On Saturday Emmylou's Mimi and Granny came to Austin to celebrate Emmylou's birthday and Easter since some unfortunate circumstances kept them away on those actual days. Not only did Emmylou love her presents, she loved the bag one of them came in:



Here's Emmylou with Mimi and Granny in her peacock costume (which she demanded she put on after dinner) eating 'Emmylou Cookies' for dessert that she made with me earlier...



Thanks for the presents and coming to visit! It was fun having you here!

I haven't shared a video in a while, so here's one I just took of Emmylou pedaling a tricycle for the very first time. Sorry it's sideways (again).



She's still a little too short to push the pedals on her tricycle at home, so this is one at her "school" (which closed over Spring Break--I'll go into that saga later) where she still has playdates with her friends once a week.

As if yesterday wasn't exciting enough simply from finding out that we have a baby boy on the way, Emmylou kept things interesting by warranting another trip to the emergency room last night. Somehow, right at bedtime, she went from playing on all fours on the wood floor (spinning around, perhaps?) in the middle of our kitchen/dining room with no furniture or anything dangerous anywhere near her, to screaming, lying face down and unable to move her entire left arm. Even though we thought she might only be a little bruised and mostly tired, after an hour of crying (not like her at all) and then falling asleep and crying in her sleep when I touched her arm, we decided to take her to the emergency room to make sure nothing was sprained or broken. After trying the children's hospital, which was swamped and would obviously take at least 4 hours to be seen, we took her to Seton where she was the only patient in the ER. She was in excruciating pain while the doctor examined her and while they did the x-rays, but immediately after, it was like she was miraculously healed! We think the x-ray techs must have popped something back into place while they were stretching her arm out for the pictures!

Emmylou seems perfectly fine today. Go figure.

In case you're counting, that's three trips to the emergency room in the past six months, one of course, being the time I fainted and hit my head on the driveway. But still, I had never even been to an emergency room before six months ago!

Parenting is crazy.

Here's a new picture of the baby...



BOY!!!



Emmylou's going to have a brother! OMG!

Happy Easter to you!

Emmylou had a great day, spending almost every moment eating mass quantities of candy.

First, she found the treats the Easter Bunny left her...



and hung out with Grammie...



Later, she headed outside to find some eggs...







She also enjoyed trying to fit an entire chocolate bunny into her mouth at once...



and didn't cooperate much when we tried to get a family picture...



Note: Please excuse the poor lighting, motion blur and lens flare (is that even what it's called?)-- I'm still such an amateur with my camera!

To complete Emmylou's birthday celebration, we had a little party at her favorite park on Saturday afternoon. I only took a few pictures, so until I get the rest from Em and Grammie, here are a couple of Lou trying to hit her Ming Ming pinata I made her and the mass chaos that ensued once it exploded.





Did I say that party "completed" her birthday experience? I have misspoken. After her party she got to open a few more presents, one of which was two tennis raquets from Grammie...



Check out the sweet pink headband!



Then, on Tuesday evening, Lizzie took Emmylou to PetSmart for the finishing touch to the present she gave Emmylou: a goldfish to go in her new Elmo fish tank! Here are photos chronicling the adventure (obviously, Em came along, too!):

Heading into PetSmart...



Emmylou ran straight for the fish tanks...



Lizzie helped her pick the perfect one...



The PetSmart lady first put the fish into a little box...



And then into a plastic bag with some air...



It was love at first sight...



Introducing Daisy the Goldfish, happily at home with Snorkeling Elmo...



And as if all of that wasn't enough, Emmylou went to an Easter egg hunt last Sunday afternoon. Once she realized the eggs were filled with candy she went after all of them with gusto, as you can imagine.

Dear Emmylou,

Happy, happy birthday! Today you are officially two years old and I just can't believe it's already upon us. It's not surprising since you're doing really big-girl things like naming all the letters in the alphabet, counting to five, holding short conversations on the phone, occasionally using your potty and making silly jokes, but it still feels like time has flown by!

Today we had a great day celebrating your birthday. We started by going to lunch at Phil's for some yummy burgers and playtime with Aunt Lizzie, Khanh and Aunt Emmy. Then we went to Zilker Park to ride the train and Em got to come along too! It was packed and it felt like the first day of summer (92 degrees!) but we had a great time. You got to eat a grape snowball to cool down a little while we were waiting for our train to pick us up. We came home right after riding the train so you could take a nap and then after I cooked spaghetti for dinner, you, Daddy and I went to get some frozen yogurt for dessert. The perfect day!

Even though we've had a few rough moments (e.g., like when you drew on the chair yesterday), I couldn't help thinking all day that this is the happiest I've ever been in my life. I think I've told you before that I hadn't ever envisioned myself with a toddler but only a baby when your daddy and I decided to have kids. But now I can't imagine anything more fun or fulfilling than chasing after you and watching you interact with the world! Every day with you brings a genuine smile to my face. You are the best gift I've ever been given and I couldn't feel luckier to be beside you every day.

I love you so, so much, Lou!

Love,
Mommy (what you've started calling me lately!)

At Phil's...





Wearing your Elmo stick-on earrings and ring I gave you...



Eating your snowball with Daddy and Em (with Barton Springs in the background)...



And on the train...





Later with your healthy yogurt treat (covered in sprinkles and gummy bears)...



Daddy tried to steal a kiss...



And you finished it all!

Check out the awesome new decorator finish Emmylou just gave one of my white Barcelona chairs while I was vacuuming:





Obviously these chairs were purchased years ago when we were still in that "I'm not sure we want children" phase.

I'm proud to report that Emmylou is, indeed, still alive and breathing at this moment. And, happy to announce that after trying every cleaning product in my house, the Mr. Clean Eraser is pretty good at getting ballpoint pen off of white leather if you rub each mark approximately 10,000 times, as hard as you possibly can.

Speaking of Barcelona chairs, and just to keep some humor in this situation, let me direct you all to one of the most hilarious blogs I've seen in a while: Stuff White People Like. Scroll down to #79 and you'll find our chairs. Actually, if you know Gary and I well enough, you'll probably recognize at least 90% of the stuff white people like as stuff we like. BTW, Gary went out two nights ago in a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops even though it was going down into the 40's that night (hello, #86 and 84! He probably also brought his North Face jacket with him- #87!).

As many of you know, a few weeks ago I ran my first half-marathon. I was hoping to get some photos with Emmylou at the finish line to post here, but she and Gary got held up in traffic around the race route and were never able to get there.

My friend Alex was the one who got me to enter the race (thanks, Alex! It was a blast!) and she just posted a recap of it on her blog, so if you want to read about it click here. It is so true what she says-- the thought of queso seriously kept us all going... and it was worth every mile!

Emmylou's been in training for her upcoming birthday. Since it falls on this Friday which is during Spring Break, I took balloons to her class last Thursday to celebrate with her friends.





I also picked up this party hat for her when I got the balloons, which she's been wearing constantly ever since:



Here she is wearing it while dancing around in her nightgown:



Today we went to Sea World for a couple of hours to see Shamu and to feed the dolphins. Emmylou got to go on her first real carnival rides with Daddy!

Way up at the top:





And spinning round and round:



And asleep on the way home, in her birthday hat, of course:

Thanks so much to everyone for their congratulatory comments on our upcoming new arrival! We are still a little shocked that it happened so quickly but are so excited.

Here's something else we're super excited about:



We want to send our congratulations out to Lizzie and her friend Amanda for recently starting their own upholstery business! A lot of their work can be seen in a store here in Austin called Homegirls, but they also sell their own stuff now in their Etsy online store (and, of course, they also do custom upholstery work). Check out this blue chair they did that just sold last week (had I seen it first I would've bought it myself!):



I love, love, love this orange ottoman:



And aren't these green, geometric-patterned high back chairs awesome?



Congratulations, Lizzie and Amanda! We are all so impressed with your work and inspired by the way you have taken big risks to do something you love. We wish you all the best!

Although I'll add permanent links on the left side of this blog, here are some for now:

Spruce Website

Spruce Etsy Store