The Higgins Family: June 2014

I am posting a day earlier than normal because the Higgins family is officially on VACATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are headed to Austin in a few hours for the weekend and then will make our way down to the Texas coast and will spend the week on South Padre Island with my family! I will pop in this week for E's 21 month post =)

New Car

Our biggest news this week is that we got a new (used) car for me! I have been driving my Honda CR-V for 10 years and it needed $1,200 of work done. We knew that we wanted/needed a new family car by the time we had baby number two (I am NOT pregnant!!) and figured this was a good time to go for it since my car wasn't worth a whole lot more than the cost of the repairs. We have been looking for a good month and found the perfect Chevrolet Traverse for us! I LOVE it so much!

Car shopping is tiring! Passed out after doing some test driving.

Loving our new car!

E's favorite part of the new car, the DVD player

Last Sunday

Last Sunday Kiki stopped by for a quick visit while she was in town for some volunteer work. She came during Embry's nap and Embry was excited to see another playmate when she woke up! That morning Jacob got up and went to his office to work right away. He had a huge trial on Monday, so after Kiki left that afternoon Embry and I went on a little Mommy and Me date to let Jacob get a few more hours of work in. (I know pretty much every day is a Mommy and Me date for Embry, but we usually don't eat out just the two of us, hah!)

Stories with Kiki

Tea party with Kiki

We stopped by Whole Foods and they were sampling vegan chocolate dipped cookie dough bites....Embry was signing and saying "mo" at the same time! Hah!

We ate at Chipotle (and brought home for Daddy) then went out for FroYo!

Baby blues =)

Trampoline

Monday morning while scanning Facebook I saw a little trampoline for sale for just $7.00 on one of the neighborhood Facebook resale groups. I jumped on it (ha-ha-ha) and picked it up that afternoon. To say Embry loves it is quite the understatement. Jacob told me he's shocked I bought such a big toy (he knows I'm not into clutter) but it folds up completely flat and can easily slide under a bed, in a closet, etc. Here are some videos of E enjoying our latest deal!

First Chick-fil-A

Not sure how Embry made it a full 20 months without eating at Chick-fil-A since it's pretty much the kids meal mecca of the USA, hah! We just don't eat out all that much, especially during the week. But, Monday Eliot didn't go to school and the four of us ran some errands together then ate lunch at Chick-fil-A. Embry also managed to go up the play scape and down the big slide by herself! So fun!

She ate all four nuggets and most of her fruit cup. Oh and ALL of her chocolate milk ;)

HI Eliot!

Library FUN

At story time each week, Jenna (the Children's Librarian) always does a great job of getting the kids up and moving. When she was on maternity leave last summer they had a non-children's librarian fill in and she was AWFUL. She read stories for the ENTIRE 30 minutes straight and would get on to kids for not sitting still, making noises, etc. Anyway, Jenna is awesome and it's majority songs, finger plays, games, etc... then she always incorporates 2-3 books in one theme. Well there are about 3 songs that we do every single week and I sing them with Embry at home too. She has always loved to participate in the "shakey egg" song (heck since she could hold the eggs) but this week she blossomed and stood at the front dancing and doing the motions to ALL the songs! It was so fun to watch. So below are a TONNNN of videos. I just couldn't stop! Hah!

Fever Girl

Friday we had a crazy morning. First of all Embry woke up at 6:00 am. Ugh! She's been so good at sleeping well past 7:00 am for awhile now. Anyway, she was pleasant and happy luckily because we were meeting Lauren and Eliot and a photographer at the Arboretum for pictures of the kids. (We each bought a Living Social deal a few months ago for this!) We didn't do any pictures together, just did our sessions at the same time, knowing the kids would make each other smile. Anyway, Embry was GREAT and I am dying to see the pictures.

We finished just in time to get in the car and race over to Lakeside Baptist for my book study. Embry happily went into class, but requested lovey go inside with her. When I went to pick her up at 11:30 I scanned the room for her and panic set in. I made eye contact with one of the teachers and she pointed to a crib right next to screaming children. They proceeded to tell me she fell asleep ON THE FLOOR about a half hour earlier and they moved her to the crib. SOOOOOOOOOOOOO unlike her. She usually needs 3 loveys, Minnie, sleep sack, paci, sound machine, lights off, etc..... I should have known then something was wrong with her. But I woke her up and we went home where she picked at her lunch. She was running a 99.4 fever so I gave her Motrin and she went back down for a 2 hour nap. Early evening I could tell when her medicine wore off because she felt hot and she was up to 100.4. (So far this morning- Saturday- she doesn't seem feverish and is acting normal).

Back to school, back to school.... =)

Angel baby!

Photos

Sunday afternoon naps are the best

Monday morning I turned on a show for Embry so I could go shower after working out. I heard her making a big commotion and turns out she carried her chair halfway across our house and was about 2 inches from the TV. Hah.

Serious girl

Embry loves her puppet from Mimi and Papa

Embry, the ventriloquist

Sweet girl ready to go have a fun day!

Our new routine is Jacob, E and A go for a run right when Jacob gets home. Before they go, Jacob does pull ups and push ups. He told me for a few days Embry has been doing pushups with him. Finally caught it on camera =)

Sweet praying girl

Can you spot her current favorite little doll??

Filled up the water table for some fun this week!

Little dolly smelling the flowers

This very old, pretty gross lion is her favorite. It "lives" at Lucky Dog books and she always runs straight to it and carries it around the store with us.

Coloring on my to do lists....

Yeah, we're working on the hands-on-the-hips pose =)

Cutest little preppy girl

Doing "makeup" with a cotton ball

A girl and her dog =)

Another trip to Steel City Pops this week with Lauren and Eliot

E had vanilla this week and I had cheery sour cream....oh my!

FaceTime with Aunt Tomi and "Aunt" Amalia

Videos

Swim Lessons: Part Two

This was our second week of "Mommy & Me" swim lessons. This week was definitely better than the second part of last week. She was excited when we'd arrive at the pool each day and would even give her teacher, Mr. Micah, a high five each day (which she wouldn't do last week, hah)! It was a fun 2 week session, but I'm not sure she learned a WHOLE lot. I am glad that we had two weeks at the beginning of summer to get into the pool every day and get reacquainted with the pool =)

Miss Priss

Playing at the splash park before class started

Tuesday bikini with bun pigtails, cutest!

She dosed off on the 10 minute drive home Tuesday

Running to lessons with dolly

Last day of lessons with a sassy swimsuit

That little belly :)

Outings

Swim lessons kept us very busy again this week, but we still managed to have some pretty fun outings. The Ringling Brothers Circus clowns put on an awesome (free) show at the library like they did last year to advertise the circus coming to town in August. It was in the afternoon so our bud Eliot met us there =) Wednesday we met Lauren and Eliot at a new popsicle place in a cool part of town (supposedly popsicles are the new cupcake) and then we all headed to Lucky Dog books afterwards for our free book of the day! Thursday before our last day of swim lessons, we met my friend, Ashli, for breakfast at a cute little diner where the kids pancake was a MICKEY pancake. So fun. I started a book club with some of my MOPS group for the summer and we meet Fridays for two hours and have free childcare! Woo Hoo! Embry was in the same class as she was during MOPS, so had no problem being left. That morning though, right when I got out of the shower our power went out! We had over an hour until book club started so we packed up and went to McDonald's for breakfast and to let her play. Lastly, Saturday we went and used a Groupon deal for a Hibachi place, and let's just say Embry wasn't so impressed with the fire "show"...hah! Poor thing.

Love how she's watching Eliot and not the clown! Hah!

Cheering for the clowns juggling!

Mesmerized

She LOVED the clown show, but wasn't so sure about taking a picture with them.

Gotta love a comparison pic! Different clowns, similar expression on Embry ;)

Walking to Steel City Pops, Eliot too E's hand and helped Embry "not get in the mud" (despite there being ZERO mud around, haha Lauren and I were dying)

Lemonade popsicle for the win! (Mommy had pineapple jalapeno, omg!)

Baby Belle ;)

Mickey pancake =)

Hovering over some ornery little boys at the McD's playground

Then she started scrubbing the floor....oh brother.

FIRE!

A little nervous still

Dallas Children's Aquarium

Saturday morning Lauren and I both had working husbands and decided we had to get the kids out of the house! We'd been to the Children's Aquarium once and it was perfect for young toddlers. I ended up spending the $20 for the year long pass (wish I would have done it when I went a few months ago). But three reasons this place is awesome- it's SO close (about a 6 minute drive), it's nice and COOL inside, and it opens at 9:00 am! And when your child is up at 7 am, it's nice to have somewhere to go early. We killed 2.5 hours with the kiddos and we all four had a good time!