The Girls' First Laptops

Sead asked me to look for a kid's "laptop" for Ella. She loves his laptop and is starting to learn about the mouse and keyboard. I found these Vtech toy "laptops" on Amazon. They just arrived yesterday.

 Ella is thrilled with hers. She took it to bed last night and insisted on falling asleep with it on her lap. First thing this morning she was carrying it around and playing with it.

 She's doing really well with the games and learning activities on it.

 Emma is enjoying hers too. I was so happy to find a baby version so Emma could join in the fun too!

 

 Ella was helping Emma with hers, showing her how to use it and opening it for her when she closed it.

Tummy Time

 Emma is constantly rolling to her belly these days to play. She stays on her belly for a good 10 minutes before rolling to her back. She hasn't pushed up on her knees yet (thankfully), so I think I still have at least another month before she starts crawling. However, Ella surprised me by crawling within two weeks of rolling to her belly. Ella hated being on her belly, so I think the only reason she started doing tummy time was to crawl. Emma seems to enjoy playing on her tummy.

Mama's Birthday

It's my 37th birthday today and I had so much fun celebrating with Sead and the girls!

 Ella, all dressed up and ready to take Mama to lunch

 Mama's birthday lunch at El Burro

 An mint chip ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins

Mama's birthday presents, the John Adams HBO movie and a Garmin, so I won't get lost in North Carolina :-)

Singing happy birthday and helping me blow out my candles

Emma in the Exersaucer

 Emma loves the Exersaucer! She spends at least 30 minutes at a time in it completely happy.

Oranges

 Sead was peeling and eating a small orange near Emma and she was so fascinated by it that I washed one and gave it to her to check out. It was so cute to watch her careful studying daddy and the orange!

Of course, she had to put it in her mouth to find out more. :-)

Snapshots Of A Day

Time for "Snapshots Of A Day" again. I almost forgot it was the 10th today, but remembered by 9 AM. It was kind of a strange day because I'm finally coming down with the virus that Ella and Emma had over the past few weeks. I did make it out to Costco though before I started to feel more under the weather.

9:00 AM - Breakfast! This was the first day that I've fed Emma "solids" since she got sick. I wanted to make sure she had all the hydration she could get while she was so sick.

10:00 AM - Pouring my second cup of coffee

11:00 AM - Driving to Costco

12:00 PM - Loading up the back of the car with our Costco purchases

1:00 PM - Feeding Emma

2:00 PM - Trying to get my fill of kisses, which, of course, is impossible. I can never get enough kisses. :-)

3:00 PM - Turning on Strawberry Shortcake for Ella in the hopes that she'll settle down for a nap (it did work). ;-)

4:00 PM - Washing bottles once Emma fell asleep too and then off for a nap myself

5:00 PM - Called Sead to ask him to pick up pizza on his way home from work and hoped into the shower in the hopes that it would make me feel a little less achy.

6:00 PM - Checking on Ella who napped until 6:25 PM. Hope she sleeps before midnight tonight.

A Very Tough Week

So, I missed Emma's 7 month photo shoot. The past 7 days have been the toughest we've had at least since Ella had Roseola when she was 15 months.

Here's approximately what it looked like:

Tuesday, 4 AM - Took Ella to the emergency room because she hadn't slept all night and kept crying. They discovered that she had a bad ear infection in her right ear.

Tuesday, 4:30 PM - Rush Ella to the doctor's office for a quick appointment to get pain numbing ear drops.

Tuesday, 10 PM - Emma wakes up with a fever and diarrhea, coughing and vomiting due to congestion.

By Wednesday, Emma is very sick and not sleeping well. The challenge is trying to keep her hydrated.

Thursday, 10:30 AM - Ella has her ear checked and doctor confirms that it is healing well.

Friday, 10 AM - Took Emma in to the doctor after a very rough night. At that point, Emma's eyes would only open half way (probably mom's too) and she'd lost about half a pound. Her blood oxygen level was too low, so the doctor put her on the nebulizer with medication. He also saw that she had an ear infection. We head home after an antibiotic shot for Emma.

Friday, 10:30 PM - Ella asks for her pain numbing ear drops in her left ear. After they are applied she is inconsolable and holding her left ear. I head down to the emergency room with her again. After confirming an ear infection in her left ear, more pain medication, and a prescription for an antibiotic, I head home with Ella at about 1 AM.

Saturday night Emma literally wakes every 10 minutes or less coughing and crying all night.

Sunday, 11:00 AM - Took Emma to the on-call doctor. The doctor says she's improving, but is just really miserable.

Monday, 12:45 PM - Took both girls to their pediatrician to be checked up on. Ella's left ear is still infected, so she gets an antibiotic shot again. Emma sounds better, but still has a low blood oxygen level.

Fortunately, Emma finally slept through the night last night and is starting to smile and even laugh a little again. Ella's not complaining about either ear at this point, but we'll have them checked again tomorrow.

Here's my attempt at a late 7 month photo shoot for Emma. She's still not looking a 100%, but we're getting there.

The only way I could keep her happy was to let her chew on her polka dot horse (the tags, actually). :-)

So glad my girls love each other!

Ella was able to go to her dance class today! Yay!

Mini Vacation

I took the girls on our first hotel stay last weekend. We were in Salinas for three days and three nights. We stayed at a Residence Inn with an indoor heated pool.

 Breakfast at IHOP

 Emma slept through most of breakfast, but since she can't eat pancakes yet, she didn't seem to mind. ;-)

 Picking up some groceries for the room - this was Emma's first time sitting in the cart without her carrier. She was quite interested and excited about this new mode of transportation.

 Back in the room we got ready for the main attraction, the POOL!

 Ella loves her tutu bathing suit and pink life vest.

 Emma in her spring form float... one of the best baby inventions ever! It's super stable on the water and Emma loves floating and kicking around in it. It has a sun screen that I can attach when we're swimming outside.

 I brought just the right amount of activities for Ella to pass some down time in the room. She's really enjoying coloring these days.

 I'm not sure why the cushions had to be off the couch, but apparently it was critical to the action scene between Cinderella and Flint Ryder.

 A trip to Chuck E. Cheese! Ella spotted this Chuck E. Cheese the night we drove in, so of course, we had to add it to our to do list.

There were a few moments of chaos here and there during the trip (mostly during the arrival at the hotel and the packing up to go home portions of the trip). However, we did manage to have a great time and I got to spend a lot of focused one on one / one on two time with the girls without nagging chores and all the extra distractions that we've had over the past three weeks. I'm so glad I decided to take the time away.