Another one...

is on the way. We are going to be having a baby in January. Right now we are thinking it is going to be a boy, but will find out for sure in a few weeks.

All Big and Stuff

Emma turned 2. We flew in from Arizona and Thursday night and Emma turned 2 the next day, but there was no way I was prepared to celebrate so we planned to do it Saturday and celebrate Emma turning 2 and Aaron turning 33. We had great plans: swimming, opening presents, cafe rio for dinner (i.e. Mexican), and homemade ice cream for dessert. Emma got a cold Friday. No problem. Saturday, however, she woke up with a fever, so we took swimming off the table, but no worries, because there was still plenty of festivities left. By the time dinner came around, Emma had tossed her cookies. And then tossed them again in the night, so we pretty much had to scrape all of the festivities, except dinner, because that was already done when the puking began. We did put a candle in her guacamole and sing to her. She loved it and wanted to do it over and over again. She gets her love of fire from Aaron. My sister Emily asked if I had made her a cake. It seemed like such an odd idea until I remembered that the rest of the country celebrates birthdays with cake and ice cream. Nope. Didn't make her a cake. Never occurred to me. Lest I seem like a horrible mom, Emma isn't a cake or ice cream fan. The planned ice cream was really for Aaron. The guacamole was for Emma. Emma loves guacamole more than cake and ice cream hands down. 

Grandma Lindy and Grandpa Rich got her a balance bike which Emma has loved to ride around the house. Emily got her a doll high chair and crib and Emma has tried to commandeer it from the dolls for herself. Unfortunately, she is a bit outside of the weight range for the items. Aaron and I got her Lego's, which we haven't as of yet, actually given to her yet. We were going to wait until she felt better, and then things got busy and I just plain old haven't wrapped it yet to give it to her. Good thing she has no clue about when and what birthday's are.

Emma is convinced that she is all big and stuff now. She sometimes calls me Jamie. I don't know if I should respond to it or not. She directed me to the park all by herself on one of our walks. She attempts to jump off fairly tall things, including the stairs.

Her likes:

• stairs
• buttons
• walks
• swimming
• blowing bubbles
• dogs
• playing chase
• dancing
• mangoes
• grapes
• strawberries
• avocado
• guacamole
• bread
• singing "Give Said the Little Stream"
• singing the ABC song all by herself - she gets some of it right - while washing her hands
• sitting on the potty (but doesn't actually use it) and even more so, closing the lid and flushing the potty
• babies
• talking on the phone to Grandma and Grandpa
• playing around in the car

She doesn't like:

• stopping playing to eat
• diaper changes
• playing by herself
• being in the house
• pizza (I totally don't get this one)

Emma is also forming opinions. It is weird to me. I think I was expecting these days to come later on. Like today, I got dressed in a skirt to go to the temple. As soon as Emma saw that, she wanted to wear a dress. I understand that kids like to do what their parents are doing, but surely there are limits. I only wear a dress when it is absolutely necessary. I hate dresses/skirts. It is outside of my comprehension that being like mom would trump wearing a dress. Emma could not be persuaded to keep her shorts on so she stripped herself and found a dress to put on. But her is the funny thing, after I left, Aaron took her to the children's museum. She wanted to change her clothes and wear jeans and a long sleeve shirt. It is over 100 degrees outside here. Aaron gave into the jeans but found an acceptable short sleeved shirt. Really she wanted to wear a pink shirt. If I give her the choice of a non pink shirt or a shirt with pink on it - pink every time. I struggle with the idea that I might need to consult her when I purchase her wardrobe in the future. I thought that came at a much later age.

Haigler Creek

We had a Russell family reunion in Haigler Creek. To give you a clue as to where Haigler Creek is, it is near a U.N. Free Zone. That is right. There are places on this planet where the United Nations in not welcome. You might be thinking we went to some exotic place in Africa or China or Cuba. Nope. The mountains of Arizona. Dirty little peace keeping missions!

We had a great time with out the U.N. Marsha's family has a huge cabin up in the mountains North of Phoenix and they have turned this wilderness into a kids dream come true. There is a large field to play ball in, a creek to catch craw-dads, a 300 foot zip line (complete with harness for ExxonMobil's safety standards), watering holes where you can go swimming and cliff diving (not up to ExxonMobil's safety standards), a 1963 working fire engine, bonfires, large boulders to climb on and of course, evenings of games per Russell family tradition.

Overlooking the U.N. free zone in Young, AZ.

A watering hole complete with water fall.

We went to church in Young, AZ and it was a tiny branch full of cowboys who loved where they live. The saddest/funniest part of the church experience was a baby blessing. The dad doing the blessing forgot the baby's name and the mom had to call it out. He must have been so nervous! Poor guy.

Aaron's uncle Dale took us to Spring Creek where there is a cool watering hole complete with a rope swing and cliffs. I just have to write how impressed I am with myself for actually getting in water that was below 80 degrees. Extremely impressed. And I went off the rope swing as well. I rock. The water was pretty deep in some places - 20 feet so Aaron, and Braxton went off the cliffs (about 40 feet for some).

Below is a series of shots of Aaron and Rex doing synchronized swimming belly flops - on purpose.

Below is the fire engine that they have on the property. Uncle Dale was also kind enough to spray the kids with the fire hose. They loved it! Emma was enamored with the truck. Probably against better judgement, I let her flip switches and push buttons.

Here is the zip line. I took Emma down it once and as soon as it was over, she said, "again!"

Emma is playing with the croquette gates - off in her own little world.

Marsha took us to Pinecreek (at least that is what I think it was called). There were a whole bunch of boulders in the middle of a forest. Hard to imagine a glacier moving boulders in Arizona years ago.... Emma displayed a greater sense of adventure than self preservation, as evidenced by the look on my face.

Marsha with the grand kids. I would just like to point out how hard it was to get that many kids to look in mostly the same direction, and 3 of them where 2 year olds.

This is one of the few times that Emma discovered dirt and didn't mind getting dirty.

Aaron, Emma, and Dray of the 4 wheeler. In case you didn't know, they make invisible helmets these days... totally safe, I promise.

Here are some pictures of the property.

We took some video of Aaron doing dives into the water. If I can, I will post them. If they get removed, Aaron did it. Overall, we loved Haigler. It was nice to escape the heat of Houston and be able to enjoy some fun things with family. Seems like a totally different place than suburbia - where you can run and play and do whatever.

After we returned to Phoenix we were able to visit Grandma Russell (Aaron's grandma) and we played a game of quiddler with her. It is a word game. At 90 years old, she kicked our trash. She is still very active and some day I dream of being as active as she is now, let alone when I am 90.

We were able to visit Darren, Aaron's cousin and partner in crime during is growing up years. There were more stories that came out that night. I don't think I have laughed so hard in a long time. Unfortunately, this all happened past my bedtime so I was too tired to remember the stories in the morning. But I do remember being shocked. This is the second time this has happened when we visited Darren.

We also got to visit Grandma Lofgreen and see how she is doing. She is as sweet as ever and hanging in there. It was nice to be able to catch up with Aaron's grandmas since we don't get to see them very often. Then it was back to the land of the hot and reality.

Mine

Emma has turned 2 with a vengeance. Overnight my adorable sweet child has developed an attitude. She practices it in her crib in the morning before I get her up. It is so sweet to hear her dropping obscenities in the early morning in her crib. I should explain. We have not taught her to swear. She picked it up on her own. Her swear word is "mine." She yells it when she is hurt, frustrated or any other inappropriate time. There does not have to be an object involved in the incident. And there doesn't have to be an incident either. Sometimes she will walk around yelling "mine" in an angry manner for no apparent reason. My sister Emily says this is a normal phase that 2 year-olds go through. I am glad she said something because I was starting to think about anger management classes for Emma.

I Spilled Water

Emma is either fascinated with spilling water or cleaning it up. Periodically she will come get me to tell me she has spilled water. It is not as though I give her a cup and access to water to go and partake at will. She has a camelback water bottle that is hard to spill from... and by hard I mean impossible. So here are at least 2 of her techniques for spilling that I have observed.

1. Drink the water and then spit it out. Then announce that you have "spilled" water.
2. Shake the water bottle upside down until you get something out of it. Then go announce that you have "spilled" water.

Wack, Wack, Wack

This morning Emma spotted a spider in our kitchen. It was a big sucker and so it freaked me out a little bit. So instead of just squishing it with a paper towel I got my shoe and whacked the bajeebees out of the thing.

Later that day when Emma was taking off her shoe, she saw a piece of dirt next to her. Emma thinks that all pieces of dirt are bugs. She proceeded to take her shoe and whack the bajeebees out of the dirt. I tried to pick it up to throw it out and she just kept whacking it.

When we were putting Emma to bed we asked her about her day.  She babbled some. I told Aaron about the bug story and we were laughing about it. Then Emma just kept saying "whack, whack, whack" and making the motion of killing the dirt. She would giggle and start with the whacking all over again.