Easter Weekend: April 7-8

This year we headed to Bowling Green for Easter weekend. It was Cooper's 2nd birthday party that Saturday and Sunday we went to church, enjoyed lunch at Memommy Meisel's, and had an Easter egg hunt at Memommy Lee's that evening. Somehow, mom managed to keep secret from the grandmothers that Jeremy and I were expecting. I don't know how she kept from telling them, but it was fun to be able to share our news in person with them! 

Easter egg creations

We let Emily play with dipping the eggs in the colored bowls. She did pretty well although she needed close guarding and usually one of us had to hold the bowl from tipping over.

At Cooper's 2nd birthday party

The party was held at Mom and Dad's church. They recently added on a family life center. This party room was equipped with a kitchen and was adjacent to the gymnasium. The kids all had a blast running around and we could barely get them to stop and eat. As you can see, little Hunter's face is red from all the exercise!

Birthday boy!

Little Hudson and Pop play together

Hunter scores!

Emily poses with a sweet smile on Easter morning

Me and my pretty girl!

Trying to get Emily to stay still for the camera

 Jeremy and Emily. Jer kisses those cheeks every chance he gets.

Even if none of the above photos are "picture perfect," I love the spontaneous hugs from Emily.

GAME ON!

 Miss Emily loved hunting for eggs. We still haven't eaten all of the Easter candy!

Love this colorful dress that a friend made for Emily. She hates to take it off.

This will probably always be one of my favorite baby photos of Hudson and me. I love the slight smirk and that he is looking right at the camera! This little guy is growing up way too fast. (He just started crawling at 8 months!)

I get glimpses of Stephen every now and then with Cooper. Something about this photo makes me remember him when he was that little. 

Visit with the Cullums in Tampa

Visit with the Cullums in Tampa

Please check out the above link to Amber's blog for some great photos and great summary of our trip to Tampa! Emily and I visited Amber, Sam, and Bennett from March 28th-April 2nd. Jeremy joined us Friday through Monday. He would have liked to have come for the whole trip, but we needed to conserve some vacation days for when baby #2 gets here in September!

This was the first time I flew solo with Emily. I worked up quite a bit of anxiety about this 2 hr. direct flight, but everything went well. We flew out of Lexington which was different for us. Our Louisville airport is just a few miles away so normally we can easily take a cab or have family drop us off.  I wasn't as familiar with Lexington's airport, but luckily it is small enough to not be overwhelming. Emily was a very good girl. It helps that at this stage, I can shamelessly bribe her with snacks, movies, books, etc. and get nice, quiet behavior. :)

Amber and Bennett were ready and waiting to pick us up in Tampa. It felt great to see them! Amber has kept me up to date with plenty of photos and stories about Bennett, so it almost didn't seem like it had been over a year since I'd seen him.

The weather in late March/April was GREAT! Most of the time when I have traveled to Florida, it has been during the summer. I was kind of expecting the stifling heat to be there already, but the weather was really pleasant and not humid. We spent lots of time playing at different playgrounds and enjoying outdoor activities. Emily loved having a whole new house to explore with lots of different "boy" toys to play with. Bennett had a huge train collection and lots of little cars. With two 2 yr. olds in the house, there were definitely times when they both wanted the same toy, but they got along well most of the time and it was so fun to watch them.

Highlights of our trip include:

~ Aquarium trip. Emily has been to the zoo probably a dozen times, but this was the first time we had taken her to the aquarium. I hope to take her to the one in Northern Kentucky this summer.

~Amber cooking for us on several nights.

~Lot of fun late night conversations with Amber. Well, not too late. We ARE mothers and still sacked out at 11:30 at the latest! ha!

~Saturday beach trip to Treasure Island. B. loved the water and Em. loved playing in the sand. They were both adorable.

~ Sunday morning play ground time and visiting Hyde Park Village's Fresh Market. Lots of good food, snacks, vendors, and people watching.

~ Davis Islands. It was wonderful to be near the water, see the boats and planes and let the kiddos run and play. A relaxing way to spend our last night with the Cullums.

~Watching the Final Four UK/UL game with KY friends! (Go Cats)

~Being with Bennett on his 2nd birthday!

~Watching a Yankees spring training baseball game with Jeremy. The facility was really nice and much larger than I expected for a spring training venue.

On our flight back, Jeremy was with us so everything was much easier to manage. We "discovered" a wonderful local eatery off of Old Frankfort Pike called Wallace Station. The drive was beautiful and the food was great--probably the best hamburger I've ever had! We will definitely go there again!

Somehow, I realize I don't have a photo of Amber and me. How is this possible? Probably because we are always taking photos of our kids!

Elizabeth's First Birthday

I'm about two months behind on blogging even with considering I usually only write 1-2 posts/month. I'm going to head back to February when we celebrated our niece Elizabeth's first birthday. Jen, Ed, and Elizabeth had recently moved to North Carolina and they decided they couldn't let such a momentous occasion as a first birthday go by without celebrating with family and friends. Nancy and Don hosted the party at their house, and Jen supplied the food, cake, and decorations. EB loves Curious George so that was the birthday theme. Leading up to the party, Emily was excited to see her cousin and Aunt Jen and Uncle Ed. She was really excited to get an opportunity to eat cake and ice cream and sing the birthday song!

Emily got Elizabeth a farm tractor with little farm animals in the wagon. The tractor can move, make noises, and all the farm animals make their appropriate sounds. It was one of Emily's favorite 1-2 yr. old toys so we decided to buy one for EB. 

 Curious George Cake (Cakes by Lisa E.)

Party Favors

 Kiddie Table

Tasting Cake...

Yummy! (Look at those eyes!)

Cousins

Ed and Jen with their birthday girl.

This may be my favorite photo. It cracks me up! 

Happy first birthday, sweet girl. You are a delight and we look forward to watching you grow up!

March Madness! Final Four, Baby.

Big news in the Bluegrass States is that BOTH University of Kentucky and University of Louisville are in the Final Four. THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED! It is huge. At 10:30 in the morning on a Tuesday, there was a line almost out the door for UK/UL apparel at our favorite local store. I have already read about 10 various editiorials online and in the newspaper about this matchup--stories about the coaches, the players, the history of the schools, the fans, etc. I've read it all and it is only Tuesday. The epic game is Saturday.

Everyone expected UK to be in the Final Four. NO ONE expected U of L to be there. Hello, they lost 4 of their last 6 regular season games, but then haven't stopped winning since the post season started. I have rooted for UK all of my life. I can remember watching Rex Chapman shoot the 3 and wanting to be Deron Feldhaus's girlfriend. My grandparents bleed blue and so do my parents. I received my master's degree from UK and enjoyed winning several lottery tickets for student seats at Rupp Arena during that time. Growing up, I always felt U of L was not in the same league as UK. I mean, who would cheer for them unless you actually lived in Louisville?

Well, fast forward several years and now I HAVE lived in Louisville seven years and married a longtime U of L fan. He bleeds red (which I guess is more normal than bleeding blue?) Now that I'm a busy mom, UK games have kind of taken a back seat, but Jeremy doesn't miss too many opportunities to watch his team play, so I end up watching many of the games with him. Over the past several years, I've been to Rupp arena once or twice. I've watched maybe a dozen games from Freedom Hall and the new YUM Center. By the way, the YUM Center is fabulous other than its name. I love having this gorgeous facility downtown in our city. So, I guess I'm one of the rare "enlightened" people that can actually like both teams. (Just joking, no hate mail, please.) The media would have you believe that if you love one team, you must hate the other and vice versa. I will not let go of my roots, but I can embrace the present. I think it is silly to root against my hometown team (which by the way is still a KY team.) I have enjoyed watching these Cards play over the years. I know all of their names. I can barely keep up with the quick changing UK team now that they are basically a farm team for the NBA. The starting lineup undergoes an almost complete make-over every year.

UK is the more talented team. They are truly amazing to watch. They have no glaring weaknesses. Their basketball play is smooth--a joy to watch. They really deserve to win it all. Then, there's Louisville's team. They make me nervous as hell to watch. (What will Russ Smith or Peyton Siva do now?) Individually, they are not as talented, but basketball is a team sport. They are better together than they are individually. They have had ups/downs this year and many injuries to overcome. I have always loved to root for the underdog and there is no doubt that U of L is the underdog in this match up.

I have quite the dilemma on Saturday. I know that I'm wearing blue (and so is our daughter), but I can't say I will cry or be disappointed if UK loses. Saturday is Win/Win for me. But, if the Cards pull an upset and then don't go all the way to win the National Championship, I will be fired up because one KY team had better win it all!

Two and a Half

Emmy just celebrated 2 1/2 yrs. on Feb. 8. Hard to believe that she's now closer to 3 than 2 (sob!) Time to reflect and write down a few of her latest and greatest!

Biggest accomplishment? I feel reasonably confident saying that Emily is potty trained! She has been doing great the last few weeks (as you know if you've read recent blog posts.) Today, I finally was brave enough to send her to Parent's Day Out for 4 hrs. without a pull-up. I packed lots of extra clothes, but I was oh so happy when I picked her up at 1pm and she was still wearing the same outfit! Her teachers said that she communicated with them several times about needing to go to potty. She even pooped on the big girl potty!

Pure Sweetness

• Sings Jesus Loves Me like a little angel

• When praying at the dinner table, we ask her what she is thankful for, and she always says, "Jesus!"( very happy about this, but it would be nice if she gave us a shout-out every now and then!)

• When Jeremy and I are both home at the end of the day, she often looks around and smiles at us and says, "Mommy and Daddy! And Emmy!" It is like she is saying, "we're all here and I'm happy!"

• She knows about 10 or more nursery rhymes by heart and loves to show off and say them for you.

• Sang "Happy Birthday" to Poppy in front of a crowd of about 16 people! It was darling.

Pure Mischievousness

• She still likes to run away from us when we call her. Drives me crazy. If we are very firm, she will come to us when she knows we really mean business, but she still runs away sometimes. She LOVES to play "Chase" and I think that is part of the reason she so loves to run from us. That and the fact that she can be a rebel. She's doing much better at waiting for me at the top of the outdoor side stairs while I lock up the door.

• No matter how many books we read at night, it is almost never enough and she gets upset. Sometimes she will calm down and let me hold her and rock a little to quiet down before bedtime, but other times, she just gets squirmy and whiny. I have found that if I put her in her crib and tell her good-night, she will immediately stop the waterworks about the last book and very humbly ask to be rocked.

• Doesn't like to try new foods. This makes me sad. She used to try everything. Now she is so hesitant that even a promise of a favorite treat won't get so much as a taste out of her if it is something she doesn't want.

• She has ants in her pants at meal time. We really learned this one over the weekend when Jen and Ed were in town and cousin EB got the highchair. Our child NEEDS a booster with a seat belt. This is what we use at home to keep her in place long enough to eat meals. Left unrestrained, she climbs in/out of chairs constantly and refuses to sit to eat.

Favorite Toys/Shows

• Calico Critters
• Dollhouses (we don't have one yet, but she loves the one at her friend, Kendra's, and at Pottery Barn Kids.)
• Fairy House (small figures that she carries and plays with)
• Thomas Trains
• "Reading" her books
• Drawing with pens, crayons, or whatever she can get her hands on!
• Ariel the mermaid
• Loves stickers!
• Mickey Mouse Club House, Thomas and Friends, and Sesame Street are still her favorite shows. Recently she watched her first movie with Mommy one day when I was feeling too sick to play--it was Beauty and the Beast. She's been asking for a yellow dress like Belle's.
• Loves to play dress up in her princess dresses. She wears a tutu pretty much daily.

Other Random Bits

• Recently she did the "wheelbarrow" all the way down the upstairs hallway while Dad held her legs.

• Still scared to swing very high, but she will climb up high and go down the tallest slides.

• Climbs in and out of her crib. No big deal at all. We have thought about changing the crib to a toddler bed, but she honestly gets in/out of the crib so easy, that we're no longer worried that she will hurt herself. Amazingly, she doesn't really get out of the crib once she knows it is nap time or bedtime which is why I haven't changed. Why mess with a good thing, right?

• Pretend Play is in high gear now. It is really funny to hear what she says. I overheard her potty training her baby doll one day and I promise she said, "Good job, Baby! I so proud of you!" Hmm. Where has she heard that? :)

We are going to have to do better at taking photos. We almost never take any of every day life. I will try to get some photos of her playing dress-up soon.

A friend at work asked me how Emily was doing, and I told her "having a two year old, is not for the faint of heart." It is exhausting in a different way than the newborn stage is. They are so full of energy and love. It is hard to keep up with her some days. But, I wouldn't have it any other way. I can't imagine a lazy two year old. That just makes me laugh!