Skip to My Lu

I always have a project going and here is my latest: www.skiptomyluembroidery.blogspot.com. From the time I got my embroidery machine, I thought it would be fun to have a little side business. But with the addition of the second baby, there was no extra time in my day. Now that Maddie will be in school 4 days a week next year and Emalyn at Mothers Day Out one day, I am finally starting it up. 

My girls had a lot of fun playing with all the fabrics as I was mocking all my appliques up. 

 As you can tell my house was already messy enough, so whats about 50 more pieces of fabric out in the middle of the floor?  :) But they were entertained for quite awhile.  

 Making Emalyn go "night-night" is Maddie's new favorite game to play. 

Sisters

Wow..can't believe it has been over a month since I have posted! I have long post coming about this summer but wanted to post this quickly first. I knew as soon as we found out Emalyn was a girl, I was thankful that Maddie was going to have sister. But there was no way I could have imagined how sweet it would be watching them play together or how many giggles could come from two little girls. They have so much fun playing together, and as Maddie says "she adores me" - they both adore each other.  They have their own names for each other. Emalyn calls Maddie "Sissy" and Maddie calls Emalyn "Littles." Maddie spent the night with my mom last week, and Emalyn must have asked us 50 times, "where's sissy?" Only for Chris or I one to answer "shes at Bebe's", then 30 secs later "where's sissy?" 

This was them playing dress up yesterday.

Pretending to go "night-night" in Maddie's bed. Maddie cannot wait until Emalyn is big enough to sleep in the big girl bed with her. Until then, she loves tucking Emalyn in and pretending they are going back to sleep. Emalyn just plays along.

Doing each other's hair

 I ran downstairs for a second to check on something, and I heard them laughing as I was coming back up the stairs. Maddie had put Emalyn in her baby's doll pack n play and then hopped in herself. Its amazing what little things can be so entertaining!

I was making dinner a few weeks ago, and I heard them cracking up in Emalyn's room. I grabbed the camera and headed in there to see what they were doing. Here's a little clip:

Who knew hiding under a rug could be so much fun!

And this is this morning watching TV

I'm so thankful for my two sweet little girls! 

"Bacadas"

As soon as I heard the Cicadas were coming, all I could think was about my sweet Maddie who is screams when she sees a tiny ant inside the house. For those of you who do not have Cicadas in your area, they come out of the ground every 13 years,  and they are everywhere! Chris read somewhere that there can be 1.5 million per acre, which means there half a million in our yard alone. I knew I had to start preparing Maddie, but I wanted to wait as long as we could. They were supposed to come out on May 10th, so the day before I began talking to her about them. We started talking about that they are big bugs that cannot hurt you. They cannot see, so they will probably fly into you. But they cannot sting you (which I later found out was not true - not that it matter to her b/c she screams so loud when one even gets near her that it would not have a chance to sting her). 

But there was another problem, they were ALL over her swing set & all of her outdoor toys for that matter. 

This was day one; we would wipe them off every afternoon and by the next morning the fort would be covered again. The squirrels and birds are having a hey day eating them. We have watch a squirrel climbing all over Maddie's swing set each morning eating them.

Not only are the bugs everywhere, but they come out of their shells and then leave their shells attached to a tree or in this case Maddie swing set. So it became very clear that if we were going to be able to play outside at all for the next 6 weeks, we had to get Maddie something that she could wipe the "bacadas" off with. 

We made a Target run to find a "bacada brush." And the one dollar aisle came to our rescue again! 

 

 There are holes all of my yard from them coming out of the ground. 

 All over the new tree we just planted! 

 This was all of the shells underneath a tree at the end of week1 (there are double or triple that amount now). Not to mention, now all the dead ones are starting to decay and our backyard smelling like there is a dead animal.

At the beginning I thought okay we can handle this, but I will say I am sick of them now. They screech at you when they feel the vibrations of you coming close, which makes working in the yard really interesting. I can hear their "chirping" from inside my house (with all the doors and windows closed). They fly in your car! I am looking forward to end of June, which should hopefully be cicada free. 

Spring!

After all the long winter days of being cooped up inside the house, I love the nice spring weather. Here are some of the things we have been doing this spring.

Picnics

We had Sophie and Aida and their Mommy and Daddy over for a picnic!

 We had a picnic one night at the park. It was still a little chilly but so wonderful to be outside!

And always fun to be able to swing after eating!

Painting

One of Maddie's very favorite things to do is to paint. We painted some Easter Eggs to go in the bowl on the kitchen table.

Girls Day with Macie

Chris had a conference one Saturday, and Max and John Miller had soccer games all day Saturday. So we went to JM's first game and took Macie to lunch and home with us. She painted Maddie's fingernails and toenails. Maddie loved every minute of it as you can imagine.

We even used the baby doll bath tub as a tub for Maddie's feet for the pedicure!

Walking Girl

Emalyn is took her first step the beginning of April! She took her own sweet time, but she has taken off now and walks everywhere. Mama is loving every minute it!

Playing at the Playground
 We have loved walking down the street to the playground!

Although Emalyn's not sure how she feels about the big slide.

Maddie's Spring Sing

Waving to us as she walks by.

Dying Easter Eggs 

We had Maddie's sweet friend Caroline from school over to dye Easter Eggs.

 Easter Egg Hunts
Emalyn got her first ear infection the week before Easter, so we missed the Easter Egg Hunt at the Taylors and at church, but she was fever free by Friday for the playgroup Egg Hunt at the Young's.

 The chaos begins!

 Maddie fully enjoying being the oldest one at the Easter Egg Hunt!

 Finally standing up by herself and taking more steps each day!

 Emalyn's favorite thing to do at Carrie's house: play her piano. 

Saturday morning we had an Easter Egg Hunt at Mimi and Grand D's house.

All of the cousins with a new addition: baby Jackson! Hard to believe that Emalyn was the baby in Macie's lap last year!

5 Years

Amidst all the Easter Egg Hunts, Chris and I celebrated our five year anniversary. I am amazed at how quickly time has flown. I feel like it has only gotten more fun with each year! I am so grateful to be married to my best friend and to have him by my side in the adventure of parenthood.

Easter Day

Easter Morning

Emalyn was in no mood for pictures Easter morning.

But Maddie was hamming it up!

Easter Sunday is one of my favorite time to take pictures. My very favorite family picture before Emalyn was born was from Easter Sunday. I love looking at my friends pictures from Easter Sunday. So of course, I had built up in my head that I was going to get a great picture of the girls in their Easter Dresses. Ha! Here is what I got instead:

 Emalyn has discovered her bow is in her hair, and Maddie is imitating John Miller's "angel face" (that he makes when he is in trouble) :). Not exactly what I was hoping for but it captures our life right now none the less!

After church, we went over to my aunt and uncles house. They have a playhouse in their backyard that the girls loved!

The girls playing with my cousin's little girl, Eloise. She is 3 months older than Emalyn.

 Although Emalyn and Eloise, my cousin's little girls,  were not to keen on sharing the rocking chair. And let me tell you being the second child, Emalyn does not back down without a fight!

 My mom tore her meniscus that morning at church, so she was confined to the chair. Emalyn crawled up into her lap to get a few "baba" (as she calls her) snuggles.

After lunch, they had an Easter Egg Hunt.

 And Maddie was off...

 Emalyn was content to sit and watch.

 Maddie getting Miss Caroline to help her go through all of her candy.

Then it was home for naps and round 2 at my aunt Lee Anne's house.

She had gotten Easter Baskets for the girls and my little cousin Bailey.

Tommypop & Chris making sure Emalyn got a least one egg!


My grandmother G with Emalyn.

Uncle Tee & Miss Caroline spotted another one, and Maddie and Bailey were off to get it.

Maddie very excited that there was money inside the eggs!