Best Sister Award

When Julia was getting settled into her classroom today her teacher pointed out one of the billboard items to me. The letter they worked on last week was B and one activity they did was have each child write their birthday wish on a birthday cake pin-up. Julia's wish was for a baby doll for her sister.

Miss Lindsay couldn't believe how sweet Julia's wish was. I could. Julia is an amazing little girl! I'm so glad to have her in our life and love her to pieces. I think it's a blessing that Emma will grow up with such a wonderful big sister in her life. Of course, my heart still turned to mush when I heard about Julia's wish!

So, about the baby doll.....we have so many dolls that the wish threw me off a bit. By the look on the Miss Lindsay's face I thought she was going to wish for Emma to walk - Julia talks about Emma not walking A LOT - which would have been impossible to give her. Thank goodness her wish is much easier to fulfill - Julia and I talked about it and decided that she will pick out a baby doll for Emma for Christmas. That made her sooooo happy.

And, since this is my journal (who has time to keep up an online and paper journal!), I need to write some other things about Julia and Emma that I don't want to forget. Such as:

• Every morning after Emma wakes up Julia wants to hold her on her lap while I get breakfast together (never mind that Emma is almost the same size as Julia!). It's her cuddle time with Emma and she talks to her, kisses her and Emma just ADORES it!
• Julia has a lot of pet names for Emma. Her favorites are Baby Bear, Clairey, and Beanie Boo.
• She gets upset if I don't bring Emma with me to pick her up from school because she "misses her so much" while at school.

Here is a photo from cuddle time this morning. They looked so cute together I couldn't resist taking a photo.

Cleaning is funny!

Emma's new Child Rite chair arrived this week and we are so excited about it! A HUGE thank you to everyone who gave Emma money for her birthday to buy this chair. As you can see, she looks great sitting in it.

We just love this chair. It is the right size for Emma, easily portable, doesn't require any strapping in and lets her hang out on the floor with her sister. I've been moving it all around the house with me lately and noticed that Emma just LOVES to see people working hard at cleaning. Apparently, it tickles her funny bone as you can see in the video below.

Since Chris and I just LOVE to hear Emma laugh like this, and it seems nothing sets Emma to laughing as much as seeing us clean, there is a good possibility our house might get a complete cleaning overhaul!

Play Dates

The girls had some friends come over for a play date on Tuesday morning. I am trying to find more time for Emma to play with children instead of always playing with adults. Emma just LOVES to be around kids and she loved the play date - she spent the majority of the time just laughing at all the things the girls were doing!

Our friends arrived just as Emma was finishing up her session with her Early Childhood Educator. Emma was in her stander and while I was taking her out my friend and Emma's therapist were remarking on how well Emma is doing. Her therapist even said that she doesn't really think of Emma as special needs and I agreed with her.

Emma is just blowing us away with how grown up she is getting and how much she is doing. I found myself realizing how far I've come in the past year when I think that my 2 year old child who isn't yet independently sitting, standing, walking, talking, pointing, eating, etc. is acting like a typical 2 year old. The thing is, Emma loves to play with kids, paint, color, read, cook, do puzzles - pretty much most things a typical 2 year old likes to do. She just needs a lot of extra help to do it. I think it is because she needs so much help that she has learned and perfected the art of being INCREDIBLY CHARMING. And Emma has taught me that being charming can get you very far in life.

After all, wouldn't you help her? Just look at this face - Emma finds delight in almost everything and she's not afraid to shine her light on all those who help her. What an amazing little girl!

The Lemonade Award

This week has been one of the best that I've had in a long time. So, when I found out that Dawn at Wherever He Leads We'll Go and Jacolyn at Lieck Triplets nominated me for a lemonade award I have to say that it is a bit of the icing on the cake for me. It now makes me think that I need to actually post more (instead of just drafting posts and not completing them!) now that I know so many people are reading about our crazy life!

Dawn's daughter, Emily, has the cutest little smile you want to see and she is more than happy to pose for the camera. Emily is getting ready to celebrate a birthday, so after you read this post head on over to Dawn's blog and capture the last glimpse of Emily before she turns two - Happy Birthday, Emily! Jacolyn's quite busy raising two girls and one boy triplets! Grace has CP and is doing such wonderful things - it's amazing how far she has come in just the last six months that I've been following Jacolyn's blog. I find Grace to be very inspirational and love the glimpse I'm getting into raising multiples - it sure is busy!

The rules of the award:
- Put the Lemonade logo on your blog or within your post.
- Nominate at least 10 blogs with great attitude or gratitude.
- Link the nominees within your post.
- Let the nominees know they received this award by commenting on their blog.
- Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

Now, for my nominations......

1. Ethan's World
2. A Little Piece of Heaven
3. To the Max
4. Kinnick Kay and Carver Lee
5. Too Much Information
6. Waiting for the Miracle
7. Gavin and Brian
8. Tiptoeing Through the Tulips
9. Here it Comes
10. A Life Less Ordinary

Ok, now go ahead and click on the above blog links to find amazing stories and inspiration.

We saw a goat's birth!

The weather this week was gorgeous so we headed to our local orchard to play one afternoon. There is plenty of open space to explore, various stuff to climb on, a big playset complete with swings and a slide, animals to feed, ice cream to eat......it's just a great place to go and we end up there a lot when the weather is fine! So, on Tuesday we headed over for a visit to the orchard - with Mom Mom White in tow - and were happy to see that the pumpkins are now out on display. The girls loved looking for the perfect pumpkin - only for me to realize that both of us forgot our wallets and we couldn't take the pumpkin home. We must have been so excited to get out and enjoy the weather we didn't think of much else when leaving the house! Not to worry - that just means another trip to the orchard in the near future!

After the pumpkins, we headed over to the playsets and spent some time there before heading to the animals. The timing was perfect, though, as when we went to see the animals we were so happy to see that a goat was in the process of giving birth. We saw a goat being born! It was such a little miracle. So wonderful! Emma loved it, Julia thought it was okay but was more interested in feeding the goats, and me and Mary Jane were so shocked at how peaceful the whole event was. The mamma goat didn't make a sound at all. Nothing. She pushed the baby out in less than a half hour, moved away for a minute or two, then headed back to check out the baby, sniff her, and then start to clean her up. It was so touching. I really think we were meant to be there that day at that time to witness the birth. Happy Birthday, Goat! We'll be back to visit you soon!