Like Mother....Like Daughter

So, I have to totally tell on myself. Sometimes on VERY RARE occations and when it is an absolute EMERGENCY I have been known to talk on the phone while using the bathroom.....come on, admit it.....you have too :) Sometimes I forgot how much Emily picks up and imitates practically everything I do. That is until I see a reminder......
Yes, Emily is sitting on the potty talking to Mimi on the phone. I was fixing supper while Emily was talking to Mimi in the kitchen with me. The next thing I know Emily is on the potty still talking to Mimi. I said "Emily, what are you doing?" She said, "I had to go pee pee!" Well, at least she did it in the potty :)

Ice Storm Entertainment

Well, while we were fortunate enough to have electricity back after only 36 hours many of our friends and family weren't! Aunt Becky & Uncle Bob stayed with us for 2 nights after 3 days of begging them to come on over :) Then, when they "moved" out our friends from church "moved" in :) We were so glad that James, Layne, Baylee, Tory, Jay and Maggie came to stay. They were in their house for 5 nights I think before they finally decided to come over!! I was so glad they did because I was very worried about them at their house. They live in an older neighborhood and said they heard trees falling all around them!


Emily just LOVED having everyone here! She was so glad to have someone other than me and Charles to play with....and play she did! Unfortunately we were gone most of the time Aunt Becky and Uncle Bob were here so we didn't get to spend much time with them. But while James & Layne were here she took full advantage of having 4 playmates! The older girls were so good to play with and entertain the little ones. Emily got spoiled having someone to play with 24/7. One night they even put on a play for us :) This was Emily's first play! I told Layne that I remembered putting on plays for my parents when I was litttle. I don't know if I started at 2 or not!

Anyway, here are some cute action pics from Emily's very first play! Thank you to Baylee and Tory for directing it and to Layne and James for staying with us so I wouldn't have to worry about them any more :)

We Have Electricity!

Well, I think we can safely say we have survived the Ice Storm of '09 (appropriate name huh :). We lost electricity on Tuesday morning about 9:30 and it came back on Wednesday night about 6:30. Let me tell you, almost 36 hours with no electricity and a 2 year old can make for some interesting times :) However, from reports we have heard, we were afraid it would not be back on until Saturday!

FORTUNATELY we have a gas stove, gas fireplace, gas water heater and gas grill so we were doing a lot better than some people. The coldest the thermostat said was 59. However, it is right next to the living room where the fireplace is and I KNOW it was colder than that in our bedroom and bathroom!

Also, fortunately we don't have any big trees in our neighborhood. We complain a lot because of the lack of "mature" trees. However, this is definitely one time when it is a plus that we live in a new neighborhood. There are trees in a ravine in between the 2 phases of our neighborhood. They do have powerlines near them, but I don't think any houses are close enough to be damaged by falling branches! It was kind of scary, you could just hear the branches breaking and falling off...shew!!

We made a pallet in the floor in front of the fireplace and pretty much camped out there! We also moved Emily's table and chairs in there so she could color and everything where it was warm! She actually ended up sleeping in her crib last night. We left her door open and put 2 extra blankets on the bed and when she woke up she was nice and toasty warm! Charles slept in the living room and manned the fire all night and I slept in our bedroom and woke up every hour as usual....one of the joys of pregnancy!

Emily loved the "snow". I don't think she ever understood that it was ice, except for the fact that Charles would take her Ice Skating ;) They would go out on the front porch and he would hold her hands and she would just slip and slide around....she just giggled and laughed!

We had grilled Pop Tarts for breakfast this morning. That worked pretty good! We used the backporch as our refrigerator/freezer! It worked REALLY well. We had nice cold milk this morning....not frozen! Charles made a Wal-Mart run this afternoon for "necessities" (including M&M's, Red Hots, Diet Cokes and the ingredients for No Bake Cookies). He waited in line at least an hour just to check out! He said it was CRAZY! I told him, now that he did that we would get power....sure enough 5 hours later it was on!

Ice skating...whee!!!! (Yes, she is wearing Elmo houseshoes, her Sleeping Beauty dress-up dress and her Sunday coat and hat :)

Our "refrigerator"

Grilled Pop Tarts...yum!
Icicles
Our bushes out front

The "whirly birds" as Charles calls them.

Ice on the fence

On the trees

On Emily's swingset

More on Emily's swingset

The trees in between Phase I and Phase II of our neighborhood

My tree in the front yard on Tuesday :(

Emily posing by my poor little tree Wednesday :(

Isn't she cute :)

Deep Thoughts....

I cannot begin to write down all of the amazing things that Emily says, does, remembers, everything! Each day it is something new and exciting for her! I thought I would just write about a few things that came to mind!


~ Emily has really started to think and ask about different things. Her favorite word is "Why?" and she says it ALL THE TIME! Anything we say, it's "Why?". Or, if we tell her not to do something...it's "Why not?"! Anyway, we drove by some houses under construction and Emily said "Why are those houses all torn up?". So, I explained to her that they weren't actually torn up but that they were just now being built, they were under contruction. Then, my brilliant 2 year old comes up with "Why do people build houses?"!! I promise these were the exact words out of her mouth :) I was so impressed first that that was such a big sentence and second that she could actually think that! So, then, I told her how all houses were built at some point and that Emily's house and Aunt Vicky's was under construction at one point too. So now, when we drive by those houses, Emily says "Those houses are building!".


~ Emily was sitting in my lap and started looking at my mouth. Charles has had a fever blister on his lip, so she's really into lips right now. Anyway, as she was looking in my mouth, she said "What's this?". I thought she was pointing to my teeth so I told her they were my teeth. She said, "No, not teeth. The pink stuff." Then Irealized she was talking about my gums :) So
I told her they were gums and that everyone had them. So, she had to feel her gums, then she had to feel Daddy's gums! Then she said "Why do we have gums?". Then we had to see Emily's in the bathroom mirror!


~ Her favorite hymn now is Holy, Holy, Holy. She can even find it in the hymnal...pretty easy being #1. So, tonight while I was rocking her she kept saying "Hold me, hold me". I said I am holding you baby girl. Then she said it again and I said I am holding you! Then she said "No Mommy, Holy, Holy, Holy in the book!"


~ She loves to say that she is going to get a Baby Sister in June :) We aren't really sure what to tell her about how she will get a Baby Sister. So, we just left it as she will get one in June!


~ We watched the Inauguration last Tuesday and tried to tell Emily about what was going on. She learned how to say President Obama but other than that, I didn't think she was paying any attention. Today while we were watching the weather channel a picture of the Capital Building came on and Emily pointed and said "President Obama"! I said, "Yes, that is where President Obama works." I guess maybe she was paying attetion ;)

No Dryer :(

Unfortunately our dryer decided to die this week! It died on Wednesday, the guy came on Friday, the part came in today and he's hopefully going to fix it tomorrow! That is a whole week without a dryer while we're potty training! Fortunately, we have TONS of panties and Emily has had very FEW accidents (see previous post)! However, I did have to do a load yesterday because Emily was out of panties and pj's. I thought it was kind of funny to see all of her stuff hanging in the laundry room!

Potty Training Week 1

Well, we officially started potty training last Saturday. It has gone SURPRISINGLY well, compared to stories I have heard! I have told everyone, Emily has been such a good child about everything....sleeping all night at 10 weeks, being such a good eater, talking so well at 2 and now (knock on wood) doing really good at using the good potty.....I just hope we can get this lucky 2 times!

We used anything and everything as incentives during this time! She gets a pee-pee sticker for her potty chart and 1 Hershey Kiss when she pee-pees, she gets a poo-poo sticker for her potty chart and 2 Hershey kisses when she poo-poos. She also gets (when she remembers to ask for it :) to take a shower and play with her crayons when she poo-poos. She has also gotten surprises at night from Daddy when she has not had an accident all day. These include new Valentine Books, Shake's ice cream, stuffed Rocket from Little Einsteins and a huge stuffed Care Bear. I'm telling you, we've decided whatever works :) We just hope that once she gets the hang of it, she doesn't require all of this!

We want to say a big THANK YOU to cousins Debbie, Deleah and Braxton because they gave Emily the bath crayons for Christmas. These were ultimately Emily's motivation to poop in the potty! We had tried everything and then Emily found these in her drawer. I have to admit, I had hid them thinking they would make a big mess and be more trouble than they were worth! However, Emily REALLY wanted to play with them so we told her that when she poo-pooed she could take a bath and play with them. Low and behold SHE DID IT!!!!! And, to my surprise, they are not messy at all! The problem has been that almost every time she poops, she wants to take a bath or shower so she can play with her crayons. Needless to say she is very clean and her skin is very dry right now!

The accident tally for Week 1 is as follows:
Monday - 2 accidents
Tuesday - 0 accidents
Wednesday - 2 accidents
Thursday - 0 accidents
Friday - 0 accidents
Saturday - 2 accidents
Sunday - 0 accidents

A very good report for Week 1 of Potty Training if I do say so myself :)

The best incentive for Potty Training EVER :)

Week 1 Potty Chart

Ultrasound Pics

I am sorry for the quality, they were not very dark to begin with and so when I scanned them they looked REALLY light! Maybe you can see a little bit!

Profile

Front of face
Legs straight out to the right - nothing in between.....it's a girl :)

Spinal cord

Baby's head to the right and body to the left