Three Years!

What a craaaaaaazy week! The Tabin Clan headed South to Sunny South Carolina to visit and stay with us Grupps! That's right- we had 4 adults and 4 children (ages 3,2,1, and 0) staying in our two bedroom apartment, but boy was it fun! We did the Monkey Joe's thing, the pool thing, and the park thing (and a looooot of the sweating thing!- Yes, it is 104 degrees right now) and had much fun! It's hard to sum up all that we did into words, so I guess I'll just leave it at that. We've got our memories, and boy are they precious! We are just so thankful that they came and look forward to next year when they come again!
It's our anniversary today!! WOO HOO! Three years and counting! I was busy putting together Braden's present moments before he walked in for lunch, and Emma kept trying to "help". So I told her, "Emma, mommy is making daddy a special present, and I would like to do it all by myself." Sooooo wouldn't you know, as soon as Braden walked in, Emma pointed to the empty dining table and said "Daddy's pwesent!" Wow, she's only two! I gotta stop telling her stuff- it's like that Bush's Beans commercial with that dog........Anyways, he proceeded to ask her questions, and she was ANSWERING THEM ACCURATELY! So I put the kabbash at the question and answer session and will now do all present wrapping and putting together AFTER the babes have gone to bed.

Check out these funny pictures! Braden and I have decided that BOTH of our girls are Grandpa Cobb's girls in that they looooove to lounge on the pool floaties. All this time we've been trying to get Emma to learn how to swim and Bela to snuggle with mommy in the pool. Once we gave Emma the floaty from Clara (thanks for sharing Clara!) and Bela was plopped in her floating paradise, they were in heaven. Bela tried to fall asleep and Emma wouldn't let us touch her- she kept saying "all by self" and floating along. We just laughed! If these things came with sippy cup holders (they're not old enough for beer yet Grandpa!), they'd be all set!

Okay, I know you all have been saying I should stop feeding Bela six times a night, and I kept saying "but she's hungry". Well, I took one look at this little chubster in a bathing suit and said "ENOUGH!" After waking up three times by 10 p.m. last night only to be rocked and not fed to sleep, she decided it wasn't worth it. Bela slept from then on until 7:15 a.m.!!!!!! WOOOOHOOO!!!!!

Bela is also pulling herself up, almost to standing- can you believe it? She managed to crawl into my laundry basket and lick every clean item in there yesterday. Darn it! But I was impressed by the physical feat. Speaking of physical feats......I jumped out of the shower today and went looking for Emma (sine I know this is her favorite time to misbehave). I checked the living room- nope. Her bedroom? Nope, not there! My bedroom? Course not! So naturally I panicked, and went running back into the living room to search more closely and found her up in the t.v. cubby in our entertainment center, literally squished up against the t.v. with that little nervous "I know I did something wrong" look on her face. She's not even allowed to come within a foot of the entertainment center, and she crawled in it?! Sooooo that's Emma for ya! Braden, when you read this, I know you're going to flip. But don't worry, if you're reading this, that means the t.v. still works right?

How is She Still Awake?

So I'm sitting here wondering how Emma is still awake........she finally fell asleep last night around 9......after singing and giggling herself to coma state. Then she fell out of the bed around midnight.....twice. Darn it, I knew I forgot to do something yesterday- note: buy bed rail. And that was after a full day of no napping (thanks to screaming Bela, which is also thanks to Emma shaking the crib and not allowing Bela to sleep.....). Of course she was up bright and early this morning and is now "trying" (she's not really giving it the effort it deserves, it's me who is really trying) to take a nap. This whole big girl bed thing has opened up a new world for Emma. First of all, her giant circus tent is in her bedroom, so of course she hops down off the bed and brings all of her favorite things to play in it........well, I guess that's second. First, she shakes Bela's little crib and plays games with her until Bela is too tired and passes out. Theeeeen, she heads to the tent. Poor Bela has bags under her eyes, I mean really what 6 month old has bags under their eyes? Once she's tired of the tent, she heads to the forbidden closet. We've been using the girls' walk-in closet as a storage unit, so Emma finds all kinds of good stuff to play with in there. Yesterday she found my sewing kit and managed to unwind about 10 full spools of thread. I was suspicious of the quiet that had filled the air........should have checked a little sooner I guess.

So the potty training marches on. Emma is doing really well with it (thanks to the candy necklace and Veggie Tales video we have been using for rewards). For me it's been a little challenging because I just don't have enough hands to scoop chubby paws out of cat food and change wet "big girl pants" (I said she's been doing well, not perfect- she still doesn't get that you have to pull the pants off before you pee). In fact, yesterday Emma went to the bathroom in her potty and screamed for me at the same time Bela decided she was starving. Realizing I didn't want the wet trail that would ensue if I ignored Emma, I left Bela to help Emma change and wash her hands. Then I gave her the candy necklace and turned on Veggie Tales. I turned around to see Bela round the corner to the kitchen and I bolted just in time to see a piece of cat food go into her mouth. GROSS! So I did the usual throat sweep and washed her hands and took her to the rocking chair to feed her. After about ten minutes or so, we emerged and it dawned on me that I just let Emma have the candy necklace for ten full minutes. OH MY GOODNESS! Usually we let her have it for all of 30 seconds, so she only gets in a couple of good licks. But this time, it was all over. There were only three little candies hanging on the sad string (that held a full rack of sugary bliss just ten minutes ago). So we brushed her teeth and I tried to get her to drink some water..........she was too busy running around in circles...............maybe that's why she hasn't slept well (I'm still listening to her read books in her bedroom- she's been in there over an hour now!)

Bela is crawling soooo fast now it really is hard to keep up. And Emma just thinks she's hilarious. She giggles (she's got Emma's laugh) all the time and is even trying to take steps and pull herself up to standing. She just wants to keep up with Emma........too bad she doesn't know that I can't even do that! Every time we talk to Grandma and Grandpa on the camera, she crawls as fast as she can to eat it (it must look pretty funny to them!) and is sometimes successful if I'm busy with Emma. She really is a cuddlebug and still can't function if we go to anyone else's house for a play date (she cries nonstop and can't claw at me hard enough). So it looks like Grandma and Grandpa are the only ones who can babysit......which is pretty hard to do seeing as how they live in Michigan. Hmmmm......maybe instead of shipping them off to Abudabi (like I tell them every day that I'm going to), I'll just ship them to Michigan. It's probably cheaper and they don't need passports.

I was just looking for pictures to put on this thing and I ran across a video I have of Emma on the potty singing (as loud as humanly possible) "Farmer's have a dog, E-I-E-I-O". It's really quite something. Wish I could post it.

Okay I just realized what that little punk is doing- she's in her bedroom singing into the fan- I can tell by her distorted voice. Time for me to boot her to bed. Oy yoy yoy!