2 Years Old!!!

My little girl turned two! It is amazing how fast these last two years have gone by. She is so much fun and we feel so blessed to have her in our home! She brings us so much joy and we love her tons and tons! She is growing like a weed and learns new things daily, constantly making me laugh with things she does or says;) Some of her favorite things right now are:

Anything and everything to do with water...pool, tub, sink, mud, rain..basically anything, we are constantly drying her up!

Playing with Yankee, they have become the best of buds and she just loves telling him what to do!

Being outside...even in the heat;)

Any bug she sees she screams 'buggy' and tells me she is getting it;)

Climbing up and down EVERYTHING..she just learned she can climb up our trash can to get on the counter to play in the sink;)

Reading books

Making lots of messes

Helping mom with everything I do as well as being daddy's little helper

Loves to dance!! I love watching her start to dance around when she hears some good music;)

Favorite movies at the moment are: "mogley" (Jungle Book) "Trzan" (Tarzan) "Bear" (Brother Bear) "Ferd" (Cliford) "Bears" (Carebears) and "Cat" (Oliver and Company)

She has began to love her baby dolls..so she got a stroller for them and now loves pushing them around

Anytime she wants to leave the house comes with her shoes and tells me "car?"

She is getting really good at puzzles and loves to play with them

Still isn't the best eater in the world but eats enough to keep her crazy amount of energy up;)

Social butterfly around any kids

And so much more...we love our little Angel!

For her actual birthday I had to work so we celebrated it the day before and we were going to go to the beach, since she absolutely loves it but the weather said possible tropical storm so we decided to play it safe and took her to 'Chucky Cheese' She loved it and had tons of fun!

She was a little short, so I had to climb in and help her up so she could go around the cat walk..

She had to keep her bear with her the first little while...

She played on the merry go round the most...around and around and around...probably 20+ times;) her favorite!

Big girl..with dad's help!

The BIG truck..

Gets a little scary when it tips, she wasn't so sure about it at this point!

Daddy teaching her how to play:)

Afterwards we went home, decorated and had a little party for her with Nana, Pops, and Kelsey on Skype;) She picked out her cake..a little dog! Here she is blowing out her candles..two and one candle to grow on;) I need to be better next year and try to make her a cake..I plan on practicing;)

Present time...

Yummy yummy cake;)

Her baby stroller she immediately started playing with! She is becoming more a little girl;) I love you Ems tons and tons and am so grateful I get to be your Mommy!!! xoxox

Before...middle....and AFTER!

This last week Andrew and I took on our kitchen;) After three days of putting holes in the wallpaper, soaking it down, peeling it off over and over, fixing the horrible places and holes, we were then able to paint! I can't even describe how much better it felt walking into the kitchen just when the paper was off...I didn't feel overwhelmed..so weird!! Andrew started when I was at work and we finished it the next few days! It was tedious and long but fun to do with my hubby;) And it feels so much better!

We did most of the painting when Emma was asleep, good thing too because she thought she could do just as good of job;)

When we were peeling the wallpaper off I had to use a glove on my hand because the dried mud was driving me crazy, so Emma wanted to be just like mom!

We found this spot where Ems decided to paint with the dark green;) Good thing it painted over well!

Thank you Love for all your hours and patience with me! I love the kitchen and you tons for going to all the work to fix it!!!

4th of July Weekend!

This 4th of July was my first not being in Richfield Utah with all my fam including aunts, cousins, and grandparents..it was sad for me but we still had fun! I do hope somebody ate a cherry slush with ice cream on it for me...it sounds heavenly...Daph hope you ate one for me!!!! The other downside to not being in Utah is that the 4th is celebrated on the actual 4th ;) and because this year it was on Sunday we didn't go the bbq's, games, concerts, and things but after church we relaxed (which seriously was super nice...I haven't really seen Andrew because of our schedules, I leave before he gets up and when I get home he takes off to work and I am in bed when he gets home..but it should calm down here soon...I CAN'T WAIT!) then we had the missionaries over for dinner and played card games with them (they were excited for the ok from their mission president to play games)! Elder Michaelson is from Richfield so he and I were sad together on not being in Utah for the 4th..his first time not being there too!! Small world as well...he knows people I know from wayne, that's one thing I love about being a member of the church even when you aren't home you find people to help remind you of home! After they took off we illegally helped Emma play with some snakes and sparklers..yes..we found out you technically aren't supposed to have any fireworks in Pearland but I couldn't handle not doing some fireworks for our little lady! I figured we would be safe with snakes and sparklers;)

Emma wasn't so sure about the sparkler at first as you can tell..scared her;)

But she loved the snakes!!!

CHEEEEESSSSEEE!!

She loved lighting them herself;)

It only took a couple sparklers before she decided that they weren't too bad and she could do it!

Yankee thought they were awesome..he would run and jump and try to catch the sparks! We had to watch the little pest so that he wouldn't get burned;)

Finally we had Ems stand on the chair so Yank couldn't get hers as easily..He still tried;)

After we did our little fireworks we decided to drive to where Pearland setting off their city fireworks just to watch some big ones, but we got to the high school football stadium and WOW it was packed..and it even fits 20,000 people..isn't that crazy for high school!!! So we ended up going further away so we weren't around as many crowds and watch with a bunch of other people parked in another school parking lot. They were a little far away but probably better..ems wasn't a fan of the loud bang;)

The following Monday Andrew worked all day and I had it off :) So Ems and I decided to go to the park for a little while to play, when we left the house it looked pretty good outside and then all of a sudden we felt a couple rain drops and 30 seconds later....down poor...we were drenched trying to get to the car ;)

It's kind of hard to see how wet she was but..we both were soaking!! What I love at least about the Texas rain is that it is warm!! But it sure does hit quickly;)

I hope everyone had a great 4th and thank you to those who have made it possible for us to celebrate our freedom here! What an amazing country we live in and what a blessing it is to be able to have the freedoms we have, especially to worship what we want, how grateful I am for this and for those who have made it possible with the Divine guidance from our Heavenly Father! We love and miss all of you!!

Latest Happenings ;)

Splash pad..fun! This water is Freezing!! It takes our little lady a while to really want to run through the cold, but eventually she braves it out!

The swing is her favorite thing at the park...who needs slides??

Our little helper! She wanted to wear daddy's gloves and help! We were cleaning out and organizing our garage...it was HOT and HUMID...can you see her hair and the sweat?? Poor little thing she plays outside and comes in drenched in sweat..she doesn't seem to mind, even with her cheeks blazing red!!

This last week Emma and I spent some time with the Boy Scouts! A lady in our ward was in a bind and needed someone to cover her shifts she had volunteered for at the medical tent and called me and asked if I could help out. It was fun, lots of little scrapes and scratches ;) They let me bring Emma and she LOVED it of course, outside for hours on end! She thought she was as big as the other kids, I should have taken a pic of the play ground that she would go and play on because the slide was Huge and she would climb up the play rock wall and go to the very top and go down all by herself...my little brave lady! It was funny watching the kids thinking they needed to help her ;)

I love the pic with her on the cot..look in the back and you can see a tired little man! All of a sudden I was sitting there and he came over and laid down and slept for a couple of hours..tuckered right out :)

I find her all the time playing with her toys and talking non stop to them..so cute! Here she lined them up on the couch...I have no idea what she was so intent on telling them ;))

Telling me to be quiet...her giraffe and dog were sleeping with Yankee :)

When we moved Andrew had this little baseball guy and Emma has fell in love with him. She saw a picture of Andrew in his baseball outfit when he was in high school and randomly started calling the toy baseball guy "daddy"....here she was putting daddy to sleep in her towel ;)

I found her laying on the floor after a fun day at the pool ;) She plays hard there!

Things are going well and we are having fun! Andrew is still busy installing and I just got hired at a hospital here..so orientation soon, I am sad about going back to work and leaving Em's but this job is going to be awesome and I am super excited about it! Once I get passed the days and can do nights..hopefully in time for Andrew to start school...it will be much better! At least then I will be home more with my little lady and hubby! Heavenly Father has blessed us soooo much and so many miracles have happened in front of our eyes that I can't deny that this job came at the right time and is something I will love!

Meet YANKEE!

This is our new little addition to our home! He was a surprise brought home from daddy for Emma;) She was pretty excited! He got his name because he is a 'boston' terrier and Andrew is a huge Yankee fan and not the Boston Red Sox fan so he thought it would only be fitting to name him Yankee;) He is a lot of fun and cute! He hasn't even pooped on my carpets..that I especially love! He knows he can't push Andrew and I around but he is still testing Emma so we are teaching her to be tough and keep walking through him when he tries to block her way;) He is a small guy but thinks he is big with her! His first night with us he was a little nervous and would go to this corner and just sit there, now he acts like a little puppy and has lots of energy! We have been having to read and educate ourselves on training him, so we are learning lots but having fun doing it!!