Trick or treating at Haunted Hallways with Aaron, Andrew and Ashley.

Chillaxin!

Emma with our new van, I think she may love it more than I do!



Em reading to Sam

I really am going to try to blog about once a week. I am just so incredibly unorganized. Anyways... I am sitting here listening to my girls play campout. It is so funny to listen to Emma try to convince Samantha to do what she wants. Emma is my mother hen and loves to be in charge. Sammi is for the most part willing to do whatever big sissy is doing. Emma made up a bed on the floor and put dress up clothes on Sammi. After each change they come in and show me. They are wearing jackets since it is cold outside at their campsite, lol! Emma's games are never simple, the more elaborate the better! Now Sam is hiding in here with me and Emma is trying to bribe her back into the campsite. Today in the van Sammi was imitating every dance move Emma made. What a blessing to watch these two together everyday.

Samantha dancing on Em's bed

My baby is not a baby anymore

Everyone always laughs at me when I call Samantha a baby. But she is my baby! She is definitely getting too big too fast though. She started refusing to sit in her high chair so we took it down last week and brought up the booster seat. Every time she sees the camera she gets a big grin, unless Sissy is in the picture with her and then she pushes and yells. Last night I gave Emma a spa pedicure and of course Sammi had to have one too. She looked so cute. She still isn't saying much at all but gets her point across just fine. She is an excellent head shaker and nodder. Sam do you want lotion, yep she nods. Did you have fun at the babysitters, an adamant head shake no! Her Papa calls her smiley and she is pretty happy most of the time. She loves to try on Emma's shoes and jewelry and today wore a necklace and took a purse to the gym just like Em. One of her favorite things to do right now is stand on Emma's bed and dance to Emma's VBS cd. She is also drinking from a big girl cup at the table. sniff sniff.

My girls are getting so big!

I looked out the back window the other day my little girl was pumping her legs on the swing! All by herself. It warmed my heart, I can't believe how big she is getting! It is also a relief since she could swing for hours and I get tired of pushing her long before she gets done. We go for her preschool open house mid August. She seems very excited but I think she may be getting a little nervous too. She has been a little difficult to deal with lately. She has been taking swim lessons and we can't believe how fast she is picking up on it. She did level one and came out of it doggy paddling. She loves to practice and pretty much loves anything in the water. Except canoeing. We went on a camping trip 2 weeks ago and went canoeing and she loved playing in the river and loved camping after she got used to it but she was completely freaked out by the canoe. When we got there late Friday night she got out excited. Then she lets out this blood curdling scream and we all thought something stung her. She said she got bit by a bug. Then she locked herself in the tent w/the flashlight and refused to come out. Eventually we talked her into coming out and hanging out around the fire for awhile, then she decided to go exploring in the dark. Sat. we take the bus to the drop off and we get out and she starts crying that she doesn't want to canoe and she is not getting in that thing. I tried explaining to her that we had no other way to get back to camp. She was really scared and every time we stopped it was a bit of a battle to get her back in the canoe. But she loved swimming in the river. It was overall a good trip, next year I think we will just camp and try the canoe again when she is a little older.

Sammi is starting to say a few words they are few and far between. She says mama and Ehba (Emma) most often. I have heard ball once and Daddy has heard her say binky a couple times. She also loves the water and thinks that she can swim like Emma. She just takes off in the pool and walks until the water is almost over her head, all the while pumping her arms like she is swimming. It doesn't faze her a bit to go under either. She comes up smiling, no sputtering. She climbs everything and can get on our bed and Emma's bed. We are quickly entering the tantrum stage! She gets mad a lot over how we serve her food. She wants her banana in the peeling and her breakfast bars in the wrapper and no bib. She is very silly though and keeps us laughing. She makes the funniest faces and dances in the car like a bobble head. I will post pictures soon.

4th of July

We had a nice day on the fourth although it didn't feel like the 4th of july to me. Probably because we traditionally spend the day at Dave's dad's house cooking out and shooting fireworks. Since he had houseguests all of June we decided to give him the year off and went instead to a birthday party and to celebrate at our good friends who just moved in down the street. The party was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast. They played in the sand, the playground, at the splash and play, with squirt guns, heard Jack Snaps perform and of course had hot dogs and cake for the birthday boys. Then home for a nap before we spent the evening at Beth and Greg's. Unfortunately they had been up late the night before and Emma had a complete meltdown just before dark and had to be taken home without watching any fireworks. Sammi just didn't like the noise so she was fine with mom's decision. Emma recently finished up level 1 swim lessons and came out of it doing the doggy paddle and swimming underwater. She began level 2 tonight and is a regular little mermaid. She really enjoys the water and asks to swim several times a day. She is always the first in the pool and the last one out. Sammi also loves the water and thinks she can swim. She bats our hands away and takes off into the water as if she is 4. We really have to keep an eye on her. She gets cold pretty fast though so her swims are more short lived. She loved the splash and play at the party. She is our silly girl these days. She has the orneriest laugh and keeps us tickeled all the time.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Mother's Day

Emma changed her mind about the bike helmet for mother's day. She told Daddy what she wanted to get me and he cracked up and told me that he didn't know what I would think of it but that I would use it a lot. I had no idea what to expect. That morning I went and ran a 5k. It was early and rainy so Dave and the girls stayed home to sleep. I went and ran and I ran a lot faster than I expected to. I was very proud of my 29.16 finish. Which put me at about a 9 1/2 minute pace. I come home from the race and get out of the car, a smiling Emma face peers out the window then runs out of the house and wraps me in a hug yelling "happy mother's day!" I came inside and she wants to give me my gift right away. She had told me the day before that she had picked out a music card just for me and I assumed she meant those musical greeting cards, she loves those and Dave had just got one for graduation 2 days before. Well, I open my gift and she got me a gift card for mp3's. Dave wanted to get a smaller denomination but she didn't like the color of that one so she got a bigger one. Then I open the big gift. It is a Hannah Montana pillowcase! Emma is so excited to give it to me. And of course I love it! We put it on my pillow right away. But the best part is why she got me a Hannah Montana pillowcase. The week before we had gone to walmart to let her spend her allowance. We checked out the clearance rack to see what they had. Emma found a Cheetah girls pillowcase that she wanted to buy. I explained that she could buy it but it would take all of her money. She asked if I liked it and I said yes, it was very pretty. In the end she decided not to buy it. But she remembered that I had said I liked it (of course I meant for her but...) and tried to buy me something I wanted. Dave said when they went shopping they didn't have the Cheetah girls one so they checked out the pillowcase aisle and she picked out the Hannah Montana one. I think it was just about the sweetest thing that she thought of something I said I liked. It just made it the best mother's day ever! When I put it on my pillow and showed her I guess my voice cracked and she said" Mommy, are you crying?" I didn't know what to say so I just didn't answer and she told everyone the rest of the day that she bought me a Hannah Montana pillowcase and that I cried when she gave it to me because I was so happy. It was hilarious and sweet!

Dave's Graduation

Dave graduated from UMKC May 8, 2009 with a Master Degree in Environmental and Urban Geosciences. We are all glad to have Daddy home full time again and I know he is relieved to be done. The graduation ceremony was a lot more emotional for me than I expected it to be. I am so proud of my scientist husband! This is a picture of him and his advisor JJ.

Here we are at graduation.

Dave and his Dad

Jenn, Dave, Tim and Russ. Yay Dave!

My girls!

My girls are so sweet. Emma wanted to take a bath by herself this morning so I put Sammi in for hers first. She could hear Emma singing in the living room and kept pointing. I said, "well holler at her" So Sammi gave it her best shot. "Ehba!" She has just started trying to say Emma this week and it always is Ehba. It cracks me up. She really wanted Emma to get in with her. If Emma is in the tub by herself Sammi comes in and gives her kisses and tries to climb in with her. Sammi is starting to say some words. So far she says, Mama, Dada, bubble, Papa and Emma. She also makes a dog noise (sort of, it is kind of like a growl) and makes an uh-oh type sound. Emma is really in to Scooby Doo and has started talking like SHaggy. She says "like" a lot and says "totally" a lot. She will say something like "I totally want cereal" or "it is like hot in here". It is the funniest thing. She sounds so grown up these days and her expressions when she talks are priceless. She does a lot of hand gesturing. We are very excited that DAve graduates on Friday and have enjoyed DAddy with no homework. Tonight I decided to start on taking down the wallpaper in the kitchen and we got all of the old paper down. I thought it would take longer but with his help it was a breeze. It came off really easy. Of course now I have to look at it until payday to buy paint. Emma is big into planning things too. She comes up with these elaborate explanantions for how we should do things. Today it was "mom, I will buy you a bike helmet for mother's day. Then we can ride together and have a family day on the bikes. NO, Daddy can push Sammi in her car and we can all ride together. but it will be after mother's day. I will get you a bike helmet."

Easter

So my girls are so funny and beautiful that they take my breath away everyday. I wish I could put into words the expressions that they make and the million ways they make us laugh. Samantha is so funny and silly. She is really starting to babble in this alien language. Sometimes she gets so high pitched and is almost like a screech or singing. And she doesn't really say any words but she understands a lot more than I think she should be able to. Last night she put her socks in the hamper when I asked her to. Of course then she got them back out to play with. Her interests are so different than Emma's at that age. She loves the big legos and puts them together then pulls them apart. Today she put two together then put them in a car. In and out they went. She gets really excited over balls. And she hugs and pats everything. She hugs the lego towers and pats it. Yesterday at a playdate our friend Hannah hit Sammi and she looked at her like "oh yeah, watch this" then she hit herself. She loved the plastic Easter eggs and played with them for a half hour at a time.

Emma is so 4. She is trying to find her sense of humor and makes up jokes all the time. They either don't make sense or are just statements. But she just cracks up. She likes to make up nonsense words, too. She likes to rhyme but with her nonsense words. I don't think she can think of a real word to rhyme fast enough so she just makes one up. At least she understands the concept. She has spring fever I think. If I am not telling her to sit on the furniture not jump I am yelling to stop doing flips. She likes to break dance (thanks Zane). It is pretty stinkin funny. She still ends up in our bed almost every night. She loves to snuggle and curls up right next to one of us. Right now it is usually daddy. She makes the most grown up expressions and I love to watch her when she thinks no one else is around. She was peeling a banana this morning and the look on her face was precious. She was concentrating so hard and you could just tell after she got started her mind was wandering. And she is so kind hearted. She loves to share with Sammi and tries to take care of everyone. When I was sick she kept bringing me sips of water.

Sammi wearing Emma's tiara. She already likes to dress up. Where did I get such girly girls?

Samantha loves drinking out of straws. She also loves blowing bubbles and spitting in them, so I was done with my water after this.

St. Patty's Day

Emma with her face paint at the Martin City Parade. She was in the princess of the parade contest with her BFF Ashley.
Emma and Ashley looking super cute by the trash can.
All the kids hanging in the Nau van. This is only 6 of the 11. Waiting for the parade to start.

St. Patrick's Day

We went to the parade on Saturday here in town and it was so sunny and beautiful. It was a lot of fun. Sammi likes to watch the horses and Emma just likes the whole shebang! Emma went to a sleepover at Ashley's (her first sleepover at a friends, sniff,sniff)and we met them Sunday for the Martin City parade. We got there way too early and Emma was a grouch and I wanted to scream. But once the parade got going it was a lot of fun. The kids ran between the parade and the van and we all just chatted it up. There were four families there and between us we had 11 kids, 8 of them 4 years old or under.