much, Ophelia gets really mama-attached. So, it's been really nice for me to have a day off and for PJ to have a daddy-daughter day. When I went to work last Saturday, PJ got Ophelia a baloon to play with, which she loved! They always have so much fun playing together, being silly and goofy, laughing and tickling and rolling on the bed. So, when mama goes to work, it's fun times apparently. They stay in pijamas until they absolutely have to get dressed. Here is Ophelia with juice spilled at brakfast all over her front. She was still wearing that onesie when I got home from work!!!



And here are the good balloon times:







And this was one lazy Sunday afternoon after church:





And it looks like I say "and" a lot in my posts.