18-month antics

Emilia turned 18 months old yesterday! I waited until today to post so I could include the official report from her 18-month check-up today.

• Weight: 26 pounds 7 ounces
• Height: 32 inches

Sounds like she is growing and developing on track!

Before we went to the doctor, she kept saying, "doctor, doctor" and was really excited. That wore off very quickly and she turned really shy when the doctor came in to examine her. I'm sure he thought we were exaggerating when we told him about all of Emilia's vocabulary because she barely said a word! The visit did not end well, as she got one shot and had blood drawn from her finger. This was the most hysterical she has been after a shot. Even milk and a sticker couldn't console her. Can't wait until next time!

Here's what Emilia is up to at 18 months:

• She is all about pictures, or "pitures." She had a complete meltdown this morning because we didn't have time to let her go into our office and look at photos on the computer. Now I have to fight for time on the computer with Emilia, too?!?
• The good news: Emilia can and does respond to questions now with something other than “no!” The bad news: the response is almost always “yeah” instead of “yes.” I guess our terrible habits are rubbing off on her!
• Even though she hardly watches TV (I promise!), she now hands us the remote control and says "Elmo!" Apparently Elmo is the only thing on TV.
• I see beauty school in her future. She is obsessed with brushing her hair and everyone else's hair, not to mention the hairdryer. The only thing she doesn't seem to love are these new barrettes daddy bought her. We're still working on those.
• Am I creating a germaphobe? Emilia loves, loves, loves to Purell her hands. If she sees me reach for it, she runs over and says "hans, hans." I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing during flu season.
• She has started to carry a tune. She roughly knows the start of the ABCs and chimes in “e-i-e-i-o" during "Old MacDonald. Her best singing arrangement is "Jesus Loves Me," which goes something like “Jeshush Jeshush Jeshush Jeshush Jeshush…” throughout the entire song. Click on Our Videos to watch.
• Favorite foods: eggs, rice, cous cous, chicken ("bawk, bawk!"), "patta" (pasta), yogurt ("gogurt") and most fruits and vegetables. But really, there's not much she won't eat.
• Favorite pastimes: roughhousing with daddy, eating, sliding ("weee!"), bouncing ("buntz!")dancing on command, reading books, (finally, she can say "book" instead of "gook"), going to "chuch," and playing with her stuffed animals and baby doll ("here ya go, sissy" she says to her baby doll as she puts a hat on her, of course).
• Things to look out for: She's starting to run, attempt to open doors and climb onto things more (like a chair, which she used to climb onto the kitchen counter. Great.).
• Her growing vocabulary: open, outside, go, church, friends' names, body parts, clothing and accessories, food, dinner, stuck, animal crackers... new words every day!
  

Here was Emilia at 2 weeks old:

And on the same chair and with the same lamb at 18 months:

Crazy how fast time flies!

As a side note, we woke up to snow this morning! It wasn't a ton, but it was the most we have had all season. Emilia spent a long time staring out the window saying, "no!" (that meant "snow"). And, she also learned the color white.

She's electric

After church on Sunday, we went to meet up with our friend, Steph, at Coastal Flats in Tysons Corner for lunch. Right in front of the restaurant was a furniture display from Crate and Barrel or something. I’m sure Crate and Barrel intended for it to be an advertisement and not a jungle gym, but nonetheless, Emilia had a great time rolling around on the couch. She generated so much static that her hair looked like a porcupine! See below from my phone:

Free and fabulous

The play area at Dulles Town Center mall is a great, free place to spend a morning in the winter. Even though it was super crowded when we went on Saturday morning, Emilia burned some energy climbing and sliding around in the airplane-themed playground. After that wore her out, we took a ride on the mall’s train. We bought a 10-ride pass for $10. I guess I know what we'll be doing the next several weekends! Here's our fearless girl sliding head first!

She's an animal

Couldn't pass up posting Emilia stylin' in leopard print...

With gratitude

Last week at small group, Wendy planned for the girls to spend some time making gratitude journals. These books are intended to record all of our many blessings -- or else we quickly forget them! Here is the Korsvall family gratitude journal. First item: thanks for our great small group!

Get this girl into gymnastics

Recently Emilia has been doing this move where she puts her head down on the ground and basically makes a triangle with her body and the floor. It looks like she wants to do a somersault, so finally, Eric just helped her do one. That was a big hit (“gen! gen!”). We’re looking into little gymnastics classes for her, where I think she has that natural, fearless instinct to do great!

Sweet tooth

Emilia takes after her daddy in almost every respect, but I finally found something she can thank (or blame) me for: my sweet tooth. She has had very limited exposure to chocolate, but it sure has left an impression on her. We’ve had some dishes with candy in them since the holidays, and even though she hasn’t had any of it, she constantly points to them and says “teat” (treat). I am pretty sure I heard her say “chocolate” a couple of times. And, well, this photo says it. I made Megan’s phenomenal banana chocolate chip bread over the weekend and let’s just say Emilia was a big fan.

Mommy's little helper

I'm already seeing signs of OCD in Emilia... she cannot walk by an open door or drawer without closing it! Whenever she sees the trash can pulled out of the cabinet, she pushes it back in and shuts the door. We did some cleaning over the weekend and we caught her dusting the coffee table with a dryer sheet. Here she is mopping the floor with a mop three times her size.

Bouncing around

Since Monday was a holiday, we were excited to spend some extra time with Emilia. It was freezing and lightly snowing, so our options were limited. We decided to venture to Sport Bounce of Loudoun.


She’s starting to really understand and look forward to things, so when we told her we were going to go bounce, all she kept saying was “buntz, buntz” and “Nay Nay,” since the last time she was there, Nathan was with her.

Hidden inside a business park in Ashburn is this large, indoor play area filled with bounce houses and slides. This is a great winter activity for kids as young as 18 months. Even though Emilia is on the young end, there's still a lot she can enjoy for $6. Here she is just getting warmed up:

There is a huge slide that we went down several times. Emilia is obviously too young to get herself up to the top, so one of us had to carry her. The first time I took her I held up the entire line and was winded even after I came down.

The rules are that you have to slide down one at a time, so here’s Emilia flying down all by herself! Click on Our Videos to see her in action. 45 minutes of bouncing the heck out of that place and we were all wiped. Emilia crashed in the car. $6 well spent!

Snaps for Megan

Check out the updated photos in our blog header… thanks, Megan!

A new addition to the stuffed animal zoo

Emilia went to an adorable little birthday party over the weekend for her BFF, Clara. The theme was teddy bears and it was precious! Emilia got to take home her very own teddy bear, and let me tell you, that bear has not left her side since. Here she is giving teddy a nice big hug goodnight and then making sure he had his bedtime milk. That's the first time we have seen her treat a stuffed animal or doll like it was real, so she must really love the new bear!

Catching some air

Emilia has always loved bath time, but now she also loves her after-bath treat: the hairdryer. She calls it "air," and requests it whenever she has a bath or when she sees me using the hairdryer. Here she is enjoying some "air" and then chewing on one of her cute Christmas presents -- a snowman towel from her buddy, Kendall.

What will 2009 bring?

Six years ago, our young couples pastor taught us about the benefit of setting annual goals for our marriage. With so much uncertainty in the economy this year, Eric and I thought it was more important than ever to get our priorities straight up front. Thankfully, we were able to get away for a few hours this afternoon to talk about the year ahead and put our goals down on paper. It was a very productive time, first to review how much we've accomplished over the years and then to plan for the coming year.

While we were off doing some strategic planning, Emilia was hanging out with Uncle Corey and Gillian. Looks like they were also productive... check out this masterpiece!

Emilia's latest tricks

Recently, Emilia:

• is obsessed with church; if you ever ask her where she wants to go, the response is"Chuch!" This morning she grabbed her winter hat and my purse and started walking to the door repeating, "chuch, chuch."
• asks to go "nigh, nigh," even sometimes forgoing her bedtime milk and books routine.
• says "bawk, bawk," when we serve her chicken for dinner (sorry, all of you vegetarians).
• has expanded her accessory obsession to include "jeans" and "boots" -- here she is stealing Gillian's Uggs:
• actually responds to questions now:



Q: How are your vegetables?

A: Good.

Q: Do you want to put your coat on?

A: Yeah.

Q: Where is Elmo?

A: See below ("I dunno" gesture):



• is also obsessed with the potty, although we have only had success one other time since we returned from California; I have, however, caught her standing over the open potty ready to sink shoes, Elmo, remote controls, etc.
• is doing better at putting two words together, usually "hi, daddy!"
• loves putting things in and out of her Elmo purse, asking mommy to "aben" (a.k.a. "open") it every 10 seconds; she particularly likes the change purse (saying "money!") and the lipstick. Here she is primping for a hot date:

• can repeat "I love you," although it sounds more like "Armani."
• is not shy about telling us she wants to go somewhere, either by saying "go," "outside," "car," or simply trying to put her coat and hat on.
• is very interested in "teeth," and wants to brush hers all the time.
• helps around the house with the "vacuum," (although it's usually the corn popper or her toy lawn mower).
• enjoys getting "manicures" from daddy.
• and finally, has discovered that dreaded word, "no" -- there seems to be no stopping it!

Back online

We hope you all had a great Christmas and that your 2009 is off to a good start. I took a little blog-publishing break to celebrate Christmas and recuperate from a nasty bout with gastroenteritis, but we’re back now! I’ll do my best to -- as my friend Megan would say -- “recapture” all that has happened during the last few weeks. Click on "January" in the right-hand sidebar to see all of today's postings. Scroll to the bottom and work your way up to go in chronological order.

Happy 2009!

We hosted a raging New Year’s party for our friends on Wednesday night. I mean, who needs Times Square, black tie and limos when you can have wii at the Korsvalls’?? We played a new wii game that was absolutely hilarious – Dancing with the Stars. Here are our DWTS champs – Dan and Dave – getting down!

Emilia was not to miss out on all the fun. Before going to bed early, she sported a classic ensemble and played with Nathan and Clara. She was awakened when everyone was leaving and Eric literally had to take her around through the entire dark house to prove to her that everyone was gone and that she wasn’t missing anything. I don’t know where she gets that!

So many toys, so little time…

This just happens to be the phrase of this cool vinyl lettering that Gillian gave us for our basement playroom (2009 project), but it also couldn’t be more true of Christmas 2008! Emilia received so many wonderful gifts and I know that many will be making appearances on the blog. Here she is pushing her new stroller and baby doll in our cul-de-sac while Grandma and Grandpa try to keep up. One minute she’s pushing it all over the house and the next she’s actually trying to climb into it. One of her favorite gifts was a basketball hoop from Aunt Anita, Uncle Adam, Paige and Seth. It’s hysterical how she claps and says “yeah” after every basket. Can you say WNBA?

East coast family Christmas

My family was actually at our house when we arrived back from California. They just returned from South Carolina where they were visiting my Aunt Louise and Steve. Grandma and Grandpa were staying to babysit Emilia when I went back to work, but since I was sick, it was great that they could keep Emilia as far away from me as possible so that she didn’t get sick. On Monday night, Corey and Kyle were with us, too, and we exchanged some gifts.

The long flight home

No need for photos here – it wasn’t a pretty picture. We woke up at 5 a.m. on Sunday to head to LAX. I wasn’t feeling great but I was trying the mind over matter approach: “I cannot be sick – I have to spend all day on a plane.” No such luck. It turns out that Melissa didn’t have food poisoning after all. I’ll leave the rest of this post up to your imagination.

One final day of fun

On our last day, we spent some time with our friends, Adam and Anita, and their daughter (our God daughter), Paige, and brand new baby, Seth. Seth is such a cutie and Paige is very protective (when I was holding Seth she said, “Are you going to give us our baby back?”) Here’s Eric with Emilia and Seth: Grammy and Poppy live right next to a great park, so Owen and Emilia got to burn off a little energy in the afternoon. Later that night we met up with Eric’s high school friends for their 16th annual Christmas party. They are a really close bunch and it was great to see them. Here's just some of the crew:

Roller coaster day at Disney

Eric’s Uncle Peter and Aunt Laurel both work for Disney and they graciously gave us enough passes for all of us – Eric, Emilia, Grammy, Poppy, Bob, Melissa, Owen, Henry and me – to go to Disneyland and California Adventure the day after Christmas. Since they had given us passes back in June and we had a great time with Emilia, I had been looking forward to going again. Thank you, Peter and Laurel!

The day started off great. It was cold but sunny and we were all excited. We made a quick purchase -- a Tinkerbell hat for Emilia! While Eric, Bob, Melissa and I went on Indiana Jones, Grammy and Poppy took the kids to the Tiki Room. Apparently Emilia loved it and continues to say “Tiki, Tiki!” (we have the song on a CD at home and she dances around to it). It was really crowded, but we went on some rides and Poppy even brought Owen and Emilia up close to a show with Pluto.

Unlike out last visit to Disney when Emilia was intrigued by all of the characters, Emilia’s reaction to them this time was mixed --
Freaked by Mickey: Chip’s (or is that Dale's?) best friend: Warming up to Santa now that Christmas is over: Here are some other shots from the day: Eric was thrilled to learn that the day we were at Disney, the park was also hosting both Rose Bowl teams, including USC, which is Eric’s favorite team. We saw a press conference in front of the castle with Joe Paterno, Pete Carroll and the teams, and saw a lot of the players walking around the park. Unfortunately, the day ended on a scary note. Melissa got really sick and ended up being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. She was released a few hours later and was feeling better the next day, but it was very scary. We had thought the culprit was food poisoning, but we’d soon have proof of a more contagious bug…

Potty training?

Owen is potty trained and Emilia was just fascinated by this. She kept saying “potty, potty,” so finally we decided to just put her on the potty. She actually went to the bathroom on the potty! We’ve got a long way to go before she’s trained, but we were encouraged that she’s at least interested. Here she is getting a little too comfortable on the potty:

Santa found us in California!

Those yummy cookies that Owen and Emilia decorated were gone on Christmas morning! We had a relaxing day with the immediate family. The gift opening process was pretty slow. Emilia would pull one thing out of her stocking and then get distracted by the dog.

Santa Emilia riding on Brandy:Horsing around with daddy by the tree:Taking a break from presents with Poppy:Eric with smiler Henry:
The Nash family:Bedtime story:

Cookies for Santa

Aunt Melissa brought the fixings to decorate cookies for Santa. Owen did a great job, but Emilia was definitely more interested in eating the pretty icing than decorating a cookie. Maybe next year…

The real Christmas Eve

After Church on Christmas Eve, Grammy and Poppy hosted more than 20 people for dinner. It was great to see Great Grammy and all of Eric’s aunts, uncles and cousins.

Emilia showing off one of her presents:

Eric’s immediate family:Emilia with her cousins, Henry and Owen:Great Grammy with her great grandchildren: