A beginning and an end

My heart is full tonight. Full of emotion. Happy and sad. Overwhelming emotion at all the changes around us right now. You see, our family is moving. We are moving. My in-laws are moving. My kids are growing. My business is growing. Things are changing. And it feels like they are changing at a rapid pace right now.

I will get into our family's move in another post. There is a lot to talk about there and this post is going to be long enough on its own:)

First the happy news. Emerson. Is. Finally. Swimming!!!! In typical Emerson fashion, she had to wait until she was ready and then it is like a switched was flipped on overnight and here we are with a little girl who LOVES to swim. LOVES IT. Tonight at the pool she would jump and swim to daddy and demand to do it over and over and over and over again. Just like I did when I was a kid. And the pride in my heart just overflowed. It makes me teary just thinking about it. I was truly worried that her fear of the water could turn into a life long fear. But now I know it won't. Instead she is just beginning her life long love affair with water. And my heart is happy.

Her brother on the other hand, he already loves the water and seems to think he can swim. Looks like I need to get that boy in some swim lessons:)

Just jumping right in to swim to daddy.

Love how proud Steve is of her.

Ashton jumping in and "swimming" to Steve.

And she is so proud of herself too!

And my heart is sad tonight too. My in-laws have sold their house here in Fort Worth. They will have another one someday but for now we are back to being on our own. We have always been on our own but with them having a home here it always felt like a little part of them was here with us. And when they would come visit it was almost always an extended stay. My kids always felt like it was their second home. They had their own room and beds there. To nap or spend the night.

We have so many memories in that home. They originally bought it for Emerson. "Emy's Digs" they nicknamed it. And Emy did fill it with so much love and laughter. We had Steve's 30th birthday bash there, TCU tailgates and Ashton's baby shower there too. We watched TCU win the Rose Bowl there. We swam in the pool countless times. Emy got her first bike and learned to ride there. We hunted for Easter eggs inside and out. Emerson learned to swim there.

Ashton always loved it there just as much as his sister. He loved to sit on the swing out front and watch the cars go by. Whenever we pulled up to their house he would shout "GaGa" (his name for Karen). And as soon as I got him out of the car he would run for the door...Normally to be greeted by someone waiting there with open arms.

Tonight when we went to swim the house was empty. The movers have already come and gone. The kids bolted in the front door only to stop in their tracks. Emy said, "It looks funny in here". They then proceeded to run around screaming and making sounds echo in the emptiness.

We swam and had a blast and my heart was full of pride for Emerson's accomplishments but was also heavy. This is probably the last night we do this as a family here. As we were leaving, I could not help but take a picture of the (now) blue door. It is the end of an era. But, as Karen said, "the beginning of something better. With God, the next chapter is always better." And I know she is right.

Soccer!

Emy had her first soccer practice today. This is a day that I have been both excited for and nervous about for a long time. I have been so excited for her to try a team sport (something I never did) with all the stuff that comes with it- physical activity, team spirit, following a coach, coordination- all of it. I have been nervous because Emy is Emy. She flips out every time she so much as bumps her knee. She is a daydreamer. She would sit in front of the TV all day if I let her and she absolutely has to be right all the time. I was nervous because I did not know how all this would come together.

We tried and tried and succeeded in getting her onto an existing team where she has several friends from school. I thought this would be a good start for her and she would be able to ease into things a little better that way. Steve took her shopping for her gear last night. They had a good time and Emerson came home so excited about starting.

After rest time today I was getting her dressed and she could barely contain her excitement. It made my heart happy that she was truly ready for this adventure and that it was not something that Steve or I had pushed her into. On the way to practice, I gave her a pep talk. I explained that she was to listen to what the coach said and do whatever he asked. That she was to be kind to her new friends but to make sure to participate too. And most importantly I explained that if she fell down, she needed to be brave and get right back up.

We got to practice before anyone else and I think this was good for us. It gave Emy a chance to warm up to the area and run around with Ashton. Tonight was actually an optional practice with the real practice day being on Sundays so only half the girls came. None of which were Emy's friends.

When the coach was ready to start he called all the girls over and asked them to sit on their ball while they talked. They did introductions and talked about some "rules". The rest of practice was spent playing some cute games that basically got the girls to practice kicking the ball as much as possible.

Let me just stop right here and say how wrong I was about Emerson. She was totally in the mix the entire practice. She was running and kicking and going after her ball with such enthusiasm. Every time she would take a quick water break, she would not stay long citing that she "had to go" as if she did not want to miss anything the others were doing.

She listened to her coach. She talked to the other girls. She ran the entire time. She kicked the ball and made a real effort. And when she fell, I was able to get her back into practice.

I am one proud mama tonight. And my soccer-playing husband is just beside himself.

Before practice started
(yes, I now know that shin-guards go inside the socks. that is what happens when the soccer player of the house was not home to get emy dressed)

So excited for practice to start!

Pep talk at the start of practice.

Waiting her turn to dribble to the goal

Dribbling.

Big kick!

Making new friends.

A close-up of my sock/shin-guard faux pas.

Being silly with the coach

Daddy is so proud.

Ashton in the kitchen

A few random pictures of Ashton the other day that were too cute not to post. Sorry for the terrible lighting...my kitchen is a dungeon.

Ashton really likes to watch the washing machine when it is running. It is so cute because if I start washing clothes while he is playing in the kitchen, he crawls over to it really fast to watch.

Playing with some of his books.



Hi "new face" that I just adore!

Today

(This is the reaction I got when I pulled a roly poly bug out of his mouth)

(This is the reaction I got when I told a knock-knock joke using the word "poopy" to get her to laugh)

The quality of this picture is terrible because the lighting was bad, but the moment was too sweet to pass up. Emy was playing patty-cake with Ashton after he ate. He was laughing and squealing with excitement. It was so sweet.

Pool Fun & 9mo stats

Lots of pool fun so far this summer. Emy had splash playdate with friends from school. All the girls climbed in this tiny pool at the same time. It was adorable listening to their giggles.

Ashton loves this little splash mat thing we have. He hated it at first, but now he goes nuts when he sees daddy setting up. He goes to town in it. And loves watching Emerson play with him.



And because I forgot to post them earlier, his 9 month stats are as follows:

20lbs 2oz- 42%
29.5in- 85%

Splish Splash

It was bound to happen someday. I was putting dishes away from lunch and head a splash. I knew what the sound was before Emerson even came running to tell me.

Ashton had tipped over Toby's water bowl and was playing in the mess.

By the sound of the splashing, I could tell Ash was having fun. So, being the super practical mom that I am, I grabbed the camera before the towels:)



And in other Ashton news, this is the cute face that he makes when he is concentrating. It is precious. Glad I finally caught it on camera.

Emerson's first purchase

Emerson has been really into money lately. I have been waiting for the appropriate moment to make a teachable experience out of money. That moment finally came this past weekend. We had a huge garage sale. Emerson picked out some toys to sell (more like mommy picked them out). I told her that the money she made from her toys sales she could take and use to buy a new toy. She really liked that idea.

The garage sale came and went. And was a huge success. I decided that instead of giving her the actual profits from her toys it would be easier to just do a nice round number. So, I gave her $10. We took that money to Target. In her purse. Which she held tightly the entire time.

We cruised up and down the toy aisles. She pointed out many things that she wanted. Most of which were way too expensive. (What can I say, she has mommy's taste). Anyways, after about 20 minutes of looking and debating and looking and debating, Emerson selected a new baby doll. The exact same baby that she already knows and loves. Just a different color. I am not lying.

I tried telling her that it was the same baby she already had but she was adamant. Fine. No arguing from me. There are much worse things that she could want. So, we walked to the register and Emerson made her very first purchase. All by herself. We opened the new baby as soon as we got into the car and Emy named her baby Ally.

The cutest thing about the entire experience was that when we were walking back to the car with her purchase, Emerson kept telling me how excited baby Ally was to finally have a mommy and that she was so tired of sitting on that shelf all alone:)

Without further adieu, meet baby Ally.