What we're thankful for

I know, I know, I am a few weeks late on this post.  I hadn't gotten a chance to talk about in addition to all the other stuff in our lives though, and its not like Christmas is a time to not be thankful.  Here's the details of our last 6 or so weeks.

We headed up to Iowa the day before thanksgiving.  Mom, Lela and My sister went shopping at Jordan Creek that day because they didn't want to miss the Iowa/Nebraska game on black Friday....  Bad idea.  I prefer to pretend the game didn't happen.  But if it were to have happened and Iowa were to not have showed up for most of the game making a miserable 3 hrs on black Thursday, then it would have been their fault for jinxing them by changing a holiday tradition.  Since the game never happened,  won't blame them for anything.  Anyway,  we had a great time with the fam.  Emma has 2 older cousins who are unbelievably great to her.  They love to play with her, are extremely patient with her so it is really a blessing to just watch the 3 of them interact.  Plus there is the whole Emma is entertained and worn out from trying to keep up so we get some chill time factor.  My mom also has about 20 activities for the kids to do, so Emma had a blast.  To boot, on our way back my parents bought us all tickets to Disney on Ice.  Emma didn't know a lot of the characters because when it comes to tv she has the attention span of a gnat, but she thought it was great.  We came back feeling very blessed and sad we weren't going to be able to go back for Christmas to enjoy that with everybody.  It will be too close to baby #2's arrival, so we will have to have a facetime Christmas party with the fam.

We are starting to get close to the arrival of baby #2.  So very exciting.  So very exhausting.  I am scrooge, I know but it just seems like there is so much going on with that and Christmas that sometimes I feel like we need to slow it down and get frustrated with life.  Oh and in the time honored tradition of things I do when Lela is pregnant I changed jobs.  It was a great opportunity and what I wanted to do with my life when I grow up, so I couldn't pass.  Its scary to do that though and it adds that much more going on with life, so life has been crazy at our house!  Anyway, we are excited for our little miss to join us. 

In preparation for that event we moved Emma to a big girl bed.  She looks so tiny in it, but she loves it.  Knocking on wood.  Its sort of a pain to put her to bed because reading on her bed creates a situation where she can be extra lively in bed, because like her mommy she likes to procrastinate on the whole going to sleep thing.  Random semi related  note - Emma has started requesting that I sing you are my sunshine immediately followed by the Iowa Fight song ("The Go Hawkeye song").   Again clearly Emma is turning a blind eye to the state of Iowa athletics the past month and how depressing it is.  I am glad we are raising a sunshine pumper, pun intended.


Finally, last weekend we went to see Santa.  A local Hallmark had him and I think we are the only ones who go the memo (or email) as there was nobody there to see Santa.  No line sounds great in theory, but it would have been helpful to have some examples of what to do with Santa.  Tears were appearing, it wasn't pretty.  On top of it this Santa clearly had an agenda, selling Elves on the shelf.  So while he was pushing his product on us (even though I think I told him 10 times that we were going to do it next year when there as a chance Emma might slightly understand), Emma wanted far far away.  Finally they suggested that Lela sit on his lap and have Emma sit on her.   A little creepy yes, but it was worth a try.  Then Lela claims he put his hand on her back, creepier.  Then they suggested I sit on his lap too.  We entered a new weird level of creepiness.  Anyway, we got a few pics at the bottom.  A few nights later Lela's work had a Christmas party with Santa.  Emma and I waited in line for awhile (10 min extra due to a poop break), and when we got there Emma was only a little afraid of Santa.  As we were the last ones there, and this Santa was a good Santa rather than a creepy, Elf on the Shelf peddling Santa, he talked Emma into sitting on his lap and even giving him a kiss.  So lesson learned, a good Santa won't creep you out and won't sell you stuff, he'll just talk your daughter into sitting on his lap and giving him a kiss, which somehow isn't creepy.

Emma with her hair did

Emma and Julia working hard



Emma's firs tractor ride.  With no cab.  In November.  In Iowa.  Wait, did that really happen?

Cookie decorating time

These kids endured many pictures to get to go to Disney on Ice



Pregnant Mommy

 

See, I wasn't making up his stuff



Buy this, its awesome

Fall with Emma

Sigh. I am getting progressively worse about blogging. Sometimes blogging is much harder than one would think, to me at least. Blogging has somewhat of an emotional investment to it, one that I can’t totally explain, but one that explains why to be frank I haven’t just not felt like blogging the last month or so, but rather the thought of blogging almost made me nauseous. I can probably point to a few things that may or may not cause that, but at the end of the day it is what it is, but hopefully now I am back. By the way, that paragraph was in no way meant to show emotion, because I am a man and above emotions.

Emma is a really great kid. Every morning we wake up not necessarily excited about going to work, or watching the Hawkeyes (seriously, Minnesota and ISU???), or getting lawn work done. We wake up excited because we can’t wait to see what Emma does. Will she make me sing the Iowa Fight Song 40 times or 50 (not even kidding and her daddy is very proud)? Will she run around the entire neighborhood on Halloween? Will she tell a joke that she doesn’t know is a joke but we die laughing? I can’t express how exciting every day is now. Every day she seems to be more fun than before, and its very easy to ignore that we have been told she is one of the more strong willed kids in daycare and that she fights us more than a lot of kids would because the fun far outweighs the not fun.



Emma has been very into a few things among others. She loves planes, hot air balloons, the moon and school buses. We live near an area where there are a lot of hot air balloons, a small executive airport and within a half mile of k-12 of BV West schools, so she gets to see 3 of those a lot, plus the moon is there wherever you go so those are point out to us frequently. It also turns parent's minds to mush.  As I drive to work and see more school buses, I think in my head "Schooooool Bussss!!!!!".  Only its just me and 810 radio in the car (Border Patrol style), so yeah, a little weird.



We did the whole pumpkin patch thing again this year. Again it was warm and everything is dried out because Kansas is turning into a desert. It was a short lived visit. We got the required photo and got out of there. This post is not at all jaded against the pumpkin patch visit that is required for parenting young children



The weekend before Halloween was very unique in the land of Huebner. Lela went to Charlotte to visit a friend who has an infant. Emma went to Grandpa and Grandma’s house to have some “the world revolves around me” time. and I had man time at our house to hang out and do man stuff. When I say man stuff, it no longer means what it used to. Back in the day, man time meant waking up at 9, grabbing a breakfast sandwich at mcD’s, lounging around, spending 5-10 min doing something constructive, then lounging something more with trips to chipotle in there somewhere too. Now man time means I get up no later than 7, maybe treat myself to a bagel I bought the day before, get to work on various projects around the house as soon as possible, take a break that is the length of a movie and then get after some more projects that I haven’t had time to do most weekends. Granted, there is still plenty of trips to chipotle, but they are lessened by the requirement to finish the leftovers that are in the fridge and time requirements for projects. So yeah, life is different now! Anyway, I was proud I got various projects done while the ladies were gone, including a couple painting projects which were exponentially easier without having to worry about keeping a little wasian out of the way. and while a day or 2 of solitude is a good thing for me, I was ready for the craziness that our house is many days to return. Also, it’s much easier to get over Iowa losing when I have Lela and Emma around than when the way I have to get over it is by staining a chair. And they lost. . . .not that I am bitter or anything.



And then there is Halloween. Emma was a lamb. She loved it. And we loved it, it was our first real Halloween where Emma sort of understood. Emma went to lela’s work and quickly learned that accumulating candy is fun. It was however warm there, but Emma refused to take off her “hat.” It was also unseasonably warm for trick or treating around the neighborhood, so Emma got pretty warm. Not from sitting in her wagon as we had thought, but from literally running through the neighborhood. We went to walk to a house of Lela’s coworker that is about a half mile away. Emma ran there. I thought she would be tired from that and ride home, quietly into the night. Nope. She ran all the way home, then would not go to bed as she wanted to hand out candy. She’s a crazy kid. As Ludacris once said, “She gets it from her momma” or something like that. I don’t think he was talking about energy for running either, but we’ll use it in that context.



Anyway, here are some lovely pics

Last Trip to Deanna Rose for the year

 Random bath pose

 Its amazingly entertaining to watch Emma eat bananas

 Pumpking patch time

 Happy Halloween from our favorite lamb!



Its a. . .

So we found out awhile ago, but I haven't been on the blogging boat for various reasons. As many of you know by now, we have having yet another crazy wasian gangsta princess. I don't think Lela gets this much, but whenever I tell people I get the "oh, that's so sad for you Mike" look. Maybe its the look most guys get, maybe its moreso me because I am extra masculine (I am being somewhat sarcastic), but it strikes me as a little odd as I reflect on it. Really, have you guys met Emma? I mean she is the greatest little kid ever, regardless of gender. Maybe I am not sad in the least because I don't know what I am missing, I quite frankly can't imagine life with a little boy. Maybe its because a part of me looks forward to protectiong my daughters from evil boys (I am less kidding than you probably think). Maybe its because I now never have to make the decision of when to allow a little boy to play tackle football. Maybe its because there is less risk of being hit with in the face with urine while changing a diaper. Maybe its because someday I dream of having a quiet afternoon watching non-Hawkeye games in the fall as the girls go shopping (note, when the Hawkeyes play, all members of the family watch, gender neutral style). Regardless, of which of those are more or less relevant, I am just as excited about having another girl as I would have been having a boy. Its probably a reflection on my shallowness, but because of my propensity to care a little too much about sports, the main thing that girls don't really do that boys do is football. And thanks to Title IX, that arguably gives a wasian Huebner girl a better chance at a full right athletic scholarship to the University of Iowa than a boy. And yes, I fully acknowledge that I am 35,000 steps ahead of myself and that as Lela reads this she is rolling her eyes.



Emma is a funny kid, there are very few things she can't cheer us up from. They have been learning about sizes at daycare and Emma's favorite thing she has learned from that is "Big Truck" only Tr sounds like K, and well. . you can imagine what it sounds like as we drive down the road. . .Emma also now loves to ask what things are, which is amusing now, but I am sure someday the why's might wear on us a bit:) it also appears that Emma has pretty good eyesight (knocking on wood). She sees the most small minute things and amazes us. She also loves hot air balloons, and there are a fair amount of them periodically floating around South OP. One night one even landed in the little park in our HOA and Emma was in heaven. That was 2 weeks ago and Emma still talks about that night.




Here's a few pics, I will keep up better in the coming weeks. Below Emma is sporting her first hawkeye jersey of 2011, courtesy of Grandma.



Role reversal?