Yeah, yeah...I know.

Since I've not had luck in the recent past with posting pictures through Blogger, I sort of gave up on blogging. I've posted pictures through Facebook instead, and while it's great to be able to share the photos, it doesn't exactly give much opportunity to share what's happening in our lives with Emma. So, after making a list yesterday of "Emma-isms," Jon encouraged me to blog again. Whether this will be come a regular endeavor again, who knows. And whether or not anyone even checks the blog anymore, I'm clueless. Nevertheless, I'll blog today. At least it will someday give me the opportunity to print everything off and give it to Emma as a keepsake of her early days/years.

So, since my last post I'm sure a LOT has happened, but the most monumental of them all is that we're expecting another child in November. Yup, November. Jon's birthday is the 17th, Emma's is the 26th, and this kid is due on the 20th. I'll be the odd man out...the only one with a birthday in another month. So far the pregnancy has been remarkably unremarkable, which is pretty much in line with my pregnancy with Emma. Some minor nausea at the beginning, and some fatigue, but that has passed now. I am at 17 weeks. We'll find out (hopefully) the gender of this kid on July 14. Yes, I am a planner and want to know. If we're having another girl, we're completely set with everything we need. If it's a boy, however, we need to obtain clothes...and I need to prepare myself mentally and emotionally. I don't know if I have the energy for a boy, not to mention the patience. They just play so DIFFERENTLY!!! And they seem so much more destructive.

Due to the growth of our little family, we have finally gotten a second vehicle. We made it 9 years with just one car, and it was a little difficult for me to bend and get number two. And we got a minivan. I decided that if we were going to "invest" (yeah, I know, cars aren't really an investment) the money, I wanted it to be in a vehicle that could last us a longer term...one we can use to transport Emma and her friends, one that will allow my parents to ride with us when they are here to visit, rather than having to take 2 cars everywhere... Alas, we purchased (and will be paying on for 5 long years) a 2006 Toyota Sienna. Still feels weird every time I climb into it...doesn't feel like ours yet. I'm trying hard to keep it clean on the inside, removing all garbage and anything that doesn't belong each day when I get home.

We're also having lots of conversations about furniture, planning what we need to get and how we need to move things around in order to accommodate this little one. I feel the need to keep a guest room, so we're flip-flopping the bedrooms to the kids will share the larger one. IKEA is our new best friend. We have a list of items we'd like to get and just need to plan a time to go pick everything up.

Emma is 2 1/2 now, and is very much a little girl. Here are some tidbits about her lately:
- She loves to swing. We can go to a playground that has tons of great slides and other stuff, but she'll want to spend the entire time on the swings.
- Her vocabulary astounds us sometimes. She uses words such as actually and usually, and does so in perfect context. There are lots of others, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
- Emma likes to sing and often creates her own "mixes" (just like Daddy) by combining songs together! For example, she'll sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but seemingly do the motions for Itsy Bitsy Spider. Or she'll just make up songs that we can't identify.
- Potty training came to a screeching halt a little while ago, and we have no idea why. She had been doing so well that I had high hopes, then suddenly she decided she didn't want to sit on the potty at all. We've only got 6 months left to get this kid out of diapers before having another one in them. She just moved up to the next classroom at daycare, so I'm hoping the other kids will influence her and that the regular potty times will help.
- Emma no longer uses her "paci." We got rid of it a few weeks ago. She's doing well and only mentions it occasionally. Seemed best to do it now so she has plenty of time to adjust before seeing her sibling with one.
- She can still fit into some 24 month/2T clothes, but anything I'm buying these days is 3T. I especially look for sale items ($3 or less) to stock up for the fall/winter. Long pants, long sleeved shirts... I've found a few things. Perhaps when we're in Canada in a few weeks I'll be able to find more.
- Our toothbrushing struggle is no more. She actually does quite well with brushing now. However, our new struggle is with changing clothes in the morning. She fights us on it nearly every day, unless we have something to use as leverage/incentive.
- And finally, here are our "Emma-isms": instead of "I want to take a bath" she says "I want to take a bathtub," EVERYTHING strawberry is "strawberry-cake" (Strawberry shortcake, strawberries themselves, anything strawberry flavored), she's facinated with her "beeping sound" which is her heartbeat, and she likes to put on 'oderant so she can smell good (that's deodorant if you couldn't figure it out).

Enough for now. Maybe another post coming soon.