3 Last Names, One Family

This is Emily at 8 months old. I liked to refer to her as the "hairless wonder". I have no idea how, with John as her father, she got the recessive bald gene from my side of the family. It was all well and good until she learned to pull bows out of her hair and at that point, there was really nothing I could do. So, imagine my excitement when at long last I was able to do this!!...







Is that not the cutest thing in the world?? And she actually lets me put them in and doesn't usually pull them out. What a cute little bug! I should probably blog about some of the other cute things Emily is doing at this point. She LOVES to watch the Justice League. She does the cutest little dance when the title song comes on. She loves to turn over and make it extremely difficult for me to change her diaper, but I've learned that if I sing to her while I'm changing her, she'll actually sit there and let me do it. She especially loves the song "Popcorn". She also loves to eat Popcorn and begs me for it often. She loves to sit on her potty chair and has her Minnie and Mickey dolls sit on the potty too. I pray for the day when she actually will do something other than sitting on it, but hey, it's a start. She loves to watch Finding Nemo and would probably sit and watch it all day long if I let her. She knows the letters "e" and "f" thanks to the Sesame Street books. She often will bring me the "f" book while saying "f", which means that she wants me to read it to her. When she brings me the "e" book, she says "emy" because she knows "e" is for Emily. She still won't give kisses to me or John unless we tell her we have a boo boo on our checks. She has no problem giving Matthew a good night kiss, however. She's addicted to apple juice and I can't get her to drink her milk anymore now that she's off of the bottle. We also got rid of the paci a few weeks ago and she STILL asks for it sometimes, but I think she's mostly resigned to the fact that it's gone bye bye. She loves to play with Matthew and they both make each other laugh. Tonight, Emily was twirling in the kitchen and Matthew was just laughing his head off because Emily was getting so dizzy that she would fall down which would make her laugh even more. It was pretty cute.

On to Matthew. We are gearing up to have him gone for the entire summer. I think he's starting to get excited about it, but I think the idea of him being gone for that long has been a little frightening to him. I'm glad that Will is going to fly down and pick him up this time. I really don't think Matthew enjoyed flying by himself last time. I'm also glad that John, Emily and I will be able to fly up there to see him for his birthday in July. It will be about the half way point, so I know if I can make it that long, then I can make it for the rest of the summer. He has done so well in school this year. He continues to amaze me at how well he reads. His writing and drawing has greatly improved this year too. He writes the funniest stuff. He had to write a poem a few weeks ago and it went like this:

Monsters - by Matthew
Monsters are very wasty
They think people are very tasty.
And they like to chew gum
But don't ask them for some.

One of his classmates wrote this poem about Matthew:

Matthew - by Brandon L.
Matthew has fat ears threw a mile
Brown eyes glow through the night
Eye up and scary
Very funny all the time
Golden hair very bright
Loud voice all the time
Wears funny shirts all day
Clean teeth make people blind
Matthew has everything.

The first time I read these poems I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. What a crack up! He is obsessed right now with the Wii, more specifically with his Lego Batman game. He and John enjoy some male bonding time while John tries not to yell at Matthew for not staying with him. Matthew also recently discovered the joys of riding his scooter, mostly I think because he hasn't mastered his bike without training wheels yet. But, he enjoys riding around the neighborhood with the other kids. Well, that's it in a nutshell. We will miss him terribly while he's gone. We are just so proud of his accomplishments this year. Even though he can be incredibly hyper sometimes, he is such a smart boy and has a huge heart and we wouldn't have it any other way.