Prince Eric

Sorry, Mike. Emma has another man her life that she wants to marry. Prince Eric. Watch out Ariel, Emma has her eye on your prince! Check out the attitude I deal with lately, "Don't even look at me mom!!!" This went on and on, but my camera battery died. Apparantly they are set to marry on the 4th of July. Those of you who don't know, Prince Eric is from The Little Mermaid. Now that I know how to post video, be prepared for much more from this litte diva.

Yeah, Spring!

The snow all melted this week with the arrival of 60 degree temperatures. It has been very beautiful and spring like this week. We have hit the park and Emma has broke out her Harley bike. She is so funny. She insists on wearing her dance tutu to the playground the other day while riding her hand-me down harley davidson bicycle. That pretty much sums her up. I think Abby would be quite content spending all day in the swing at the playground while Emma scaled up and down the little rock wall and kept going down the slide head-first (gasp- bad mom alert!)

Then back home for a little quiet time. Emma has fashioned a hammock out of a fleece blanket tucked between our two living room chairs. It makes for quite the cozy little pocket for her reading. It looks so comfy, I tried climbing in there. Sadly, only seems to support 34 pounders. Her emotional rollercoaster continues. Today she hit me out of frustration when I was trying to do her her hair (our daily battle). I put her in time out and she just lost it. Huge tears, "mom, you're making me soooo upset. I am just tired and want my hair in TWO big ponies just right." God forbid her damn pony tails are not perfectly even on her head and holding just the same EXACT number of hairs in each one!!!!! Deep breath...... Thank heaven for this sweet, goofy face or it would be a lot harder to keep my cool.

We took the girls to get some portraits taken today in matching dresses. Something I thought I would never do, dress them up alike. But I just can't help myself. They came out pretty cute.

Mike and I dropped the girls off at nana and papa's for a quick date night. We went to Barrio in Minneapolis- so, so delicious! Kate talked me into running a half marathon in May so I started the day out with a 9 miler and don't seem to be springing back like I used to. I almost fell asleep in my margarita- what a lame date I am these days. Oh well, it was fun. Overall, a great weekend.

Girls Weekend!

Mike was gone in CT this weekend to visit his family so it was just us girls. We had a lot of fun! Thursday I had to work, so the girls were spending the night at my moms. I was going to meet some friends out for a drink after work, but received a tearful phone call from Emma. She was afraid,, "both mommy and daddy are gone on airplaines" (mike had just left that morning.) She was confused. So I spent the night at nana and papas too- with Emma glued to my side in the bed. Friday we went to the dome and played some soccer and jumped in the inflatables and then Friday night Emma had a "bonus" free swimming lesson to train the new swim teachers. The poor swim teacher looked like she was about 12 years old. It was just Emma in the lesson and the teacher did not know what to have her do, so Emma just swam back and forth for 30 minutes!!! I was getting worried about her, and we were all asking her to take a break (normally there are 4-5 kids in the class and they all rest on the steps while the others take turns.) so Emma was not getting a break at all. But she was loving it! She crashed that night at 6:45. She definately has the swimming down. She has been trying to shake the water out of her ears all weekend.

Saturday was Cookies with Clifford Day at the Discovery Center. Nana came with us. It was so fun- they had all kinds of arts and crafts, a book fair, open gym play, and of course Milk and Cookies with Clifford. The girls had so much fun. We are so happy to have activities like this around us all the time (and FREE!) Abby was doing such a great job keeping up with all the big kids in the open gym play. She got pushed around quite a few times, but really sticks up for herself (thanks, to Emma) and lets kids know it's HER turn on the slide now! Sometimes I am forced to look at the bright side of having 2 strong willed girls! Saturday night we went over to nana and papas for a wonderful dinner.

Today is Sunday and I even felt motivated enough to take the girls to PJ day at church. Emma and Abby both played games in thier jammies while I actually listened to the sermon (no daydreaming like usual) on the silver lining of this economy. A one hundred one year old woman got up to the microphone and said, "I have seen this before and much worse.. . I can say with certainty that no one will die from this economy and most of us will learn how to do more with less." So true and well said. Now it is warming up to a tropical 50 degrees and we have to get out of here and to the park! Mike comes home tonight and although of course we missed him, we were so busy and had so much fun, I have not been pulling my hair out like I usually do with 4 days with no help with the girls!

Oh, the Drama!

Poor little Emma has been quite emotional this week. Mike is very scared for the future with 3 women in the house! I'm not sure if she is having a growth spurt or what is going on, but she has been pretty irrational with her reactions to things this past week. For example, today, I would not give her lemonaide until she ate some of her lunch. Normally, she may put a pout on for a minute or two, then proceed to eat her lunch and then enjoy her lemonaide. If I give this kid leamonaide, she will down it all at once and then not eat lunch. So I've learned from experience. Today it was huge, sad tears and crying, "mama, you hurt my feelings, I am So SAD I can't have leamonaide!" The she went up to her room and shut the door. Mike and I just stared at each other......what was that??? I went up 5 minutes later to talk to her. "mom, I just want lemonaide and you hurt my feelings when you yelled at me." I never even came CLOSE to raising my voice to her. So I tried to just hug her. "Honey, I never yelled at you. It is my job as your mom to make sure you are eating and growing healthy. I cannot give you lemonaide because then you don't eat your lunch." More tears and saddness. I stopped talking then and thought maybe this is just something she needs to get out. I held her while she cried and I rubbed her back. We came downstairs hand in hand and she ate her lunch and then had her lemonaide and never said another word about it.....wow, this is going to be exhausting!

On the up side, the girls are so, so cute playing together lately. THIS is why we had another child. It just warms my heart to listen to them giggeling and really playing. Their favorite game is bear cave. They strip down to diapers and undies and make a cave out of the blankets in Emma's bed. They take turns being the bear and pop in and out of the cave. Don't ask me why they need to be down to the skivies, maybe because they get hot under the covers, I don't know. Here is a pic of the game. Notice Abby's band-aides due to her recent immunizations. At her 15 month visit, she is growing like a weed. 89% for height and 68% for weight. The doc said if she stays at this percentile, she will most likely lock it in at 2 years and that will be her percentiles for life. So this means, Emma will be like 5 feet tall and Abby will be like 5' 8"- too funny. But both the girls had ear infections. Ugghhhh, again! This Abby's first ear infection and Emma's just won't go away. So another round of antibiotics for the both of them. I asked about just taking a wait and see approach since neither of them were really seeming like they were in pain- but she said Emma's ears looked like they were about to burst, and Abby is under 2 so they always like to medicate since they can't tell us when it hurts. So, we will go back in another couple weeks to see if they are gone for good.

Emma has turned into a real mermaid this week! All of the sudden at swimming lesson she decided she was going to swim all by herself. And swim she did! She dives down to the bottom and picks up the princess crowns (rings) and then swims back up to the side of the pool all by herself. She looks so tiny in the water and it is a little scary watching her, but so, so cute. She comes up so proud of herself. It took her so, so long to feel this comfortable. I guess it is a testament to her personality- she just had to decide for herself that she was ready, and then she did it with no looking back. My little girl is really growing up.