Best Friends

These two spend a lot of time together with Kali and Sadie in school all day and there's nothing better when they're playing like best friends. I sure hope they feel that way about each other. So cute!

Ouch!

While running through the house singing songs, Emma somehow stumbled and fell. It wasn't pretty. I was in the same room as her but didn't see her fall. She either hit the floor or a chair nearby and almost bit through her lip. It swelled up so large that it looked like a marble was in it and the skin just below her lip started to scab over. It was so sad. But as soon as she calmed down, she had Ashlyn and I laughing so hard we could barely stop. She started sucking on her lip and moving her mouth into some of the craziest contortions. I'm sure it was because it felt funny after swelling that much. It was hilarious! Had I thought of it, I would have caught it on video.

Emmalyn

 

This cute little girl is now two. It was so fun to wake her up and tell her happy birthday. She was in such a good mood and everything she said was in her cute little happy voice. She loved opening her presents. Kali and Sadie got her the crib and Ashlyn got her some new fisher price princesses. She loved all of it (as did her sisters).

In the evening, we invited family over and had cake and ice cream. She had a sunflower cake with colorful flower cupcakes. She was really excited for her cake and patiently waited all day for it. Unfortunately, when Josh lit her candles, she was so excited to blow them out that she put her face too close and felt the heat. She immediately stuck her lower lip out and her face got so sad. You could tell she was trying very hard not to cry. Poor thing. Then Josh helped her blow the candles out and she seemed to relax a little.

A couple of days ago, we began explaining to her that she'd be turning two. But without fail, every time we asked her how old she was, she would say one...until today. She finally figured it out and just in the nick of time. That's the question she's answering in this picture. However, you can also tell from the picture that she still hasn't figured out how to hold up two fingers.

Some of the Things we Love about Emmalyn:

Emma loves to sing. She sings when she's bored, while reading books, when listening to music, before bed and even in the middle of the night. Unfortunately she doesn't always sing for other people. She quick to say thank you and loves to tell you that she loves you, especially at bedtime. She usually has to tell each person multiple times that she loves them before going to bed. She loves to pray even though she repeats the same thing over and over again (Heavenly Father, married in the temple, Christ, Amen.).

Hair Cut

A couple of days ago, I found this stash of hair and knew right away what had happened. Ashlyn has been using the scissors a lot lately and a couple of times I found her acting a little fishy but didn't think much of it. She's typically pretty responsible with scissors, but this pile of hair says otherwise. I could tell from the different colors that this was hair from a lot of different Barbies and dolls. After finding about six of her sisters' dolls with damage, I stopped searching and gave her a punishment.

Then today I noticed this. Emma's hair has some lovely straight cuts making her hair very short on the front left side. I suddenly knew that some of the hair I found the previous day belonged to Emma. I remember thinking some of the hair was very soft and couldn't think of which of their Barbies had such nice hair. That's because it wasn't a Barbie's hair, it was Emma's.

Then it dawned on me that she probably cut her own hair too. I began questioning her and she immediately burst into tears and admitted to it. I began searching her hair and luckily couldn't find any serious damage. I think she cut hair to the length of her bangs so it blends nicely. I guess the silver lining is that I may end up with a hair stylist in the future.

Date Night

Josh has recently started taking the girls out on dates. Once a week he takes one of them out for an ice cream or frosty at the place of their choice. The girls love the one on one time with him!!! Tonight was Emma's first date, and she had a blast. According to Josh she was quite the little goof ball. She kept running back and forth on the bench to get bites of her ice cream, all the while squealing.

Book Reading

Josh caught these two enjoying a little book reading together. They don't always sit still for us to read to them, but they were sure enjoying looking at books tonight.

The Pink Stool

Emmalyn loves this stool. She uses it to look out the window, to reach items the are purposely placed out of her reach, to sit in, to sit on, to build on, and many more things. I'm constantly finding it under my feet and in random places and she's usually near by.

Silly Girl

While playing Barbies at Grandma Parry's house, Daddy recommended Emma try on the shoes. She did and we were surprised that they fit....on her big toe. She thought it was quite fun and kept putting them on as we laughed.

Care Bears

It seems that each of my girls have gone through a phase where they love Care Bears. Emmalyn is no exception. She's constantly carrying these two around and calls them her "babies". You'll also notice from the picture that they are both covered in wash cloths because every baby has to have a blankie. You may also notice in the picture that she has one sock on. She also has a new fetish with wearing socks that are too big for her.

Favorite Shoes

It's starting young with this one. Emma already has a favorite pair of shoes--her red Crocs. At least she chose a comfortable pair of shoes. But it's awfully hard to get her out of the house with a different pair of shoes without her falling to pieces. And I probably wouldn't care too much except that they barely fit her anymore. She's going to have to give them up in a matter of weeks.

Prayer

I can't get enough of watching Emmalyn during family prayer. She is so good to kneel down, fold her arms and bow her head. Even though doesn't stay that way the entire prayer, she does better than Ashlyn and she even says amen after. It's so cute.

New Word

Emma is starting to learn new words and has a couple of food related ones that I love. She started saying gogurt and I thought it was simply because she loves to eat gogurts. Then I realized that it's the word she uses to tell me that she wants food. It's so cute to hear a 15-month-old say gogurt. But even more than that, I love what she says when she's done eating. She hollers DONE with a big smile on her face and raises her hands in the air. That's what she's doing in this picture.

Walking

Emmalyn is finally walking more than crawling. It's so cute to watch. She moves her shoulders up and down as though it helps her lift her feet off the ground. It seems like it took forever for her to finally walk and it really did considering that most kids are walking by 15 months. Her pediatrician wasn't concerned because she often took 6-7 steps at a time but usually preferred crawling. The funny thing is that she looks so tiny walking. Most people don't expect her to be walking. And it's true, she is a tiny thing. She's my first child to be under the graph on her weight. She lost weight from her 12 month appointment. Again, the pediatrician wasn't concerned because she's a healthy vigorous child. She's just little.

The Sandbox

Right after we moved into our house, we put a sandbox in. Every day since that day I've had a love / hate relationship with the sandbox. Why? It's so much fun and keeps the girls entertained for hours at a time. It also keeps them out of my way while mowing the lawn. However, it is such a mess. When it's wet, it stains clothes and I can't get it out. Also, no matter how many times I ask the girls not to throw sand, it still happens and their hair and scalps are covered in it. It also gets caught in their clothing and tracked all over the house and I can't stand sand on tile. Let's not forget that every cat in the neighborhood is attracted to it, so I'm always having to make sure it's covered and I haven't found a very good method. I've been using tarps, but they disintegrate and it gets costly to keep replacing them. Oh yes, and babies love to eat it. I don't know if you can tell from this view, but Emma was eating the sand and had it all around the corners of her mouth. It makes for fun diapers.

Shoes & Mitts

    

Someone has a couple of new favorites--shoes & mitts!!! Anytime Emmalyn is quiet for more than ten minutes, she's either putting on my slippers or trying on the oven mitts.

New Favorites

Here are the two most common things I find Emmalyn doing these days--standing up in the middle of the room, or peeking out the window. Our windows are just the right height for her, and trying to get a look at the outside world is much more fun than looking at what's going on inside. As for standing, she is so proud of herself that she can do it on her own. She loves an audience too. As a matter of fact, she'll ham it up and put on a good show for just about anyone.

Stairs

Now that this one is mobile, I've got to keep a close watch on her. She loves the stairs and could care less whether they're cement or tile. Not even a minute after I took this picture, she started to tumble down the stairs. Thankfully I was close enough to catch her before too much damage was done. I thought it might have been enough to scare her away from the stairs for a little while, but I was wrong. She loves stairs!!!

Emmalyn

Our precious Emma has turned 1 year old. It's hard to believe because she's still so tiny and just started crawling last week. Her birthday was a little different because Josh had scouts, but she didn't know any better and probably enjoyed it even more having it dragged out over a few days.

We started the celebration with the Smith side of the family on Sunday. I made pudding poke cupcakes and we let her have at one. She loved it! As a matter of fact, every time we glanced away, she stole another one. I think she ended up eating three cupcakes all by herself and would have had more had we let her. She's a girl after my own heart. She also put on a show while eating because she heard music playing on Grandpa's iPad. So she starting moving her shoulders to the beat while smiling and shoving cake in her mouth. It was pretty cute.

Then on Monday, we invited Grandma and Grandpa Bohman over and had her official birthday cake. After the previous night, she knew what was in front of her and wanted it badly. We were doing all we could to get a picture of her near the cake without having her grab handfuls of it. She was in tears until we distracted her with the smarties on the table. The sunshine cake was Josh's idea and thankfully turned out cute. I was just excited to put the mini M&M's on it because Emmalyn had eaten some on Valentine's Day and loved them.

On her real birthday, we let her open her presents. I guess I should say we let the other girls open presents for her. They were almost more excited than she was. Since Josh had scouts in the evening we didn't do much else, but I made sure to have some play time with her and tried to make her day exciting.

Our special little Emmalyn has been such a joy in our lives. We love her cute little personality. My personal favorite is when she blows us kisses, but everything about her makes us smile.

Wrapping Paper

For some reason, Emma was obsessed with this wrapping paper today. I picked it out at the store to wrap her birthday presents in and immediately she wanted to hold it. Mind you, it is a HUGE roll of wrapping paper. I tried putting it in the back of the cart, but she kept reaching for it and cried until I placed it across the front of the cart where she could hold on to it. When I had to pay for it, it was the same story, tears until the cashier handed it back. Since I couldn't hold the wrapping paper and her while I walked out to the car, I asked Kali to carry it and Emma started to cry again. I thought for sure she'd forget about it, but once we got in the car, she started crying harder and harder until Kali finally laid it on top of her. She stopped crying immediately. Then at home, she continued to play with it for a good twenty to thirty minutes longer. I have no idea why she was so obsessed with it, but it was pretty funny to watch.

Sleepless Nights

This little turkey has made it hard to get a good night sleep the last few nights. She has figured out how to sit up on her own but for some reason can't figure out how to lay back down. Instead she cries and cries until we come in and lay her down. Unfortunately it's happening multiple times a night.