Emma's 1st Birthday & Family Vacation in Dillon, CO

This year for our family vacation, we were able to meet both sides of our family in Dillon, Colorado. We drove through Las Vegas and spent the night, then on to Grand Junction, CO, where we also spent the night. Then we spent June 12-17 with my family, and June 17-20 with Jered's family. We were able to celebrate Emma's 1st birthday with presents and cake on her real birthday, and then she got to open more presents with her Hanschen grandparents later that week. Will also got an early birthday from the Hanschens. While in Dillon, we got to ride on a steam train in Georgetown, visit the highest city the continental US, Leadeville, and the Denver museum of Science & Nature, play and picnic at a gorgeous park on the lake, and do some shopping. We also had lots of time relaxing in our vacation homes with family. The morning we left Dillon, there was - surprise - an inch or two of snow! Will had a lot of fun making snowballs and throwing them off the back porch. It was a fun ending for our vacation. We drove almost straight back to San Diego, just stopping one night in Cedar City, a small but pretty spot in Utah. We are all glad to be home, but it was a great trip!

Uh oh!

Cute video of Emma saying Uh-oh! and some pictures from the past couple weeks.

Emma is Army Crawling

Last weekend Emma started army crawling. Today she started getting up on all fours! Making good progress :)

Mother's Day & 8th Anniversary



Last weekend we celebrated Mother's Day and our 8th wedding anniversary. We had a fun night out thanks to our babysitter. We watched Thor, then went Barnes and Noble to browse, and then to Cheesecake Factory for dessert and coffee.

 

 

Easter 2011

This Easter was very busy and I feel like we are just now catching up! Abby came out for 10 days, so she was here for Emma's dedication on Palm Sunday, and for Easter. Abby's friend Megan also came out and spent Easter weekend with us, and we hosted the Family Ministry's Easter Egg Hunt and potluck. There ended up being 37 people at our house, so it was fun and a little chaotic in a good way. Unfortunately our videos of Emma's dedication and our Easter singing, including my solo, didn't have audio, whoopsie! I'm going to try to find copies, especially of the dedication for Emma. While Abby was here, we went to Sea World, Seaport Village, Hotel del Coronado, a "Seal" bus/bay tour, Chuck E. Cheese, and some other everyday places. We tried the zoo, but forgot that of course it was packed for Easter break!

This week Emma started crawling a little bit, although it's very uncoordinated. She kind of drag/shoves/flings her body forward now in addition to rolling. According to Will, "She rolls very fast, Mommy" so that's her primary mode of mobility still. I have started weaning her a little bit, and she has a couple ounces of cow's milk mixed in her bottles now. She just has bottles at lunch and supper, and all other times she is using a cup. We might have to keep those bottles for a while until I figure out how to thicken her liquids in a cup. At her last GI appointment, Emma was 19lbs 14oz and almost 29" long! She is growing very well, although she's still having lots of reflux and we've moved her dose all the way back up to 30mg a day of prevacid. The GI also said that will need to continue to thicken her liquids even after she weans. This coming Wednesday is her next ENT appointment, at which time he will probably scope her since it's been a few months. She's been having some weird breathing/gasping/choking episodes, but I'm hoping that is mostly due to the reflux and not complications from the vocal cord paralysis.

We turned in Will's final papers for pre-K registration, so he's all set to start school in July (year round schools here). He's very excited aboout school - especially playing with other kids and the school's playground, hah! This week he told me that Jesus lives in his heart, and that he asked Jesus to live in his heart last Thursday, which was wonderful. He also told me that he wants to learn how to read and has started trying to pick out words in his favorite books. He is growing up so quickly! He's so tall that he really surprises folks who ask how old he is. When he says 3, they usually look up at me questioningly and tell me that they thought he was 5. He's definitely into the bossy part of 3, and likes to tell me and Emma how things are supposed to be done. Usually he's not obnoxious about it though, and he has reminded me a couple times of things I've forgotten to do, need to do, etc. One really sweet thing he did the last time we took a family trip to the grocery store really showed us how empathetic he is and also what a good heart he has. I was upset and had been talking in a raised voice to Jered. Not something an adult would call a fight, but after we calmed down and were walking around the store, Will told me: "You need to say you're sorry for Daddy. You yelled at him and made him sad." Wow, that called me out, and I promptly apologized. I'm proud of him seeing the right thing to do.

Monday is our 8th Anniversary! We plan to do dinner and a movie to celebrate. We can't believe it's been 8 years. It seems both like that's a long time, and also like it should be longer since it's hard to remember our lives apart. We feel so close and so blessed to have such a wonderful marriage and family. God is good!