Almost Walking!

A few days ago, Emma turned 15 months. She finally decided she could try walking without holding on to anything. Here is a short clip of her longest trip so far!

Pumpkins

What goes with Halloween better than pumpkins?

Picking pumpkins:

Carving pumpkins:

Eating pumpkin pancakes:

Dressing like pumpkins:

Happy Halloween!!

Another busy fall :)

Here's what we've been up to this fall:

Landscaping

Playing with our favorite cousins.

Hanging out in Duluth :) Watching dad rollerblade.

Going to weddings (one down, one to go this weekend)

And practicing our dancing skills for Auntie Hannah's wedding coming soon!

(Dancing skills for Maria that is, and normal crawling and walking skills for Ems :)

Happy Fall! Enjoy each and every day of it!

The BIG 1!

August 6th, 2011....Emma turned 1! Here is the birthday girl all ready for her big day! With lots of family at our house, we enjoyed a taco bar, and a little Mexican themed cake :)
Opened lots and lots of presents (including some little people, a water table, movies, dolls, a purse and some clothes)

Then we enjoyed that wonderful cake! Especially Emma, who devoured her entire little one!

We were having so much fun, we even forgot to have Emma open her gifts from mommy and daddy! So we had more presents to open later...:)

She was a very good girl the whole day and enjoyed all the wonderful company.


Happy 1st Birthday Ems!

We love Waterama!

The last weekend of July brings us fun times at Waterama! What a beautiful, hot weekend to enjoy the activities outside! Here is why we LOVE Waterama:

1. Riding the rides! (and watching in Emma's case...)

2. ICE CREAM! (Milk mustache and all!)

3. Watching the parade, waving to the princesses and getting loads of treats!

4. Winning cool prizes! (Emma won a little unicorn flashlight toy, and Maria won this below. As if we needed more big toys in this house! haha)

5. And playing in the sun at the park and the beach!

Now, we are officially exhausted! Even daddy is, who played in a total of 4 softball games (their team got 2nd place over all :) and 2 baseball games this weekend!

We were looking forward to a peaceful evening of sleep last night...but unfortunately we were awoken by a terrible storm. Check out this hail:

We were lucky compared to the nearby towns who had lots of damage. Hopefully tonight we can get the rest we need!

Hope you enjoyed your weekend too!!

(p.s. 5 more days until my baby is 1!!!!!!!!!!)

Hello HOT Summer!

I sit here in the air conditioning on this miserably HOT day... wishing it were nice outside, so we could go and play. June was a month full of rain. July seems to be a month of pure hotness! Where is the in between? There has been a few nice days to get out and enjoy summer.

The weekend of the 4th brought lots of fun to our family. We spent Saturday playing carnival games and enjoying the festivities of Heritage Days in Starbuck. Sunday was a full day of family with picnics on both sides and then an awesome showing of fireworks. Well, at least I think they were good. I didn't see much due to an overtired young child not liking them one bit! Here are our treats we made for the fun weekend! YUM!

We also had a great party this past Saturday in celebration for Joe's grandparents 50th wedding anniversary! It was so fun to see all the family, and the kids had a great time playing with all the other kids. I unfortunately, didn't get to stay long because I was sick. But thankfully I'm fully recovered now!

We have been busy working on our projects that I mentioned before. Most of them are a good way along or done. Next big thing: DECK. I wanted it done before Emma's birthday, but that probably won't happen because it's sneaking up on us. Only 18 days until this cutie turns 1!


Emma has been so busy lately. She is crawling (or army crawling) all over the place. She has discovered new places to play all over our upstairs. She is so smiley and is getting to use lots of baby talk! She also loves eating food by herself. She is not such of fan of us feeding her anymore. Learning to drink from a cup has been a bit of a challenge, but hopefully she will catch on soon. She LOVES being outside and went to the beach for the first time a few weeks ago. She enjoyed it very much, although she wanted to eat that sand so bad!

Maria is in her "terrible twos"! If that is what you call a two year old with strep throat, cutting some big teeth and with too many mosquito bites to count ! The poor girl :( Other than that she is enjoying summer and loving playing outside too. She is still not very good at sharing things with her sister and seems to think everything in this house is, as she would say, "mine"! Her other new favorite phrase is "I don't want to..." It makes for some interesting days... :)

About a month ago, I misplaced my camera. (A major reason why I haven't posted sooner!) I had suspicions that my oldest had hid it. (She had been hiding things like that... our house phone for example was found in a box in the dining room behind a curtain.) I was so upset. All of my pictures were uploaded to my computer, except this one below. A very rare find to get ALL 4 cousins sitting nicely, and even mostly smiling! But I finally found my camera...in MY purse. (so it wasn't Maria after all!) So I was able to get this cute picture back!
Other than that, we are trying to stay cool and hoping the that church's AC can keep up with all the people at the church supper tonight, since I have to work it! :) Hope you all are staying cool!

Projects, projects, projects....

Summer is officially here at our house! School is DONE for the summer!

And summer means big projects at our house!

Project #1: Siding the garage. (In progress...)

Project #2: Building a new swingset. (complete!)

Project #3: Planting the yard. (in the background above) (half complete!)

Project #4: Planting the garden. (almost done!)

Project #5: Retaining wall & deck. (hopefully starting soon....)

Project #6: Painting the basement. (Hopefully starting soon also!)

It's a big to do list, but hopefully it all gets done! HAPPY SUMMER TIME!!

Bring on the Spring!

Hello!

Ok, so I know I'm terrible at keeping this up to date. It's been nearly three months since the last post. I'm sorry!! But these girls are hard to keep up with!

Today, it's nearly 80 degrees out, and it's about time!!!! We've had some crazy weather this spring, and I haven't been a big fan of it. But today, it almost feels like summer!

The girls are doing great! Emma was 9 months last week and she has been doing a lot better (except those darn teeth that are coming in on the top finally!) She is happy and loves playing with Maria. She likes to play with the toy playhouse and chewing on anything she can find. She's also enjoying eating big girl food! She's still working on crawling, but she's pretty darn good at rolling around to where she wants to be. She likes to talk a lot too, even though her talk sounds like screaming, she's smiling! :) At Emma's 9 month checkup yesterday, she weighed 16 lbs. 4 oz. Just 2 oz more than Maria at this age. That was quite surprising for us since she's wearing much bigger clothes than Maria did at 9 months. Everything else went well at the doctor's...and even better news... no shots!

Maria is growing up so fast too! Her words and sentences are improving daily! She loves to sing and dance and read nursery rhymes. She already knows several of them! She also continues to love doing puzzles, reading books, and playing games. Another favorite---playing outside (usually in the mud! :). Last night, she planted trees with daddy!

We've been busy around the house cleaning up the yard of all the lovely house scraps, etc. And we finally got half of the yard planted. Let's hope that the grass springs up here in the next week or so even after our severe weather we had two nights ago! Joe's been working on getting the garage sided as well as finishing up some sheetrock in the basement. Then...next step is the deck!

Here's a small look at what we've been up to the past few months:

Maria turns 2!

Wednesday came and went, and my sweet little girl is now TWO! I can't even believe it! Here is a picture of the big girl on her birthday! And here is a picture of her Dora cake that I made! She loved it! She kept saying "ria's cake"!

And here is her with some of her presents, including her new potty chair! Let's hope she puts it to use soon!!


We also had a doctor's appointment yesterday. Maria is still below the 1st percentile for her weight. But she's still growing...even if not very fast! She seems very healthy otherwise! She still loves being big sister and now she pretends she is the doctor and Emma is her patient! :) So cute!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Emma is 6! (months that is...)

Yesterday Emma had her 6 month appointment after turning 6 months on Sunday! I can't believe it. The little squirt is only 14 lbs and 26.5 inches long. For her length, she is in the 78 percentile! Way bigger than Maria at this age. She is much more normal in size than her dear big sister. In fact, Emma wore the same outfit the other day that Maria wore for her one year pictures last winter! :)

In other news, Emma is rolling around like crazy and loving to grab and chew on things. She also is eating lots of baby food and loving it! (except the green beans!) She gives us lots of smiles, but her sister knows exactly how to make her laugh and laugh! It is quite entertaining.

Maria's new favorite thing is playing with her new kitchen that my cousin gave us. She loves stirring up food in her pots and feeding us supper. She makes sure we have our bibs on too! :) She also enjoys snuggling with Emma and giving her kisses. She is usually a great sister, but still has to learn how to share sometimes! She is also very good at telling us how old she is going to be in a few short weeks! 2! She is looking forward to her party!

In the last month we have been busy playing and playing! We had a play date with cousin Thatcher the other day, playing outside in the snow and going on a sleigh ride, continuing playing with all the new Christmas toys, playing with grandmas and grandpas, and playing with friends at the Superbowl party!

Here are some things we are looking forward to in the near future:

1. Another new baby cousin arriving any day now!

2. This weekend with Grandma and Taya

3. A trip to a water park

4. Hopefully some warmer weather! :)

5. Daddy's snowmobile trip out to West Yellowstone

6. Maria's 2nd Birthday!

Hope you all have some fun things to look forward to too in the middle of this snowy, cold winter!

The Holidays

It's snowing again as I sit here. I just can't believe how much snow we have already gotten this year! Joe is of course thrilled because he can snowmobile like crazy! I enjoy days like this watching the beautiful snow fall. It's so beautiful... until you have to drive in it! :)

Well, another Christmas and New Years have come and gone. (sorry, I'm a little late in updating!) It was a wonderful holiday season for us. Christmas week started will a big snowfall (over a foot!) And having lots of family come home. We had many celebrations. Christmas eve morning and early afternoon we had a nice winter walk followed by sledding, Maria trying cross country skiing for the first time, snowmobiling and roasting hot dogs over a campfire. That evening we went to Christmas Eve Mass. It was a lovely start to the Christmas season, except that Emma wasn't very happy to be in church! :( After mass, we went to the Heidelberger's to have appetizers and a steak and lobster supper. Then of course we had gift exchange. Emma enjoyed opening her presents, and then continued to be crabby for the remainder of the evening for her first Christmas. Maria enjoyed playing with cousin Olivia and honestly didn't have much interest in opening her presents. Olivia would open hers and Maria just wanted to play with her toys (even though she had almost the same things in her unopened presents!)

Christmas day, Maria was excited that Santa had arrived and brought presents. Then we loaded up the car and headed over the the Staples for a Prime Rib dinner and more presents. Maria loved all her new gifts, especially her new little Mickey four wheeler she can drive. New Years Eve was another great celebration with family at the local bar, followed by games at our house. The weather was terrible, so we decided to keep it close to home. It turned out to be a great time, until we got the call that Maria had the flu! During the next few days, we all got sick! :( Just in time to go back to work. We are almost over all our sickness now finally!!

Last week the girls had some quality time with both of their grandparents as Joe and I ventured to Indiana for a friends wedding. It was a long trip! (12 hours one way) But we had a very nice time. Wednesday night when we arrived, we had a nice supper with the whole wedding party followed by the bachelor/bachelorette parties. Here is a picture of us that evening, which was also our third anniversary. The waiter brought us a lovely dessert, and it was delicious!

Hope you all had a great holiday season and have a wonderful 2011!!

Emma's four months!

Hello All.

Emma turned four months yesterday!! We had another big doctor's appointment. Emma came in weighing 12 lbs. 3 oz. and 24 inches. She's a growing girl! She also had to get 3 more shots, but she did pretty good!

Emma has been giving us lots of smiles and giggles lately. We are all very happy, because we have finally discovered that she is a SOY baby! She has been so fussy for the first four months of her life. Why we didn't try soy formula earlier.... I HAVE NO IDEA! But I'm sure glad we discovered it now, because we all are in such better spirits these days! YAY!

And Emma started eating some rice cereal two nights ago, and she loves it!! TWO BOWLS last night she ate! Plus her bottle! :)

She is getting really good at holding toys and loves to chew on them too! She also loves her swing and watching her sister be silly.

Here's a cute little picture of her from this past week. All ready for Christmas! :)

And Maria has been a good little girl too. Ask her who's watching her, and she'll be sure to say in her sweet little voice..."elf." There is a small elf who has made his way to our house. He reports to Santa every night whether Maria has been a good girl. And she sure has been good. We just need to remind her every once in awhile that he's watching.... :)

Hope you're all having a great week!

It's a Shutterfly Christmas!

The first time I learned how to upload my digital pictures, I did so on Shutterfly.com. It was so simple! I could order all my prints right off the website and get them sent straight to my house! For our wedding, I even used the website to make my picture thank yous! It was great, especially for those who couldn't make it to the wedding, because they got to see pictures of our big day right away. I love using Shutterfly!

Christmas is just around the corner, and that means thoughts of Christmas cards are on my mind. Have you checked out their new line of Christmas cards? SOOO CUTE! I am seriously having a hard time deciding which one I like the best because there are SO many cute ones. Some of my favorites are the Joy Christmas, Merry Stripes, & Puzzle Pieces.

And if you still have someone on your list to buy for, you might want to check out the picture calandars, picture books or other gift items from their website! There are so many great ideas for gifts that are unique and special and can be used all year long.

Hurry & shop before December 1st and get extra savings during the Cyber Week Sale!

Are you a blogger? Shutterfly is offering 50 free Holiday Cards when you post! Simply visit this Shutterfly form and fill it out! If you still can’t get enough Shutterfly then be sure to follow them via Facebook & Twitter! Hope you enjoy Shutterfly as much as I do! :)

Winter is in the air!

As we look out the window at the beautiful snow falling today,we hope that this winter brings us lots of snow and nice weather! Especially since Joe bought a new snowmobile! Christmas shopping in this house has barely begun, but we hope that within the next few weeks it will be complete and we can enjoy the Christmas season. I especially look forward to decorating the house this weekend after chopping down our Christmas tree on Saturday.

Emma had an appointment last week, and now weighs 12.3 pounds! That is much larger than Maria was at this time. Emma was just three months old and she is already in 6 month clothing! She is doing great too! She loves to give us big smiles and talk like crazy. Although, she does have her crabby moments too, but that is ok! :) She decided she doesn't like sleeping through the night anymore, but hopefully she changes her mind again soon because Joe and I would much appreciate it.

Maria is being such a great big sister. Whenever she hears Emma start to cry, she says her name and runs over to her. She rubs her head and gives her kisses! So sweet! :)

Here are a few pictures of Emma's three month pictures taken by Joe's aunt Jill!Thanks Jill! They turned out great!