We went to my sister's house this weekend. It was a lovely time together. I hadn't seen my two sisters since Ian was born and both my brothers-in-law had yet to see Ian in person. We left Friday morning, and got to spend time with my other sister Elin and her husband Rod on Saturday. We also had an impromptu birthday celebration for Elin, as we weren't sure if we were going to see her soon before or after her birthday. Both Erin and I presented her with the present we had knitted for her. I knitted a scarf and Erin knitted a shawl for her. It was so nice to be away from home and feel like we were on some sort of vacation. It was also a lot less stressful this time around, too, now that both sets of kids are getting older. Emmaline had a fun time with her cousins, but she and Andrew would get into tiffs quite often. Poor Andrew wanted to play with her, but she would just scream at him and wave her hands around. Or Emmaline would want to play with his trains or cars, and Andrew would scream at her. We listened to quite a bit of screaming this weekend. Andrew and Emmaline, though, would always have fun playing together on the bed in Erin and Luke's guest bedroom. Here are some videos and pictures from this weekend!

We have been in the process of potty training Emmaline for a few months now. We've finally gotten her to wear she will ask to go to the bathroom while naked. However, we are also having to "panty" train her as well. She still has quite a few accidents while wearing underwear.

This past week we stopped giving her a sippy cup of milk right before she goes to bed in attempts to night train her as well. The first few nights were rough, but she didn't pee in her bed. This morning when she got up I asked her, "Do you want to go peepee on the potty?" To which she replied, "No, I peepeed in bedroom."

Here are some pictures I took of Emmaline a few days ago. She was out wandering around our back yard.

The church we attend has six children that all have turned or are turning two really close to one another. We had two in August, one in October, and three in November! So, two of the mothers came up with a great idea of a mass birthday party! So smart. Here are some pictures and videos from this afternoon.

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't really posted a lot lately. I have been super busy knitting and sewing. I have a lot of gifts I am trying to work on at the moment, including knitting a dress for Emmaline. I bought some fabrics quite a while ago, of which I actually posted some pictures on the blog, and it has been sitting around ever since. Since I found a pattern that somewhat resembles a really cute dress Emmaline already has, I decided to get to work. It took me a few weeks to sew and assemble this dress simply because I have so many other projects going on, on top of having an infant, toddler, husband, and house to take care of. Here is the finished project!

Unfortunately, it is a bit bigger and longer than I expected it to be. However, it is a blessing in disguise as she will be able to wear it longer. She was so excited about it yesterday when I tried it on her. I still needed to get buttons for it, so she couldn't wear it, but she kept following me everywhere, "I need dress. Emmy's dress. I need dress!" And all she wanted to do in it today was do her little dance! I was so glad to see how excited she was. It made me feel that it was worth all the work.

Here's a video of Ian cooing and laughing. Lately Ian has been sleeping through the night, but for about the last month he had been getting up at 3:30 every morning. When I would go to change his diaper he would lay on his changing pad and just squirm and laugh. He would always let out a loud squeal of delight too. He started doing it last evening while I was changing his diaper, so I decided to get a video of it. Maybe later on I can get a better one.

The joys of living in the country, on the side of a horse pasture...

Waking up at five in the morning hearing loud thumping somewhere around your house.
Worrying whether someone is trying to break into your house.
You hear your newborn baby cry, is there someone trying to kidnap your baby?
Freaking out when you look outside your window and see what looks like two sets of legs in black pants with their torsos and heads perfectly blocked by a tree outside your house.
The relief of realizing it's just a HORSE!! IN YOUR FRONT YARD!!
The oddity that there are at least three horses in your front yard...and oh! one of them just pooped! Yeah!

Gotta love it!