Happenings

I've finally got things back in order after we switched bedrooms last Monday.  I was starting to get a little worried that I would go into labor and our rooms would still be disaster areas.  But, as usual, I worried for no reason.  I've got Emilia's and the new little one's princess room all decorated and organized except for some things I want to hang on the wall and have to wait for Steve to have an evening free to help.  My bedroom is also clutter-free, albeit devoid of all decoration.  I figure no one's going to really notice for a while, so I'm not too worried about that part.

One of the reasons I was worrying about going into labor before I was done organizing (can you say "nesting-to-the-point-of-ridiculousness"?) is because I feel like my body is getting geared up for it (even though my official due date is 3 weeks from today). My ligaments are definitely loose.  I waddle like a penguin wherever I go. :) And at my doctor's appointment this morning, I was dialated to 2 centimeters and 75% effaced.  Besides, I have always believed I would go closer to my original due date, which was March 28th (if you recall, the changed it to April 7th because of the ultrasound).  I could be totally wrong and I could go for another three weeks, but I was right with Emilia, so I'm stickin' with my guns until I'm proven wrong. :)

Here is the latest precociousness from Emilia (and yes, she is quite obsessed with princesses lately):

We were playing with her prince and princess figurines the other day and Emilia had her fairy figurine dancing with Prince Charming.  At one point in the dance, Emilia let go of them, expecting them to stand.  Prince Charming did because he has a base, but her fairy, who she calls Elina, does not, so she fell over.  Emilia immediately informed the prince, "Prince Charming, Elina just fell in love with you."

This morning Emilia was singing "Little Bunny Foo Foo." She had spent most of the weekend with Nana Frohlich, so I asked if Nana had been singing that for her. She responds, "No, Nana's husband named Grandpa was."

The other day Emilia pointed out a Prince Charming figurine we have and told me that he was Cinderella's prince. I asked who Sleeping Beauty's prince was and she correctly responded, "Prince Philip!" Then in her cute matter-of-fact way, she adds, "And my prince...is Daddy!"

As a mother who thinks Hollywood and the book industry are conspiring against the happiness of all young women by selling them a pack of lies about what love actually is, I am slacking in my duties to safeguard my child from it all. Emilia told me very matter-of-factly recently that if she dances gracefully, all her dreams will come true, and that if you dance with a prince, he falls in love with you.


Emilia is in the habit of making up verbs. Her most recent one: Royaling. She is currently wearing her royaling dress waiting for her royaling carriage so she can become a princess.

Emilia is such a sensitive little soul. I decided to sing something new at bedtime tonight, so I picked one of the more upbeat ballads that I memorized as a teenager--Little Bitty Tear. You can hear it at the link (I think). As I sang the last line, she told me to stop, and I realized she was crying! She had to wipe away the tears with her blankie. "I don't like that song, Momma." I felt so bad!

We always tell Emilia she has a cute little bum. Her today: "I have a cute little bum. When I get big, I'm going to have a big bum like yours, Mom."

Also today (while eating dinner at the in-laws): "Mom, Grandpa likes to eat." She didn't mention anyone else. Just Grandpa.

Recently, if I ask Emilia if she dreamed about anything (after she wakes up in the morning), her response is, "Yeah, I dreamed about dancing cupcakes." Sometimes she adds, "You can have a purple one, and I have a pink one, and daddy gets a blue one."

Steve's been writing his thesis for a while now and when he's working on it, I have to tell Emilia not to bug him. Today when we went to the library, she ran over to the kids' computers and told me she needed to work on her thesis. She faithfully pushed buttons on the keyboard for at least 10 minutes. :)

videos

Those of you who get this through email won't be able to see the videos unless you go to my blog.
This one is of her singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider.  Mostly just for the cuteness factor of her voice. :)

I've been trying to get a video of her talking with her New Jersey accent, but she isn't cooperating.  It's the "a"s in words like CAR, STAR, SPARKLE and such where it comes out the most, but I can't get her to say them on cue, and if I say them first, she doesn't have as much of an accent when she says them.  I'll update the post if I can get a good video of it.

Things we do

Sorry Stacey, I stole the title of this post from you. It just seemed appropriate. :) These are some of the things we've been doing to keep ourselves entertained lately.

Well, technically this first one doesn't fit that category, but I didn't want to do a separate post just for this picture.  Don't kids look angelic while they sleep?

This is something I've been doing...though I'm not sure I would call it entertainment. ;)

Emilia likes to help me in the kitchen, especially if it involves flour and mixing stuff.  She's really good about it, so we both enjoy it.

This was Emilia's first bubble bath.  I know, how could she have waited until she was 2 1/2 to try bubbles in the bathtub, right?  It's all my fault.  I just didn't think of it until I saw it on sale in one of my Avon books.  She thought it was pretty great.

I've been doing a lot of sewing.  This is a diaper bag that I made for Ben's wife Haylee.  I was proud of how it turned out.

Then the other day, I came across a recipe for homemade playdough.  We only have 4 colors and they are all neon, so I thought some homemade stuff in some normal colors would be a good addition.  I had my upstairs neighbor who has a 6 month old eating baby food save some of the containers for me.  It worked out perfectly.  If you want the recipe, I found it here: http://www.k-3teacherresources.com/play-dough-recipe.html.  But I halved it and it was plenty for us.  Emilia was just excited because I made light pink.

I also finished Emilia's quilt for her room, which I was very excited about.  You'll see it when I take pictures of the finished stuff.  Sometime soon we're going to switch our bedroom for hers so the girls will have more room (our room is currently the bigger one, but it's HUGE so we don't need that much space.  It will work much better as a bedroom/playroom for the girls.

We do a lot of shopping too, but I won't take pictures of that. :)

It's starting to get warm, so I'm crossing my fingers that we'll have an early spring this year instead of a late one like the last two years.  Then we can just entertain ourselves outside for a few hours a day.  Yea!

Us girls

I wanted to give Steve a picture of the girls who love him for part of his Valentine's present. These are the pictures I used to make a print and put it in a frame for him to take to work.

Photo shoot

I had one of my first official photo shoots here in Orem a week or two ago. It was engagement photos. I thought I would share a few of my favorites.

Christmas in February

No, we aren't trying to change the holiday, nor did we celebrate anything with gift-giving recently, nor did we get any gifts that we could be excited about. Somehow, though, I could not manage to make time to tell you about our actual Christmas until now. :0)  So you get our December Christmas in February.

We had a very fun Christmas that was mostly spent with my family, merely because Steve's was out of town until New Years. Steve, Emi, and I spent Christmas Eve here at home. Our landlords/upstairs neighbors invited us to come have dinner with them and their family, and we decided to accept (I think a lot because I didn't want to try to cook an elaborate meal for the three of us). About 1/2 way through dinner, Emi started feeling like she had a fever. She crawled up on Steve's lap and nearly fell asleep! So we took her downstairs and put her in bed. We weren't sure if it was just going to be a nap or if she would be down for the night because it was only about 6pm. Much to my appreciation, she stayed down the whole night! I got a lot done on unfinished Christmas presents that night!

Saturday morning (Christmas Day), we opened presents and then around lunch time, we headed up to my parents' house. We enjoyed a relaxing day playing games and eating really good food with Mom, Dad, Alison, Ben, and Haylee. On Sunday, Megs and her family came up and we all enjoyed opening gifts again. It was especially fun to watch the kids.

The week after Christmas, the weather got pretty bad. Lots of snow and cold. And we all got sick. Most of the Frohlichs shared a rather nasty cold/flu bug. Wasn't that nice of us? :) Megs and I did end up taking Emi and Ariana to a place here called Jungle Jims. I forgot to bring a camera, so I don't have any pictures of it, but Emi LOVED it. It's a fun little place where they have a bunch of street carnival rides set up indoors. They had a carousel, one of those things that has swings all around it and it spins, a mini roller coaster, bumper cars, a "safari" car ride, a boat ride where the boats went up and down on arms attached to a center pole that spun, and a "spinning teacup" type ride. Emilia's favorite was the carousel. She though riding a different horsie each time was the greatest thing ever. She must have ridden that ride a dozen times at least.

My nesting instinct has been ridiculous this pregnancy: I have cleaned and organized almost every room, closet, and cupboard in this house since I stopped feeling sick from morning sickness. I have also made somewhere in the vicinity of 50 meals I have never tried before, learned how to bake my own bread, learned some woodcrafting as Steve and I made one of Emi's Christmas presents, hand sewed some play food for Emi, made a quiet book for Emi for church, and to top it all off, I decided after Christmas (because I had a little spending money--Thanks Ryan and Heather!) to completely redo/redecorate Emilia and the baby's room. I bought a whole bunch of used furniture off KSL and have been refinishing it. I MADE a quilt for Emilia's bed (and I don't really sew). I'm recovering some throw pillows right now, and next week, my mom and I are going to reupholster some chairs.  It kinds of makes me wonder what kind of personality this child is going to have. :)

Now for some pictures--

Our Christmas tree.  Pretty huh?

An ornament that Emi painted all by herself for our tree.  She absolutely adores painting things.

These are the flowers Steve had delivered to me for my birthday.  Aren't they pretty?  The picture doesn't really do them justice.  Our little camera's flash is always way too bright.

Before Christmas, this was Emilia's princess dress.  She would put it on and pull the skirt part up like this and then dance around the house proclaiming her princess-ness.  I ended up having to hide the skirt because she wanted to go out in public like this all the time.  I made the mistake of letting her wear it to church one Sunday--that was an interesting day. :)

This is Emilia's first experience with presents from Santa Claus.  I think she's been converted. ;)  She enjoyed opening presents, but each one was so distracting, we had to convince her to open more!

This outfit from Santa (crown, necklace, skirt, and wand) became her new princess outfit.  She wore it non-stop for at least a week or two after Christmas, and she usually has it on for at least part of the day still. 

Getting ready to open the big gift from Mom and Dad...

It was a little kitchen just for her.  I thought it turned out really cute and that it would be such a fun thing to entertain herself with.  Yeah.  Not so much.  She likes to take out the play food and hand it to people, but she never cooks it or washes the dishes or anything.  Maybe when she's older. <>

Emilia playing with her gift from the Strattons.  Heather told me what it was beforehand and I was a little worried because Emilia was really afraid of our real vacuum. Well, it turned out great--she loves the vacuum--and now instead of running away and crying when I vacuum, she gets hers out and "helps."  It's really fun! :)

Me in my new maternity sweater.  It's kind of a dark picture, but it's a really cute sweater.  I was excited. :)  Unfortunately, I gave the camera to Steve and we didn't get any pictures of him.

Emilia in the princess outfit that Nana made for her.  The baby Pooh was another fun gift she got.

Okay, no more Christmas pictures.  These next two were taken a few days ago.  I was making some brownies and she wanted to lick the spoon.  What a cutie-pants!

After Christmas sometime, I had a bad day and needed to get out of the house after Steve came home from work.  As I was getting ready to leave, Steve told Emi that they needed to read stories (our usual bedtime routine).  She excitedly hopped up and said, "We read books!" which surprised me because she's not usually excited to go to bed.  Then she grabbed my book club book off the couch, and went and got Little Women off the bookshelf (because it has a pink cover).  The Secret Life of Bees she handed to Steve and said, "Read, Daddy!" while she climbed up on his lap and started to pretend to read Little Women.  So Steve started reading to her out loud.  I could tell she was getting sleepy as Steve read and rocked, so I got her PJs and a diaper and told Steve she should go to bed soon, and then I left.  Two hours later when I arrived home, this is what I found: So cute!

I have also been helping my Mom and Megan get their new business off the ground. Not that I've done anywhere near the work they have, but I helped design and write their website.  Check it out at BakeMyDayUtah.blogspot.com. If any of you reading this are in Utah, spread the word!

Funny girl

Maybe some of these are mostly just cute or remarkable to me, but I still wanted to record them.

Emilia got a "fairy crown" for Christmas.  It's basically a hoop with ribbon wrapped around it.  She also got a matching necklace, skirt, and wand.  She was wearing all of it the other day. At one point, the crown must have slipped down over her head because I overheard her scolding it: "No, crown! I already have a necklace!"

Emilia was playing the other morning when she told me we needed to go to America.  I have no idea where she's even heard of America!

In the middle of a conversation about her favorite Barbie movie character, Elina, Emilia started talking about Olivia.  There are no characters in her movies named Olivia, so I asked her who Olivia was.  She responds matter-of-factly, "She's in your phone, Mommy."  Haha.  Apparently I text my friend Olivia more than I realized. :)

Emilia calls any kind of coin a "temptation."  She also calls Steve's razor power cord his conscience.  Apparently, he leaves his conscience in his bathroom drawer a lot.

I think Emilia misses her daddy during the week.

We were just starting to eat lunch the other day when Emilia told me she wanted to say a prayer.  She said the essential parts, like "Dear Heavenly Father," and "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen," but in the middle, the only part I understood was "Thankful Daddy can come home tonight."

Emilia got out her fairy wand the other day about 5:30 (Steve doesn't get home until 6:30 or 7 usually) and tried to turn me into daddy.

We went to see Steve at work the other day.  We had to go to the store afterward and I was telling Emilia that as we drove to Steve's work. Me: We still need to go to the store when we're done seeing Daddy, okay? Emi: No.  Me: What do you mean? Emi: I stay with Daddy while you go to the store. 

You know you need a haircut when your 2-year-old tells you your hair is looking "weedy" and it needs hair medicine.

Emilia generally comes into our room to wake me up in the morning and if I don't feel like getting out of bed right away, she just crawls in and talks to us. Yesterday morning, she crawled in and gave me a hug and said, "I love you, Mommy. You're so beautiful." What a great way to wake up!

Potty training has been a really frustrating endeavor for me (as I'm sure it is for anyone, although I'm not sure anyone's kids are as confusing as Emilia in this department--anyway...), so I've had my share of trying to control my temper, not always with success.  When she pooped in her panties for the second time the other day, I was at the point where I just didn't care anymore and calmly explained that if she couldn't go in the toilet, she was just going to have to wear diapers and not earn her reward Barbie.  After she finished crying about not getting her Barbie, she came over, gave me a big hug, and said, "Thank you for not yelling." She is such a sweetie!  She also came up to me while I was doing the dishes the other day, hugged my leg, and said, "Thank you for doing the dishes, Mommy."