Yesterday it was over 80 degrees here, se we let the girls get their swimsuits on and play outside with the water a little bit. We lathered on the sunscreen, put the hose (just a small drip, really) on the trampoline, and they had a great time getting wet and jumping a little bit. Allison was pretty funny because although she is not walking yet, she will stand up on the trampoline and try to jump. It's just that forward motion that's holding her back, I guess.
Of course we had to have otter pops, too. Allison did pretty well eating hers, I just had to push it up a little bit every once in awhile but she would bite it off and hold it just fine. Emily of course is an otter pop pro by now.
This is a photo of Allison's teeth. You can kind of see them...her two front teeth are like two little round blobs sticking out of her gums, and her bottom teeth are all crooked. But at least she has some (8 I think now). Three months ago she had none!
Emily's preschool is having a recycling contest for the month of March. If they brought in a big bag of cans/bottles they could pick a prize from the treasure chest. We saved up all our cans and bottles for three weeks (trying to use a few more than usual, of course) and she got to take in her bags and pick her prize. She picked a little set of sidewalk chalk. As luck would have it, Daddy was coming home from three days away that evening, so we decided to put her new prize to good use and make him a sign on the driveway. Emily told me what to write:
I put Allison in her high chair for some lunch today and gave her some blueberries, a roll and her sippy cup with apple juice, while I sat at the table next to her with a corn dog (don't tell my doctor!). She was eating the blueberries but kept pointing at the table...I finally realized she wanted my corn dog! I gave her Emily's leftover corndog a couple weeks ago when we were at the zoo and she loved it - well I guess she remembered and wanted some more. I tried to give her a bite but she grabbed the whole thing. Oh, well, she needed some protein with her meal, anyway. The video at the bottom shows her enjoying it. The rest of the photos are some of her recent exploits throughout the house.
Pulling all the books down from her shelf - she will sit in the pile and look at the books.
I went in for my 20-week ultrasound this morning, and we confirmed that we are having a boy! (I had one at 12 weeks and the boy parts were pretty obvious, but they said we can't know for sure until now.) He is due August 12 according to his measurements and August 18 according to my doctor's calculations. I vote for the 12th! Which also happens to be my older brother's birthday. Emily has already named him Nickolas...but I don't think that will be his name. So now we have to shift gears from pink to blue - mostly just clothing since the rest of our baby stuff is already blue or gender neutral, thank goodness!I took Allison and Emily with me this morning, plus Grandma Boam, and Allison was so cute, she got all worried that the ultrasound tech was hurting me or something and started crying. She was fine for the first few minutes, then she kept looking at the sonogram tool on my belly and back at me and got so upset. Emily was excited to see the "pictures" of her brother. He looks perfect and healthy so far.
It's already been a month now, but my twin nephews arrived on February 19, 2009. My little sister Lisa had to go in for an emergency C-section and the babies were in the hospital for about 8 days, but now they are home and all are doing well. It took a few days, but they finally got the names Jackson and Brandon. Big brother Ian (4) and sister Hailey (2) are apparently being very loving. Check out the photos and some of Lisa's posts on her blog. Congratulations Lisa and Adam! We are going to visit in April - I can't wait!
February 2009Towards the end of February the Tour of California, a cycling stage race, came through Clovis. For anyone wondering where Clovis is, it's on the east side of Fresno, and we live three houses down from the city lines. Anyway...it was extra exciting because it was Lance Armstrong's first race in his return to professional cycling, so we being cycling fans had to go see it. Kevin used his magical people skills and found an old friend, a police officer, who was working the event and got him a good spot in the VIP section right near the finish line. I unfortunately had an appointment then had to pick up Emily just at the time the race was coming to an end in Clovis, so I missed all the cycling part. But we drove downtown anyway and got to see all the team cars, loaded up with bikes on top, driving out and we got to walk through the finish line area and feel the excitement.
This is one of several of Kevin's shots as the cyclists came zooming across the finish line. I don't know who it is...Kevin actually got Lance Armstrong in one of his photos (we can only tell because of his special yellow and black bike), but he said they were going so fast and there was so much dust from all the chalk on the ground he couldn't really see anything but a big blur of wheels and bodies!
Here we are after the fact. They had a bunch of booths set up from sponsors and stuff, so we walked around those and looked at the $15,000 bikes and what not. Kevin wants one. I told him no. [A side note: Kevin put this photo up on Facebook and someone wondered why he is holding Allison and I'm holding Emily - you'd think he'd hold the bigger child, right? Well it's just because Kevin was carrying Allison already and Emily was walking, then she didn't want to be in the picture so I had to pick her up and hold her for the photo. That's all...I really don't carry her around-she's too heavy for me!]
February 2009
Kevin works in the Bay Area now so he commutes up every week and stays a night or two with my parents while he goes to meetings and visits clients and etc. The rest of us usually stay home because I have to work and Emily has preschool, but the week of Valentine's we went up for a short visit. It was exciting because I had new portraits of the girls for my parents, and snuck in the 12-week ultrasound pictures of our baby on the way. Like "here's the latest photos of the kids for you - oh, yes, that is a new one!" That's how we told them they were getting a new grandchild. We held out pretty long this time - I guess the third time around I just felt like waiting.My mom had an extra mylar heart balloon (see photo below from last year) like the one we finally blew up for Emily last Valentine's day...well I won't tell the whole story again but if you want to read it look through the old posts for "Saved by a pickle". Anyway so she had another one and we took it to the store to get inflated, and of course Allison had to get her own too.
Emily was so happy to have her giant balloon again. We made sure it could not escape and fly off into the sky again. It had a really heavy weight tied to it.
Allison liked her little balloon, too. Both made it safely into the car for the journey home. Driving up the Altamont pass, almost to the top - POP!! Emily's big Valentine balloon popped from the pressure. I guess it was just never meant to be with those balloons! Neither of them lasted more than four hours inflated. And after sitting in the closet all neatly folded for nearly two years. Allison's balloon, on the other hand, is still halfway inflated and kind of floating around the house.
This is the special Valentine Emily made for her Dad. It says "Hogs and Kisses". It was all her idea, and she had such a great time putting it together and decorating it. You can see the little drawing she made of her Dad right above the pig's tail. Cute.
February 2009After waiting a few months for us to collect some snow "gear" and for a good snow to come in the mountains nearby, we got to take our much-anticipated snow trip. Living in Fresno we don't encounter snow, well, ever at our house, so it was kind of a big excursion to go visit for a few hours. I found some good deals on snow pants and boots on ebay for the kids and Kevin and I had our old stuff from when we lived in Utah...yes you all can laugh who live in the snow, but hey, they don't even sell snow-appropriate clothes around here! We can't just walk into Target like the rest of you and buy what we need! So the day finally came: we had all our warm clothes together, it snowed on a Friday and was a beautiful clear day on Saturday. Perfect. We packed up some lunch and headed up the road into the Sierras fo about an hour and decided on the first snowy place we found - our friend's cabin! They weren't there, but the long driveway had about 6-8 inches of snow, just enough for a little sled track and some deeper snow in the back where Emily could make her first snow angel. This was really Emily's first time ever to play in the snow, so she was really excited.
She especially liked to eat the snow - she knew not to eat anything yellow!
I was the one with the camera the whole time, so I am not in any pictures, but I was there!
January 2009Emily is our moody four-year-old. I think sometimes she is bipolar because she goes from being super happy lovey sweet to tantrum angry pouty in a matter of seconds. I think it's just her age, though! I choose to remember the times she says "You are the best mom ever and I love you more than anyone else in the whole world loves their mom" over "You're always mean to me and you are the worst mom ever!" Can you blame me? She begged to get her hair cut for a few months, so after I took the girls to get their photos we took her to get it chopped off. It actually turned out really cute, and it's much easier to deal with than the longer locks.
In contrast to Allison, Emily is not a big fan of bathtime. Especially having her hair washed.
This was right after she got her hair cut - showing off her orange smile (we get the best oranges from our tree in the backyard) and her new robe, which she would put on as soon as she got home from school in the afternoon and wear for the rest of the evening!
January 2009Allison has earned herself the nickname "Cyclone". Everywhere she goes, she leaves a trail of debris behind her. She is a very curious, exploring one-year-old...we didn't get much of that from Emily so it is a big change!
She found her puffs in the diaper bag and figured out how to get the lid off. "What, mom? I'm hungry."
Of course we had to have otter pops, too. Allison did pretty well eating hers, I just had to push it up a little bit every once in awhile but she would bite it off and hold it just fine. Emily of course is an otter pop pro by now.
Emily worked especially hard on the "fence" at the top and coloring in many of the letters and our family drawing. Allison helped by crawling through it a few times and smearing the chalk all over herself. She also tried to eat it, as she does anything she can get her chubby hands on.
And this other picture I just thought was kind of cute. I am just now realizing she's pouting in this photo (probably this was the day of the sidewalk chalk, after she got stuck in the stroller to keep her out of the chalk), but her chubby cheeks and hair hanging down in her eyes...it's just typical Allison right now.
She loves bathtime...I included this photo because you can see how she has no teeth. Now two months later, she has seven!