Pigtails

I attempted to put pigtails in Emily's hair for the first time this week. Since her natural part is off-center, one of them didn't stay in the greatest. Plus it's twice as much work to wrestle them in. We'll probably stick to one side ponytail for now. :o)

Summer fun

We have enjoyed the most beautiful week of summer weather! Most of it has just been me & Emily hanging out together since she has had an icky summer cold that I didn't want to pass on to anyone else. She is over the hump now, so yesterday morning we enjoyed a fun play date. There was a core group of "regulars" at the weekly breast-feeding group I attended at Allen Hospital until Emily was mobile and too hard to contain (9 months old). Almost everyone (7 of us) met at a playground in Waterloo with our kids to catch up and play. It was so fun to see everyone after almost a year had passed. All the kids are so grown up now! It was also fun to swap stories and advice again. :o)

Yesterday also marked the first time we hauled out the little blow-up pool. I huffed and puffed while Emily was napping. It was worth it b/c she spent 2 hours putzing and playing in it when she got up. She started off just splashing and scooping the water with a spoon. After awhile I showed her she could stand in the water, which she enjoyed stomping and splashing. Eventually she figured out she could sit and even "swim" on her tummy. Cheney thought it was great to have a giant water dish readily available, too! Below are some pictures documenting our afternoon as well as a video montage in the player.

Emily sayings

It has been absolutely gorgeous weather the last couple days. Emily, Cheney & I have enjoyed being able to run around outside for hours, although sometimes Emily & Cheney fight over the sticks in the back yard. ;o) I just have to share a couple funny sayings from our little chatterbox:

Emily loves playing peek-a-boo, but she says "peek-oo". Sometimes I say, "There she is," when playing it with her. So for lunch today Emily had a pasta dish with noodles, chicken and broccoli all mixed together. Of course, she only picked out the broccoli, and she kept saying what I swear was, "Peek-oo, there she is!" refering to the pieces of broccoli.

Also, while we were in Hull, Grandma B taught Emily how to say "whoopsie-daisy" only it comes out more like "oops-daisy". :o)

Father's Day

We had a pretty low-key Father's Day. Emily was still on a "vacation" time schedule, which meant a later sleeping schedule. She literally ran around in figure-eights saying "Cwazy" more than once during the day. Emily & Austin had some quality father/daughter time while I snuck away to go judge the Miss Readlyn contest. A friend from my breast-feeding support group was in charge and asked me to be one of the judges. It was fun and really easy--just a short interview with four candidates--and the choices were pretty obvious.

Since Emily was on a later schedule I tried to eat my customary giant bowl of Sunday night popcorn while she was awake. Between her feeding me and stirring the whole bowl with her hands and Cheney trying to get at any stray pieces, it was a bit of a circus. It will be awhile before she can join us for a civilized meal of popcorn!

Vacationing in NW Iowa...

Emily & I picked a good week to go on vacation! We left Austin and all the flooding behind and headed to Hull, IA on Monday to visit Grandpa & Grandma Boote for the week. Here are some of the highlights:

• Emily loved chasing the kitties around the farm. She never was able to catch one, but it sure provided a lot of entertainment! We also visited all the animals on the home farm. Emily was not so sure about the calves/cows and pigs. She would have loved to get closer to the "horsies", but it was pretty muddy.


• Emily also got to play with Nika and Milo a lot (Courtney & Abbie's dogs). Emily repeatedly asked about "My-o" but only called Nika, "Cheney".


• Emily ate a whole ice cream cone for the the first time. See the funny video in the June player.


• Emily did awesome sleeping away from home--the best she's ever done. She did, however, figure out how to climb out of the Pack 'N Play on a couple of occasions. Luckily, it was usually after a solid afternoon nap. One time we found her bouncing up and down inside her laundry basket full of clothes on top of the big bed.


• We attended the Rock the Block benefit event at American Reformed Church on Wednesday night. Emily loved listening to the band music. She also discovered it "tickled" when she lifted up her shirt and rolled her wooden bug car across her tummy and told everyone about it. This would have been much more amusing if it hadn't been in the middle of Betheny Bousema's emotional talk on faith & ministry!


• One night we went out for pizza at the Pizza Ranch to pre-celebrate my birthday. Then we went to the Kids' Kingdom park to play with "Gram-pin" and "Gramma". Emily now has two distinct names for grandparents.


• I took a trip down memory lane when my mom & I washed up and dusted off some classic toys from my childhood including a Fisher Price record player and all the Fisher Price "people" sets.


• On our last night we went up to Rock Rapids to Island Park. They have a fun "mini zoo" that I remember as a kid. Emily called the goats "puppies" and all the birds "chickens" even though most of them were species of pheasants. She loved the bunny but didn't care for the peacocks. The river was really high and we couldn't get across, but we found a place to drop in a fishing line. Emily had enough sit in her to take one quick picture, but she mostly just enjoyed digging in the sand with sticks. I haven't held a fishing pole in years and was proud to catch a little baby bullhead. :o)


• We left Hull early Saturday morning and headed to LeMars to visit Austin's family. It was the only Saturday in June where we didn't have 2 parades scheduled, so Emily & I watched the LeMars Ice Cream Days parade with Great-Grandma Freking and Great-Aunt Patty. Aunt Brandi & Cousin Asher were walking in the parade with the MOPS group. I decided it's easier to be in the parade with a wagon than to contain Emily watching a parade. She got a lot of candy and a smiley-faced blow-up beach ball. We all loved the gaggle of marching geese. :o) Later we ate lunch with Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Lorenzen.

Emily was a stinker and hardly slept on the drive home, but we made it. We had to go around on Hwy 20 to get over the river, so it took a little longer. Thankfully, Denver and our house were spared any major water problems. We had a little bit of pooling water in the basement from seepage in the foundation similar to what occurred a few weeks ago, but that was only one day. Our new sump pump has kept up and everything else is dry. Our hearts break for so many others, including friends, who have not been as lucky.

Below is a slide show of pictures from our vacation. There are a couple videos in the June player. Enjoy!

Time to cook...

In addition to the fun parades, Aunt Courtney ("Cor-ty") and Uncle Adam stayed with us this weekend. Aunt Courtney made a very cute apron just for Emily so Emily doesn't always want to borrow Mommy's at inopportune moments!

Time for parades!

Today marked the official start for parade season for us, and it was a doozy! Our first stop was Dairy Days in West Union under a blazing sun with the heat index in the 90's and a strong south wind (thank goodness!). We were one of the last entries in the 2:00pm parade--just before the fire trucks--so our trek to "line up" was 3x longer than the parade itself! Emily did fabulous despite the heat and performed her sole duty flawlessly--to look cute. ;o) Her little t-shirt is adorable. We even shared a very melty chocolate shake that didn't come with a napkin without one drip on our clothes. Amazing! Emily also acquired some shiny red beads, which she thought were great!

David Hartsuch, who is running for Iowa's 1st Congressional Seat, walked--or should I say rode--along with us. He owns a few Segway scooters and is trying to convince Austin to borrow one for parades and door-knocking. I tried it out, and it sure is fun!

While Austin stayed in West Union to talk politics Emily & I headed home. We were having fun watching little girls perform their dance routines, but it was just too hot and windy. We enjoyed a normal supper at home in the cool, quiet house before turning around and heading back to Westgate for the Westgate Day Parade at 6:30pm. It was still terribly windy with the added fragrance of hog manure. :op You know you're in a (really) small-town parade when:

1. The parade route is 4 blocks long
2. Tractors outnumber the other entries 2 to 1
3. The "town queen" is riding barefoot on the back of a motorcycle

Emily did great again despite spending so much time in the van and only dozing for 45 min. along the way. Including the flying solo shopping trip I took to Cedar Falls this morning, I put 192 miles on the van today. Austin drove separate b/c he door-knocked all morning, too. Whew! Emily also discovered the joy of Tootsie Rolls and Frooties. I think she ate at least 5 of them after the Westgate parade until I cut her off. It's only the beginning! :o)

Watch out for spitting llamas!

We attended a fun cookout at Tim & Kris Boettger's farm place tonight. Emily was so excited about everything there was to see that I think she might have consumed all of two grapes and a sip of lemonade for supper. She LOVED looking at and talking to the brand new baby kitties in the dog house, even though she couldn't touch them. She also thought the llama was pretty interesting until I set her down after this photo. She went up close to the fence and the llama leaned over and spit right in her face! She had pieces of grass stuck all over and needed a wet wipe to get it off. She was hysterical and Austin & I had to try hard not to laugh. Needless to say, she didn't go near that part of the farm again! She'll probably be traumatized for quite some time. She did recover enough to enjoy a ride on the hay rack behind the tractor. :o)

Cookie drama

So I just have to share about the drama/trauma that sometimes occurs when Emily eats cookies. First of all, she loves cookies and sometimes asks for one half way through breakfast (the daughter of her mother!). She also knows exactly where the complimentary cookie tray is at the Denver Savings Bank. We walk there a couple times a week to make campaign deposits and she always gets one. I learned the hard way to always make sure to pick one without any chocolate. :o)

One of the reasons why is because Emily's current cookie-eating technique is to hold it up to her mouth and basically suck on it to create a U-shaped "bite". Of course, the cookie eventually starts to break up, in which case she proceeds to shove the entire thing into her mouth--usually producing hilarious chipmunk cheeks. Then she realizes how messy her hands are and needs them to be wiped off--fast!

Yesterday I made giant monster cookies while Emily was napping. She must have smelled them, because she was asking for one before I even got her out of her crib. Since the cookie was large and fresh from the oven it didn't take long before it started to fall apart. This greatly distressed Emily, and she threw a fit when her cookie crumbled on the table and she discovered her hands were covered with melted chocolate. "Wipe!" She eventually consumed most of the cookie after I broke it up into small bite-size pieces and convinced her that it was okay to eat it that way even though it didn't look like a cookie anymore.

The other problem with monster cookies is that she often wants to eat the M&M's first, so her other approach is to try and "bite" them out, regardless of location. It usually doesn't work very well, she gets mad and throws it down, and I get annoyed that she wasted a perfectly good monster cookie on Cheney! I think from now on we'll try and stick with the small ginger cookies straight from the freezer... ;o)

New baby doll

I had the pleasure of taking a solo shopping trip to Wal-mart yesterday. After seeing Emily play with dolls at a friend's house on Friday, I decided it was time to get a baby doll set of her own. I picked out a basic set that included a disappearing milk bottle, sippy cup, magnetic pacifier and small teddy bear--nothing with noises or batteries. I also got a little doll-sized umbrella stroller. As you can see in the pictures and video, Emily was thrilled. Actually, she was mostly thrilled with the stroller and bottle/cup. It didn't take long before the baby was chucked on the floor and she was only pushing around the bottles and little teddy bear. She continued that pattern this morning as she hauled the stroller up and down the stairs. It's funny to watch because sometimes she almost looks like a little old lady with a walker. :o)