Getting ready for Valentine's Day

Our sweet Valentines...

From Emilia with love

Emilia was so excited to give and receive Valentine's Day cards this year. She had a great time making them special with markers, stamps and stickers. They were each made with a lot of love!

Emilia: 2 1/2 years old

Last week, Emilia hit the 2 1/2 year-old mark. It shouldn't be surprising... she is definitely in the full stride of a typical teenager, er, I mean, two-year old.

As Anna is coming into her own, Emilia already has a larger-than-life personality. I describe her as high and low: when she's happy, she is precious, and when she's not, look out. Here are some highlights:

Her conversation skills are really taking off. When she wants to be, she is very articulate. Catch her speaking skills by clicking on the new video, "Emilia Goes to the Store," by clicking on Our Videos.

• The number of questions she asks in a day are immeasurable. "Why... ? What's that... ? What are you doing?"
• She speaks in full sentences and often uses after/when statements, such as, "After I go to sleep, I will wake up and go to school", "When I am sick, I will go to the doctor, okay?" "When I eat ice cream, I will roll up my sleeves."
• She has a crazy memory -- recalling things that happened months ago like "I went to the music bad and then we had to go home because it was too loud on daddy’s ears” (true statement – Eric got too aggressive and sat too close at our last Rockno concert).
• She is a great narrator for our life, especially when it comes to Anna ("she's crying, she spit up." etc.).
• She makes sure to tell us which of her friends are boys and which are girls.
• She is trying to make sense of different names for people. She'll say "Mom is mommy. Dad is daddy. Mia is Emilia." If I call her honey or sweetheart, she'll say, "No, it's Emilia." She's also been calling us by our first names... great.
• Her vocab has expanded to include many adjectives, like: "I'm so fancy," "that's cute," "it's delicious," and "that's beautiful."

She loves:

• food, with the exception of most sweets (go figure)
• music and dancing, specifically her music band, Rocknoceros (the first thing she does in the morning is turn on her CD player, by herself mind you)
• books (Olivia, We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Cinderella, Green Eggs and Ham, among many more)
• pretend play, especially cooking with play dough in her kitchen
• horsing around with daddy (see the new video, "Again," by clicking on Our Videos)
• Chick-fil-A (and every detail from the nuggets, fruit and milk to the play areas and each local restaurant)
• brushing her own teeth with her new Dora electric toothbrush, watching her own hands, etc.
• picking out her own clothes and accessories, including schooling me on what matches and what doesn't
• dressing and undressing herself, including her entire snow suit this weekend (and yes, she recently took her shirt off in Costco)
• school, Costco free samples, the moon, garbage trucks and school buses
• making her sister smile, complete with baby talk mimicking mommy
• talking on the phone - both for real and pretend
• her friends... she prays for them every night!

On the potty training front, she has a good day and then not such a good day. The princess underwear have helped!

It seems like overnight she has turned into a little person. We can't wait to see how she will continue to grow!

Anna: 4 months

On Friday, Anna turned four months old. She continues to be such a sweet baby and her smiles light up the room.

By the way she chomps away on her paci, teething rings and even her fist, I think she might be teething very soon. She's doing great holding onto toys and even taking her paci out and putting it back in. She continues to be a good eater and a decent sleeper, and only really fusses when she's overly tired. We're waiting for her to start rolling over any day now. Her trademarks are her stinky toots and her laser focus on television when it's on. She is totally in awe of her crazy big sister and loves sister bathtime.

Here she is with her lamb at four months... no question that she is Eric's daughter, right?

The big 3-0

In the midst of the blizzard and the Super Bowl, Corey turned 30 on Sunday! He and Gill made it over for a casual celebration and "super football game" according to Emilia. Gill made a beautiful and yummy cake, and even though Eric tried to convince Emilia that it was bread, she still wouldn't eat it. She missed out! Happy birthday, Uncle Corey!

Blizzard of 2010

Welcome to coverage of the blizzard of 2010! This weekend was an historic snowstorm for the Washington, D.C. area -- the fourth most snowfall in D.C.'s history and the most in nearly my entire lifetime. When it was all said and done, the Herndon tally was somewhere between 27 and 30 inches. You know it's a big storm when the snow measurement is a bigger number than the temperature! Here's how the weekend played out.

Schools closed on Friday in anticipation of the storm hitting intensity by noon. While the snow started early, it didn't really start sticking until the early evening. But when it did, there was no stopping it. Snow covered the snow that was already on the ground from last weekend and another small storm on Tuesday/Wednesday. All through Friday night until late Saturday afternoon, the snow kept coming and coming.

The good news is that our neighborhood was plowed regularly throughout the storm. From Friday night to this afternoon, Eric shoveled the driveway at least six times.

You probably expected a blogathon from me yesterday as the storm raged, but we lost power for most of the day. How did we survive without power? We used our camping stove to make oatmeal, coffee and tea for breakfast and grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch. And, we did our best to keep Anna nice and toasty, even though our house got down to 63 degrees before the power was restored around 2:30.

When the snow stopped falling, it looked beautiful against the sunset.Emilia and mommy ended the day making mint brownies... yum!The scene was a lot more peaceful this morning, so both girls got out to enjoy the snow.Emilia and Eric even climbed Mt. Herndon in our cul-de-sac...

We'll definitely remember this storm for many years to come! Now we need to restock our supply of milk, eggs and camping fuel before the next storm which is expected to arrive on Tuesday.

Evening with the Simpsons

To end another snowy weekend, the Simpsons came over for dinner last Sunday. Emilia was SOOO excited to run around in the basement with Nina and Lyla. The girls had a great time -- especially on the trapeze (it's proving to be a very worthwhile $14 purchase from Ikea). My favorite moment from the night was when I went to check on the girls downstairs (the adults were eating dessert) and there was an overwhelming odor. Not one but two of the girls had done their business and it was stinky. As I was taking Emilia upstairs to get changed she said to Nina and Lyla, "I'll be right back, kids." It was adorable. Scary, huh?

Hearty crafts

Last weekend, we had the Hills and Vaughans over for dinner and Valentine’s Day crafts. Our goal was to make some variations of this card. They didn't turn out exactly how we had planned (Grammy and Poppy and Grandma and Grandpa, you'll get to see what I'm talking about). Nonetheless, the kids had a great time getting messy with paint, glue and stamps.

Like, oh my gosh!

Yup, that’s Emilia on the phone chatting with Nathan the other night. Suddenly, she’s turned into a teenager!

“Snow” much fun

Recently, the girls and I went out for a rare week-night treat: a trip to the Reston Library! The library's kids program was hosting “Snow Much Fun,” a free event with winter-themed books and crafts. Emilia had a great time listening to the stories, especially Five Penguins Slipping on the Ice, which they had just read the day before in school. Her favorite part was decorating her mittens. She told me afterward that “they are beautiful!” Uncle Corey surprised us with a visit when we got home and Emilia made him let her sleep with her mittens when he read her books and put her to bed.