Emma: 14 Months!

Dear Louie,

Happy 14 Months Bug!  I am actually writing you this letter ON your monthly birthday, which might be a first since you were born!

Big News! Big News! Big News! You are walking now!  You took your first real steps on November 4th and now you are a full fledged walking machine...working your way towards running!  It's amazing how fast it all happened.  One day you were toddling around, very unsteady, falling every few steps.  Just a few days later you gave up crawling all together.  Bittersweet moment for this mama, that's for sure.  Once your "baby" starts walking, it really opens your eyes to the fact that they are no longer a baby.

First few steps:

A few hours later:

And less than a week later:

See what I mean about fast changes?!  Wow!  It's like you waited to walk until you knew you would be an expert at it.

You love your big sister and I am really starting to see you two "play" together, which warms my heart.  Addy will yell, "Follow me Emmy!" and you toddle around after her with a huge grin on your face.  I just love it!

Watching some cartoons with your big sis... and Pinky, a new favorite friend of yours.  You love to carry that thing around by the ear :)

This month one of your favorite games is putting things in and then dumping them out of something.  Like putting the cards for the Memory game in the box and then dumping them out.  It drives Addy crazy, but you love it :)

You have eight teeth, four top and four bottom, but I feel like even more are coming.  You have been gnawing on your hands a lot lately and have been slightly, dare I say, cranky.  You have definitely become more clingy...to me.  That is a fact.  When I am around you will have me do nothing but hold you.  You aren't that way with Daddy or anyone else, but if Mommy is in the room and isn't holding you, it's meltdown central.  I am starting to see the emergence of a toddler in you.

Speaking of toddler, you have also learned to throw your food on the floor, which means that now not one, but both of my children try my patience at meal times.  Addy because she will. not. eat.  And you because you think it's hilarious to toss your food on the floor or blow it out of your mouth.  Good times ;)

You have also decided that you hate to have your diaper changed.  Hate it.  You scream every time I lay you down to change you.  And come to think of it, you cry most times I lay you down for bed now too...until you see your purple blanket.  Thank goodness for our pal Purple.  That thing still soothes you like no other.

Your new favorite saying is "Uh oh!"  You say that all of the time and it's adorable.  You say mama, dada, Addy, and we're trying to teach you to say "T" for Tina.  You get it sometimes ;)  We are also trying to teach you your body parts, like head, nose, eyes, etc. but we are getting nowhere fast with that one.

You love the sound of your voice and if Addy screams, you think it's hilarious to follow suit.  Poor Tina and Jay.  Their once quiet, peaceful house is full of chaos.  But it's also full of love.  Lots of laughter and love.  I know that these next few years of life with two toddlers will be loud and constant and exhausting.  But I find that I am smiling more often than I'm not, and that's always a good thing.

Here are a few recent pics of you:

Go Penn State!

Bringing Daddy his Crocs :)

On a hike through the woods with Pop

Having fun at a birthday party at My Gym

Park time!

All in all, you are still a very happy lady.  It doesn't take much to make you smile...but it doesn't take much to make you meltdown either.  Hello toddler hood!  But Emma, no matter how old or how ornery you get, you will always be my precious baby girl.  I love you to pieces sweet, sweet lady!

Love,

Mommy

Halloween 2013!

Better late than never, right?  This year, I knew that Mike would be working a sixteen hour shift on Halloween, so I'd be alone with the ladies for Trick-or-Treat.  My plan was to come up with a costume for Emma that she could wear in our Baby Bjorn, so that I could have my hands free for Addy.  I looked online and found a cute little spider costume that I could make out of men's dress socks, so that's what I did.... and then I saw a picture of a Mom as the spider web, and I thought, "Perfect!".  Emma was going to be a spider and I was going to be a web.  But what about Addy?  Thinking about webs made me think of Charlotte's Web, so I decided that Addy would go as Wilbur the Pig :)

Here we are in all of our glory :)

And we were the hit of the neighborhood, if I do say so myself ;)

I ordered Addy's costume online, but Emma's and mine were handmade by yours truly.  (And if you know me at all, you know that crafty is something that I am not, so the costumes were very easy to make.  No sewing required, thank goodness, since I have no idea how to sew!)

I put Emma in our black Baby Bjorn carrier and she was wearing an all black onesie and back pants and socks (black socks over her hands too).  So those were four of the spider legs right there.  The other four I made out of two pairs of men's black dress socks.  I simply stuffed them with polyester fiberfill and pinned them to the Baby Bjorn and then to my shirt.

For me, I wore a plan white shirt and a white maxi skirt.  Under the skirt I put my white puffy skirt that I wore under my wedding gown.  (That's what gave it the puffy look.)  Then I simply pinned and tied pieces of black yarn to look like a web.  And I glued little black spiders that I found at the Halloween store onto the web.  And that's that.  All in all it actually wasn't that much work, but this non-creative girl was pretty proud of herself this Halloween :)

In the morning we had Addy's preschool Halloween party, but I did not dress up for that because my costume was not made for sitting down, ha ha.  Therefore I threw Emma in Addy's old Lion costume and Addy wore her pig costume.

Emma was so good at the party even though she missed her morning nap (which usually equals cranky mess).  She just hung out in the stroller and watched the kids play :)

Here's the crew.  Just missing Nicholas, who was dressed as Scooby Doo, because he was having a two-year-old moment.  

Onto Trick-or-Treating.  Addy didn't really get it last year.  Mike took her to two or three houses and that was enough for her.  This year, she definitely got it.  Trick-or-Treating = candy, and there is nothing that my girl likes more than candy.  She was all about it this year and I think she would have kept going all night if I let her.  As it was, we just went up and down Tina's street and hit about 15 houses.  

Addy had no problem running up to the door all by herself, knocking, and saying "Trick-or-Treat!"

Addy was very polite, and said "Thank you", but Tina and I couldn't stop laughing because before the door was even closed she would come flying down the lawn yelling, "NEXT HOUSE!!"  She was so intent and focused, and watching those little toddler legs flailing out to the side as she ran, pig costume and all....well, we couldn't contain ourselves.  It was hilarious!  I instructed her to say "Happy Halloween" instead.  So she did that.... and then followed it up with an all out sprint while yelling "NEXT HOUSE!"

All in all, it was a very successful day, and I know that the girls (especially Addy) had lots of fun.  After Trick-or-Treating we came back to the house to help Uncle Jay hand out candy to the other Trick-or-Treaters.  (The great thing about toddlers is that they have no sense of time, so I told Addy it was all done after approximately 20 minutes, and she was fine with it.)  She was more than happy to see the other kids and get a head start on eating some of her loot.  Which ended in perhaps the biggest sugar high I've ever seen her on...She was wild!  But hey, it's Halloween!

Fall Fun!

From pumpkin patches to fall festivals to park play dates, this season was full of fun for our little ladies!

We went to a fall festival with Julie and there was a guy carving things out of wood, which was cool to see.... but of course, it was too loud for Addy's sensitive ears ;)

Julie taking over the creative reins and helping Addy make a clay necklace :)

One of my favorite family photos!

Addy got her face painted for the first time!  Here she is admiring herself in the mirror :)

I love this sassy pic of her!  I actually made it the wallpaper on my phone :)

The firemen with their firetruck came to Addy's school and gave all of the kiddos these plastic fire hats.  Addy was loving life, and here she is holding hands with her sweet friend Charley :)

A sweet shot of our precious little Lou Sue:

Tina and I took the girls to the pumpkin patch, which was lots of fun!

It was unusually hot that day, so poor Addy was sweating to death.

 Despite the heat, Addy took her job seriously, and pulled around the wagon full of our "perfect" pumpkins :)

 After we got our pumpkins we headed over to the apple orchard to pick our own apples!

It was our first time doing this and we all loved it...

...even Emmy!

We spent lots of time at the park this fall, before it got too cold.  We would often head over after preschool with some of Addy's new friends.  The little girl to Addy's right is in her class.  The one on her left and the one on the bottom are siblings of her preschool classmates and they are both 5 and in kindergarten.  AKA, Addy's "best friends".  My daughter seriously thinks she's five years old, and she loves nothing more than playing with older children.  (The girl on the far right was just a random little girl at the park that day.) I love Addy's face in this pic!  She is so genuinely happy :) 

Speaking of older girls, here is Addy with her other "best friend" Maggie from next door:

I'm telling you, all you have to do is stick Addy next to an older child for her real smiles to come out :)  Love this photo!

One rainy day Tina and I took Addy to Wegmans for a special treat.  She was in heaven!

In other big news, Addy had her first real ponytail a few days ago!  It doesn't all fit, but we're finally getting there!

Running through the park chasing bubbles without a care in the world :) I love it!

When we moved in, several people told us that the Camp Hill Library is an excellent place to take little kids. They were right.  This library is awesome!  The whole bottom floor is the children's library, and along with books they have lots of fun toys for the kids to play with.  Both of my girls love it there :)

We often head up to Addy's friend Ben's house for play dates.  Here is Emmy in her own little ride, watching the big kids play:

Tina and I took the ladies to the park and I snagged this cute pic of Emmy and Tina:

...Then I thought I'd try to get a pic of Tina with Addy too.  Um, yeah:

After many, many attempts, I got one!

So this is what our autumn has looked like :)  The weather has been truly gorgeous since we moved here, so we took advantage of being outside as much as possible.  I know that the cold weather will be here to stay any day now... In fact, we got our first snow flurries of the year this morning!  Time to get re-acclimated to the PA winters!

October Self Portrait

October is one of my favorite months (tied with May), and this year October brought some great news to the Hetricks... We sold our house!!!!

We closed on Halloween, and what a great feeling knowing that one of the largest hurdles in this interstate move is behind us.  Owning a home in one state, while living 7 hours away in another is NOT a good time.  It was just always in the backs of our minds, and we were constantly praying that nothing major would go wrong while we were gone before we sold it.  We had the hot tub issue that I wrote about before, but other than that, we managed to come through fairly unscathed.  Closing has come and gone, and now onto the next (much more fun) hurdle of buying a new house!

Mike and I headed down to NC for the last time a few days before closing in order to move everything out of the house and say our goodbyes to it.

While it was a great feeling watching our Realtor put that "SOLD" sign in our front yard, Mike and I both had mixed emotions to say the least.  We didn't get nearly what we hoped to get from the sale, which was a financial blow, but more importantly, seeing that sold sign in our front yard made this whole move finally seem real.  It felt like we were just on an extended vacation until then.  We came back to NC (what seemed like) all of the time to check on this or that.  Our house was still ours, with the bones of our belongings still in it.

 Watching the movers take everything out and crying as I was vacuuming our empty, echoing house brought out the flood of emotions that have been pushed aside for so long.  This was really it.  We were actually leaving....for good.  Closing this chapter of our lives.  That house on Clear Brook Drive was our first home, and it holds so many wonderful memories for me.  But memories don't stay with the house, they live in your heart.  I know that this is true.  Even being back in the house, without our girls it just didn't feel right.  It was too quiet, almost eerily so.  And once it was empty, I just wanted to leave.  It didn't feel like it was ours anymore.  So as I was walking out of the house for the last time I glanced at the "house" plant and jotted down a quick note to the owners explaining to them the significance of that plant that has been with the house though many owners.  I hope that they keep it, and I hope they love the house as much as we did.

Walking out of our garage and getting into our car, Mike and I were both fighting back tears.  It was a sad day, but this is a happy time in our lives.  "A house is made of brick and stone.  A home is made of love alone."  Our home is where our family is, both immediate and extended.  We are so excited to begin the next chapter of our lives in our good old home state of Pennsylvania!

Emma: 13 Months!

Dear Little Lou,

This month you have been mimicking lots of new words!  You are becoming less and less of a baby every day.  You can say "Hi", "Bye", "Mommy", "Daddy", and "Addy".  You are interacting so much more and I love to watch you start to really play with your sister.  You love/fear her so very much ;)  Addy loves you too, she's just very in your face about it, ha ha!

You have started to stand by yourself for a few seconds and you are cruising like a champ.  You also have started to push the push toys around, although you are still a bit unsteady on your feet.  At the park, you love to crawl around and climb all over the playground.

You still enjoy swinging, but you have recently discovered that sliding boards are fun!  Once I put you down the sliding board the first time you didn't want to do anything else but slide for the rest of the day.  Whenever I would take you away from the slide to give someone else a turn you would throw your little head back and scream...true toddler tantrum style.

You are an expert at climbing steps and your favorite game is to start climbing and wait for someone to see you and then motor up as fast as you possibly can, laughing the whole time.  Although you can climb up steps very well, you haven't figured out how to go back down yet.  I have to keep a close eye on your sister or she tries to "help" you get back down.

Your endless appetite is starting to level out and you have discovered that if you don't like a food, all you have to do is throw it on the floor and Holly will take care of it for you.  And then you look right at us and laugh.  Oh boy.  Now when we tell you "No", you are starting too understand it and you turn on the dramatics and cry like an old pro.

Bath time is one of your favorite times of the day and I think you would sit in there for hours and play if I let you.  No more baby tub for you (We got rid of that a few months ago).  Now you and your sister are in the big tub playing together during bath time.  You both really love that time of day :)

It's fun watching you start to understand concepts like, phones go up to your ear and hats go on you head.  You are so proud when you do these things by yourself!

Violet is one of your favorite toys and its so cute watching you hug and kiss/bite her ;)

You still have 6 teeth (4 top and 2 bottom) but, judging by the drooling and the constant shoving of your fist in your mouth, more are coming.  

Oh how I love your little gap toothed smile!  You are the happiest little lady around. You have learned that putting your arms up like this will likely get you picked up by someone and I just can't resist you.  Daddy says I spoil you, but so what?  You are only my "baby" for such a short amount of time, and I'll hold you all day if you want me to :)

Little Lou, I just love you to pieces.  You are my precious baby girl, and I know how fleeting this baby time is.  Every day I give you more hugs, kisses, and snuggles than I can possibly count.  And I wouldn't have it any other way :)

I love you sweet girl!

Love,

Mommy