Easter in Colorado is usually a toss up as to whether you'll be celebrating in snow or in the sun. Fortunately, the weather was great this year, so we got to do a lot of egg searching (perhaps a little too much egg hunting?), even though Easter fell a little early in the spring this year.
We got the day of Easter started off right by doing an egg hunt in the backyard. Kara immediately went running off to look for eggs, but Emily took a more leisurely approach to egg hunting. She opened her first egg and was pretty good with that. We had to prompt her a bit to keep searching for eggs before Kara got them all! Later in the morning, while Mommy, Kara, and Emily talked to Mimi and Uncle Trey on a Skype call, Dad went down the street to help hide eggs for a neighborhood egg hunt. The girls had a great time with that one, running around with the kids and sneaking candy. They were both crashing a bit from the sugar rush once we came home for lunch.
After lunch and quiet time, we headed down to Aunt Amy's house to meet up with Grandma and Grandpa S. for another egg hunt and Easter dinner. After our third Easter egg hunt of the day, the girls had enough candy to last them for years!
First of all, yes, I know I've gotten pretty lazy with the titles. I really need to pick up my game. Be sure to check out the videos at the end!
Other than Emily's birthday, nothing terribly exciting happened in March. Kara has continued her Tae Kwon Do lessons and will be testing for her yellow belt pretty soon. Her reading has been improving as well. We think she has memorized a ton of sight words,but still gets a little frustrated when she has to sound a word out. She's getting pretty good though!
Emily has learned to count up to 5, consistently, though we've heard her count as high as 11. One of Emily's favorite things is to race. She'll say, "ready set 1 2 go!" Potty training is continuing. Emily has figured out that the potty can be a very powerful tool in delaying bedtime. Almost every day now, she'll say, "need potty" at some point during the night-time routine. We want to encourage her to listen her body, so we'll get her down to the potty. Most of the time she'll do something in the potty but is always very insistent she needs to do more when we try to wrap things up. Emily has also learned the words "my" and "mine" and applies them to pretty much everything, even Kara's toys. For the most part Kara is pretty okay with sharing her toys with Emily, but Emily has not learned the concept of sharing....
Near the end of the month, we got a visit from Mom's side of the family: Scot and Cassie (and their babies Amelia and Bryn), Brad and Maggie, and Uncle Randy and Aunt Tracey. It had been a long time since we'd seen all of them. Emily thought the babies were awesome. She helped feed the babies, change a diaper, and pet the babies hair while saying "fuzzy". Kara, on the other hand, was excited to have people to play with and spent most of the time playing ball with Brad and Maggie.
Kid Qutoes:
(playing a card game with Mommy)
Kara: "I got a 3-4-5."
Mom: "Kara, you're not supposed to tell us what cards you have."
Kara: "Oh, I was just kidding. I don't really have those cards." She did.
"Oh boy!" Emily's new favorite expression.
"I conjured the toy behind your ear from thin air!" Kara explaining how she did a magic trick.
It's hard to believe that Emily's been with us for two years already. It's been a blast, and we've had a lot of fun getting to know our little girl. Emily has grown into an energetic, intelligent, sweet little girl. Happy birthday, Emily!
Emily talks quite a bit these days, but we suspect she'd talk more if Kara didn't talk so much. She's also proven to be a very active girl, always trying to keep up with big sister Kara. She's become quite a good jumper, leaping off things with both feet. Emily measured in at 34.25" in height (61st percentile) and 25 lb, 6 oz in weight (33rd percentile).
We did a family birthday for Emily this year. We Skyped with Mimi, Papa, GiGi, and Uncle Trey in the morning. In the afternoon, Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Amy came over for some cake and ice cream. Emily enjoyed having everyone sing her happy birthday, even though Kara blew out the candles on her cake (see the video below). Special thanks to Aunt Amy for some great pictures!
A couple decent snow storms late in the month rolled through, dumping almost 2 feet of snow over two weeks, which was quite a contrast with the first half of the month with record high temperatures. It made for some good snow fun and some warm weather for playing outside!
Kara has been really improving with her reading skills. She's been reading through some of our books at home (we mostly figured she'd just memorized the words); however, she really impressed Mom when she picked up a book at the library (Pete the Cat at the Beach) and read through it all by herself! Kara has started Tae Kwon Do lessons. She seems to enjoy it and is catching on quickly (see the videos). It's great fun! On the less fun side, however, Kara got her first cavity. None of us are excited about that...
Emily has been continuing her swim lessons every Saturday. She loves getting in the water and playing. Emily is speaking in 2-3 word sentences and impresses us every once in a while with a new word or phrase ("one more book"). She has started counting and frequently counts to 2 (as in "1 2 ears" or "1 2 eyes"). She knows the words for higher numbers, but she doesn't understand the concepts yet. Emily has regressed a bit with potty training. She's fighting Mom and Dad when they try to remind her she should use the potty. Although, she has been getting better about feeling she needs to go and letting us know (usually after she's already peed in her pull-up). Ah, fun times!
Cousin Cassie and her husband Scot welcomed their twin babies (Bryn Oliver and Amelia Rose) in January. Kara and Emily got to meet their second cousins early in February, though they were more interested in playing with the toys than they were in the newborn babies.
Kid Quotes:
- Kara loves making up jokes and songs. Here's a joke: Kara: "What do you call a hairless monkey? A cold monkey! hahaha"
- Kara: "Thank goodness Valentine's Day only comes once a year." Why? "Because of all the work I have to do to make my Valentine's card box!"
- Kara: "Gah, I talk as much as Papa. I'm turning into Papa!"
- "Emily do!" Emily's favorite saying.
- "Step stool!" Emily usually demands to have the step stool, so that she can help out with things in the kitchen.
- "One more time." Emily is always asking for just one more...
- "Love you" ahhh, Emily now says these words. With a sweet look and a hug, Mommy just melts!
Sadly, George was put down Tuesday, February 17th. He had a rough night the 16th (he collapsed and wouldn't walk to his bed). On the morning of the 17th, his body just started to shut down. He was nearly 13 years old (not bad for such a big boy!). George was a great dog and will be missed. Here's George's Featured post from when Kara was a baby. Also, here are all of George's Blog Posts (where he was mentioned). Hope you enjoy the pictures of George.
