I am so grateful for eternal families. I am fortunate enough to honestly say I have the best kids in the world and I don't know what I would do without them. Waking up to them everyday is one of my greatest blessings. No matter how tired and crazy my life gets, I will always love them to death. I had to post again so soon, because they bring so much nonstop joy and laughter into my life. Everyday is a new day, a new adventure, discoveries and milestones are on the horizon. We accumulated so many fun stories this past week, I was worried I'd forget them before I could post again.
My son has a heart of gold, he completely adores his sister and she loves being completely adored, just not mauled. However, you never know when the mauling will begin, but until then you have to stay on your guard...
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| My new favorite picture of my kids, hands down the best faces. She is totally waiting for him to maul her. |
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| Let the mauling begin! |
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| She adores the attention she gets from her brother... |
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| Emmett tickling the baby! |
From the moment Madison was born, Emmett believed that Madison was meant to be his new toy. He loves to play with her, talk to her, and hold her. I even caught him letting her chew on his hand while he was watching tv and she was next to him in the bouncer! Whenever she catches his eye, he stops to kiss her hand or cheek. There is so much love in that little boy, he amazes me.
When he isn't loving up on his baby Madison, he is carrying around his baby doll. We will swaddle the doll together. He pats the doll's back and carries it like it's a real baby. It's so cute to watch him mock me. He even tried to feed the baby with a bottle of his milk. When some of the milk rolled off the doll's cheek, he patted it dry with the blanket. I know he's going to make a good dad someday.
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| Swaddling the baby with Madison's floor mat. |
While we are on the subject, Emmett's new fun game is "pretend play". Recently Emmett has found it particularly amusing to have a dinner party with his friends Pooh and Roo. He will give them each a bowl and spoon and then he will begin to cook. Although there is no rhyme or reason to his cooking strategy, his preparation is always ingenious and his food always turns out excellent. He will "taste" his creation, with all sorts of slurping sounds and then exclaim "mmmmm..." with a huge smile on his face. He is always generous to make enough to share. One at a time he will feed Pooh, Roo and I a spoonful of his "soup".
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| Setting the table.... |
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Preparing dinner, a scrumptious medley of garlic, ketchup, grapes, apricot, watermelon, lemon, fried chicken , kiwi and peppers... Who knew my boy would be a little Emeril Degrassi?
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| Sharing with Pooh |
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| Making sure Pooh gets enough to eat |
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| So nice to share with his mommy! |
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Before I had kids, I never imagined that a person's personality emerges so quickly in their young age. Madison is such a tender-hearted baby, and totally different from Emmett. Emmett was always so interested in the suspense games like peek-a-boo, but if you tried it on Madison, she will usually end up in tears. In fact, if Taylor approaches her too abruptly she ends up crying, because he scared her. However, she loves it when you sit and let her flirt with you. She also loves to investigate everything you give her. I finally pulled out a rag doll that was given to her from Great Grandma Beverly. She thought it was the most amazing toy. She will just sit and hold the doll and coo at it. She especially loves to chew on her braids (which is just fabric tightly wound around stuffing).
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| Madison playing with her doll she got from Great Grandma Bev. |
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| She already has that momma instinct. I chew on my kids too! |
Her next new discovery has been one of my all time favorite kid toys, a measuring cup. She spends at least a good 20 minutes investigating this amazing contraption almost every time I give it to her.
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| This looks interesting.... |
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| I wonder what it tastes like... |
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| This is better for looking than eating... |
One day I had been feeling very stressed and overwhelmed during one of dad's business trips. Emmett kept getting into menial things he wasn't suppose to and every time I would discipline him he would forget and return to his past offense. "Time-outs" were turning into a punishment with a bad spirit to it, so I had an idea... We went to the store and got nerf guns! I decided that whenever he was doing something he wasn't suppose to, I'd shoot his butt with a dart. He would turn around and laugh and try to run after me. Not only did I successfully distract him from getting into the things he wasn't suppose to, but we developed a new fun game that created many memories with still more to come. Now when he finds a nerf gun lying around he picks it up and pretends to shoot it at me. So I jump up, grab a nerf gun and barricade myself on one side of my bed or behind the sofa. We can run around for hours chasing each other and shooting darts. (He hasn't quite figured out how to shoot the darts yet, but I'm confident he will get it eventually) When he is finally tuckered out from the running, we do target practice on the dishwasher (it sticks great). Don't get me wrong. Time-outs still have their time and place, but this is what we needed to put a little flare in the Elkins' household.
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| Oh no! He's got a nerf gun! |
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| Good thing I apprehended him first! |
Since everyone else has a weapon in the household Madison felt it wise to defend herself...with a plastic knife. Actually, I gave her something to entertain her while we were playing "NERF WARS"! I just couldn't resist taking a couple funny pictures though. :)
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| Crazy baby lurking in the shadows... |
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| She's going to get us all! Bahahaha! |
Even though I fantasize about being a great gardener, I usually end up killing whatever I grow. However, for the first time in my life, I actually made a tomato plant grow! I thought I would capture this moment in fear that it would never happen again. Unfortunately, my very talented son got a hold of it and ripped the poor thing out of the pot...good thing I snapped a picture. I tried to baby the little plant, it still had a root, so hopefully after that traumatic experience it will still live. *fingers crossed*
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| Proof I can make things grow! |
Every Monday and Friday we go to the park with Logan, Micheal, Roxy and Lacie. This time we went to Railroad park and Emmett had a great time playing on the bus. This is perhaps one of his favorite structures he likes to play on, and the moment he's on it, we have to sing "The Wheels on the Bus" song. This week Emmett had a few more passengers, and although I didn't get a picture, it was quite adorable.
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| Look out! Emmett is driving the bus! |
Having a zoo pass makes life so great! Fortunately for us, the zoo is 20 minutes away! It's like an elaborate playground with all kinds of exciting animals. This time we got some new tunes to sing along to. Emmett especially loved it when mommy and daddy would belt "Sweet Caroline".
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| Singing "Sweet Caroline" in the car |
Usually Emmett finds the elephants and the petting zoo to be the most intriguing part of his zoo experience, but this time we found a different kind of entertainment. In a rock garden just outside the petting zoo, Emmett thought the rocks were AMAZING! He would pick them up and re-position them. He would carry them and try to stack them. No matter where we would put him down to roam that day we would inevitably end up back at the rocks. So we let him express his creative side and recreate the rock garden.
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| Rock hunting |
Emmett also likes to climb on top of the animal sculptures they have around the zoo.
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| Petting the sea lion. |
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| Dad and Emmett |
While nursing Madison before we left the zoo, Emmett explored the buttons on the dashboard. I think he's obsessed, because now whenever I open our car door he jumps in and runs to the driver's seat and pretends to drive. What a cute boy...too bad you have to wait 14 more years....
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| Playing with the radio! |
Unfortunately I do not have an illustration to go along with this story, however, it's funny nonetheless. Last night (3/26), I attended a "No Voice" night at Shalee's house to practice what we were learning in ASL class. Shalee keeps her house very tidy, so I didn't think Emmett could get into much. Boy was I wrong. Since Shalee's kids were already in bed, I put Emmett in front of their computer to watch a video. That entertained him until the video began to skip. Of course I was completely absorbed in trying to translate ASL in my head, so I didn't notice my boy running down the hallway. It wasn't until I heard a door slam shut did I notice he was gone. My son was nowhere in the hallway, so my only assumption was that he had gone into one of the bedrooms. (However, I didn't know which one and there were 3 or 4) I would have opened every door looking for him, except I thought Shalee mention that her husband was getting ready for work plus her sister just got home and went into her room, so there was a high probability that I could walk in on someone changing. I went back to get Shalee's help, but before I could do it he emerged from someone's room and came running down the hall again. Confident that he was contented watching the movie and playing with toys again, I began to immerse myself in conversation. Once again, I didn't notice my son leave the computer. Fortunately Ann did. She caught Emmett trying to crawl into Shalee's unlit fireplace, but by then Emmett's arms were covered in soot. Shalee's kids woke up from Emmett's madness and came outside to play with him, so we could finish up our conversations. We did not finish soon enough however, because I found Emmett with a mouthful of blue liquid. At first we thought it was finger paint, but we couldn't find it lying around. Then when we caught him with a mouthful of green liquid standing next to the chalkboard, we concluded that he was eating chalk. Well more chewing and spitting out chalk. Last but not least he ran into the kitchen, luckily this time I followed him as he ran over to the stove and pressed the "on" button. Even though I love my boy, I have never been happier to finally get my kid into a vehicle restraining device. Hopefully we didn't leave Shalee too traumatized to invite us over again. Next time, I'll surely be prepared.
