Monday, March 5, 2012

Just say "Cheese"!


Okay, okay. I admit it...I take TONS and TONS of pictures of my girls. But now that I have an iphone, it's just too east to pull it out all day long. And come on, who wouldn't take pictures of these girls :)? At least I think they're pretty cute. And I love to save memories. These are just random pictures of both Emma and Reese. Oh how I love being a mom. It's the best thing in the world!

Emma is growing up...she finally eats food! For a while there we had to feed her whatever she would eat, whenever she would eat it because of how skinny she is! But then she started doing much better. After Cade and I read an article about the French way of parenting, we wanted to change a few things we were doing. There were many things the article talked about but one thing we really liked is the way they teach patience and delaying immediate gratification. Only feeding your child breakfast, lunch, one snack, and dinner. We were finding it is easy to just feed Emma all day long, but after trying this Emma is a whole new eater (and learning to not be as demanding). She knows that she needs to eat a lot at a meal time because she won’t be able to eat until the next feeding. AND she eats vegetables now!!!! She still doesn’t LOVE them, but she actually eats them! And she also doesn’t come up to me all day long and say “I want this!” “Give me that!” It’s wonderful :). This is how she would act before:

(Notice the peas on the spoon with the grape)


And this is after :):



Emma is getting taller and is looking older to me all the time. And we definitely needed to buy her new jammies :):



Emma still just loves to be around me and people in general. I love playing with her. She has a little attitude sometimes (like every toddler), but is so enjoyable to be around. She is having tons of fun hanging out with other kids and it is SO good for her. She doesn’t really know very many girls. Most of my friends (and all my siblings) have only boys. But luckily Emma likes boys :). As spring approaches, we are VERY excited to be able to play outside more!

Other things Emma loves are princesses, playing dress-up, running around and jumping off of things, hiding from the “dragon” (we’ve spent many minutes in my dark closet), taking care of her baby, dancing around the room, reading books, books, and more books, and sitting on my lap all day :).







Emma also loves to play hide n go seek. Someday I won't be able to find her. For now she thinks "if I can't see mommy, she can't see me!"




Just the other day Emma started calling me "Kellie". And she would say it while smirking...she thought she was really funny and refused to call me mom. Finally I said, "Emma, my name IS Kellie, but what do YOU call me?" She replied with a smile, "mommy!" We got things straight now :).










Emma is becoming so good with Reese. She still doesn’t want to hold her or feed her very much, but she gets excited in the mornings when she sees her. I have also “caught” Emma talking to Reese and being right in her face telling her about her toys, reading books to her, or trying to get her to laugh. It is so cute! I say “caught” because usually if I ask her to or if she sees me watching, she’ll stop. But it is so cute to see them interact a little. It makes me really excited for Emma to have a little buddy that she can play with when Reese gets older. Also, whenever Reese starts crying, Emma immediately runs over to me with her hands out saying, "hold me! Hold me!" She still doesn't like the divided attention, but she is doing really well.







Reese is now 3 ½ months old but it seems like she has been a part of this family for at least a year. I just can’t imagine her not in our family now. Going from 1 to 2 kids has definitely been an adjustment, but it is so wonderful. Reese is sleeping better through the night (usually two 5 hour stretches or so) and she is looking so healthy to us. She’s a social little bug- full of so much to say and does not like to be left alone. Reese LOVES being on her tummy and rolled over onto her tummy for the first time last week! She gets frustrated now because she is so close, but can’t repeat it . She is learning to fall asleep on her own now. I give her a binky and put her in her bed awake and she can usually fall asleep without much of a problem. My favorite is when she giggles and squeals but Reese also has a very cute bottom lip when she is getting ready to cry . She is a very easy, happy baby and Cade and I love her so much!









Reese & Emma Videos

I LOVE this video! Reese is so interactive now. I have mentioned it before, but she is SO social already. She loves when I am around or anybody else and does not like to be alone for very long. I don't have to hold her all the time, but she just likes to be around people- on the floor or wherever. She is so cute :).

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I love seeing Daddy with the girls. He is so good with them and they sure love being around him. Reese is starting to giggle more and more and it's so fun.

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Emma is currently obsessed with Sleeping Beauty. It is so cute to see her dance around holding her shirt (as if she were wearing a princess dress) and grab my hand to dance with me. She will also hold her Sleeping Beauty figurines together and pretend they are dancing. All while singing "I know you I walked with you once upon a dream..." I caught this in the car. Not as good as the real thing, but you get what you can :).

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Arizona and Taft's Blessing

We love going down to Arizona to spend time with Cade's family (Grandma and Papa ASHUR as Emma would call this side of the family :) ). This trip was so we could be there for the blessing of baby Taft. It was a wonderful blessing and the trip overall was REALLY good. We enjoyed all the time we got with our family and Emma had a blast! Grandma and Grandpa have made it so wonderful for their grand kids to come visit. In the basement they made a playroom with a play house, slide, little table and chairs, books, toys, etc. It was such a fun trip!

Lots of fun pictures with the grandparents and great-grandparents:
Great Grandma and Grandpa Jones:





Emma and I made valentine's and Emma thought it was SO fun to stick the extra stickers all over great-grandma :).



Grandma Close:



Grandpa Close is amazing at playing with the toddlers as well as getting the babies to sleep :)





Reading books with great Aunt Debby:



Cuddle time with Aunt Tara. We love her!



One of the greatest times of the week was when we drove to Phoenix and had dinner with most of the extended family on Dale's side. Cade and I had been talking about how we don't get to see them very often except for the holidays in the fall. So I called a lot of the family to see if it would be possible to get together while we were in town. I was so happy when mostly all of them were available for dinner! It was so great to catch up with them and enjoy their company!





Cade and I have become really close with cousins Tamara and Eric. It was so fun to see them. Tamara and I text all the time, but it was fun to actually talk in person :). They just got married last December. Since I delivered Reese 4 days before their wedding, we were not able to make it and were extremely sad we couldn't be there.





Also one of my favorite times was on the trip back to Prescott from Phoenix. Tara and I drove together to keep each other awake and it was one of the first times that she and I have been able to just sit and talk for over an hour without being interrupted by our kids. I love talking with her and and grateful for her friendship.

Another great part of the trip was seeing Emma and Ashur play together. They had SO much fun running around and chasing each other and being devious little toddlers :). You would hear them giggling in another room and wonder what they were up to! Emma still talks about Ashur. She definitely misses her little buddy!









While we were there, the girls got some gifts for Valentine's Day. And Emma was ecstatic when grandma gave her Sleeping Beauty figurines! She LOVES them! She even shared them with Reese...because Reese won't take them from her :).






One of the days we took the kiddos to the Prescott zoo. Emma LOVES animals (like most toddlers, I guess).



The "Nemo" snake :)





Overall, the trip was really good with both girls. Much better than we expected! Reese did really well. We only had to stop once from here to Vegas and once from Vegas to Prescott. The last hour of the whole trip was a little rough but once we finally arrived back in Utah, Reese laid on the floor for at least 20 minutes and stretched and stretched and stretched. It was really funny to watch how happy she was to be out of the carseat. I felt like doing the same thing :).