Emmy's First Day of School

For weeks Emmy has been asking, "Momma, how many days until school?"

She could hardly stand the wait, especially when most of the neighborhood elementary school kids started the week before her. She finally got to meet her teacher last Tuesday and starting getting really excited, but still had to put up with her friends talking about recess and lessons and teachers. Finally, last Thursday, it was her day, and man did she let everyone know! She literally came flying out of her room at 6 AM and screamed (not uncommon for her!) as she ran though the house, "IT'S MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL TODAY!!!!". We managed somehow to get her dressed and through breakfast without her falling to pieces with anticipation.

When she was ready, she stood by the door very impatiently, waiting for the rest of us to get ready to go. No one seemed to understand what a hurry we needed to be in!!! I did get her to hold still for the required first-day-of-school picture.


Waiting for the gates to open at 9 AM.


Since this is the second year of preschool, Emmy gets to sign in by herself! She usually writes just "EMMY" so writing "Emerson" was a bit of a challenge, especially when it was so hard to concentrate on the first day! She sort of got the bottom half of the "s" backward, and maybe an extra leg on the "n" !!! We loved it, but we're still not sure what an Emercow is? HA!

Miss Three Tooth

Hadley decided at 10 months that she was tired of watching everyone else walk around on two feet so she pulled herself up and took a few steps!!! She copies everything Emmy and Gage do, so we aren't really surprised that she was interested in walking too.


Her first few attempts! Did I say 10 MONTHS??? Yikes!


She not only has started walking, but decided she likes to climb up on things and stand up there too!


She recently sprouted her third tooth, so I've been calling her "Old Three Tooth" lately! It is super cute and we're not looking forward to our last baby getting all her teeth and not looking like a baby anymore. We're trying to enjoy them every day just as they are. She was in the bath for the first shot.



One of her new habits is to crawl into Gage's dump truck and take a seat. The problem is, she can't get out on her own very well so she hollers at us every 20 seconds or so to help her out. Of course, then she climbs right back in again!!!


Hadley is getting pretty good at feeding herself now. And by "pretty good at" I mean, she can satisfy her hunger. A good bit of the food still doesn't exactly make it into her mouth.


Another of her new daily routines is pulling the tupperware out of the cabinet and investigating!!!


Of course, being a baby, she still takes a couple naps every day. She's waiting for the cell phone to ring. She loves it when it lights up and makes noise and can never seem to predict when its going to happen so she'll hold on to it for hours.


Just so this post isn't all about Hadley, here is a picture of all the kids from the end of August:

Summer Fun

I had to brush off a few cobwebs to get back to my blog after a long summer of fun. I know, I've neglected this badly and this short post won't hardly make up for it, but I thought I better throw up a couple pictures from our adventures. Summer seemed to last forever when I was a kid, but now it just flies by. The kids made the most of it, and Blake and I just tried to keep up. A few of our fun memories from the summer:

A trip to the aquarium

One of our neighborhood block party BBQs. The kids were let loose to eat and play, and obviously were not cleaned prior to photo time!!! A little waterfight after lunch took care of most of the mess and the heat! Emmy playing with one of her friends from school As always, playing a little dressup (Emmy's favorite) Dr Seuss inspired block castles Hadley playing her new favorite game! Peekaboo Hadley!!! One of our best memories of Summer 2008 was our big northwest road trip. Here's a picture from Glacier National Park in Montana, but I think I'll save more vacation pictures for another blog. Hope everyone is enjoying back to school time!

Little Man

Blake always calls Gage "little man" and this post is all about our cute little monster.


Emmy will get the honor next time. Maybe when Hadley does something besides drool she'll get a whole blog entry to herself! Oh wait, she can roll over, and she has a really cute laugh, but I digress... Today's post is for Gage. Hadley will get her chance, and I think I'll find a few more things to mention about her than her excessive drool:)

Gage's favorite things:
Rocks (Rots)
Trucks (Ruts), and
His Blanket (mah-mit)

If you only got to know one thing about Gagey, I'd tell you about his love of rocks. It doesn't matter the size, shape, color, or amount of dirt stuck to it, he LOVES rocks!



At first his fixation was SO cute, but it has started to get old because we literally can not get him to walk past a tiny broken pebble on the way to the car without him hollering, "Rot, Rot, Rot!!!" and pulling away to pick it up and show it off. "Yes, rock Gage" we reply with a sigh, and tell him to put it by the car for later. Rocks have been banned from the car as at the moment of unbearable boredom during a car ride he will hurl it wildly and unwittingly toward his baby sister who sits in front of him. The fact that he actually lets it out of his hand is amazing because usually the only way to wrench it free is to trade for food.



Speaking of food, Gage is finally old enough to hold his own "big boy" cup and not do much damage.


Gage will be 2 in April, and he is really growing up fast all of a sudden. He actually isn't growing much bigger, but he is growing up. He started talking a lot in recent months and now frequently says two words in sequence. Emmy teaches him to count, so he can count to three sometimes on his own. He likes to repeat after Emmy as she counts to 20, but he's a ways away from doing THAT on his own I think. He isn't quite ready to dress himself either, but he does try putting on his shoes by himself.


The only thing Gagey loves more than rocks and his sisters is his blanket from Grandma Mimi. Actually, I think he likes his blanket better! He doesn't like to go anywhere without it, and I'm not sure he'd be able to fall asleep without it. He loves to dig his fingers through the holes, especially when he's really tired. He might just be the most happy in the world when he wakes up in the morning and drags his blanket to "his" rocker and climbs in.

He'll rock for an hour, just humming a little song to himself and holding his blanket. The only thing that will get him up is a promise to go outside and look for rocks!!!

He is temperarily over his obsession with cars and trucks, but still likes to get them all out of his drawer and line them up on the floor, couch, or table, and make little "vroom vroom" sounds as he drives them on the furniture.

Some other things Gage likes:

GIVING KISSES


TRYING TO BE LIKE HIS BIG SISTER



HE'S ALWAYS LOVED BALLS!


WHAT KID DOESN'T LOVE CANDY!!!


HE'LL DO ANYTHING OUTSIDE


and his favorite hobby of late? HUNTING SPIDERS!!!!




We Love Our Little Man!