Mommy's Girl

Emily does NOT like to have her hair brushed. She has very fine, wavy hair that is prone to tangles and frizz if we don't brush it often. She is really tender-headed, though, so it's a big hassle. I try to keep it braided or up as much as possible to minimize the drama. I was the same way as a little girl and recall hating having my long hair brushed just as much as Emmie hates it! She is very much like me:) She let me fix her hair like mine(pomp'd bangs and a ponytail=P) and even posed for some pictures. Doesn't she look sassy?! Especially in the second picture!

Wink, Wink

At first, I thought these first two pictures were a fluke. Then I saw her winking at me over meal-time. How cute is that?! She winks! If she's already this flirty at 11.5 months old, we're in trouble;)

Happy Father's Day

For the second year in a row, we actually got to spend Father's Day with Dan at home! We let him sleep in while we made the trek to Krispy Kreme(it's three cities away so it's only for special treats). Once Daddy had woken up, we took the kids swimming and picked up lunch. Then we spent naptime doing essential things like errands(him) and napping(me). We capped the day off with Daddy at the grill.

The coolest part this year was Ben and Emily wanting to make Dan cards. Mimi casually asked them if they would make him some and they loved the idea. The asked me for paper and Ben even had me spell D-a-d-d-y for him. He drew him a picture of himself and carefully chose car stickers for the inside because, "he likes cars because he has a car." :) Emily's card was filled with beautiful stickers she hand-picked, as well. There were no less than 30 hearts, flowers, butterflies, bugs and even a princess coach. She said, "Daddy will say, 'Oh, this card is so beeyoootiful! Look at all the flowers!". It was really sweet to see them carefully create their cards with him in mind.

They also tried to pick out some sport gifts for him because, as Ben put it, "he likes sports. Get him a sports thing for Father's Day". He ended up with an itunes card that he'll probably use to buy them more music than he does for himself. He's such an amazing father. He shows us how much he loves us in everything he does. He works so hard to make us happy. We love you, Daddy! Thank-you for giving us a reason to celebrate today!

Wed. With Wednesday

We met my very old friend Kristin and her daughter Wednesday(Wendi for short) at the park on Wednesday. Just as I am life-long friends with Ruby's mother, Kristin is another of the "next-generation" friends of mine. We've been friends all our lives and now our littles are friends, too. It's a friendship 26 years in the making! We call them Little Evvy and Little Kristin, but the funny thing is that somehow I got the blondie and my fair-haired friend Kris ended up with a brunette. With Ruby moving away, we plan to spend a lot more time with Miss Wendi in the future.

Monkeying Around

I thought these pictures were too cute not to share, although they don't really meet my exacting standards for blog-pictures. I am STILL battling bronchitis. I came down with the flu almost three weeks ago and have been hacking up my lungs day and night ever since. I've been to the doctor twice, ingested antibiotics, several bottles of Robitussin, a couple more bottles of codeine cough syrup(aka nectar of the Gods) and I'm on my second bottle of Mucinex. It's been miserable. Everyone is so sick of hearing me cough that Emily tells me "stop coughing mommy" and Callie covers my mouth for me.

Needless to say, we haven't done much nor have I been in the mood to take many pictures. It's survival-mode around here lately. I'm slowly getting better, though! I took these pictures the other day after getting Callie up from her nap and giving her a snack. She's eating a cracker, Emily's eating her hair and Ben is just being silly:) They make me laugh, though!

11 Months Old!

Only 4 short weeks til her first birthday! I've given up attempting to understand why it went by so fast. I've stopped being so perplexed and outraged that she's growing so quickly. Instead, I'm just enjoying my baby each day and looking forward to all the wonder and excitement her second year of life will hold for her. She has been moving and doing and generally turning into a toddler before our very eyes. She cruises around furniture, pulls up to stand on everything and crawls with terrifying speed. Simply put, she's into EVERYTHING!!! She has perfected clapping and waving and has added pointing and blowing kisses to her repertoire!

She still has no teeth, but other interesting things are going on with that mouth: talking! She has many words already and learns new ones all the time. The current list includes: mama, dada, Buhbuh(Ben), hi, no-no-no, yeah!, mine, Mimi, Dora, Dog and Rahh-rahh which she says to the cat. Maybe it's Rocky? That one might be a stretch;) Either way, she's quite the linguist at only 11 months and we're very impressed. She would NOT sit still so these are the best of the bunch. Still cute, right?

Merry-Go-Round

Ben, Emily and Callie took their first rides on a merry-go-round today! Nina picked us up and took us to a super-fun park downtown. She even paid for the carousel rides:) It was a great way to spend the morning!

Magic Show

A little birdie from preschool let us in on a secret. There was going to be a magician at our favorite park today and we could watch the show the group of kindergartners celebrating the end of the school year:) We went along to see what we could see and ended up having a blast. Ben sat for the entire show. He participated. He laughed. He looked on in amazement. It was such a special thing for me to see. It showed me how much he's grown and how close he really is to being one of those kindergartners in the near future:) We decided to do one more year of preschool for our September-Baby and finally feel at peace with the decision. I struggled with it since January but finally feel like giving him the gift of time will be the best choice for him. He's amazing and I can't wait to see what next year holds for him.

You know what a cynical person I am, so when I saw this guy with his worn, woman's vest, faded chinos and weird hat, I inwardly groaned. He was AMAZING. So funny and great with children. He was like the love-child of Gene Wilder and Dustin Hoffman and by the end of the show? I kinda had a crush on him! I won't lie.

Ben loved it all. From start to finish.

I couldn't decide who to watch more, Ben or the magician. Both were magical:)

Emily wasn't as impressed with him. She laughed at his jokes, participated through a few tricks and then hightailed it to the playground.

Callie stayed at home and took a nap with Dan. Parks aren't really fun for her at the moment because she's not allowed to crawl around and put everything in her mouth. I know...I know. I'm a jerk. She tells me all the time;)

Park With Daddy

Dan is so NOT a "play-at-the-park" kind of dad. It's just not his thing. Being a nanny before I had children helped me get over the boredom I feel as an adult at the park. I actually really like taking Ben and Emily to the playground now but I can understand why Dan doesn't care for it. Every once in awhile, I convince him to come along and they love it. It's so cute seeing how happy and excited they are to have their daddy at the park with them! They'll always want me to take them to the park over Dan, though, because I let them stay and play for much longer:) Daddy only has a 30-minute tolerance for playgrounds!

Callie continues to be the black sheep and adore swings:)

She looks so bitsy next to him!

And she looks so grown up:(

Speaking of grown ups, doesn't Callie look like a toddler in this picture?!

It was just an optical illusion.
She's still little enough to be stuck in her stroller much of the time.

"Get.In.My.Mouth!!"

Only picture I got of Ben. He has no time to pose for pictures:)

Spider-Dan, Spider-Dan...does whatever a spider can!

Lily's Party

We celebrated our friend Lily's 3rd birthday with a pajama party, pancakes and lots of fun. Kids were encouraged to come in their pj's but Ben was having none of it. You know how particular he is about his clothing. It was too hot for Callie to wear her jammies so she wore a party dress instead and since the other two were wearing regular clothes, Emily followed suit. We still had fun, even if we were over-dressed;) Ben spent the whole time playing outside with the sand/water table and Emily found some older girls to pester. Mimi came along, too, to wrangle Callie for me. Here are some pictures I snapped from the party!

Emily, bravely petting Gandalf the Dog

Gandalf got a little fresh with Callie;)

Fun at the water table

Hopscotch Sprinkler

The arrival of summer means finding ways to stay cool while having fun. The goal is to do it on the cheap and we've found a SUPER fun, SUPER cheap water toy that fits the bill! Mimi picked this little ditty up at Target yesterday for a staggering $4.99. You hook it up to your hose and it gives them a place to jump and splash while teaching them all-important rules to hopscotch. It even comes with 3 discs to use as markers. What a steal! Emmie is learning her numbers and this is a great way to encourage counting, number recognition and develop gross motor skills. What?! It even doubles as a learning toy, you say?! UNREAL. Seriously. Go to Target and buy one. It's called the Banzai Aqua Blast Hopscotch.