Our Trip to Hayward 2009

As most of you know, we go to Hayward every year with the whole family. This year was the first year with all 3 grandkids. Mikaiya is 3, Emily is 18 months and Braenna is 1...so as you can imagine it was quite the experience!!! The first half of the trip involved cold and rainy weather - so it got a little chaotic. Eventually we would take the kids outside into the garage and just bundle them up. Let them burn off some energy.

Then that would get chaotic. So we'd haul them all back inside!! ha ha

Grammy was in charge of bath's each night...better her than us!!!! It was a nice break to not have to do baths and it was so fun to watch her keep each child happy! ha ha

Finally after a few days the sun came out, so the little ones got on their bathing suits and went down to the lake!!!

Throughout the week we tried...very hard to get a nice picture of all 3 girls. It never worked...here's the best we got:



Here is Uncle Mike showing Emme how to drink a REAL beer:

My little angel...all grown up!!!!

We all had a great time...just hoping next year is a little more relaxing and a little less chasing munchkins around!!!!!

Here is the photo link to all of my pics from the week:
http://photos1.walmart.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=662654003/a=3242809_3242809/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/

What do an 18 Month Photo Shoot & A Visit to Urgent Care have in Common?

Emily!!!!!

The day before we left for vacation we had Emme's 18 month photo shoot with Krista at www.kristaroderphotography.com (PLUG PLUG PLUG!!! She's the best!) if you want a sneak peek of Emily's photos - go to Krista's blog at http://kristaroderphotography.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/emily/


She did such a fabulous job - as always. We should get the full CD by the weekend and I will upload them for everyone to see.

Now-you're probably wondering where urgent care comes in, right? Well earlier in the week Emme got a bug bite on her hand at daycare. Her hand was swollen and red, but the Dr didn't think too much of it at her 18 month check-up. She woke up Saturday morning with her hand about 3x the normal size and it was really warm to the touch. She also had a small red spot under her eye. We had her pictures at 9am, so took her to those. As Krista was taking pictures we were watching the red spot on her eye grow...seriously - within an hour it had gotten much bigger. I was like OK...Time for URGENT CARE!!!

At urgent care, they weren't worried about her eye - but thought that her hand was infected, so they gave us amoxicillin. She started on the antibiotic on Sat night while I went to my friend's bachelorette party. During the evening, I get a text from Kory that has a picture and says "Hi Mommy"

Yep...that was my baby girl about 1o hours after starting the antibiotics. I freaked!!! We decided at that point to put her on benadryl even though the Dr said not to. By morning it was a little less swollen and I got to finally see my baby. I was soooo worried!

We left for Hayward on Sunday and by Monday both her eye and her hand were much better. We still don't know what caused it. It seems to be some sort of allergy to bug bites. So we are watching her very closely to see if we can pinpoint the issue. Not fun!

18 Months...already!

The month of June has just flown by - I can't believe it's almost the 4th of July already!!! We've had a busy few weeks, but are really enjoying the sunshine and getting to play outside. Emme has a love of the slide- you know she wants to go outside when she's looking out the window - pointing - and saying - "Bweeeee" :) It's sooo cute!

She also love her animal sounds - we are trying to get them on video. So far she knows what a cow says, a dog, a cat, a duck and daddy!!! It's pretty darn funny.

She's been using her signs a lot too - mostly milk, more and please. It's fun to be able to understand her more and more each day.

She says book, car, truck, dog, ball, outside, balloon and a few others.



Em had her 18 month check up today and all is well!! Her head is finally shrinking. Dr Z looked at her growth curve and said--okay---seriously--I've never seen a kid's head get smaller :) But Em's did! ha ha She needed it!!!!!

Her height is 32.25" (69th percentile) - she grew over 2 inches 3 months!!!!

Her weight is 22lbs 8oz (28th percentile)

Her head circumference is 47cm (64th percentile)



--now her weight might be a little deceiving as he had a fill in nurse and she didn't know she was supposed to weight the kids naked. So Emme had a full wet diaper, clothes and shoes on!!!! We're guessing she's just under 22 lbs. He didn't feel it necessary to weigh her again. That still means she would have gained about a pound from her 15 month check up - which is great news! We've been stuffing her full of food!!!!

We leave for our yearly trip up north on Sunday - looking forward to spending a week with my family. Very excited for our first time with all the girls - Mikaiya who is 3, Emily who is 18 months and Braenna who is 1....should be quite entertaining!!! We might need a vacation after our vacation :)

Today was a fabulous day! We got to spend it at Aunt Kacey's with Emme's two newest cousins. She loves playing with Zander and Owen. You have to watch her like a hawk though because she doesn't understand the concept of being "gentle". She actually was trying to sit on Owen today!!!! She also likes to help, so she'll take a toy and wiggle it....okay...she shakes it like it's going to fall apart in front of the baby's faces. It's too cute. She's trying though!!! She'll make a good big cousin someday! I told Kacey and Kristen - before they know it - Zander and Owen will be running circles around Miss Em...she is the princess you know :) Grandma Bonnie has a sign in her house that 7 boys, 1 Emily. It's soooo cute!!!


Here is our June photo link: http://photos1.walmart.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=533895003/a=3242809_3242809/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/

Zander Luke Vosberg

Our new nephew has arrived!!!

Zander Luke Vosberg arrived on June 20th at 7:17am.
He was 7lbs 13oz and 21in long.

Kacey and Zander are doing great! Happy Father's Day Tony!


Here are some new pictures:

Owies are healing...

Well Emme's owie's appear to be healing. They are looking uglier and uglier!!!

Here Em is eating her favorite food ever...PICKLES!!!!

Here she is all ready for bed:

Here's a close up of her nose.


Get better soon sweetie pie!

First Scrapes

Is there any worse sound than hearing your child's head hitting the concrete? Em fell off the deck stair and hit her face on the concrete. She scraped up her nose and forehead. After only a minute, she stopped crying and went with Barb (our neighbor) to look at the talking birds. The scrapes and bumps don't seem to bother her.

This is for Reese

Hi Cousin Reese,
I hear you really love to see the videos of me growing up, so I am having my mommy post 2 new ones. I can't wait to see you in a month or two.

Lots of love,
Cousin Emme

The Busy Month of May

We have been very busy this month...as always. We're happy to finally have some nicer weather. Emily is obsessed with being outside. So we go out almost every evening to play for a little while before bath/bed time.

Em is saying more and more words each day...and learning lots of signs too. She signs please, more, eat, drink, milk. She's sooo smart! She says ball (all the time!!), Mama, Dada, Da (dog), arf arf arf (yep! what does a doggie say???), outside, this (when she wants something), baby....um can't think of what else.

I can't believe how fast she is growing. She seems to have such an attitude. She knows what she wants and if she doesn't get it she pitches a fit. It's starting to be a little difficult. She is still a very good sleeper and tells Mommy when she's ready for bed. I hope that lasts forever, but I have a feeling it won't.

Emily has a shoe obsession which you will see in the photos. She just loves to bring shoes to me for me to put on her feet. Then she'll wear them until bed time. Such a goofy girl.

Kory and I took a day and went ATVing - thanks to Aunt Kacey and Uncle Tony for babysitting. We went up to Black River Falls and had a really nice time. We just got back from Hayward for Memorial Day weekend. Always have a blast up there. Wish we could get there more often. Let's see..oh...we did the March of Dimes walk the first weekend in May. Had beautiful weather!!! Thanks to everyone who donated.

We're anxiously awaiting the arrival of Baby Zander - set to be here any day now - Emme says "Hurry up Aunt Kacey!!!". I'll post as soon as I hear something.

Here's the photo link for May (I even put captions on pics this time...yay me!):
http://photos.walmart.com/shareethumbnailshare/AlbumID=137189003/albumcount=1/p=549281243560514965/l=46458003/g=3242809/cobrandOid=1011/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB/pns/share/p=549281243560514965/l=46458003/g=3242809/cobrandOid=1011/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Finally got it on video....

Kory has been trying for the last 3 months to get Emily on video whispering. Check it out!!!

Aunt Kacey should be proud...

Emily has a sudden infatuation with shoes. This past weekend she started coming to me or Kory with a matching pair of shoes in her hands pointing at her feet. She got several pairs of hand-me-down shoes from her daycare provider's daughter and they are finally her size. So she is obsessed with them. It's pretty fun. I think Kory and I are in for it!!!

Here is a cute video that Kory took of her with her fancy shoes and her talking purse. What a riot!!

First 16 months...

Here is a slide show of Emily's first 16 months of life!!! It's amazing to see how much she has grown. I tried to pick pictures that I have not posted before. Enjoy!

(by the way - I stole Smilebox from Kalli! Thanks Kals!!)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

No longer a baby...

I keep finding myself calling Emily "my daughter" instead of "my baby" and to be honest - it keeps catching me off-guard. Emme will ALWAYS be "my baby" no matter how old she gets. I watched the Oprah show today about that little girl Madeline McCann who was abducted in Portugal while her family was on vacation and all I can think about is my little girl. It just makes my heartache thinking about it. I really don't know how a parent can survive losing a child. There is another website that I somehow came across the other day - http://thespohrsaremultiplying.com/ - kind of ironic that this little girl's name was Madeline as well. I somehow came across this blog on April 9th - just randomly. This poor mother lost her baby girl on April 7th. I can't imagine. She was 16 months old - Em's exact age. I am not intending this blog to be depressing, it's just that somedays I think about how lucky I am to have such a wonderful little girl in my life. I am not sure what I did to be given such joy.

Emily - you are the sunshine in my life - and I am so thankful that you were given to me. I love you.

Here is a really fun video of Daddy chasing Emme down the hall and into her room. It gets dark for a minute, but then lights back up.

Our Trip to Texas

Emily and I left on April 11th for a trip to Texas to visit my sister and her family. We had a VERY early flight out of Madison. Emme did great!! I always worry when it's just her and I, but she's such a good traveller. She's been on 3 airline flights already! yay! We arrived Saturday morning, Cori and Jeff picked us up at the airport in a lovely rented minivan. It was perfect to fit all of us. Cori and Jeff had the 2 front seats, then Mikaiya (3 years old) and Braenna (1o months old) were in the next set of seats, and Emme (15 months old) and I were in the back row. I was able to help with the kiddos and it worked out really well. They picked us up at the airport and we drove straight down to San Antonio - with 1 stop at McDonald's for the kids to run around and burn off some energy.

We rented a house in San Antonio which worked out PERFECTLY!!! We each had our own rooms which was fabulous. We got up Sunday morning to the Easter Bunny!!! "She" managed to find us even though we were all far from home in San Antonio. Here is Emme in her pretty Easter dress (borrowed from Mikaiya when she was little):

After we opened Easter baskets we packed up and headed into Sea World. We had such a good time. Day 1 included the Dolphin Show (Viva) and lots of walking. Mikaiya went on some rides. Emily just loved it all. We saw the fish and the penguins. At one point we were walking along and some music started playing and Em stopped in her tracks and started shaking her butt - for those of you that have been blessed enough to see her dance (ha ha) then you know what I mean. Cori was laughing so hard at her. It was a riot.

Day 2 at Sea World included the Shamu show (Believe) and then another show with the Sesame Street characters. She LOVED that one. She was really into all the characters. We also got to spend time feeding the dolphins. It was so fun. They have this big tank and and you are right up against it. You get to pet their heads and give them fish. It was really fun. Hard for Em to do, but Mikaiya had a lot of fun with it.

Day 3 we packed up and headed back to Dallas - on the way we stopped at the San Antonio Riverwalk and went on a boat ride. It was soooo fun! We got the history tour of everything. The kids seemed to like it too.

The next few days we hung out at Cori and Jeff's house - just playing with the kids, running errands and playing outside a lot. Mom arrived Thursday morning and we were SOOO relieved. We could really use an extra set of hands. Casey came Thursday night. Mikaiya couldn't wait all day to see her Auntie CeCe. We did sidewalk chalk, wagon/bike rides, had tea parties, the girls took lots of baths together and lots of other fun stuff.

One bad thing was that Emily got this awful rash. It started about 1/2 way through our trip. It was not fun. By Friday she was miserable and itching like crazy, so I took her to the urgent care down there. The Dr was quite concerned, but we couldn't pinpoint what was causing it. They gave us prednisone and now it's all cleared up -- thankfully. I hope we can figure out what caused it in the first place though.

Anyways, we had a super time. Thanks to Cori and Jeff for having us for a whole 8 days. Thanks for all the Bud Light :) Thanks for letting Emme sleep in Braenna's crib. Just thanks for a really good time. Miss you all already!

Here's the link to the pictures: http://photos.walmart.com/share/p=711211240358127051/l=15530407/g=3242809/cobrandOid=1011/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Our First Craft Project

My friend at work showed me pictures of her 14 month old finger painting and I said WHAT??? Emme hasn't finger painted yet! I'm behind the 8 ball. ha ha So sure enough I went out and bought some washable (WASHABLE is the key word here!!!) finger paints and got her all ready with her "painting" bib that Aunt Kalli bought her. She didn't know what to do at first with the paint which is how she ended up with it on her lip. Then she figured out how it all worked. She had a blast painting!!! She made her first two pieces of art work and I am going to save them...well at least 1 of them :) So she can have it when she moves out of the house. Don't all parents give you a big box of crap when you get your own space as an adult? I know mine did :)

So then after she was all done - we put her paints up in her closet and she saw where we put them. So all last night she kept pointing up there like she wanted to paint some more. This morning when Kory got her ready for daycare-he said the first thing she did when she got out of the crib was walk over to her closet and point at the paints. What a smart little girl!!!

Oh - and she said "Ball" for the first time this weekend. YAHOO!!! Word 4, I think. Yay!

What a Busy Month!

Well it's now almost April, it's been a busy March. Emily is officially walking full-time now. She falls down a lot - but just gets right back up. No running yet though :)

She had her 15 month Dr visit on Monday and her height is 30" (38th percentile), her weight is 20.9 lbs (17th percentile) and her head circumference is a stunning 47.5 cm (90th percentile). The Dr is a little worried about her body to head ratio - since her head is so much larger than the rest of her body. It can be a sign of malnourishment - so we are on the duty of feeding her as much as possible. We're hoping she can gain some weight (and not head circumference!!) for her 18 month check-up.

Emily had a busy month. She has finally gotten to enjoy playing outside a little bit. The weather is starting to look like spring (sort of!!). She is still quite the chatter box. She always has a lot to say - but doesn't say a whole lot of words yet. She seems to understand a lot of words, but doesn't repeat them...or if she does - we don't know it.

She had a few sleepovers at Grandma Bonnie's and always enjoys those! She is starting to get into baby dolls which is really fun. She also likes to help in the kitchen - especially when making Taco Soup -- her new favorite!! Grammy and Grampa Walker came to visit last week - and she had fun playing with both of them. She got to taste her first Peep...gee thanks Grammy!!!

We just got back today from our first road trip without Daddy....at least long road trip! Emme and I went up to Minnesota to visit Auntie Ali and Morgan. It was lots of fun. Ali is about ready to have baby boy Hanson - so we wanted to sneak in a visit before his arrival. We had lots of fun playing with Morgan and even snuck away for a few hours to get a pedicure and go out to lunch -- thanks to Ali's cousin for babysitting the girls.

We also had some work done on the house. Thanks to Tony - we got new front steps!! YAY! They were so rotted out. He used that fake plastic wood that is supposed to last "forever" and it's white - so it matches nice with the house. He also took out our sliding door and replaced it. We now have a door that locks and we don't even get a breeze in the house when it's windy!! Thanks so much Tony - we really appreciate all your help!

Here is the photo link for March: http://photos.walmart.com/shareethumbnailshare/AlbumID=45392300/albumcount=1/p=804291238360391987/l=15447232/g=3242809/cobrandOid=1011/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB/pns/share/p=804291238360391987/l=15447232/g=3242809/cobrandOid=1011/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Here is Morgan and Emme in the bathtub:

Here is Emme eating her first peep!!

Squishy face!!

A New Cousin...

Emily has a new cousin!!! Owen Ranier Marquardt was born on March 18th. Proud parents are Aunt Kristen (Kory's youngest sister) and Parker. He was 7lbs 11oz and 20 inches long. They live in Billings, Montana -- so we are sending lots of hugs and kisses since we can't hold him in our arms.

Congratulations guys! He's adorable!!

Couldn't do a post without any Emme pics - here's a few new ones from this week:

Here's Em on her first ATV ride with daddy. She seemed to like it!!

Em's first owie. We were out playing in the driveway and she took a face plant. I felt really bad. her cheek was red for a few days, but now it's fine.

This is Em dressed up for daycare on Thursday. Somedays I just have to make sure I am getting my money's worth by putting Em in a difficult outfit :) hee hee

What a big girl!

We happened to take a pic of Em with her giraffe this week and thought how fun to post the two pictures together. The first thing that I noticed was the shape of her head!! We're soooo glad we got the helmet. Look at our cute little peanut!!!

We finally had a nice day outside, so Daddy put together Em's car that she got for her birthday. Thanks Cori & Jeff!!! She really seemed to like riding in it.

Here she is helping Daddy fill Mommy's tires up!

Em loves riding on her pony - and falling off :) She tries to get on and off all by herself and it's usually quite disasterous!!! Oh well. I guess that is how they learn.

Check out those teeth!! She now has 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom. It's hard to get a good view, so here she is smiling on her changing table.

We just booked our trip to Texas, so we are very excited about that!! Emme and I will fly out together on Easter Sunday morning and then we're going to Sea World for a few days in San Antonio with Cori, Jeff & the girls. Then Mom and Aunt CeCe fly down on Thursday - we all fly back together on Sunday. Should be fun!

We are still anxiously awaiting the arrival of Kory's sister's baby -- Hang in there Kristen!!! We can't wait for the big news.

You might be a redneck if....

You have a working TV infront of a non-working TV--especially during a Nascar race!!!



Our big screen stopped working today during the race and we ran downstairs and got our other TV moved upstairs. We didn't have anywhere to put the big screen. Too funny!

Look who's walking now....

Finally...at 14 months - Miss Emily decided to take her first steps!! Officially - March 1st, 2009.