girly girly girl

i couldn't have asked for more of a girly girl than my little emily. she loves all things girly. i really lucked out! she loves anything pink, sparkles of any kind, lace,ribbons, etc... i never knew they could start so young. emily is running everywhere she goes. she is so proud of herself now that she can get up without any support. she will circle our island in the kitchen over over and over again, and stop to pick up anything that might be on the ground. she is also a climber. this scares me to death! she has learned how to move stools and chairs around to get to the things she wants. emily has been playing with her dollies lately and she points to their eyes and says eyes, and so on, and so on. i just wish she wasn't such a messy eater! there is food everywhere when she is done. I'm hoping it will end soon (it has got to because i go nuts having to clean up after her). i guess it's worth it, she does need to eat after all (ha ha). emily is still our little sweetheart, and just as easy going as can be. i am just crazy in love with this little girl of mine.

mars... i come from france

the other day we were at costco and ryan said "ryan lives on the planet earth" i was so amazed, and then he went up to one of the toys and read it and it said "solar system in my room." so, not only did he read solar system but he knew earth was a part of it. he can now count to 20 in spanish. he is constantly asking me how to say different words in spanish or french and if i don't know them he tells me to call uncle dave. sometimes he can come up with the word on his own after he thinks about it for a few minutes. i have started to teach him greek and he is learning very fast. he comes up to me and night and says kalle nixta (loose spelling of term meaning good night) and sagapo (i love you). he goes around the house speaking a different language all the time. i am not sure what language it is, or if it is a language, but he knows exactly what he is saying. there is just no stopping him. he loves to play games on the computer. he has us turn the computer on and as soon as they are running he will say "i need mommy to leave me alone now." because he can read, he can navigate through the whole program. we also play a lot of hide and seek, but he really doesn't like to hide so he will say "i need to seek daddy" (of whoever he is playing with). almost everyday he tells me that he wants to go to school. i have checked into some preschools but you need to be potty trained and he tries really hard but nothing happens. it's really frustrating for him. he has become such a good drawer. he is able now to do all sorts of different animals and you can tell what they are. ryan is amazing to me, and such a sweet little boy. i just love him so much!!!!

this was at schnepf farm. it was lots of fun especially for ryan because they had some fun rides that he loved going on.
i wish you could see this picture better. ryan "had" to go on this roller coaster. he had never been on one before and he barely made the height requirements. i was so nervous that it was going to scare him to death. well, he actually ended up loving it and had to go on it about 6 or 7 times. he would keep his arms above his head the whole time (we had to literally hold him in on a few of the tuns so he wouldn't fly out). if you double click on this picture you can see his face better.
my happy girl. she would point to all the pumpkins and say "bubbles" - that's what she calls balloons.
sweet kids. they had so much fun.
i have never known anyone so young who LOVED shoes as much as she does! she tries so hard to put them on herself and gets so frustrated that she can't. i imagine she will be able to do it any day now with all the practicing she does. she will bring me her shoes and say "shoe" clear as day. we can't even walk past shoes at the store without her screaming if i don't let her hold the ones she points to. she especially likes the sparkly ones.

you might think that emily is practicing to be a doctor when she grows, but the truth is, is that she thinks the stethoscope is a necklace. she wears it around her neck all the time. it is one of her favorite things.
ryan riding the four wheeler at the fair. he went on so many rides, but the pictures did not turn out very well because of the motion.
emily driving the tractor at the fair.

ryan was so excited to be a leopard. he would tell everyone everywhere we went that he was going to be a leopard for halloween.

here is my little fairy. isn't she so cute!?!

sweet

i caught ryan hugging em without me even telling him to. most of the time he really loves her, and she loves him so much.

big girl

she has been trying to a few weeks to climb into this chair, and she finally did it and was so proud of herself.

playdough

ryan has really been loving to play with his playdough and the other day he came running to me saying i did it i made a gingerbread man. he is pretty creative and quite the little artist too. i love how he even did the little eyes.

me too!

em really wanted to help decorate cookies too, but she was content watching and eating the cookies.

making cookies

this was the first time he got to help me make cookies. he had so much fun frosting them and then putting on the "sparkles"

so proud of himself

Finally

I guess it's about time i do one now! I love looking at everyone's pictures and hearing about what's going on in your lives. It's so hard to be so far away from everyone. Ryan really has a hard time. Every single day he asks where someone in the family is and what they are doing. Good thing for my job (i guess i should say my employer). I have to work my first 3 day trip this weekend. I am flying with Melissa so that will be fun. I am getting really sad having to leave Ryan and Emily. At least I have been able to go this long without working a trip. And it is nice having a little extra money. Speaking of money, I don't know if I have told everyone, but Darrel just got promoted to assistant supervisor. And, he got a nice little raise. I think he is pretty excited about it, but he doesn't like to toot his own horn. I am happy for him, but now he thinks he has to work even more overtime than before. He usually works 8 to 10 hours extra a week. If it weren't for the weekends we would never see each other.