Rights of passage

Well we had a couple of "moving up" in life moments, or a traditional rights of passage that most kids have as young children this week.

First, Ashely had her first dentist appointment. However, it wasn't any regular dentist appointment, she got to have grandmom clean her teeth for her very first time (Lisa's a dental hygienist). I think it really helped a lot having her do it. First she got to watch the tail end of my appointment, and grandmom explained what she was doing as she went. Then grandmom explained about the mask and glasses, and how she was going to clean her teeth and count them for her. Ashley did GREAT!!! She wasn't scared at all (I think a combination of both Ashley's personality as well as the comfort of having grandmom do it). Surprisingly, she stayed very still and kept her mouth wide open. We were so impressed. We follow it up with going to Ashley's favorite place in the world...Chuck-e-cheese! Daddy had a long lunch break and was able to come meet us too which made it an even nicer surprise.

Another thing most kids do at some point or another is stick food up their nose. Well, last night Ashley somehow stuck a (pretty big) piece of spaghetti up her nose. There were 3 adults sitting at the table and we still missed it. Thankfully she told us. It scared me! We tried having her blow it out first, and she kept sucking in instead. Then we tried getting it with a tweaser and the spaghetti kept breaking. So Lisa had to get her dental magnifying glasses and piece to get it out with. Thank goodness other adults were here with me because I would have been quite nervous if I were alone. Lol. Kids! It's a story we'll laugh about later.

Ashley is also talking quite a bit. I think living with 4 adults (as well as getting older) has made a huge difference, she's talking clear full sentences now. Sometimes she still says funny things like "mommy hold her now", then she will correct herself and say "mommy hold ME". Haha.

We have been reading lots of new books about all sorts of things--insects, animals, types of machinery, types of fish, etc.

Emily is doing a lot too. She is officially saying mama now. On Wed, July 24th it was very clear and intentional. She's been saying it non stop ever since. She also does a lot of babbling and squealing. She and Ashley have been interacting a lot--we were all in the car the other day and they were squealing and laughing back and forth with each other. It was sooo cute!

Her other top two teeth are officially through so she is chomping on everything, including me when I feed her. Ouch! She seems to be a little more sensitive, so I thought for sure that I'd just have to talk sternly to her once and tell her no and she'd stop or maybe even cry...but nope. Instead she laughs and continues to try it.

She also likes to bang things together, put everything in her mouth, and go for everything that she's not supposed to touch. Haha. Today I met a (newer) friend at the playground in Oakland. We had the babies playing on a blanket and Emily was picking up woodchips and trying to eat them despite my best efforts to prevent it. I had to scoop some out of her mouth that I missed while she practically choked. That girl is going to give me some gray hairs!

She also started on yogurt melts--I figured that'd be a great first solid type food since it dissolves in your mouth and there's no possible way to choke..but Emily finds a way to nearly choke regardless. Lol. So now I break them up real small to practice with.

She is doing great though, having a blast rolling everywhere. She still doesn't want to crawl, although she can get on her hands and knees in crawling position, so maybe one day she will opt to do it when she gets tired of bumping into things from rolling around and around. But for now, it works for her.

She can also nearly pull herself up to sitting position (she does sit up on her own, but you have to put her in position).

She is LOVING that she is getting more mobile and vocal. You can just see it in her eyes that she is dying to do everything that her big sister is doing. We try to get her involved as much as possible when we can, and she has a blast.

Anyway, the girls are great and such a joy.

As far as the house stuff, our closing date got pushed back from July 30th to August 9th. Yuck and grr!!!! We had a week to go and were getting soooo excited about moving in, when we found out about the change. Oh well, what can you do? We're just lucky and thankful to have a good living situation and are able to have the flexibility (although it is costing us extra for storage fees, interest rate stuff, etc).
We're at the final stretch at least...

Well that's about all for now.

Pics from NY/Kristyn and Brian's visit

Lots of teeth!!!

Well I have a few updates, but figured I'd start with the title...

Emily is getting tons of teeth at once! She had her two bottom middles, then got her bottom left. About a week ago her bottom right one came in. A few days ago I noticed some of her tops are coming in too--her left "fang" tooth is coming in first, and her top middles are coming in second. The girl is a champ, she is handling all of them pretty well. She is chomping on everything she can get in her mouth though, including people...haha. She also loves to stick her tongue out all the time, which if funny since I did the same thing as a baby from what I've been told.

Emily is also reaching for tons, having fun banging things together, etc.

I just had her 7 month pics taken by a photographer that Cheryl used with Alyssa while here in NY. She was making her cute little scrunch face and tongue out pics in a bunch which I love since that's her signature trademark right now :)

Ashley is doing great too. She loves to sing and dance a lot (in fact I hear her singing to herself in the room right now during nap time). She's been having fun doing lots of active things, such as parks, climbing, walks, etc. She also has been enjoying artistic things like finger painting, water paints, etc.

As I mentioned, right now we are here in NY. Kristyn and Brian are living in Bahrain (in the Middle East), and are home visiting for a month. It's probably their only trip for the year since it's so expensive and long to fly home, so we came up for a few days to visit. We've been having a great time, I love watching the girls with them. We've been having fun swimming at Saratoga Spa Park, going to downtown Saratoga to eat at a cool circus restaurant and walk around, playground and for ice cream, etc. It's been a nice visit with fun play time and catching up. They'll also being coming to our new house before they leave which will be nice. We will miss them when they're gone.

In other news, only 13 days left until we close on our house!!! Yay!!! I am so excited and anxious to get in and have our own place, our belongings back, etc.

Well that's about it for now. Will post some pics sometime soon.

Beach time

Last weekend we went with Bruce, Lisa, Andrew, Lauren and baby Ben to the pocono house. We went to the beach for the day. It was fun. It was Emily's first time at the "beach"/swimming in the water. She LOVED it. Her initial reaction was to pull her legs up when she was unsure, but once she warmed up to it she was having fun kicking, splashing, and did a good job "swimming". Ashley had a great time in the water, and also playing with sand toys. Since then we also went swimming a couple of times at our new friends house. Again, the girls had a great time. I'm so glad that they both love the water so much since that is something Matt and I both enjoy a lot.

Couple quick updates. First, Emily has been doing a couple cute things. She has been making this "old lady face" where she scrunches up her face and blows in and out of her nose. It's funny, and she thinks so too.
Also, I am not sure if this counts as her first word, but she tries to say "hi" to people when she first sees them. It sounds something in between hi and ha, but we've noticed that she is definitely attempting to greet us with a hello. She also kind of says "ma-ma", but it's only when she is overtired and crying at night.
Emily is also sitting up longer on her own, and moving closer to crawling.

Ashley went for her 2 1/2 year check up the other day. The doctor said she looked fantastic both physically and emotionally. She wasn't concerned about the "too loud thing" (which has cut down)--she just said to explain and reassure her of what's going on when she does it.
Ashley is also not interested in the potty training thing again. She did it for a day or two, but now when we ask her if she wants to go she says "nope", so we don't push it. The pediatrician said it's no big deal and not to push it either, she will do it when she's ready and sometimes kids aren't ready until they are closer to 3. So I will still non-shallantly ask throughout the day, and it's no big deal if she says no.

She was (I believe) 26th %ile for her weight, and like 83%ile for her height. But she's eating well so I'm not concerned. The doctor also seemed impressed with her talking and full sentences, and other developmental stuff. I'm a happy and proud momma. We were blessed with two amazing little girls.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Happy 4th of July!!!

We had an eventful 4th! It was kind of a big day, other than for the obvious reasons.

Well first, Ashley officially turned 2 1/2...It's kind of a cool "half birthday" to have. Also, on her 1/2 birthday, she went pee pee in the potty for the very first time!!! Yay! I know I mentioned a while back that we were "unofficially" doing a mini attempt with the potty, but I never got real serious since we had a new baby, and then a crazy transition time with packing and moving. Our potty's got packed away with our things, so I figured I'd just tackle it once we got into our new place. But Ashley has been showing signs that she is ready to get more serious--she can tell you when she's gone poo poo or pee pee (usually after but that's ok), and she has recently been waking up with dry night time diapers (she used to totally soak them).

So, since our potties were packed, we all took a trip to Buy Buy Baby store to pick out a potty. We let Ashley pick out her own potty, we got a reward sticker chart, and even a cool Elmo potty training video. Ashley was very excited to use her potty since it lights up and makes a flushing sound. When she tried she went pee pee! Yay! Since then she has tried a little bit here and there so we're making progress.

Ashley is also doing really well with singing her ABC's and counting.

Another big thing is that Emily also got her 3rd tooth. I'm not sure if it came in on the 4th or the day before since it's been coming through for a couple days, but it's the first time I saw it so we'll count it ;)
So now she has her two bottom middle teeth, and the one to the left of them is coming up. It's funny, because Ashley had 3 bottom teeth for a while too. Funny they were the same order.

Emily is showing signs that she may start crawling soon, and in the meantime is having a blast rolling everywhere.

Also, I forgot to mention a while ago that we are officially off of paci's (pacifiers). It's probably been over a month actually. Emily mainly used the pacifier at bed to help her fall asleep, and around a month or so ago she started getting really angry and would push it away when you'd put it in her mouth since it'd basically make her fall right to sleep. So I figured if she didn't want it, we would be done with it. She hasn't wanted/needed it since, other than to sometimes chomp on parts for teething so we put them away.

Well I think that's it for updates....Anyway, getting back to the 4th...After we went shopping for potty's, we went out to lunch. During Ashley's nap we watched a movie, then afterward we went to Andrew and Lauren's and took the canoe out in the water. It was lots of fun and very peaceful. We got home late, and grandmom took Ashley outside and caught a lightening bug to put in a clear cup, then we watched about 4 sets of firework shows from Ashley's bedroom window. It was pretty cool.

Oh, also Ashley helped make and decorate a 4th of July cake with grand pop.

Here are some pics...

This first picture was from a different day, but it was too cute to not share