Happy birthday, Emmy!

I can't believe out sweet girl is 2 already. She has been having a super fun birthday week. First, Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Then a birthday celebration at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Then up to Montana for Christmas with Yaya and Aunt Meghan. Then to Gigi's for yet another birthday celebration. 4 days of gift opening for the little one. She loved it. At one time she got a little carried away with the presents and opened one of Addie's. Thankfully Addie was a good sport. 

Some of Emmy's favorite things right now:

Singing, especially "Slippery Fish" and "Itsy Bitsy Spider"

Playing with cars and trains

Taking off her clothes and running naked trough the house

Climbing ANYTHING

Jumping off of things

Emmy had been practicing her manners.  It is so cute to hear her say "tank too" or "I welcome" when you give her something. She still thinks she is older than she really is and she always tries to keep up with her sisters. She also recently overcame her HUGE fear if snowmen. 

Cousins!

The girls have been so excited to meet their new cousin. Finally, on Christmas, it happened. They all love him.

Visiting Santa

I don't know why it is so much fun to take kids to see Santa. It is kind of a rite of passage, you need to have the screaming with Santa picture. 

Emmy loves Santa... As long as she doesn't have to get close to him. Our neighbor has a giant inflatable Santa and Emmy gets so excited when she sees him. During the day, the inflatable Santa is not inflated and Emmy will say "Santa fall down!" And when we go anywhere in the car, she will look out the window and say "Bye Santa!!" So I thought jus MAYBE she wouldn't scream when she saw him. 

Here we are waiting in line to see the guy in the red suit...

And then we saw him...

But the trauma was short lived. She was perfectly fine just seconds after we left...

Hockey!

I am so excited.  Both of the older girls decided that they wanted to play hockey this year.  They've had 4 practices so far.  During their first practice, I think they spent almost as much time on their rears as they did on their feet.  This week they have made some remarkable progress and they are zipping around the ice.  

Their coach had them push teammates around on chairs to help them learn to push off harder.  This is Addie being pushed by her buddy Sage.

 Charlotte pushing her friend.  I'm not sure of her friend's name, her parents always call her "Sissy."

They are having so much fun!  And one of the great things about it being so cold here?  Their hockey stuff stays in the garage and it doesn't get the terrible "hockey funk."

I-scream, you-scream

A couple days ago Emmy kept saying "ice cream! ice cream!" and running to the fridge.  I would tell her that we don't have any ice cream and she would get very sad.  Yesterday I figured out she was actually saying "ice please."  She is much happier now.  I'll gladly give her ice.

Another quick Emmy funny... She doesn't like me to brush her teeth, but she is more than happy to lie down and let her sister brush them.

Love

The girls are at such fun ages right now!  Most of the time they are very happy to play with each other and they are always so good to include Emmy.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween.... almost a month late.  But my goal is to get at least as many posts as I had last year... so I figure I need a post every other day.  And what fun are posts without pictures?

No Thank You

Emmy is talking a lot more these days.  The last couple days she has been saying "no tank-tu" quite a bit.  But it is clear from her actions that what she really means is "yes please."  Yesterday I asked her if she wanted some milk.  She got a HUGE smile on her face, ran over to the fridge, and yelled "no tank-tu!!!"

Our card reader has been broken, so I haven't updated the blog.  So much has changed in the last few months.  We are no longer in Texas.  I was funny to go through the pictures of our last few weeks there because in so many of them the girls were playing in water.  In Texas it is probably still warm enough to go running through the sprinklers.  Here?  We've already had a few snow storms.

We bought a pass that let us go to several of Houston's big attractions.  This was from the zoo.  Brushing the goat's hair.

A couple monkeys hanging with another primate.

This was at Space Center Houston.  Probably the coolest out of all the places we went.  Addie and Charlotte are holding a baby alligator.

I can't figure out how to rotate these pictures after they were uploaded to the blog, so this is what you get for now.

Emmy crossing the wobbly bridge.  She loved it.

Addie was chosen to go up on the mock International Space Station.  This is how they sleep so they don't float off.

Climbing the giant tower of discs at the Children's Museum.

This thing goes up 3 stories!

Love her face!

Gah!  More sideways pictures!!

Superheros at the Children's Museum.

Checking out rocks at the Science Museum.

Words

Emmy has really started to talk recently.  Most people still won't be able to understand her, but we do.  Here is the list so far:

Mama
Dada
Shhha (Char... this can also sometimes mean "sister")
Aaah-ee (Addie)
Bah! Bah! Bah!  (Ball)
Bye (bite, whenever she wants to eat something or brush her teeth)
Bah, bye (bye-bye)
Buh-owe (bottle)
Uh-oh
Eh-me (mine? Emmy?)
Bay bay (baby)
ni-ni (night-night)
bubow (bubble)
fower (flower)
eye
mauw (mouth)
mmmmm-eh (milk - while pulling at the handle to the fridge)
weh (where)
woh! (wow?)
NO! NO! NO! NO! (complete with head shaking)
esss (yes)
shue-sh (shoe)
sah (sock)
moe (more)
sta sta (stomp stomp)
dah (dog)
ni-ee (nice)
cal (color)
She also makes lots of animal noises.  She barks, meows, chirps/tweets, quacks, and makes monkey noises.

I took lots of pictures in July, but I can't upload them right now because our card reader is broken.  We've spent a good portion of the month doing lots of "Houston" things that we won't be able to do soon.  We went to the zoo, the aquarium, the science museum, the children's museum, and the NASA space center.  NASA was by far the most exciting of our stops, it is definitely worth the trip if you ever make it down to Houston.

Somebody lost something!

It is the last day of June, so I figure I better post something...

These last few weeks have been super busy for the Conaway household.  The month of June was spent trying to get two houses ready to move.  We are currently renting a house in Porter, TX that we live in.  So we've been trying to pack up all of our stuff.  We also own a house in Houston that we rent out to other people.  We spent nearly every weekend this month down at that house (an hour drive away), cleaning up the yard and painting the outside, getting it ready to sell.  Moving is stressful enough, but dealing with two properties only makes it more so.  Thankfully, we have an offer on the Houston house, so hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here on out.

In other news, Addie finished first grade, and Charlotte finished Pre-K4.  They had an awards ceremony at school and Addie earned the writing award for her class and the music award for her grade level.  Charlotte earned the reading award for her class and the P.E. award for her grade level.  They both continue to do AMAZING in school and are both at the top of their classes.  Adeline has been off in her own little world these past few weeks.  She loves reading and, if she is not eating or sleeping, you'll most likely find her reading the Superfudge series on my Kindle.  Charlotte is also getting to be quite the amazing reader - she is able to read books all by herself now.

Emerson, as always, continues to crack us up.  She is still only saying a handful of words, but she is very expressive.  This face is my favorite...

 ... to see it in person you would think she was mad.  She balls up her fists, sticks out her bottom jaw, tightens all her muscles and shakes.  It makes us all laugh... so she does it more.

 After I took pictures of Emmy making her face, I tried to get the other girls to make silly faces.  Charlotte was happy to oblige... Addie just wanted to read...

Twist and Shout

Two weeks ago my brother got married.  I need to write a blog post about it, but that will have to come later.  For now, here is one of my favorite pictures.  The girls had a blast dancing.

More LEGOs!!

Another picture of LEGO Fest from Sean's phone because I love that they are all buried.

LEGO Fest!

This weekend we went to LEGO Fest.  It was so much fun, I don't even know where to start with the pictures.  Addie and Charlotte both agreed that their favorite part was the giant pile of LEGOs.  I was amazed at how loud it was.  Dozens of kids sifting through millions of LEGOs.

 Helping little sister through the pile.

 Buried in LEGOS!

 There were lots of stations where kids (or adults) could build.  Emmy was in heaven.  When someone would leave their creation to go to a new station, I would give it to Emmy to tear apart.

 Posing with one of the "LEGO Friends" characters.

 One activity was to make art with 1x1 blocks.  Charlotte made a rocket ship...

 Addie made the sun rising...

 Another activity was building cars and racing the down tracks.  We had fun experimenting with optimal race car configuration.  We decided that 4 wheels are better than 6; and the closer the wheels are together, the faster the car goes.

 Addie and Charlotte with Gandalf.

 The girls eaten by a giant LEGO shark.

 April (O'Neil?) and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

First words and new tricks

First words are always a little tricky for me.  There doesn't seem to be an exact moment where one day baby is just jabbering and the next day they are clearly saying their first word.  Emmy has kind of been trying to talk for the last month but, unless you are around her all the time, you wouldn't really know what she is saying.  Today I think I can finally pinpoint her "first word."  One of these friends is around her on a regular basis, the other one has never met her before.  Emmy saw a dog and pointed while saying "doh, doh!"  The friend who had never met her, clearly understood what she was saying.  "Doh" is the word that Emmy says most often, most consistently, and most clearly, so I think this is what counts as her official first word.

Also, Emmy has recently become an expert climber.  Last weekend she made her way onto the kitchen table in an attempt to get the ceiling fan.

I don't really remember the other two girls climbing like this... but it could be because I don't have photographic evidence of it.  With the other two girls I probably would have quickly removed them from these situations rather than running to grab the camera.  Poor third child.

The other day we found her on top of the computer desk.... Do you notice the bump above her left eye?  She pretty much always has something like this.  She's a tough cookie.