3 Years Old

Emma Kate is a big 3 year old girl now!  While she enjoys classifying herself as a 'big girl' she keeps reminding us that she will try certain things (like jumping off the diving board) when she's 4.

This girl makes us LAUGH all the time.  We are pretty sure she is a future attorney and we know this because she is forever negotiating and arguing.  She is difficult to turn down sometimes as she throws out the sweetest 'pweeeease???' and then 'tank you tank you tank you sooo much!'

One of my favorite things about Emma Kate is that nothing gets her down.  This can be a problem sometimes in parenting.  When she gets sent to time out she pouts her way over there, plasters a sad face on but the moment that we tell her she can get out she just comes bee-bopping her way out to give her obligatory 'I'm sorry' then goes along her merry way.  I'm slightly concerned maybe she's a budding sociopath but instead I'm just choosing to hope that instead she's going to grow up to be one of those people who just lets things roll off their back! :)

Emma Kate adores her big sister and wants nothing more than be just like her, but of course with her own twist.  Harper loves horses? Emma Kate loves ducks.  Harper wants to be a horse-rider when she grows up?  Emma Kate wants to be a duckkeeper. :)  Sometimes we feel guilty because Emma Kate gets basically all of Harper's hand-me-downs but EK is so proud that something that used to be Harpers is now all her own!  EK will be starting PreK3 at the same school Harper will be at for kindergarten and EK is SO excited to finally be going to the school that Harper has been at for 2 years.

Emma Kate also loves, loves babies and especially Caroline.  She generally is very gentle and sweet with her though they love to get rowdy with each other. Yesterday they got into a screaming contest - and not an unhappy one - just wanted to see who could yell the loudest!

If you spend any time at all with Emma Kate, you know that her most favorite thing in the world right now is Little Mermaid.  Often she will not respond to her name and instead insists I call her Ariel.  Yesterday when I laid her down for nap she would only call me Prince Eric.  So then for the next 5 minutes I hear her yelling for me to come fix her blanket... 'Pwince Ewic, Pwince Ewic, I neeeeed you!'  She had her birthday party at a little tea room in Lexington that was the sweetest and of course had Ariel in  attendance.

EK has quite the imagination and does such a great job of entertaining herself.  She usually loves going to her Skilz classes although sometimes puts up a fight if Harper isn't going with her. The other day in class they were explaining one of the drills - the kids had to run down and pick up bean bags and run back.. and Emma Kate so sweetly looks at the teacher and says 'but I don't like running.' HA. She must get that from me.  She loves coloring and crafting and generally will play along with most anything that Harper concocts for them to do.  Often times EK pretends to be the puppy dog but she insists that she likes being the puppy.

She has the funniest, most expressive little facial expressions and the cutest sayings. My current favorite is how she says 'o-tay' instead of OK.  She often covers her mouth with both hands with she gets really tickled about something and it is pretty cute.

Recently she got a scrape on her knee that bled and bled and then left a huge scab.  Of course she refused a band-aid.  One night we were encouraging her to go to sleep and told her that she needed to stay in bed for it to heal better.  The next morning she laid in bed until 1130 AM insisting that she needed to stay there in order for it to heal!  I'm not sure where that stubborn streak comes from :)

She loves her blonde hair and blue eyes and is proud that she's the only one in the fam with them! We encourage her to eat vegetables so that her hair can grow long and she is finally so happy that it can be put into a braid, just like Elsa :).

We love this big-hearted girl that is so full of joy!

15 Months

Better late than never for our sweet baby Caroline!  Today our nanny pointed out that she is 15 months!!! Crazy!  Where has the time gone.

Caroline's little personality is blossoming and in the last couple months she is learning and changing so much!  She understands everything we say and will generally respond with very emphatic head nods or violent shakes to indicate 'no'.  She is the HAPPIEST when she sees someone she's been missing, her arms and legs start flapping and the biggest smile takes over her face when Andy and I walk in the door in the afternoons.  She loves music, especially the Trolls soundtrack and the Mickey Mouse clubhouse and will flap her arms to those like crazy.  She also attempts to sing which is so sweet - her specialities are the song Little mermaid sings when she's losing her voice as well as Let it go.

She is saying lots more words - mama, up, please, thank you, harper, 'hot dog', dad (sometimes - he also gets called mama from time to time), hi, bye, night-night, love you.  She hasn't quite figured out Emma Kate and that often sounds like mama too.  She love to drink milk and I finally got the bottle away about a month ago.  She just loved her morning milk in a bottle so much!  The girl knows what she likes and is committed to that. When we were first weaning her just to cows milk she would only take it warm, in a bottle. She would drink water or juice from a sippy but just threw it when there was milk in it.  Then I started spiking it with chocolate milk which she would guzzle down but still no plain milk in a sippy. Finally during a 3 day weekend we just went cold turkey and of course she decided cold milk in a sippy is better than no milk at all!

While we always call her our 'sweet Caroliney' she certainly is a feisty one with a bit of a temper.  Watch out if you take a toy from her. She will either try to hit, bite or flop over wailing.  I'm nervous the hitting/biting is going to get her in trouble this fall in Mother's Day out.  A big part of me doesn't blame her... she's got big sisters who are always in her personal space and since she can't tell them to move a little nibble does the trick... but since it's not socially acceptable to bite other kids we're working on it daily.

She is still not walking but I think she's capable and just holding out on me.  I bought her some squeaker shoes around the time she turned one because it seemed like she had no interest in standing or any desire at all.  She's gotten the hang of that tho, is cruising everywhere, pulling up all the time.  She CAN stand on her own but generally refuses to and then flashes this little mischievous smile.  Interestingly, when we babysit our niece Ava, (who is like 9 months old and has been standing up on her own for like 2 months), Caroline is more interested in standing.  I'm not sure if that's an early competitive streak or what.

She's not really the most adventurous - when we go to swim she clings for dear life and is generally content just to scoot around the side of the pool.  She has ruined so many outfits with her scooting but it is seriously funny to watch.  She is so FAST and when she uses two hands to scoot she definitely resembles some type of monkey.

She LOVES other babies - always hugging and kissing them... and for whatever reason likes to poke them in the forehead??  She is forever trying to hug on Ava when we're around them.  She certainly is still a mama/dada's girl and really is not very happy if a stranger is trying to hold her.  She has moments where she's cool with Uncle Cam or Aunt Carrie but those can be few and far between.

She now has 4 teeth up top and 2 on the bottom.  She loves brushing them and begs for a toothbrush anytime she sees one.  She eats everyone and really prefers having food more whole rather than cut up into tiny pieces.  Sometimes she will refuse to eat unless we give her a fork if we are all using forks... high maintenance right??  I think her favorite foods change daily.  Recently she's been into bananas, graham crackers.  She loves ketchup and will try to scoop it up with her hands if she's quick enough.

She likes to sit in her high chair and color - she only uses a yellow marker and generally ends up with it in her hair, on her mouth, legs, etc.  She is still very attached to her bunny and bunny shows the wear and tear from all her loving.  One of her favorite games is where we tell her to lay her head down and go night night which she will do until we yell 'wake up' and she springs up with the biggest laugh.

We had a blast on our trip to Disney back in May.  Caroline was not a big fan of characters as predicted but she was certainly entertained by all the rides.  She also liked the beach and was content just to play in the sand.

We love this sweet little girl to the moon!!