Happy 2nd Birthday to Emmitt!

We spent the whole weekend celebrating Emmitt. Everything was very low-key and enjoyable.
On Friday...

we ate Emmitt's favorite meal of waffles and scrambled eggs. He wouldn't stop eating long enough to take a picture.

 He opened presents.

(Here his dinosaur is roaring.)

 He made birthday wishes.

He tried and tried to blow out the candles. He looks like he's thinking, "Why, you little..."

On Saturday...

we went to the Heritage Festival in Dayton because they were having mini train rides, and Emmitt loves trains. This was our train's little engine. 

 We saw tons of different trains. The kids loved it.

 This was my favorite train display. It was made of Legos. There was the London Bridge, Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, and a little town.  

On Sunday...

we had cake and ice cream with the family. Sam got him a Spongebob cake. Emmitt loves Spongebob. His face was so funny when he first saw the cake, and he was trying to sing the song. He didn't really touch his piece of cake. He only wanted to eat the Happy Birthday letters.

 Aunt Erin made some balloon dogs for the kids. They then had a dog fight of questionable legality.

Fun weekend. We love our Emmitt!

Life With Emmitt, Part 5

This boy is going to be a baller. This is how I know...

Long explanation short, because of the dimensions of Emmitt's room, his crib is against some built-in shelves. We don't keep much on those shelves, naturally, but sometimes things make their way into his reach.

I was watching him in the video monitor during his nap because he was stirring. I saw him grab something off the shelf and put it on his head. Once he was satisfied with the placement, he went back to sleep. I wasn't sure what it was, but I didn't want it to get around his neck. So, I sneaked in and saw him wearing Sam's sweatband.  

He is obsessed with these golf clubs. He has them with him pretty much all day, every day. Some days he asks for them before he even asks for food.

 Emmitt snuggles with some sort of sports ball instead of a stuffed animal. There have been a few times that I've had to go put him back to bed, and he will not let the ball leave his arms. It can be a bit annoying at 3 in the morning.

 I'm glad I have photo evidence for Sam that I don't let our son dress like his sister all the time.

So, this is my last post in the series dedicated to our adventures with Emmitt. I will share a birthday wrap-up tomorrow or Monday since we still have to celebrate with grandma and papa. I hope you've enjoyed getting to know our adventurous boy a little more.

Life With Emmitt, The Beginning

Two years ago today, Mr. Emmitt joined our family.

 I woke up about 7:30 in the morning feeling a little crampy. Sam had a tee time set for 8. He asked me if he should stay home, but I told him to go ahead and go since I wasn't even sure if I was starting labor or not. Off Sam went. I called my mom to tell her that I thought things were starting, but I wasn't sure. After a couple of hours of this, I thought she should probably head down from Ohio since it was a 6.5 hour drive to Virginia, and I wanted her to be there for the birth. I was really stressed out though because I really needed to do laundry since I had nothing to wear that fit, and I had been too tired to do it the night before. Well, now I was too worried about hauling our baskets of clothes down to the laundry room of our apartment building without Sam. He came home before noon and started the laundry, and that made me feel better. 

By around noon, I was sure that I was in labor. It was just really confusing because I felt like I should have been in more pain. My family has extremely painful periods with debilitating pain that is constant all day often accompanied by throwing up, so this seemed easy since the pain only came in easily manageable bits, and then it was over. 

I called the midwife about 4, I think, but didn't hear back for about 20 minutes. She said to come to the hospital. We called our friends who were going to watch Mila, but couldn't reach either of them. My this time I was feeling a little worried, but didn't want to tell Sam since I didn't want to worry him. My contractions were getting pretty close together, our friends hadn't come yet, and we had 45 minutes to drive to the hospital.

Our friends came, we left, and we called my mom to see where she was. She was on the highway we needed to take to the hospital. We told her to drive slow, and we'd catch up with her. We did, and she followed us to the hospital. Along the way I was having some pretty strong contractions, and they were really close together, like 3-4 minutes. 

We got to the hospital at 6:05, and had to get to the maternity floor. I had to stop 3 or 4 times on the way to make it through contractions. My favorite part of checking in at the hospital was how they weighed me on an industrial-size scale. Like a normal one wouldn't have been able to register my pregnancy heft. Thanks for the ego-boost ladies! It really made me laugh! 

Once in the room, I changed, and they checked my progress. The nurse asked if I had a high pain tolerance. I thought she was making a jab at me since I wanted to birth with no meds, because I squirmed a little when she checked me internally. Sam and I laughed a little because we've never considered me to someone who handled pain well. But she said that I was at a 5, and the bag of waters was bulging. I guess all those years of crappy periods had some benefit because I still didn't think things were very hard.

With Mila, I was induced and had an epidural, so I had no idea what being in real labor was like. I really wanted to deliver Emmitt with no medication. My midwife was so great at doing whatever I needed to make that happen. I was having bad back labor and wanted Sam to put pressure on my back during contractions. I stood up beside the bed to have him rub my back, and it really helped. Right after that, my water broke, and immediately I felt the most intense and painful pressure of my life. That put me into a total panic, and I remember looking at my mom and saying, "I can't do this! I can't do this!" Fifteen minutes and LOTS of screaming later, he was born at 7:32. There is nothing in this world like seeing your child's face for the first time! We spent such a nice evening together getting to know our new little boy. That night when I was trying to go to sleep, I was thinking about how scary my water-breaking experience was, and I started thinking about all the places I had been that my water could have broken like the bouncy wagon at the Safari Park, Wal-Mart, church, or in the car on the way there, and I just cried and cried about it. I knew that all the other situations but the car were unlikely since I wouldn't have been doing any of them in active labor, but you know, crazy post-birth emotions.

I was so in love my sweet, mellow baby. I miss snuggling with him all the time and his new baby smell. He's a lot more exciting now, but I miss him like that sometimes. I can't believe he's 2!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Emmitt! You're growing up so fast!
Birth Day

1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

Life With Emmitt, Part 4

Emmitt loves to do whatever Mila does, including wearing the same shoes. He really loves to steal her shoes. It drives Sam crazy that I don't do more to keep him from cross-dressing.

He especially disliked this episode :)

 He is particularly fond of this pair of black, faux-suede boots with bow-tie accents. He wears these all the time. I was desperately trying to get the kids out the door the other morning and told Emmitt to get his flip-flops. He came to the door in these. I couldn't help but laugh at him! 

I think he just likes the fact that her shoes slip on much easier than his own since he only has lace-up tennis shoes, flip-flops that he can't get between his toes very well on his own, and church shoes that I only let him wear to church. Whatever the reason, his shoe stealing always makes me smile!

Life With Emmitt, Part 3

Here's what I call an Emmitt Dilemma: How do you potty train a boy who still thinks the toilet is a  toy and a water source?

He is interested in sitting on the potty, and he thinks it is really fun.

A few days after the above picture, Emmitt was trying to fill up his watering can in the sink. I'm guessing he wasn't getting enough water that way, so he dipped it in the toilet to fill it up. Then poured it all over the floor. I had just washed the floor mats the day before.

On the one hand, I was really not happy, but at least he's a good problem solver :)

Life With Emmitt, Part 2

Emmitt loves to play with the oven. It drives me crazy, but it worries me more. I'm so scared he'll burn himself badly. He doesn't usually mess with it when it's on, and I'm usually watching closely, but we all know how sneaky kids are. He has put all sorts of stuff in there when it's off. Because of this, I have melted a number of things when I turn it on. I try to remember to look if there's anything in there, but it doesn't always happen when I'm in a rush. These are a few of the sad victims...

This was the first time. A few minutes into preheating, I smelled something like melted crayons. This is what I found. Well, this is after I removed the rapidly melting sippy cup. The bluish color is from the sippy, and the clear stuff is my measuring cup.

 There was a sippy full of milk with the handles completely melted off and the bottom going fast. This was a beast to clean. Our oven's broiler is in the bottom drawer, and this stuff melted all the way down into it. There's still some residue from it in the oven. At least I got to it before the milk got everywhere too, I guess.

 No more using my 1 cup measuring cup! This was really easy to clean up. Once I loosened the edges it popped right up.

This plush stacking block fared much better. I remembered to look shortly after I turned on the oven. I wonder what would have happened had it been in longer?

This is one of the children's play spoons. It used to be light blue. I have yet to really clean this one up. I just can't bring myself to do it.

If anyone has any good tips on cleaning charred plastic from the oven, I obviously need them. This problem has slowed a lot, but I have a feeling I will have a few more melted surprises thanks to my Emmitt. With all this interest in the oven maybe he'll be a chef? Perhaps I should capitalize on this and teach him how to make dinner. 

Father's Day

Yesterday at church I watched my kind, handsome husband, the father of my children, on the stand. I was wishing a little bit that he could sit with me, but mostly I was just feeling grateful that I get to share my life with such an amazing man. I can get in the habit of feeling sorry for myself that I don't always get much out of sacrament meeting. This is the third bishopric that Sam has been in and sometimes I miss sharing Sundays with him and having him home more during the week. After my pity party for myself on Mother's Day, I was talking to the new Bishop's wife about how hard it is for me sometimes to not have him around, and she told me that I should just be thankful that he is away from me on Sundays and in the evenings doing church work because he could be somewhere else. That was a bit of a wake-up call to me about how much of a baby I've been about it. She was totally right. Since then, I've really tried to change my perspective about it, and it has really helped. So, sorry if I've been a Debbie Downer :( 


For Father's Day I needed to think of a cheap, but meaningful gift for Sam since we got the Nike sportwatch (I totally love it!) as a Mother's/Father's Day gift. Pinterest saved the day! I got this very cute idea here. My plan is that I want to update the pictures for every Father's Day and put the ones that I take out into an album.

 I think it turned out really well, but Emmitt was a beast to work with. For example...

tossing the letter aside,

 pouting,

 and turning the letter the wrong way. I should have painted both sides.

 I also wanted a 4x6 for Sam to put on his desk at work. This was the best one I got with all the letters facing the right way.

I asked Mila the questions on this form and helped her fill it out. She did write her own name and Sam's. My favorite answers were that Sam is 28 pounds and when I asked her how tall he was she said, "Oh he is strong!" She said his favorite t.v. show is motorcycles (which he never watches any motorcycle stuff), his favorite clothes are "church clothes and work clothes" (he would disagree), and when he goes to work he "talks to people." It was really fun to hear her answers.

The kids playing with Daddy before bed. 

Thanks to my sweetheart for being such a good daddy to our little ones, for being so good to me, and for taking care of us all.

Thanks to my daddy aka James Bond (minus the womanizing) for being such a good daddy to me, for always protecting our family, and for helping me in church with Emmitt.

Thanks to all the men who love their wives and their children, who work hard to support them, and who lead them by righteous example.

The world would be a better place if there were more men like them!    

Life With Emmitt, Part 1

Emmitt turns 2 on Friday, June 22nd. I've been thinking a lot about the busy little boy who fills my days with messes and smiles. And tantrums too. Since he was about 18 months, he has been in the wonderful stage of toddlerhood where a lot of days are just really hard. I remember feeling this way with Mila, and it passed. She grew out of it. Emmitt will too. Even with how irritated I feel sometimes and how much extra work I get to do, I can't help but remember the feeling I had when he was born, that a strong, special spirit had entered my life. As a tribute to my Emmitt, I'm going to share some posts about life with him over this next week.


Emmitt had an exciting life even before he was born. He did all sorts of stuff in utero.
Emmitt graduated with me.

He came along on a visit to the Appomattox Courthouse. In my family, this place is a big deal. In case you didn't know, this is where the Civil War ended. My dad knows everything about the Civil War.

He went to the National Zoo in Washington D.C.

He was there while we fed ducks in front of the Washington Monument.

Emmitt was there when we went and played at Boxerwood Nature Center and Woodland Gardens in Lexington. A really fun place for kids for all you living in Virginia.

Emmitt loved bouncing around with us on a giant wooden wagon at the Virginia Safari Park exactly a week before he was born. It scares me now to think that I did that while I was so close to delivery! I actually cried about it in the hospital the night I delivered him. More on that next week. This is also a must-do activity for Virginia folks. I've been missing Virginia, sigh.

Check back this coming week as I celebrate my life with Emmitt.

Us Lately...

We've been having some fun. It's been a month since I last posted (shocker, right?) so I'll try to catch up.

We've been playing in the backyard. We got a swing set. A new Ace's Hardware was opening up like a half hour away and for the grand opening they were selling these for $100. I saw the commercial and hurried over the next day. I price compared it with others that had the same amount of stuff, and it would normally be more like $180, so I was happy. So were the kids :)

We've been playing golf.

We've been going to the "beach."

They set their chairs up on the blacktop and it made me smile when I saw their little feet peeking out from behind the car.

We went to a baptism at a member's house, and we had a blast playing in their yard. We need to go back in play clothes next time.

Sam and Emmitt had so much fun on the pedal car.

You can't really tell the awesomeness of this swing from the pictures. When you swing out the ground drops off so you're like fifteen feet off the ground. The first time I went out it totally made my stomach flop. So much fun!

 Dad, Mom, me, and Sam on THE swing.

 They even have a caboose! 

We'll definitely be going back to play some more.

We flew a kite on Memorial Day.

Mila

 Emmitt

 Sam got it going really high.

We had an egg hunt. We had had a pretty bad day so I told the kids that if the rest of our day went better we could have an egg hunt. I got this particular egg hunting set of adorable pre-filled eggs on clearance after Easter for $1. I like to have a number of these on hand just for days like this.

See how happy they are? Works like a charm!