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."

Family photos

I forgot to put these in last time.  New pictures of the whole family.

Long lost update

For those of you who aren't Watts' and/or don't know, our Thanksgiving was crazier than we expected it to be.  Steve's mom went into the hospital twice in the week before Thanksgiving with chest pains that extended down her arm.  It was classic heart-attack symptoms, but they couldn't find any problems with her heart and sent her home the first time.  It happened again, with the pain sticking around for about 8 hours the second time.  That was last Monday.  We weren't sure if she was going to be home on Thursday and she had company (well, family) coming in from out of town, so we had to scramble to figure out how to work things.  It ends up that she has an infection in the sac that surrounds the heart.  She was home for Thanksgiving, but she could have relapses for up to six months they said.  Steve and Emi and I ended up going to my parent's house for Thanksgiving day and then had the Watts Thanksgiving on Friday.  We had a lot of fun with the Coombs' and on Sunday, we added the Nelson's, playing games, eating pie, and generally just enjoying each other's company.  It was definitely time to be thankful for.

Nobody wants to do Black Friday shopping around here, but I love it.  My mom and Megan both decided on Thursday that the deals weren't worth getting up for, and none of my friends or Steve's family like to go.  So I got up and went to two stores by myself and then came home and went back to sleep.  I got the important stuff on my list, which included a Singer sewing machine for only $60! (It's going to be my birthday present.)  I'm excited to try it out soon.

I'm feeling really good with the pregnancy.  Everything is going smoothly.  There has been some debate on my due date because apparently the baby was measuring small during my first ultrasound.  My doctor is having me get another one at the end of the month to see if we can get a better idea of when I'll deliver.  Originally, my due date was March 27th, but they want to move it back.  We'll see.

Steve sent in his Thesis Proposal yesterday.  It was 36 pages long.  Can you imagine writing that much?  I would hate it.  Academic writing is so boring, I think.  Now he'll need to defend it, and then finish the thesis itself.  (He can use the stuff he wrote in the proposal for the thesis--the proposal is like a short version of the thesis.) The thesis is supposed to be 60 to 70 pages.  Ugh and double ugh.

Emilia has been really into her letters and numbers lately.  She only knows her capital letters so far, but every time she sees something that is written in all caps, she goes down the line and reads the letters off to me.  If there are numbers with the letters, she'll do those, too.  I was amazed the other day when she found the sticker off a new pair of jeans I had gotten and brought it too me.  She says, "Look Mommy, letters!  B, O, O, T, C, U, T, 1, 5, L.  Which is EXACTLY what was on the sticker: the style of the jeans and the size 15 long!  She's going to be reading at age three.  Sheesh.

I've been working on Christmas presents in my spare time.  I'm making some play food out of felt for Emi, and I'm painting a picture of ND for my mom and dad (they already know about it).  Steve and I are building Emi a little kitchen, so we need to work on that, too.  It's more time-consuming than I thought it would be. :)  But hopefully it will give Emi hours and hours of self-entertainment and it will be well worth the time spent.

It's my birthday today and it has turned out well.  A friend of mine invited me for lunch, and Emi and her daughter played for about an hour after that.  Steve took me out for dinner and after Emi is asleep we're going to decorate our tree.  All in all, it was a pretty relaxing day.

Some of Emilia's funnies:
The other night we had company over for dinner (luckily it was just Ben and Haylee). As we were sitting down to dinner, I picked Emilia up to put her in her chair and someone asked, "How are you? Are you ready for dinner?" and Emilia sits down and responds very sweetly, "Yeah, I'm just sittin' here with my poop." LOL! Needless to say, there was some diaper changing before eating.

Emilia has always talked to the weather, like "Go away, Wind! Stop doing that!" or "Stop looking at me, Sun!" but I thought it was especially funny the other day when the sun was in her eyes and she told it to go to time out.


Emilia found an R2D2 Christmas ornament today and brought it over to me.  I told her it was a robot named R2D2, and then said, "Can you say that?  R...2...D...2?"  To which she responds, "That spells robot."

November Pictures

Emi looking cute at the park.

Emi and her daddy on Halloween, all ready for church. There are ghosts on her purple tights. The picture doesn't do them justice. They looked adorable!

The first time it snowed, Emilia wanted to go outside, before breakfast, still in her pajamas, to play in it. That didn't happen, but we went out later in the day when it was warmer. And raining. :|

Looking totally bored and Nana and Grandpa's house. It's funny because it was right in the middle of dinner. haha.

Playing with Grandpa.  Doesn't he look handsome?

This is a project I finished last month.  It was an ABC quiet book for Emi to look at while we are at church.  Each page has a picture of Christ or something she learns about at church, like God creating the Earth.