funny lunch story

Emilia just did the cutest thing, and I was at the computer so I wanted to share. I made fish sticks for her for lunch (they're her favorite). While she ate--she's really good at using a fork!--I was working on other things. When I turned to check on her, she was almost done with the fish sticks: just two pieces left. But when I turned to look, she signed "more." I said, "But you have two pieces left, right there." And I pointed to them. She looked at me, looked at the fish stick pieces, and then took one in each hand and shoved them both in her mouth. Then she looked at the plate scouring it for any more pieces I could accuse her of having and shook her head "no" at me. Isn't that funny?

14 months

Emilia is 14 months old today. She is getting so big. And she is such a joy to have around! Except when she's not--but all kids are that way, right? :) She really is happy almost all the time. She's easy on me. She is still reading up a storm. I probably read at least 25 minutes a day to her and that's only because I get tired of reading the same books over and over and stop her! If I let her, she will go and get every board book off the shelf and bring it to me to read. It's great that she loves reading so much. I just wish we had a magic shelf that rotated my old books out for new ones once a day. She is getting to be a bugger about watching television, too. I'm trying to be good and not let the TV babysit her, but she has two shows that she LOVES and wants to watch them every day. She knows how to push my buttons, too, so that I let her watch them. Oy.

We had a busy Labor Day weekend. On Saturday, Steve and I decided to do a hike in Logan Canyon. I had tried putting Emi in the hiking backpack that we have and she seemed to like it pretty well, but we still had some concerns since she's never done a long hike before. It wasn't actually that long. About 4 miles round trip. It was difficult for us out-of-shape old fogies, though. We did the Wind Caves hike and there is about a 900 foot elevation change in two miles. We huffed and puffed a lot, but we made it. And Emilia did AMAZING. She loved being outdoors and next to Daddy or Mommy the whole time. It was a little hard on us that she wanted to see ahead, so she would lean to one side the WHOLE time in order to see around our heads, and made the backpack lopsided on our shoulders. Other than that, though, she was an angel. We might even do it again before she's too big to carry around on our backs.

Then Sunday, Steve's sister and her family came to visit. We were glad to see them and we were happy that we could give Cindy a place to sleep. She was sick the whole time they were here. I heard she's feeling better now, so that's good. :)

Monday we spent the day with my family down in Kearns. We had a big lunch and played games together. It was a good way to spend a vacation day. :)

This last week, we all took turns getting sick. I think Steve and Emi had it easy compared to me, but we are all feeling better now and ready to face another trip this weekend. Steve and I are celebrating our anniversary this weekend. A little late, but better than never.

Now for the pictures:
I saw my neighbor out mowing the lawn like this the other day and I found it hilarious so I snapped a picture and decided to share.

Emilia was outside giving us a lecture yesterday. She would walk back and forth in front of our door just jabbering away and waving her arms around. It was so funny, and so typically Emilia.




This is the (normally cream-colored) bunny that Emilia took with on the hike. I had taken it out of the wash that morning. Poor thing had to go right back in! :)

Emilia helping her daddy beat aunt Alison at Mario Tennis on Labor Day. The two adults started playing, so Emilia picked up an extra remote and started waving it around like she owned the place. She is so entertaining.

I have more pictures from the hike, but they are currently downloading and may take another half hour or so to finish. And I want to go to bed because I'm tired (I canned 4 quarts and 1 pint--which broke--of tomato soup and two pints of applesauce since Emilia went to bed, did the dishes twice, made dinner, tookEmilia to playgroup, did a quick grocery trip, made plans for our anniversary outing, and more stuff I'm sure I don't remember today), so you'll get them another time.

North Dakota Trip

These are pictures taken by both me and Steve. North Dakota is beautiful, isn't it? Unfortunately, we didn't take a single picture with our camera of Emilia. He took some with our phones, but since we had to cancel the internet on our phones, we can't get them off. I know you all would prefer to see pictures of my sweet adorable daughter, but you'll have to live with these.

If you click on any of the pictures (and for all of the pictures on the blog for that matter) you can make it larger so you can see it better.

Lots of random stuff

I finally decided to get some of the pictures up on the blog. These are sort of in random order because I'm too lazy to move them around. The pictures from our North Dakota trip will be in a separate post.

Our neighbor gave Emilia a cloth toy made out of different textured cloths and around the seam had lots of different ribbons. She thought it was great to haul around with her and the other day I set it on her head and said, "What a pretty hat!" She then walked around with it for 10 minutes like she was the prettiest thing on the block. It was so cute! I had to take a picture.

The pretty flowers Steve gave me for our 3 year anniversary. I love you, Steve!

On August 8th, Grandpa and Grandma Watts came to visit us and we went to Tony Grove. Here are some pictures from the trip.

A kind of blurry picture of a sampling of my produce. Pretty, huh?

I took Emilia to DI (thrift store) and she found this toy. She proceeded to push it around the entire store for the next 10 minutes. Then she pushed it out through the parking lot and to the car. Then she made me set it next to her in the car as we drove home. When we got home she pushed it around the sidewalk and parking lot of the apartment complex. She still thinks it's great. And I only paid 3 bucks for it. Ha ha!

Emilia playing outside with her daddy. :)

I'll post the pictures from the ND trip next. Thanks!

What a talker!

Emilia is so advanced for her age (I think)! Here are some videos of her latest endeavors. She's such a cutie pants!







I still haven't loaded the driver for my camera--my hard drive crashed again and Steve decided to experiment and see if he can get it to work, so I don't want to spend the time installing all this stuff just for it to get erased again. You'll get pictures as soon as I trust my computer again. Just be patient! ;)

We're ba-a-ack!

Phew! We made it back from vacation in North Dakota. It was a good trip. Not too frenzied, so that was good. There wasn't too much exciting to do either, but that meant we could enjoy the time we spent with family and friends and each other more.

Emilia was the best little child a parent could ask for on our trip. She went to sleep without too much of a fight for both naps and bedtime every day. She would just play contentedly wherever the adults were and not demand a lot of attention unless she was tired or hungry. She let us put her in the car seat multiple times a day without so much as a whine (most of the time). And she charmed everyone she met with her smiles and laughs and talking and funny tiny drunk person walk. Steve said she flew like a champ, too. And on top of all that, she had an ear infection the whole time that she barely complained about. My parents and I were driving out Saturday morning and Steve and Emilia were flying out Sunday night. Well, on Friday, she woke up from her afternoon nap with a 102+ temperature, so I immediately took her to instacare and she had an ear infection. So we got the penicillin immediately and she seemed to feel better within a few hours. BUT...the pharmacy didn't tell us, and we didn't know, that you are supposed to refrigerate penicillin and shake it well before administering. So halfway through our trip, we had to take her to a walk-in clinic in North Dakota, so we could get some new working medication. But she was still a happy little girl the whole trip. She is such an amazing little girl. I don't know why were blessed with such a little angel, but I hope Heavenly Father can make me worthy of being her mom. I love her so much!

Although we didn't do anything too exciting, our trip had quite a few surprises for us. There was the ear infection thing, of course. Then there was the computer problems. I brought my laptop with me so I could work on my pictures from the last wedding I took and on my writing, and when we woke up Tuesday morning, the hard drive had crashed again. (It crashed like a month ago, so we got a new one that Steve put in, and then it crashed.) Luckily Steve was able to get the vital stuff off the hard drive and then reformat it. So I could work on my writing, but not my pictures because he didn't have the software with for that. It also means you won't get pictures from the trip until we get home either, because I don't have the drivers for my camera. And last, but not least, Steve went to the airport Saturday morning and was told he couldn't get on the plane unless he had the print-out from the original flight confirmation (the airline couldn't find it in their computer system because they had cancelled his original flight and then moved him to a different one.) So, he ended up missing his flight by the time he was able to get that information. (My parents and I were already an hour and a half from Bismarck on our way home when he called, so we were trying to go through my Grandma Frohlich and my Uncle Rick and Steve was trying to get online at the airport and it was just a big mess.) He finally got the confirmation info and they put him on a later flight, so it all worked out. It was just a little crazy when it happened.

I'll try to get pictures up on the blog this next week. Have a good day!

Sabrina

Catch up (not Ketchup)

I have been really busy and have been neglecting the blog. I hope everyone is doing well and that you will enjoy the four plus weeks worth of pictures below.

Emilia turned 1! We had a good party and I made a dragon cake for our little princess. It was a really hard day for her, though. She didn't sleep well the night before because we were in a new place and because I couldn't just put her in a crib and let her scream because there were other kids that would have been woken up by it. The fourth picture says it all. :)

After the party, Emilia and I stayed at Grandpa and Grandma's and hung out with the Watts sisters while poor daddy had to go home and work until Thursday night when he drove back down. We had a Watt's family reunion with everyone but Ryan on Friday at Jordanelle Reservoir. They rented Ski Doos and a kayak and we all wore ourselves out! (And then I had to come home and get me and my house and my daughter recovered from our vacation!)

Emilia enjoying the pool over the 4th of July at Grandma and Grandpa Watts's house
Playing with cousin Haley in Grandma and Grandpa's new water feature over the 4th.
We also spent time with the Frohlich side over the 4th. Ben and Haylee just bought a new house, so they held their first family gathering there for the holiday. It's a nice house! Here are some pics of Emilia with her two cousins.
Emilia is so independent! She will not eat anything from me that she thinks she can feed herself. For example, she eats a banana for breakfast every morning; if I break a piece off and try to feed it to her, she refuses to open her mouth. But if I hold the whole banana up to her mouth to take a bite, or give her the peeled banana, she'll eat the whole thing. Every time I eat a meal with her, she wants to use my utensils. The anal side of me dreads this because she makes a mess of the table and herself and her high chair and the floor. But I push through those tendencies whenever I can and let her try. She has to learn somehow, right?

Emilia LOVES the Baby Einstein Neighboorhood Animals DVD that my mom gave me at her baby shower. She would watch it twice a day if I let her. She was cranky! yesterday and I was at my wits end (by 9:30 am), so I put in the DVD and cuddled her in a blanket. She just looked so adorable watching and holding her little bunny (you can see it poking over her shoulder) that I just had to snap a couple shots. She didn't even look away from the TV when the camera flashed.

She is such a ham! I take out the camera and she smiles. Such a daddy's girl! :) (This was taken at the 24th of July breakfast that our Stake put on. )

Emilia has become quite the little walker over the last couple weeks. I will have to try to get a video of it to show all yous far away people. Tonight though, she did the cutest thing that was reminiscent of her mother. (not that I pay attention to these things or anything) Steve finshed his classwork and grading today, so he had nothing important to do tonight. So we all took a trip to Best Buy and Borders for some window shopping. While at Borders, I was just browsing and Emilia was walking around looking at all the books at eye level. The next thing I knew, she had found a shelf that had some toys and decks of cards and tins that was on the second shelf from the bottom and a wooden step-stool about five feet away from the shelf. She proceeded to take one tin at a time from the shelf over to the step-stool, set it down carefully and go back for the next one. She made it through all five, making a neat little stack on the stool (she even pushed a couple around until they were more evenly balanced). When she turned around to get another one and realized that there were no more, she turned back to the stool to start putting them back! It was all I could do to keep from giggling and ruining the moment! She ended up dropping one and disrupting her walking, so that was the end of it. But it was SO CUTE! I loved it.

I am excited to take Steve and Emilia to North Dakota in a week and a half. They've never been and I think it will be fun to show Steve my old haunts and spend time with my Dad's family and Grandma Richau. We'll see how the traveling goes with Emilia. You just never know with a 1 year old!