2 months

A little over a week ago Emerson turned 2 months old. It's cliche, but this 2 months has been a blur, a blink, went by so fast. Too fast!

We tried hard to get some smiles, but Emerson was not having it. So serious. At least her shirt says smile??

 There's a little smile!

That was it, not going to give us a big one.

Hands down, Em may be the sweetest, most easy going baby ever! She rarely cries and is so content going anywhere we drag her to.

Goes to sleep around 8, but we hold and cuddle her until I wake her up at 10 to feed. After that feeding she sleeps until 3-5 when she feeds again and then wakes up between 7 and 8am.

she wakes up very smiley and is awake for an hour or so before she is ready to go back to sleep. In the evening (usually at dinner time) she is awake for an hour or a little more before bedtime. There is not much of a schedule for the rest of the day. If we run errands or are in the car or stroller she will sleep the entire time. I usually have to wake her to eat. If we're home there is no schedule, she sleeps a little, wakes up for 30 minutes to eat and talk before her next nap. Some afternoons I will swaddle her and she will sleep for 3 hours or so. I think in the next month we will work with her a little more to create more of a routine.

I go back to work this week. I am anxious and nervous, but I know its time. I am so thankful for 10 weeks at home and even more thankful that I only go back 2-3 nights a week. I really am so lucky to be able to stay at home with my babies every day AND be able to contribute to my family financially as well as get out of the house and focus my attention on something besides my children for a little bit of time.

In the last few days Emerson has talked a lot! More than my other 2 ever had. She also smiles a lot. Tummy time doesn't happen as often as it should mainly because there are so many people that want to hold her and be near her. Also because if she's not eating, or in the few minutes after she just ate, she's asleep. (and I don't like tummy time when she has a full belly...you know why). The big kids love her and ask to hold her multiple times of day. They help by getting diapers out, throwing diapers away, announcing when she's spit up, etc.

Life is busy, but our hearts are full. We feel content and joyful and so excited to see this little beauty grow! And she has amazing cheeks and the best double chin!

Omaha - Part 2

Sunday was the day we drove home, but we wanted to make the most of the time we had left in Omaha. Sunday morning we went on a safari drive. It was pretty cool and we were all happy we went. It was a 30 minute drive from our hotel and this was by far the farthest that we drove the entire time. 

 We rolled down the windows and let the kids unbuckle.

 There was a place to get out of the car for a little petting zoo, see the eagles up close and more.  We didn't do much, only out of the car for about 5 minutes, because it started raining a little.

 Again, our camera has NO zoom. It was pretty cool.

 There was a little trail to take that had some caged owls as well as a large area for wolves and another area for bears.

 Wolf

 This guy decided to stand in the road and wouldn't let us pass for a minute.

 Then these also blocked our path for a bit.

That afternoon we went to the children's museum. It was OK. I thought it was over priced and not museum at all.  More just stations for the kids to play with different themes.

 

Reegan enjoyed working on the car more than I thought she would.

We will do this vacation all again (except the museum) sometime. Short drive and a great weekend getaway.

Omaha - Part 1

Jason and I have been talking about taking a trip to Omaha with the kids forever.  Such a quick 3 hour drive and I've heard they have lots of great things for the kids. We decided that while I was on maternity leave it would be a great time to see the sights and have some great family time. 

We drove down right after Reegan was done with preschool on Friday. It was perfect timing, we were able to convince the kids to take a nap in the car since we were going to be up late. We Pricelined our hotel and after we checked-in, we went to Old Market for dinner. Old Market has a lot of restaurants and shops. I wish we had time to walk around and see everything but our weekend was full!  We ate at Spaghetti Works which I had read about on a few different websites. It was good, but I didn't see what the big draw was. They did have PBJ pizza for the kids and a salad bar as well as a build your own pasta. We enjoyed it, not sure if we would go there next time. We also stopped at Hollywood Candy to get some snacks for the game.

After dinner we headed to the Storm Chasers game. They are the Royals AAA team. If you know one thing about Jason it's he LOVES baseball. 

The kids were a little restless so Jason took them to the kids area for an inning. And we fed them a lot of jelly beans. The night finished with fireworks which is always a hit.

Saturday morning we were up and went to the zoo. We are members of the KC zoo so we got half price tickets to the Omaha zoo. It did not disappoint.

 This boy loves trains, so we took a train ride. It was kinda disappointing because part of the zoo was under construction and that was the part that the train went around. So instead of animals. we saw bulldozers and diggers.

Omaha had a great set up of animals. You could see just about all the animals and didn't have to walk very far in between animals. Our camera has NO zoom, so all of these pictures show just how close we were to the animals. 

 The rain forest exhibit was awesome!

 The desert.

 There was a gorilla sitting on top of this dome.

 After lunch Gavin was worn out and took a nap in the stroller.

 It was also free day for these things (not sure what they are called) and since Reegan asks almost every time we go to our zoo, we decided it was the perfect time for her do it. I pushed the stroller with the 2 sleeping kids and ended up finding the biggest hill in the whole place to have to hike up. It was a good work out!

 No zoom. Pretty incredible right?

We went back to the Old Market for a Mexican dinner before going back to the hotel for baths, a few hands of Old Maid and Go fish before bed. 

Sunday was another busy, fun day and I'll share pictures next time!