Reynolds in Texas: January 2009

Emily - 27 months

Emily is learning new words and concepts everyday! She loves to say "nank you" at all the appropriate times and is catching on to "you're welcome". She also loves to play with playdough and color with markers. She is a good little mommy and takes care of not only her babies, but "Mae's" as well. She is also learning to help around the house which is nice for us! She is *almost* potty-trained. She gets the idea and knows how to execute, but sometimes can't pull herself away from the fun to take care of business. She loves when Daddy comes home and she always knows what he's missing - a hug!

Maddie - 10 months

Time has flown by. My baby is not so little anymore. She is crawling everywhere and even took about 10 steps while holding my hands. Everyone always tells me that each kid is different, but its still amazing to me when I see the difference between my girls. Emily was already walking by herself at 10 months, but she had stopped nursing. Maddie is not too interested in walking, but she crawls very fast. And she is showing no signs of weaning. Her two bottom teeth broke through in December and thanks to a run-in with the coffee table, her top two left teeth are poking through too. While we were in Nebraska, we confirmed that she is saying two words - "mama" and "up". She is so quick to laugh and smile. Here she is at 10 months - couldn't get her teeth and no way would she be still by the frog.

Climbing baby and tot!

Maddie and Emily love to climb everything they can. I was too slow with the camera, so I just missed the great pic opportunity where Maddie was laying on the bottom shelf of the changing table and Emily was on the middle shelf. They were giggling up a storm. :) Take note of Emily's clothes. She has begun to pick out her own clothes.... guess the lack of fashion sense runs in the family.

More Reynolds in Nebraska

Here we are in the ladybug tent!

Aunt Jennie, Dylan, and Grandma Reynolds

My 3 favorite Huskers on New Years Day!

Freezing Playground

Here was our playground outing in Blair. Brrrrrr... Surprisingly, Emily actually played a little bit!

Emily wouldn't let me take her picture, but here is one of Maddie. Check out the crazy spiderweb playground behind Maddie.

Reynolds in Nebraska

The day after Christmas, we headed north to Nebraska. This was probably our most challenging road trip so far. It was Maddie's first trip over 5 hours and the poor girl just didn't know what she was in for. She slept about 45 minutes out of the first 6 hours. Emily spoiled us, she had always slept most of the 16 hour trip in the past. Luckily we were prepared with lots of toys and snacks. Then to top it off, we drove into freezing rain in Kansas. We had to drive 30-40 mph so the trip took a little longer than normal.

BUT... everything was fine once we got there. We got to see a lot of the Reynolds and Rech family. About halfway through our trip, Jennie, James, and Dylan arrived from England. The girls were thrilled to meet their first cousin! Emily had been practicing how to gently treat babies and did great. She was so in love with Dylan and wanted to touch him all the time. Luckily Dylan is a very laid-back baby and took it all in stride.

As you can see, the girls got a lot of quality time with Grandma Reynolds

Maddie loves to ride in the wagon, just like her sister!

Emily has sorta outgrown the snuggly phase so when she gets snuggly, you better take advantage of it!

Merry Christmas!

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa George and Uncle Eric. After church on Christmas Eve, we came back to our house for some lasagna. Yum! The next morning we woke up and Santa had come. Emily had carefully left cookies and milk for Santa and was very pleased to see that Santa had eaten the cookies and drank the milk. She was very excited to open presents, but didn't really get the idea that some were for Maddie. For example, Maddie got a few babies for Christmas and while Emily calls them "Mae's" she still hogs them to herself. The big hit of the morning was a brand new ladybug tent that I got for *free* off freecycle. Gotta love freecycle!

Here is Emily waiting to get Maddie's baby

The fam right before the present distribution

Uncle Eric was invited into the ladybug tent!

Hangin with the MAC - Gregors

After Grandad's, we went to Rob, Noelle, and Tator Tot's house for Noelle's birthday party. Joe and Rob did some home improvement stuff on Sunday so that gave us girls lots of time to hang out. Noelle took a lot of great pictures on our freezing cold trip to the park. I stole them from her facebook page :)

Maddie loves to swing!

Emily gets air! I think this was the first time that she let me push her so high!!

Christmas at Grandad's

Since I still don't have my own camera, this blog thing isn't working out too well. Noelle was nice enough to lend me a camera, but the USB cord is different, so I have to get Joe to bring one home from work. Anywho, here is a late update of our great Christmas season. We started off the weekend before Christmas with a trip to Houston to see the George family. If you don't already know, let me tell you - the George family is HUGE! My grandparents had 10 kids and then most of them had some and now our generation is reproducing. So, we all cram into a few rooms at my grandad's house. Luckily everyone is nice and we can get along in close quarters. Besides, the weather is always mild in Houston so you can step outside if it gets to be too much.

Somehow I forgot to take pictures, but here are some from Maike's camera. This is when my youngest cousin Catherine got her very own pink Christmas tree! Emily is watching her in awe. She loved to play with all the "older" girls - Christina, Catherine, and Baylee.