Sisters Play

Emily and Avery are now at the age when they can start playing together.  Avery loves when Emily makes her laugh and pushes her around on toys.  Sometimes playing together is a good thing and other times it causes uh-oh's, but in the end it's all great fun and brings the girls closer together.

Cool Emily

Father's Day 2011

What a great Father's Day we had this year.  We got to spend time with Ama and Apa and have a good ole' fish fry at their house.  Sadly, mama's cheesecake didn't make it, dada knows why, but all in all it was a great day.  Happy Father's Day Dada, we love you!

Tired after a long day

Emily's gift to dada

Bedtime

It is important in our house to have a bedtime routine and stick to it.  After dinner, dada runs the girls bath while mom cleans up the kitchen.  After the girls have taken their bath they usually play a little with mama and dada before being put down in their cribs for the night.  Sticking to this routine has paid off and now Emily knows when it's time to get in her bed and when Avery sees Emily going down she knows it's her time as well.  I am so thankful for bedtime routines because mama has time to pick up around the house, do laundry or sometimes just sit back and relax while I let the day's stresses fade away.

Time for bed.  Avery observes sister in her crib and knows it's time for bed.

Uh-oh, it's almost time to take Emily's mattress down a notch.

Avery at 10 Months

It is official, Avery's first word is "dada"! All this month Avery has been saying dada and is now saying ball and is extending her consonant sounds.  Her vocabulary will be growing and before we know it she will yelling at her sister.  Avery still growls at everything especially when she is crawling around and exploring so I have come to call her my little lion.  She makes me laugh every time she starts to growl because this large sound is coming out of this tiny body.

Now that she has learned how to crawl, she is everywhere and loves to explore her surroundings.  Sometimes she gets into trouble when she finds things like hall lights to pull out of their sockets.  I constantly have to watch her and make sure she isn't pulling on things or putting harmful objects in her mouth.  Avery hasn't started cruising yet but she pulls herself up with the help of objects all the time and is somewhat of a little daredevil.  Yesterday she was riding her dragon and she stood up on top of it while holding the handle bars and then decided, as if that wasn't dangerous enough, to lift up one of her legs and balance on the other.  She is our little Evel Knieval.

Teething this month has been trecherous as Avery is currently getting her two upper central incisors.  This past weekend she's had fever, fussiness, lack of sleep and is just plain tired.  Her sore gums prevent her from drinking from her bottle and I have to constantly put Orajel on her gums to relieve the pain.  The pain from sucking leads her to want more solids and now she is moving away from baby food and is headed towards table food.  Every night this past week she has had food that mom has prepared instead of her soft Gerber food.

It is amazing at how much Avery has grown and it gives me such delight to watch her develop and try and follow her big sister.  Wherever Emily goes Avery wants to follow, I guess Emily better get used to having her little sister around all the time.

Emily at 20 Months Old

At 20 months, Emily is still trying to perfect her speech and say as many words as possible even if she has to make them up herself.  Most of the time it's a little hard for us to understand what she is trying to tell us but after a couple of frustrating minutes it becomes clearer as you listen to her say the word over and over.  When she asks for something and mommy says "no", she looks at me and signs "please" while at the same time saying "pease".  How could you say no after that little antic.  So funny!

Along with language Emily also began singing her ABC's.  She knows the tune and will sing some parts very clear while other parts she humms.  This age brings about the monkey-see-monkey-do phase so she always wants to try something she finds interesting.  The other day Brian lowered Avery's crib down a notch and he was using an allen wrench to unscrew the screws.  Ever so observant, Emily picked up a hair clip and started mimicking his actions.  It was so funny to see Emily trying to help her daddy with his task.  She has also started wanting to help mommy with her chores.  The broom is now a favorite toy and Emily drags it around the house whenever she pleases.  When I clean up the kitchen, Emily will grap the Lysol bottle and cloth from me and pretend to spray by making the "psst, psst" sound and then wipe up the mess.  I allow her to help mommy out now because I know it will be like pulling teeth to have her clean when she's older.

Another interest Emily has taken up is in Disney movies.  Lately she has been really into the Tinkerbell movie and watches it everyday before bedtime.  She can't quite say Tinkerbell, it sounds more like "puttheball" but I know exactly what she wants. She also recently started watching Happy Feet and still watches her other favorties such as, Dora the Exporer, Backyardigans, Fresh Beat Band and her Baby Einstein videos.

We still haven't pushed the potty training issue just yet, but Emily moved up to her next class at school and her classroom has a potty in it.  So far she knows to sit on her potty and will let you know when she is done, although most of the time she doesn't do anything, but the fact that she isn't afraid of it or freaks out is great.  I know when the moment is right Emily will learn how to potty and training will be another learning task that will be accomplished.  Speaking of her new class, Emily is having trouble adjusting to her new classroom teachers.  When I drop her off in the morning she cries and says she wants to go bye.  After I leave, her teachers tell me that she calms down and is fine the rest of the day.  Today I dropped her off and her teacher from her previous class was there and we had no problems during goodbye time.  Its going to take time to adjust to her teachers and I hope it happens soon.  I hate having her cry every morning as I say goodbye.

A bad habit has gone out the door and we are so happy.  Yes, Emily has gotten over biting at school and we could not be happier to not have incident reports at school.  I felt so bad when I was told Emily bit another student and felt even worse when it was multiple students during the day.  I'm not sure what triggered her to stop, but it was literally from one day to the next that the action stopped.  I did notice that it stopped after the accident with her ear, so that may be one of the causes, but whatever it was I'm glad we are over it.  I just hope her sister doesn't pick up on that habit.

Emily and Avery's First School Day Photo