Sisterly love is flowing in our house these days! I walk into the living room, and I notice that Emma has given Charlotte her puppy. If she thinks Charlotte is cold, she covers her in a blankie. Charlotte cries, and Emma runs to her side to make her laugh.
I can't describe the Mommy joy I feel watching these two bond every day--
Watching Curious George together this morning. Emma will ask, "Charly sit with me?"
Charlotte only has eyes for her big sister!
And this is just for fun, my cool cat Emma girl wearing Mommy's shades. Stylin'!!
We officially said goodbye to cold weather this past week, and have hit 70 degrees here in Utah. I am in love. Winter was long and cold this year, and I was sick of it! On Friday, Emma, Charlotte, and I went outside for a walk in the morning, then came home for nap time and went back out in the afternoon for the rest of the day. I cannot tell you how much I needed that sunshine! Emma loves being pushed around in the double stroller with her sissy Charly! (Thanks again family!!)
Spring and Summer are great! I can open up the sliding door and Emma just plays on her own on the patio for as long as I let her. I love to sit out there with her and watch her play. It just so happens, that I can get a lot more housework done while she's playing too!
Deep in thought. When I asked what she was doing, she told me she was watching the cars drive by :)
Today, she helped wash off the grill and then noticed how dirty her car was, so that got a wash too. It was so dirty, that it needed about 6 refills of water and bubbles to get it clean! She kept coming back inside asking, "more bubbles pretty please?" Man, it must have been a dirty car! Look at that cute smiley face-- makes my day!
We've been going to a lot of parks too, and have found some really good ones that we frequent. Emma asks daily if we can go to the park, so we've been to many in the past few weeks! Our favorite so far is Coppertone Park. It's has large, adult trees with lots of shade, and a big playground! It's about 20 mins west of where we live, so it's perfect for us.
I love this face!!
Remember when we were kids and playgrounds had the HUGE truck tires? Coppertone park still has them! It's a rare playground item these days.
We love our Emma, and every day she does things that make us laugh.
Seriously.
I have 3 videos to prove it.
She likes to have multiples of things. If I give her a battery (which she is obsessed with), she wants "one more battery". If I give her a penny, she wants "one more money" until I tell her there are no more. Then, she happily takes her stash of whatever she has into her room to put it into her bowls, cups, or anything else that she can find.
She knows there are power in numbers.
Yesterday I found her outside with a spoon and a bowl full of coins.
She promised she wasn't eating them...
Later that night... She loves to watch Little Einsteins, and has ever since she was a little baby. Recently, she's been responding to her Little Einstein friends when they ask for her help. Last night, she had to help cool the hot, hot volcano with Annie doing the "coola hula". She just started doing it and I found myself sitting back and laughing with her.
And last but not least... the "mommy's lip" incident. She loves my lipstick. It's not really lipstick, it's like a chaptstick/lipgloss in a tube. Tomato Tamato, anyways... Whenever I put it on, it has to be out of sight of Emma. Otherwise, she will ask for it, look for it, and then plead to have my lipstick. She does not forget about it. So today, at our friends little girl's birthday party, I thought she was distracted enough with all the fun birthday activities, that she wouldn't notice me putting on my lipstick in plain sight.
Woops. She has eagle eyes that focused right in on me, and bee lined it for my pocket. So, I let her have it and she carried it around the entire time, even sharing with the birthday girl, Zoey:
Getting it away from her is near impossible. Everything fades in comparison to Mommy's lip. I let her have it for the car ride home, and after a few minutes of complete silence in the backseat, Matt turned around to see if she had fallen asleep. Nope. She had just smothered my lipstick all over her face, hands, and hair.
She definitely keeps me on my toes. The other day, she had my spray bottle full of water (another thing she is obsessed with, WATER), and was spraying our couch with it. I asked her not to spray water on the couch and she said, "No Mommy, wash couch, look!" and scrubbed the couch with her little toddler hands as if she was actually washing it. I just had to laugh, because she came up with that really quick! I love her, and I love these moments! Gosh, she makes me laugh!! xoxo The Twistles
We live in a condo/townhome community, so within walking distance there are about 4 playgrounds near us. By walking distance, I mean it takes us 2 minutes to get from one playground to the next. Emma loves this, and after playing on one will ask, "two park Mama?" which means she wants to go to another park to play. Her counting skills really go up to two, because she will say "one park, two park, two park!" as she counts how many parks we have. Since the weather has been warmer, we have been going outside every chance we get. We go to every playground until Emma is ready for the next one. Charlotte contently sits in her carseat and takes leisurely naps as I push the stroller from one location to the next. Here's Emma climbing up the "rock wall" at one of the playgrounds, with Dad's help of course:
Being able to get outside has done WONDERS for Emma, and has brought back my sanity. I was going stir crazy being cooped up inside all winter, so just getting outside for an hour makes such a big difference! All the girls in the Entwistle house feel so much better when we can get some sunshine. Gotta love that Vitamin D! I already posted these videos on FB, so forgive me if they are repeats. Today we did our park run, and on the last one we found Wall-E. Well, we found a Wall-E toy that was left in the dirt. Emma was completely beside herself, she couldn't believe Wall-E was at the playground! She proceeded to take his hand, and walk him all over the playground having mini conversations with him. They went down the slide, jumped off the edge, and she even caught him as he slid down the slide all by himself. We left him there, since I'm sure some poor child would come looking for their lost Wall-E toy... and luckily Emma was distracted by everything else that she didn't even think about him as we left. It sure was cute while it lasted, and so cool that we found him right after watching that movie in California! Perfect timing Wall-E.
Preface:I feel like I need to post this for some perspective, to remind myself of how small the bad moments are in comparison to the tender and loving moments that happen much more often.
Being a Mom is hard work.
Real hard work. I never thought it would be this hard, but the hard times seem few and far between when moments like these happen:
And these....
And I can't forget about these...
And the sisterly love these two already share is so apparent every day:
All these pictures were taken in the last 10 days, and I can't remember a moment of frustration looking at them. None of that matters now.
You should see the way Charlotte looks up to Emma, literally looking up at everything she does. She does not look at Matt or I that way. She looks at us with a genuine love and happiness, but when she focuses in on Emma, her world just gets bigger as she watches her big sister.
Charlotte is so interested in Emma, I've never seen such a thing. She smiles at her, talks to her, and her eyes follow Emma's every move.
Emma is getting more and more responsive to Charlotte's needs all the time. When I'm not looking she lies on her tummy with Charly and just looks at her. Sometimes I'll overhear her say, "okay baby?" or "kay Charly?" as if they are having their own secret conversation.
She likes to feed her, and help her roll onto her back when she's gotten stuck on her stomach. Anytime Charlotte cries, Emma looks at me and says, "oh! baby's crying!" and runs over to Charly to see if she's Okay.
Being a Mom is hard work.
Real hard work.
But the reward I get from the hard work means more to me than anything else on this earth could give me. After sacrificing all that I have mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially, I would give more just to see their smiley faces and receive their precious hugs and love. How thankful I am to be a Mother, and how much more now will I cherish hearing the word "Mom, Mama, Mommy" come from my toddler's lips? So much more.
I love this thing. Many thanks to my sister Shannen for the hand-me-down. It. Is. Awesome. Neither Emma nor Charlotte have been able to combat it's swingy-ness. They have both surrendered to the dreamy sleep while swinging in this wonderful apparatus. Charlotte fights the tired so badly these days, so during the day when it's time for her nap, I put her in it and it lulls her to sleep. Then, after she's sufficiently passed out (5 mins or so, yeah it's THAT good) I take her out and move her to her bed where she sleeps peacefully for an hour or so. Hallelujah!! Ahh, and now it's completely quiet in my house... for now :)
Why does it seem like the trip home takes so much longer than the arrival at the beginning of a vacation? Maybe because you are looking forward to vacation so the long travel time is worth it, and going home is well, boring... so it seems to take longer because you just want to be home already. We left bright and early after seeing Matt's parents off so Aunt Mar could take them to the airport. After 3 years, it still doesn't get any easier saying goodbye! I told Matt on the drive home that I don't know how he has handled saying goodbye to his parents so much since he moved to Utah. It is so hard! Especially now since we have Emma and Charlotte, knowing that they won't get to see Gramma and Poppa for a few months is killer! Someday.... we will all be close together and we won't have to say goodbye anymore! ;) The drive home was pretty uneventful, except for the huge car explosion just outside of Baker, Ca. It had traffic at a complete stop for about half an hour, so Emma got to get up front with Dad and "drive" the car. She thought it was awesome!
stuck in traffic...
The rest of the trip went like this:
Emma and Charlotte both slept off and on, I was jumping into the back to feed Charlotte and watch movies with Emma, and Matt drove like a Rockstar. We stopped in St. George to get food and let Emma play at the park. She loved it! We stayed for about an hour before packing up and hitting the road again. We pulled into our driveway about 11:30p.m. and Emma was still awake, much to my surprise! She crashed immediately after putting her down in her bed. I still have laundry that is waiting to be done. I hate laundry. We miss California and our family so much, it's just not the same without them around. Until next time! xoxo The Twistles
Between Friday and Monday we relaxed and enjoyed family time. That was the best. It made the trip seem longer than it really was, which was an amazing feeling. The last thing you want is to feel like you have to drive home when it feels like you just drove there. Not at all the case for us. Here's a few pictures and videos of our vacation, that don't really fall into a category... well I guess it falls into the "Lazy and Loving it" category.
This was a beautiful scenic road called Sequoia Ave... can you guess why?
Vacation Life... Mom Entwistle and Uncle Kelley
Emma LOVED getting spun around in this chair. I thought by the 5th time she would puke, but she just kept saying, "again!"
Here's Emma getting spun around and around. Watch her eyes at the very end, it was so funny!
Matt and his Dad took Emma to the park where she dominated the slide for the first time! Before she needed help to stay up straight as she went down the slide. Matt said he went up to help her and she looked at him and said, "stay Daddy, stay" and went down all by herself and didn't lean or fall backwards. Now she can go down slides all by herself and it is so fun to watch! The things she learns by just watching other kids is amazing to me!
Here she is in the swing holding on to her puppy, after all, she's part of the family too!
After nap time, Charlotte gets a little dream gaze going on, where she just kind of contently stares until she's really awake. She woke up to Gramma Entwistle, and just looked deep into her eyes until we had to pull her away for pictures. It was too cute!
Easter Oreo Emma
Easter Charly
Easter Cousins
In Emma's Easter basket there was a yo-yo, but she didn't know how to use it so she got Uncle Kelley to help. By the end of the trip, Emma had really connected with Uncle Kelley and relentlessly played the "boo!" game with him almost every day. She also called him "Telley" or "Tenney" and everytime he left the room she'd say, "heyyyy! Where'd Telley go?"
On the last night of our trip, we let Emma stay up past bedtime so she could watch her new favorite movie, "Wall-E" for the second time. She cuddled up next to Uncle Kelley and even shared some of her goldfish with him. The next day as we were leaving, Uncle Kelley gave Emma his copy of Wall-E to take home. We have watched it almost every day since! She calls it the Robot movie, and asks to watch it all the time. Thanks Uncle Kelley, that meant so much to us! We are so glad that Emma got to know her Aunt Mar Mar and Uncle Kelley.
(Aunt Marilyn bought her a bunny necklace and matching bracelet, and every time she wears it she says, "pretty from Mar Mar". She sure does love you both!
I had to have some of this delicious, freshly squeezed orange juice. To die for, sooo good!
Emma was magnetized to Uncle Kelley's office, and couldn't stay away no matter how many times I asked her to leave his things alone. I snuck in and took a few pictures of her before calling her name and asking her what she was doing. She gave me the classic guilty look of surprise.
"ooh!"
"Hi Mommy!"
Pre-Charlotte, being happy and smiley... before we pierced her ears. Yep, that happened! She was NOT happy, and screamed louder than shot day at the doctor's. She is a little dramatic, and anytime she gets hurt/surprised/etc, it literally takes her an hour to calm down. It's like she is still so upset that we allowed anything to happen to her, and that makes her so mad that she cries again! The ear piercing was worse because we did that on purpose. After about 30 mins of her being upset, she calmed down and was a happy girl again. They haven't bothered her at all, and are healing just fine! So cute!
"oh hey guys, what's going on? Why is everyone looking at me like that?"
"How could you?!"
"I trusted you!" mid-sob
Just a few hours after, happy again!
Emma giving her stank eye look
Sisters! Aunt Marilyn and Momma Entwistle
Uncle Kelley, Mom Entwistle, Aunt Marilyn
Gramma had the touch with Charlotte this trip, and got her to sleep every time
We love our family! Miss you guys already! xoxo The Twistles
