Ten on Tuesday

1. This past Friday, Marty, Abby and Claire came over and Abby and I took Emma and Claire to the pool. Check out Claire relaxing in her float. With the naked baby doll. Love this.



2. It was the pool's Christmas in July party. There was a DJ playing both Christmas and non-Christmas music, Christmas decorations everywhere, games like limbo and ahula hoop contest. And Santa. Claire was fascinated.


Until she sat on his lap.

Then, not so much. Love that Santa is in swim trunks and sandals.

Emma, wouldn't go near him. I wasn't surprised, she refused to sit with Santa at Christmas, too. She just watched cautiously from a safe distance.

4.Sunday was my sister's birthday. We actually got there first. On time. When we called to see where they were, they were just getting on the highway and completely surprised we beat them. Obviously, I need to work on my punctuality.

It did give me time to take some pictures. Like this one.


Sadly, no good ones of Emma as she wasn't really into it. Again, not a surprise. Anymore when I get the camera out she tells me to stop. She did get my hopes up at one point when she sat next to Michael but that lasted all of 2 minutes.

5. We went to the park after dinner that night.


Crutches and all, Michael was able to help Emma climb this:


6. I had the munchkin climbing all over me. I'm sure I've mentioned this, but you cannot sit next to her without her using you to stand up. And it hurts. She pinches and scratches and yanks on your shirt until it's all stretched out. Michael has started calling her leech. :) But I did get this. A sweet little baby kiss.


7. Malachi, my soon-to-be-new-nephew, turned one this month. They threw him a pool party in Uganda. He's adorable. Just pretend there are pool party pictures here, because I don't have any of those, but I do have these. He's so cute.

8. Have you tried the blog readability test? Just go

here and enter your blog's address and it'll let you know its level of readability. Mine's junior high. Could be worse, could definitely be better.

9. I'm thinking about changing my blog address. I'll post about it before I do it, wouldn't want anyone to be traumatized when they couldn't find my blog. ;)

10. You should check out Simple Scrapbooks new special issue:



In it, you'll find this:


And a bunch of other fantastic ideas for making super cute mini-albums without spending days on them. I have numerous pages already marked with albums I want to make. You can get it here

Have I mentioned she loves to stand?

Tonight.

 
 

Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch passed away today. His "last lecture" at Carnegie Mellon is absolutely amazing. In case you haven't seen it, here it is:



And he's a story about him on CNN.com:
YouTube's star lecturer dies at 47

I hadn't realized it was turned into a book. I'm going to have to read it.

So much Elefun.

So we got Emma a game yesterday. Her very first game, picked out just for her. She loves it. She wants to play "the butterfly game" over and over. She gets so excited when we start, she doesn't know whether she should catch the butterflies falling, pick up the ones on the floor, or just watch us.




See Mackenzie in the top photo? She loves standing at that piano. Except when she pulls it over on herself. Pretty sure she doesn't like that.

We went swimming at my sister's today. Emma's getting braver. She still didn't really like to be held out in deeper water but she was all about jumping in.

Thanks to my sister for cutting off Emma's head in one of the jumping photos. ;)

She's crawling

So I wrote today's Ten on Tuesday post last night. 9 hours after I posted it, Mackenzie crawled. And I missed it. I also missed her pulling herself up on the couch. Michael found this very amusing. I ran upstairs when Michael told me she was crawling and not long after I got this:


She's still doing that funny leg thing sometimes, but she's definitely crawling.

And not only did she pull herself up on the side of the couch, she cruised a bit:

(Not sure why the couch looks greenish. It's really not.)

Ten on Tuesday.

1. So, you know what's no so great about Mackenzie learning to stand in her crib? That's all she does. Yesterday, it took her over a half over to fall asleep for her afternoon nap because she kept standing up then crying. I'd go in and lay her down and she'd cry some more. Repeat. Bedtime? Over an hour. Naptime this afternoon? Never happened. My MIL said she cried for over an hour so she just got her up. Last night I found her facing the back wall, facing the side of the crib and of course, like this:

(picture taken at naptime yesterday)

And tonight? Not as bad, I only had to lay her down once. That was after I walked in to this:

Very cute, I know. Hopefully the novelty of this will wear off, and she'll learn to get down without falling and hitting her head on the crib.

2. Michael had his post-op check-up this afternoon. Everything is looking well and he got a new cast.


3. Tonight, we played Candyland. Or, as Emma calls it, Lammyland.


Her first game. She actually didn't do too badly. Although the game ended early when she took my piece all the way to the end and said I was going home. Also, this didn't help.


Everytime we told Emma to move her piece, she'd take the card and lay it next to the matching color. At least we know she knows her colors.


4. Remember Matt? Here he is with Mackenzie and Brett at Brett's (and Ben and Chase's) graduation party yesterday. Hi Matt.


5. In addition to Mackenzie not wanting to go to sleep last night, neither did Emma. It was a looong evening for us. This was Emma about 10:45 last night. After lots of crying and books and "quiet time" with us she finally said "I'm going to lay down and read" and instantly fell asleep on the floor.


6. Emma loves watching So You Think You Can Dance and America's Best Dance Crew. Check out her moves:


7. Did you watch the Espy's last night. We did. Totally impressed with Justin Timerlake's hostability. (Pretty sure that's not a real word.) He was really good. Very funny.

8. CHA was this past weekend. LOVE the new KI, Basic Grey Urban Prarie line, My Mind's Eye Be Merry line, October Afternoon, American Crafts and my awesomely talented friend Renee's new line Eco-Chic.

9. Remember when I mentioned mowing the grass? The first time sucked. Probably because it was over 80 out and it was 2:30 in the afternoon and the sun was burning me up and I thought I was going to pass out. I'm happy to say I mowed it on Saturday at 8:30 am and it was no problem. It was overcast, not so hot and waaaay easier. Obviously, it was the heat that made it so awful, not the actual act of mowing. Next on my outside to-do list - trimming with the weed-eater. Fun.

10. Mackenzie really needs to start crawling. Right now she does this weird half-crawl/half-walk thing. She moves her right knee forward and then pushes off with her left foot and sort of hops forward. It's so funny. I haven't gotten that on video yet, but here she is tonight climbing and standing and thinking she can walk/stand/crawl.

odds and ends

So, I'm pretty sure Mackenzie's getting another tooth. And while you wouldn't know it from looking at this picture (taken Friday),


She woke up really early Thursday morning (5 am) crying and fussing and miserable. It was a rough hour and a half before she went back to bed; tylenol, oral-b, cold teethers, binkies, rocking and the swing - none of it really helped. After a bottle around 6:20, she fell back asleep. BUT, in the midst of all that, two milestones were reached. She sat up in her crib on her own. She was crying when she was sitting there, I think partly because she was a bit shocked at how she got there. ;) She was a bit confused. And when I went in to check on her after that, she was standing holding on to the side! I was so excited. She hasn't stood in the crib again, but earlier today she tried to pull herself up on the couch and she's been sitting up on her own a lot.

She's suddenly gotten a big appeite. All of a sudden she's sucking down 8 ounce bottles. At 6 months we were lucky to get her to take 5 to 6 ounces, and up until a couple weeks ago she was still only taking 6 ounces. Then one night, she drank that down and wanted more and that's the way it's been. We're going to start introducing more table food so that should cut down on the formula intake some.

Emma had her first popsicle yesterday. It was a hit. I have a feeling we'll be going through many a box or two before summers over.


She's still loving the slip n slide, our neighbors came over yesterday and she and Caroline played together on it. Later in the afternoon, we met them at the pool. She's starting to get more daring, finally. Beth (Caroline's mom) gave her a ring float (does that make sense? not sure what they're actually called) and she loved it. She put it around her waist and was "swimming" around. And when we saw some friends from our neighborhood and I told her Jillian was there she started walking away from me looking for her...in water that kept getting deeper. My child who is afraid of water higher than her thighs kept on going and I had to chase after her! She was so set on finding Jillian she forgot all about her fear. Good and bad, I guess.

Michael's Aunt and Uncle stopped over Wednesady night and brought this cool cookie bouquet.


Emma's really liking it...


Michael got out the house for the first time all week tonight. We went to a graduation party and have another one tomorrow. I'm tackling church with just me and the girls in the morning, should be interesting. Wish me luck. :)

Ten on Tuesday.

1. Got Emma a Slip-n-Slide today, a Dora one. She'd only go on it when the water was on if it was really low. If it got "big" she was afraid and refused to do anything but touch it with her foot and run around it.


2. Rebekah was here this weekend. We went to Cedar Point Friday. Can I just say that Maverick is the best roller coaster ever. And Rebekah, remember, Cedar Point is America's Roller Coast. Get it, Roller Coast, roller coaster, the coast of Lake Erie. Hee hee.


3. This guy had surgery yesterday (picture from last week) and is now home and recovering. In addition to the rod in/on his Tibia, he also has a plate on his fibula. Oh, and they're attached with really big screws. At least they looked gigantic in the xray picture I saw.


3 1/2. Rebekah spent her last day here hanging out in the waiting room with me. For a really long time. 5 hours from when we got there until the surgery was over. Then we went and got something to eat and went back for another 1 1/2 hours or so. In a waiting room with no TV. Seriously. What waiting room doesn't have a TV? Oh, right, this one. But it did have this:


They called it their Computer Greaseboard. Michael was #3674. Rebekah and I joked we will never ever forget that number because we looked at it for hours, willing it to change from procedure start to recovery.

And we had these:


Because again, no TV.

4. I love how Mackenzie puts her hands on my face.

5.She's so happy. And drool-y. (Rebekah took these pictures. Love them.)


6. Tried to get one of the two of them. It was a tad difficult.


7. Much easier with Mackenzie.


8. Proof that Marie actually scrapped this weekend while at my house. (The "actually" thing is her word, check out her blog.)


And Rebekah scrapped.


I talked. And printed pictures. And went and got us Dr. Peppers since, gasp, I was out.

9. Put Mackenzie in the Johnny Jumper. Emma thought it was the greatest thing ever. She kept calling it a swing. And swinging her. Which really isn't a good idea so I'd tell her to stop. And then she'd try again. Toddlers are persistent. She did give her a bit of assistance with the jumping,though.


10. I keep telling Michael that he needs Guitar Hero while he's recovering. That'd it give him something to do. Of course he realizes it's really me who needs Guitar Hero. I so want it. I Have only played it twice and love it. Of course, if we do ever get it, I'm afraid my kids would be neglected because all I'd want to do is sit around and play "Talk Dirty to Me" and "One". Which is why Michael keeps saying no. But I'm working on him. ;)

Ten on Tuesday

1. Michael broke his leg last night.
2. In three places. His Fibula twice and Tibia once.
3. He'll be having surgery this week and after, he'll be the proud owner of a rod (inserted in his legs) and screws (attched to the bone with) to go along with the screw already in his foot.
4. Yes, he was playing baseball. And no, I don't think this means the end of him playing.
5. These two took their first bath together last night. They couldn't have possibly had any more fun if they'd tried.




(Seriously, Mackenzie does not even look like herself in that picture. Kinda strange.)

6. Mackenzie can pull herself up now. That's what she was trying to do in the first bath picture. Really, though, it only works if she grabs your hands and then she can push herself upward. Because of this, I lowered her crib tonight. All night last night I had fears of her pulling herself up and toppling over the side. Nevermind the fact that she can't get into a sitting position on her own therefore this likely wouldn't happen. I still worried.

7. Went to the pool yesterday. Took lunch. Had a really good time. Mackenzie sat in the shallow end and played with toys for quite awhile. Only fell over once. :) Poor Michael, he won't be going to the pool for a while.

8. This one is getting freckles like her Mommy. I noticed them on the 3rd. They're very faint but they're there. I've always asked my mom when I got mine and she couldn't remember. I'd like to say I'll remember when (if) Emma asks me but there's a good chance I won't.



9. Rebekah will be here Friday. It'll be a little crazy with everything that's going on but I'm so looking forward to it. We're going to Cedar Point although I'm not sure which day now.

10. About the whole broken leg thing. I realized today that means I have to cut the grass. All summer. Awesome.

PS, just noticed my pictures in the previous post (#11) weren't showing up. So I fixed it. And now you can see her fantastic, stick-straigh-up hair.