Emma's two year old pictures

These are a little late, but better late than never… 

What it's really like photographing a two year old…

Great smile, poor lighting

 okay lighting, awkward posing

 Then she fell and got a nasty knot on her eye

And, we took many breaks to just run...

 ...Or put baby Aye Aye behind her head

 ...Or just to play

 And of course brother had to get in on the action

 And we had to lick the sand off of our fingers at times… 

Love this two year old and her fun personality!

No More Diapers!

Sweet Emma Jean is potty trained! We have had no big accidents since last Saturday! Yay! She is still in diapers at night, but woke up dry two nights ago and only slightly wet last night. I'm not ready to make her go all night... Mostly because she is still in a crib and it's a little cruel if she can't get to the potty on her own if she needs to go. But she has made it through nap times in underwear with no accidents, so bedtime will follow soon. Some notes I want to remember about this process with Emma...
- everytime she had a "success" she would say "I so proud of you"
- everytime we ask if she needs to go she says, "no already went"
- i started by putting her on the potty every twenty minutes, but quickly learned that she wasn't going to do anything unless she initiated it.
- we started on Monday, it was Sunday before she was accident free... I think part of that was that I slacked off in watching her closely later in the week.
- we started with stickers and skittles as rewards early in the week, but she couldn't have cared less about the rewards so we dropped them by Tuesday afternoon. Except that Samuel would reinforce the rewards, he cared about the consistency more than she did. :) it's not that she didn't want the candy, she just didn't connect it to going potty. She loved the candy and was very disappointed when she only got one.
- the process was so different with her than Samuel. She has already progressed from the baby potty, to the potty on the seat, to public potties, and holding it through nap time. A process that took Samuel months, although if I remember correctly he caught on more quickly at first.

We are so proud of her! (and thrilled to not be buying diapers anymore!)

Chattanooga

Some of our good friends from Philly were coming to the south for Christmas, so we had to jump at the opportunity to meet up with them for a few hours in Chattanooga. Emma talks about Simeon constantly, but was kind of indifferent to actually seeing him again. Simeon was equally unimpressed, we like to think they were just playing it cool. Samuel and Charlie picked right up where they left off, just as silly as ever. This is the best I could do of pictures of them together… 

I got to meet their newest addition and catch up a bit (as much as possible with four toddlers/preschoolers running circles around us :)). We also got a chance to explore some of my old stomping grounds and actually ran into one of my old professors at the park, random. Chattanooga is such a great town!

Samuel looking at the drain of the giant fountain at Coolidge Park. This boy is obsessed with drains lately! The first thing he shows anyone when he gives a tour of our home is the bathtub drain. He always looks under the sink to see the pipes where the drain leads in public restrooms. And, in every different place we stayed in France, his first stop was the bathtub drain. I love my boy and his quirky obsessions. :) 

 Riding the statues (they squirt water out of their mouth during the warmer months)…

Bud and I hanging out on the same statues during our dating days… 

 The giant couch…

Lauren and I on the giant couch during one of her gymnastics competitions, her in 5th grade me in 9th. Lovely overalls, I know. :)

Our Christmas

We celebrated Christmas as a family of four before we left for France (we didn't want Santa to have to find us over there… or more importantly bring everything there and back :)). We picked a weekend and had Christmas Eve on Saturday night  and Christmas morning Sunday morning before going to church.   The kids decorated cookies for Santa and his reindeer… 

 They both got PJs to sleep in that night. Notice, I had to put a number (with stickers) on Samuel's shirt and tell him they were "football pjs" in order to get him to be excited about them…

 They opened and read their Christmas book with Papa…

 And, entertained us with song…

Santa laid out the goodies after the kids went to bed… 

"Christmas" morning we opened gifts and even had time to play outside before church. Samuel wasted no time in putting his Eagles jersey on (he'd been asking for that for a while now)…

 Emma immediately put her back pack on and ran to the front door telling us "bye bye" as she walked. She, of course, told us she was going to "Mimi's (simeon's) house" as usual…

 Football never stops around here…

 Cutie…

Now that Samuel has a watch, we always know what time it is… He's actually quite helpful.

I never expected them to be so excited about their new toothbrushes. It's the little things. :)

The next day, Emma helped me cook 7 dozen cookies for our Bible study cookie exchange (Sam was at school). What a mess that was! But, the cookies were good! Emma was becoming too "helpful," so I gave her a bowl of water and squirted some food coloring in it for her to stir up. It worked for a while…

Merry Belated Christmas!

Paris

New Year's Eve…

 Our fancy dinner…

The Louvre… 

 Notre Dame…

 The Hunchback…

 A cute little park we happened upon when roaming the streets…

 The view from Arch de Triumph… such cute streets.

 Sacre ceour… We passed through during a service on New Years Day. Although I didn't understand anything, it was cool to experience a service in such a beautiful church.

 The view from Sacre Couer…

All the artists on Palace du Tetre… 

The kids arrived on New Years Day and we headed straight to the Eiffel Tower (there was a playground at the base and a carousel)…

 Trying to figure out how it was built…

The train they came in on with Gigi and Dodo. Samuel loved the train!

 Au Revoir Paris…