Halloween!

Halloween with little kids is kind of hard. Let me amend that. Halloween with little kids who cannot function on too little sleep puts a damper on Mom and Dad's social life.
This year our family went to a neighborhood potluck for dinner, which was really fun. Emily ate too much sugar and was literally running around in circles shrieking by the end of it. She was so happy to have so many of her favorite people in one place.
After dinner we went to the ward trunk-or-treat. Emily was dressed as Tiger Lily and Caleb was a lost boy. We kind of planned for Joseph to be Peter Pan to tie the costumes together but I ran out of time. He was the joker instead and I am just now realizing we have zero pictures of that. But here are the kiddos. And me striking a pose in the background.
Caleb was really so cute but half asleep the whole time. Emily was a little out of it (as shown in the picture below) so we had to leave early just as the party was getting started. It was quite an ordeal to drive through the throngs of people without hitting any little kids.
It was a fun night though and Emily is so excited for her candy. She went to sleep tonight with a glow stick bracelet someone was giving out.
Happy Halloween!

Emily's quirks

Emily is constantly making us laugh.
It might just be a toddler thing, but she has in her mind a certain way that things should be and she makes sure things are just that way, whether we (me and Joseph) like it or not. For example, she got a set of plastic food while we were in Utah and randomly decided that the crescent roll does not belong. When she sees me or Joseph put it in the tub with the other food, she promptly pulls it out and sets it on top of the cupboard where she feels it should go. She will even do this the next day if we put things away while she's in bed.
When it is time for lunch she gets excited and starts setting the table. Her staples are mustard, ranch, and a drink or two, but she will not hesitate to add other necessities like pickles, medicine, bacon bits, tartar sauce, and Hershey's chocolate if she is not stopped.
Emily is also a hoarder. She has special toys that the baby is not allowed to play with. This means that she has to have them with her wherever in the apartment she is, even if that means she has to make two or three trips whenever she moves to a different room. The stroller helps facilitate this habit.
Another thing about Emily (and probably most toddlers) is that she has a fantastic memory for certain things. I have mentioned before that she will sometimes put herself to bed if she knows she gets to watch a movie after her nap. On those days, she will sleep for two to three hours and the first words out of her mouth when she wakes are, "I watch a movie now?"

Emily is a climber and a great friend to Caleb. These traits combine to make for some fun games in the crib. She is well aware of the "No-Emily-in-the-crib" rule, but she pushes it to its very limits. This pushing of limits is a defining characteristic of toddlers too, I would guess.
Don't you love that ABC on the wall? We are teaching our kids the alphabet...
Really, it used to say Caleb but Emily felt the need to rearrange during one of her limit-pushing moments and we haven't fixed it yet.

So there you have it. Our quirky, yet totally typical toddler. We think she's the best.

Just plain mean.

One of the downsides to living in student housing is that there are so many wasps here. The maintenance guys put a lot of work in keeping them at bay, but there are still tons.
Today Caleb, Emily, and I were sitting at the table eating lunch when, out of the blue, Emily just started to cry. I turned to look at her and saw a wasp fly from her neck to the window. I was pretty mad at that wasp but I decided to tend to my daughter first. I put some ice on and then a baking soda paste to soothe the stings - there were at least two, but I haven't examined it closely yet. Then I tossed Caleb into his crib for a forced nap because I couldn't handle two crying babies and settled Emily down on the couch with a Barbie movie and some cozy blankets. After that I hunted down that wasp and smashed it to smithereens with the fly swatter. Emily's neck is a bit swollen, but she's stopped crying now and seems okay. I think she's mostly excited that she was allowed to watch TWO movies today instead of her usual one.
Wasps make me mad. I can't believe Emily was stung while she was sitting in her high chair minding her own business. That is just plain mean.

They Turned Life Into a Musical

Joseph always told me he wished real life was more like a musical...


Found via Mormon in Manhattan

A Day In

My neighbor has a theory that we went to Utah and caught all of the sicknesses there, and then we came back to Texas and had to catch up on the neighborhood colds that we'd missed while we were gone. It might be true. I feel like we have been sick since we got back. Because of this we have had to stay in a lot more than usual so the neighbors don't get sick too. Or rather, so that when they do get sick we don't feel responsible for it. :)
Here are a few pictures from some of our many days in. Those stripey pants are Emily's absolute favorite things to wear. I have to work hard to stock shirts that will match. We were not too concerned about the matching while we were home sick though. I love that the two kiddos play together now!
It might be more Emily playing with Caleb than the other way around...











but he loves the attention from big sister!











We pulled out the play dough,
did some cleaning to keep those germs at bay,
sorted the kids' closet,
and ate big breakfasts, during which Caleb discovered his love for waffles.
We tried using the pack 'n play for one of Emily's time-outs, but it was just too much fun to be repeated. This was Caleb's "airing out" time. He is somewhat prone to diaper rash.
And through it all, Emily and Caleb have maintained their love for one another. I love to hear Emily telling me she can't take a nap at the moment because she wants to go play with the baby.

Finally, here is a little piece of what that same neighbor I mentioned at the beginning of this post would call "third-grade boy humor." I was looking through my pictures and found one labeled "tramp with dad." I was just so curious as to what this could possibly be. The picture was kind of a let down. Still fun though.

Today was Weird

This morning around 11:30 Emily asked me if she could watch The Incredibles. I told her she could after her nap and she surprised me by saying okay and putting the movie away. Then she went into her bedroom, closed the door, and was super quiet for a long time (like 15 minutes). This worried me, but I was feeding Caleb so I left her alone. When I was able to I peeked in and she had turned on her air conditioner and was lying in bed under the covers with her jingle bear. She said hi to me and I returned the greeting and closed the door. She has been there for over two hours now and is still sleeping. Weird, no?

Just Sitting Around

Well, it's been over a week since the last post, so I figured I should write something...

Emily and I have been fighting a naptime battle. Every day she tries to sneak into the baby's bed to sleep. Her loyal jingle bear hasn't been so loyal in this campaign though, since I am able to hear every time she drops it over the railing into the crib. My favorite was the time I parked myself inside her room, sitting against the door, and she attempted to tip-toe across the room with her eyes squeezed shut. If she can't see me, I can't see her, right?
I have found that the trick to getting her to stay in her own bed is to leave her on her own and then check in on her every once in a while to catch her doing the right thing. The praise is what keeps her in bed, not the reprimand for breaking rules.

Caleb is such a cute little cuddle bug! He learned to crawl while we were in Utah and has been following Emily around ever since. He has started pulling himself up to a standing position, but I don't expect him to walk for another couple of months at least. He was recently sick and also cut four teeth at the same time. That was not a fun couple of days, but now he is the proud baby owner of eight sharp teeth!

Joseph and I have been keeping busy. Joseph was asked to lead the choir for stake conference about a month ago, and that happened last Sunday. It made for a long day, having to be at the stake center an hour early and then staying to sing in both sessions. Luckily, we have a fantastic ward and at least four families offered to help with the kids during conference. We had been relying on families in the ward for the previous three weeks to watch them during rehearsals too, so I'd kind of thought we'd used up all of our resources. We were very grateful when someone offered to take them home during the second session and the kids had a great time playing at their house while we were busy. The choir numbers went pretty well, but we are glad to have that experience behind us.

Here are a few leftover pictures from our Utah trip.
Emily spent some time playing Rockband (Beatles edition - great fun!) and loved the drums. That's Joseph and my dad backing her up.

I loved this picture of Emily and my mom looking out the window. This and the last picture were cell phone pictures, and as bad as they are, my new (old) phone pictures are even worse. Thank goodness for the new camera!

This is me in 2004, before Joseph and I were even married, feeding the Bean Museum moose a tattoo. I believe I am holding a couple of insect collection boxes we were picking up for a couple of siblings in high school.Here are Joseph and Emily visiting that same moose
And baby Caleb with Uncle Nathan continuing the family tradition.

Here is Emily on the airplane as we were completing the last leg of the flight, coming back to Austin. I think she was ready to be done. Thank goodness we had a good friend with a big car to pick us up from the airport!

Here is Caleb sitting at his table after a meal, well supplied with toys to keep him busy. Emily takes good care of baby brother (and this proves she is related to Derek).

And finally, here is one of my favorite pictures of Joseph and Caleb at a friend's birthday party. Caleb is definitely a hair puller, but look how happy it makes him! I love that little guy!

4 Bad Things, 1 Good Thing

I can see four bad things and one good thing in this picture. Can you?

Bad Things:
1. Cute baby mobile. No longer cute. No longer really a mobile. No longer there. Emily destroyed it yesterday.
2. Cute letters on the wall. Now safely stowed in the crack between the crib and the wall. (Okay, maybe you can't see this. It's still true though.)
3. That outfit. She chose it herself.
4. Emily in the crib. She sleeps in a big bed now. And that's been the case for the last six months.

Good Thing:
Emily is sleeping? During nap time? I'll take it!

$95 later...

I have a place to keep my phone and keys (and wallet) out of Emily's reach. We're hoping to have moved out of this apartment by the time she can reach that. We also hope that she has a little more sense by the time she's that tall.
The most expensive part of all of this was replacing the apartment lock and keys. That was $75. The other money went into buying the car key duplicate and shelf and hooks. The phone part ended up being free because I am now using this beauty:
It weighs three pounds and is like two inches thick. Good thing my "new every two" date is coming up so I'll only have to use this fossil for five months. Same phone number though. Phew!

I have decided that the phrase "mischievous toddler" is totally redundant.
Thanks for the adventure, Em. This is all coming out of your college fund. :)

Bad News, Boys

We have a grocery sack full of dirty diapers that hangs from our closet doorknob.

That in and of itself is bad news, but it gets worse.

Wednesday afternoon:
Emily amused herself by stuffing as many electronic gadgets and cords into this bag as she could.

Wednesday night:
Joseph took the bag out to the dumpster and heard a suspicious clank as it landed, but decided the dumpster was far too stinky to root through.

Early Thursday morning:
The garbage man came (while Emily watched through the window and cheered).

Late Thursday morning:
I packed the kids up to go to story time and could not find my keys or phone ANYWHERE.
I poked around the apartment, certain they would turn up, but they stubbornly remained hidden...
Or gone?

We officially have a toddler. And a mischievous one at that.

Family Pics

Before we went to Utah, we arranged with my sister Michelle to have our family pictures taken. She agreed, but our first agreed-upon date and time fell through due to a wedding dress emergency. Since that had been scheduled for a day before her wedding and she was leaving the next evening, we decided on the next afternoon (her suggestion, not mine - I promise). So, Michelle got married in the morning, went to the luncheon around noon, and then went straight to do our pictures. Here's what we got.



Cute, huh?

PS - I'm pretty bugged I forgot to take my hair out of that ponytail...

Compared to my mum, I am quite huge

Seriously.
I've probably got 50 pounds on her.

Just in case there were any misconceptions about that last post.

Compared to my mum, I am quite small

So, here is Emily on the airplane, watching our descent into Salt Lake. Yes, I probably wasn't supposed to have my phone on at this point, but I couldn't really help it.
Our first day in Utah we hit Savers to buy some quick warm clothes for the kids that they'll probably grow out of before they need them here in Austin. This shirt was my favorite. It wasn't really warm but we still bought it.
It says "compared to my mum I am quite small" on the bottom. Joseph allowed me to buy it but swore he would never be the one to dress Emily in it.

Later that day we had lunch at Cafe Rio (can't visit Utah without that, right?) and pretty much took the rest of the day off. We were still recovering from airplane travel with two young 'uns.

Here's an interesting little story though. When Caleb was a baby I was a little concerned about his eyes because his left pupil was always bigger than the right. It still constricted and dilated normally, just differently from the other eye. The doctor told me to watch it but didn't really have any advice. Here's a picture of him when he was about 2-1/2 months old. It's become a lot less noticeable since then.
Then, on our first or second day back in Utah, I was talking to my dad and noticed that he had the exact same thing! His left pupil was more dilated than his right! But it wasn't that noticeable and he's gone through his whole life like this and I'm pretty sure he's not brain damaged.
Okay, just kidding. That picture above is not of my dad. My dad's eyes are way less freaky than this guy's, and my dad does not have a unibrow. Besides, that guy's right eye is the dilated one, not his left. This is the anisocoria picture off Wikipedia.
But anyway, good to know it's genetic and that Caleb has a normally functioning brain, right?

A wedding, a baby, and a camera

We are back in Texas now, and I have to say, I am quite grateful for the humidity here! (I never thought I would ever say that.) Emily and Caleb haven't really dealt with dry weather before and it was pretty hard on their skin. It felt good to walk through the mugginess back to our apartment and know that it would cure them of their rashiness.
The trip started out well. We decided Emily was old enough to put to work and made her pull her own luggage.
I'm just kidding. She was really excited to be able to pull this little suitcase and actually took it most of the way to the gate. She also carried her own carry-on bag, which was a little red backpack.
She waited happily at the gate and was so excited to see the airplanes out the window.





















That's the beginning of the trip, I still have to sort through a bunch of pictures before getting to the rest of it. But, most of you know I was in Utah for my little sister's wedding. It makes me feel kind of old to have a younger sibling married now. Here's a shot of her leaving the luncheon. It was a very small, low-key family get-together at Pizzeria 712 in Orem. I'd never been there but the food was delicious. I was impressed that they were able to make food to satisfy all in the party - a bunch of kids under 8, me and Joseph (the carnivores), a whole slew of vegetarians, and two vegans. That is a feat to be proud of.
Congrats, Mich! Here's a pic of the little ones celebrating for you.
Two other important events:
#1. My brother Daniel and his wife Mindy had their baby and I think she looks a lot like Emily did when she was young. Their first baby was a redhead so did not look Japanese at all. But, here's the new little Olivia and her mom.
And here's Em, just a couple of days old, with my sister Sarah.
Maybe they'll look alike when they're older! Congratulations, Daniel and Mindy! What a beautiful little girl! (I may be a little biased there.)

Important event #2. We finally got another camera! Joseph found a great deal on spoofee.com. Even though it was probably a quarter the cost of our old one, it is an upgrade because so much time has passed since then. You will only have to suffer through those cell phone pictures for a little while longer now. :)