Dells Trip and Singing Songs

The Saturday of Memorial Day weekend we made a big push to get the majority of the landscaping finished. With the help of Kevin's dad and brother we were able to get all of the plants planted and a lot of rock down. Also our garage was cleaned and organized thanks to a shelving unit Brian brought with him. Beth and the kids came along too. Emily had a blast playing with her cousins. We were able to blow up her new pool and the kids helped Em become comfortable in her pool. Beth was also a big help. She got some things hung up on Emily's walls and helped me adjust the crib to get it ready for the babe. 

After all of the hard work on Saturday we took Sunday to spend the day just the 3 of us. We decided to head up to the Dells for the day. We took Emily on her first Wisconsin Ducks ride. She was very excited to go on a boat. In fact she found the whole experience so relaxing she took a little nap while we were riding the ducks. Since is was so hot out that day we ended up going to an indoor arcade to kill a little time and soak up some air conditioning. Emily had a blast running around and sitting in a little bus. She kept saying My bus. Needless to say she was not that happy when we decided to leave. We grabbed a quick dinner at MooseJaw and headed home. It was a great day. 

On Monday we were able to head to Mukwonago to help our good friends Eric and Andrea celebrate Andrea's birthday. Emily loves going to Eric and Andrea's house because she gets to play with all of their son Dax's toys. Dax is about 10 months and has a lot of fun toys. It was great to see them and catch up. 

Emily's new favorite pastime is to sing songs. She knows most of the words to Twinkle Twinkle and loves to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep over and over. When we put her to bed at night she sings along with us. It is very adorable. I am hoping to get it on video to post one of these days. Em has also fully adjusted to her big girl room. She talks up a storm and learns new words every day. We carry on many interesting conversations in the car, usually about the big trucks that drive by or the sirens we can hear. 

Baby K is doing well as am I. The doctor claims that we are now just playing the waiting game. Hard to believe that just around the corner we will be House of FOUR Krauses. 

Playing with the girls in my pool 

Cheese! I'm on a Duck

Her most favorite part of the day 

Loving my moose antlers 

Busy Busy

The state of our life these days is busy. We have had several family events at the end of April and in the month of May and have enjoyed being able to celebrate all of the special events with everyone. We are also in the midst of landscaping our yard. When we moved into our new house last August there was no landscaping at all so we have started from scratch. Kevin and his dad have done all of the hard labor and we are very close to being finished. I think we are both looking forward to the end result. Emily loves helping daddy move the rock and water the plants. Every night we get home that is the first thing she wants to do. She has become quite the helper.

The baby is doing well according to the 33 week checkup I had on Tuesday. Everything is going very very smoothly. Emily has been fully transitioned into her "big girl room". She is sleeping in a twin bed and has handled everything quite well. She has also started calling her old room the baby's room which is nice because for awhile she thought both rooms were hers. I feel that she is as ready as she is ever going to be for the addition of a baby brother or sister.

We were able to go to our first Brewer game of the year last Sunday to celebrate Kevin's mom's birthday. It was a beautiful and hot day. We all had a lot of fun. I am hoping we can get to one or two more games this year. 

Mother's Day with Grandma

Mother's Day with Nana

Helping Daddy with the rock 

Tailgating

Photo Update

 Here are a few recent pictures of Emily:

Love that smile

Being goofy 

Crazylegs 2012 Team Caleb! 

Cuddling with Daddy after finishing Crazylegs

Projects and Pregnancy

Now that I am officially in my third trimester of my second pregnancy I am feeling the push to check things off the to do list. The hard part is in order to check things off of the list you need energy. Energy is something that I have been lacking this entire pregnancy. Everything is harder this time around. My doctor likes to tell me that I am pregnant with a toddler so of course things are harder. While he is right I get annoyed at his lack of sympathy. We are slowly checking the to do list off, which is a good feeling. It is just different then the first time around, that is for sure.

Emily is growing up so fast. She is talking a lot these days. She has started to string words together into sentences and has discovered a new favorite word, Mine. It used to be cute when she would name everything as hers "Emmy's milk", "Emmy's bunny" but now it is my or mine. "My sit here" and "My sandy" (a sandy is a sandwich in Emily speak). She is also the energizer bunny stuck on repeat. I wish I could steal some of her energy for myself.  As for the constant repetitiveness, I know it is excellent as far as development but the repetition has a way of wearing a pregnant mama down.

Em does say good morning to my belly and gives it kisses. She is one of the sweetest little things. I am trying to soak up every moment where it is the two or three of us. Because in 11 weeks (give or take) we will be a family of four.

Happy Easter

We hope everyone had a very happy and blessed Easter.

Family Fun

Yesterday we headed out to A to Z Farm in Oregon, WI. It is about 15 or 20 minutes from our house. A friend recommended that we take Emily. It is a farm where they have a live birth barn of sheep. You can get up close and personal with sheep, pigs, cows , and other farm animals. We told Em that we were going to visit some animals. She was very excited. "Aminals" is one of her favorite things to talk about these days. Once we got there is was apparent that Emily prefers animals from afar but she did have fun walking around and pointing at the baby lambs. It was something fun to do on a Sunday afternoon.

I think Emily has begun to realize that things are going to change very soon. She has become very clingy and doesn't like to let me out of her sight. I am trying to remain patient with her and also trying to remind her that daddy can help out too.

Talking Up a Storm

Emily's vocabulary is increasing every day. There are days that I am amazed at what she says. Like the other day when she picked up a purple crayon and proudly yelled "PURPLE!" as clear as day. Or this morning while we were watching the garbage truck outside she said "Green Truck". It is so fun to be with her right now. You can see her learning new things every second. She likes to mimic what we do and repeat everything. One of her favorite words to repeat is patient, but I can assure you she still doesn't know what it means.

One of Emily's favorite thing to do is name things. She loves going through all of the kids names that are in her daycare class. And at the end she always points to herself and says Emmy! Everything is Emmy thins and Emmy that. She is so proud and happy when she figures out that something is hers, like Emmy's bunny or Emmy's milk. She gets a big smile on her face.

With the birth of #2 around the corner I have purchased several books about becoming a big sister. These have become some of Em's favorite books to read. She will point to herself and say sister. I am not sure that she really understands it but at least she is getting comfortable with the idea, or so I like to think.

We are working on getting Emily's big girl room set up. This coming weekend we will be doing some painting. I have had fun picking out a new bedspread and other things for her room. Since we didn't find out her gender before she was born it is fun to now get some girlie things and leave the lions and giraffes behind. I am hoping for a smooth transition from crib to bed. Any suggestions are welcome!