All By Herself

I woke Emma up from naps to find this:

Right after I got her up Aaron called me to tell me that the car was finished at the shop (a lady had rear ended me) and could I pick it up before it closed. Hmmm.... there was no time to fix such a do. So in walks Emma with a rats nest for hair, shorts, a shirt and rain boots on the wrong feet. Everything about her screamed "I am 2 years old!" After we got home, it took Aaron and I working together 30 minutes to comb it out to this:

And you might ask what was I doing during naps while all of this was going on. I tell you what I was doing - very important stuff. This:

For comparison sake, this is Emma at about the same age:

Blessing John Richard Russell

We had family come in town for John's blessing. It was an adventure. The Anderson side came in for pre-blessing weekend festivities and the Russells stayed for post weekend festivities. Grandpa Rich took Emma to the mall for a walk on Thursday. We got a phone call from him where he asked if two wrongs make a right. This meant there was a story behind that question. He related how he let Emma play on the playground at the mall. My Dad knows that I view that thing as full of germs. And I can get over it and let Emma play there but with John being so young, I don't want to bring anything I didn't pay for. My Dad tried to guarantee that nothing came home with them by using hand sanitizer at the entrance of the playground, but there wasn't any. Appropriately placed near the playground is a cookie cart. My Dad offered to buy a cookie from them if they let him use their hand sanitizer. The price of clean hands - a $2 snicker doodle. Then I recommended to my dad that he take her to the bathroom soon. Emma didn't want to use the potty so my dad bribed her with a carousel ride. Next he took her to see the puppies at the pet store. We got a text from my dad saying that they found a puppy to bring home. Fortunately those puppies were $300-500 so there wasn't much of a threat behind my dad's words.

 The next day my dad took Emma to the library and then he promised her that he would take her to a French restaurant where she likes the croissants with ham and cheese. These are not just any croissant sandwiches. These have mayonnaise, ham, cheese, and are just dripping with butter. Oddly enough Emma likes them. The problem was, that the restaurant was closed. He tried two more french restaurants and they were closed. By this time they were in a different county and several miles away from where they started. Emma was starting to ask when lunch was. You know she is hungry when she asks about food. She never wants to stop and eat. Finally they found a Mexican restaurant. Emma painted with her bean quesadilla.

My dad also took Emma to the hotel to check in. When they got there my dad asked Emma if she wanted a cookie. I should preface this with the fact that she had just woken up from a nap and had not quite come to. She turned down the cookie. Then they went to the room. Emma had a great time wheeling my dad's roller bag around in the closet. When he related the story to me I made a comment about, "Why not! That is about as fun as it gets." My dad's response was classic, "I bet some of the things that I do appear to be that random to God." It caused me to ponder on my own roller bag wheelies in the closet.

On Saturday we went to the Butterfly museum exhibit. We had a great time.

After we went out for lunch at Aladdins (it is Mediterranean food). It was yummy. At the restaurant Emma wanted to pour water back and forth between glasses. Grandpa Keith being wise, attempted to help Emma  so that she didn't spill. Emma was not ok with that. She held Keith's hand and poured with her other hand so that Keith couldn't interrupt her fun.

That night we visited and the Anderson girls painted their pigs (Anderson for toes). Emma had noticed that Grandmas' and Aunts' had their toes painted and inquired about it. She wanted her toes painted so we decided to paint our toes. Aunt Mary is the best at coloring within the lines so she did the honors for Emma.

For the blessing day, it was wonderful. I was sad to see family go. It was nice to have more adult hands than children hands. Our friends Stef and CallisterSchmutz-Parente and Joy and Dan Dernick came to the blessing.

John with both Grandpa that he is named after. You can't see it too well but his shirt says "Grandpa's little buddy." It was compliments of Aunt Mary.

For Post weekend festivities we had time with Grandma Marsha and Grandpa Keith. They went to the park with Emma and we enjoyed hanging out with them and playing game and having extra hands. Grandma Marsha has an iPad with a video of her ballet company doing a dance that she choreographed. Emma loved to watch that video. After Grandma Marsha left Emma would walk me through the dance routine. She didn't understand why I couldn't do the splits as well as the "Ladies Dancing" (that is what Emma calls the video). At one point Emma was having her stuffed dog named Puppy "eat" Grandpa Keith. Grandpa Keith decided to join in on the fun and attempted to tickle Emma. Emma looked at him and said, "I know you want to play now but it is time for Puppy to eat you." Grandpa Keith considered himself told and shaped up - no more playing!

Likes

Today Emma told me she "only likes bows and termites." Hopefully that list expands and perhaps leaves off the termites.

2 Months

Better late than never... This kid is a big one. Here are 2 month pictures of John and Emma. Sometimes I would wonder of Emma was switched at birth.... crazy I know, but she is so not anything like me that I thought surely, there would be something in her from me, or at least look like me... Well, comparing John's 2 month pictures with Emma's confirm that neither one was switched at birth and the Russell's have the dominant gene pool. It is actually best this way - everybody wins.

 John is the baby in red. The others are Emma. At 2 months, John weighs in at 13 lbs 5 oz and is just shy 24 inches. Most of his length is in his torso so he is in 6 month clothing.

3rd Annual Bluebonnet Pictures

Birds, Cookies, Cake and Toast

Emma just gave me the bird and asked me what it was. I didn't want to tell her what it was so I asked her what it was. I was curious as to what she thought she was doing. I should clarify that she wasn't angry while giving me the bird, just curious. She said that it was a cookie. So there you have it, I can give a rude driver a cookie and feel much more charitable about my actions because everyone likes cookies.

We were at a New Years party and Emma noticed some kids eating chocolate cake. She saw it and asked for some toast and pointed to the cake. She didn't know what cake was and toast was the closest she could think of. We let her have cake. I related this story to my dad and he asked if I felt guilty about it. I was shocked. Of course not - I was proud that my 2.5 year old had no idea what cake was. I am that cruel.. but I will probably refrain from giving her cookies as well, so I can't be that cruel.

One Month

This is late, but that seems to be the theme around here of late. Sunday will be my first Sunday back to church with John and with church starting at 8:30am, and 2 kids to get ready without Aaron, lets be honest, this whole late thing is going to continue. I will be proud of myself if I get the sacrament 50% of the weeks this year.

I was taking John's picture and asked Emma to smile to take her picture. This is what I got:

When Emma is whining and asking for something we ask her to say it in a "happy" voice. Usually that means that she makes the same request but with a "please" attached to the end, but still whining. So Aaron was trying to get her to say it with a smile and he would put his fingers at the corners of his mouth. So now Emma associates the word "smile" with putting her fingers at the corners of her mouth.

This is actually a 3 week old picture:

This is a picture with the boots that my mom bought for Emma. For a while she would wear them everywhere, including just sitting in the foyer with them on just so she could wear them.

Here are the actual one month pictures (not too different from 3 weeks, I know):

Grandma Marsha came to help out during this time. It was wonderful - I got to have naps again and what more could you want out of life than to feel normal again because you are well rested. Not crazy is a good feeling. It was also nice because during the time that Marsha was here John started the symptoms of reflux so it was pretty stressful to try and feed a screaming, crying baby. Fortunately we were able to get him so medication and now he is moving toward going back to be a normal baby again. I took him to the doctor and they weighed him - at one month he came in at 10 pounds 9 ounces. This is a big kid.