fedex fun

we spent saturday afternoon at aaron's station for a benefit's fair/family day. tyler and aaron went early to set-up, then ibu, emma and i met up with them later. there was lots of stuff for the kids to do and plenty of giveaways for them and for the employess. tyler wore himself out running around and managed to come home with a lot of stuff.















































later that evening aaron and i had a date night at the theatre (woohoo). we went to see the opening night of the crucible put on by the great lakes theatre with aaron's parents. then we stopped by the reception afterwards to meet up with corrie and have some munchies. since ibu was home with the kids, we figured we'd make a night of it and stop by the rush inn for more drinks (don't worry i had a virgin cranberry and vodka) and munchies after the reception-it was only 12:30. talk about a late night, but it was worth it!

you'll shoot your eye out!

michelle's last day here was yesterday, and we made it a memorable one by going to visit the a christmas story house. it was pretty neat to see where they filmed some of the scenes, and the tour guide was sweet enough to allow us to touch and feel everything. i think we picked the perfect time to go, because it was just us and 3 other people taking the tour. apparently, over christmas time it gets pretty crazy and there's barely any room to move around. they've already had over 60,000 visitors since the opening in 2005, and i'm sure there will be plenty more in the future.




































































afterwards, we wandered around close to downtown and came across a newly opened asian supermarket, park to shop supermarket. it's kind of like uwajimaya or the ranch 99 store in seattle. there's hardly any indonesian items (i saw one), but plenty of stuff i can work with. if you can't tell, i'm VERY excited about this opening, because it's been so hard to find all the right ingredients to some of my cooking or fulfill some of my "asian" cravings (e.g. dried seaweed, furikake, miso). plus they have rice in very large amounts for cheap...perfect. this last photo is of emma in her sunglasses-she looks so cool. she's finally able to understand its purpose so she's pretty good about keeping it on her face. this photo was on our way home from visiting our 3rd (yes, that's right, our 3rd) H&M this week...just for michelle.

fish, snakes and more

yesterday emma and i took ibu and aunty michelle to the lake erie nature and science center. we like going there, because there's just enough for emma to see and it's free admission. we saw the snakes and the fish indoors, but also ventured outdoors to see the deer, owls, rabbits, fox, eagle, and such. while outside, we came across a duck pond, and emma was absolutely overcome by them...like she couldn't believe what she's seeing.

company

my dear mother and sister, michelle, arrived last thursday for a visit. since then, we've been busy going here and there, doing this and that, so there hasn't been much blogging lately. here's a recap of the weekend....

after letting emma stay up WAY past her bedtime thurs. night, we mostly chilled at the house fri. we dropped by the library, then had dinner at sakura japanese restaurant. emma couldn't get enough of the miso soup and sushi ginger, and i couldn't get enough of the tempura. yum!






































saturday, we took michelle to h&m then had some thai hut for dinner (another one of emma's favorites). easter sunday was pretty busy. emma started her day dancing with her aunty in her esater dress.






































we didn't do an easter basket for emma or anything since she's still a bit too young to quite understand the whole concept. plus, we didn't want to detract from what easter is really about. i think next year we'll put a little something together for her since she'll be old enough to comprehend the basics of the easter story. she did however score some easter eggs from church and couldn't get over those plastic eggs.














we then drove down to gram and paps for a fabulous lunch and family time. with 3 dogs and 2 toddlers running around, the house was a happening place. emma loved the piano and showed off her vocal skills while playing. who knew? ben and emma also shared some piano time and did a great job of singing together...i heard some lovely harmonies.















by the end of the day, everyone was pooped. just check out these sleeping beauties on the ride home.

it's magic

tuesday night, the kids and i went to see jonathan curtis who performed a some very impressive illusions (though i don't think emma really cared too much). tyler even got to be a participant in one of his tricks. i would have taken a photo, but i wasn't sure if i was supposed to or not since it was a performance. i did, however, take a few photos of the kids running around before the show started. emma really holds her own among all those boys.

east meets west

emma's lunch menu for today:
peanut butter and jelly sandwich
california rolls
sushi ginger (she kept asking for "more ginger" even after she finished ALL of it, leaving me only a few nibbles)

college cook-out

we decided to host a sunday cook-out this past sunday for some fabulous collegiate guys and gals from arkansas who are up in our neck of the woods over their spring break. it was a lot of fun having everyone over to hang out and eat some burgers and dogs prepared by master chef, aaron.







































































on this same sunday, emma also received her easter gift from gram and pap: a hello kitty purse complete with a comb, brush, compact mirror, and hair clips. what more can a girl ask for? she loves the zipper and enjoys taking this out and putting things in. currently, she has her brush, comb, compact mirror, lip gloss (sealed of course), and mobile. everything a girl on the go would need, i guess. i showed her how to "put on" her lip gloss, and now she'll take it out of her purse, pucker her lips and "smear" her face with the gloss. too cute.

more adventures in reading

mysteries and sesame street...the girl likes variety.

it came full force

the nausea. it came in its full glory this past week. i thought i was in the clear for this pregnancy. especially since i told my midwife last week that i had only experienced very minimal nausea. ha, ha, ha. the past 2 days, i've been eating just as much as emma for dinner. i really am much hungrier than a 4 oz. portion sized dinner, but nothing sounds good. i've been force-feeding myself some saltines and bread, but i can't quite figure out what else i can stomach yet. this and this have helped relieve some of the nausea. regular ginger ale, on the other hand, like this one has not helped at all. i think i need a much stronger dose of ginger. ooh, fruit smoothies sound good...no gag reflex thinking about that one.

reeeeaaaad?

emma's daily request is to read, read, read. and of course she *has* to prolong the word and enunciate the "d" at the end. just in case she didn't get her point across the first time. i don't ever mind reading to her (except when i'm trying to get dinner together). i'm SO glad she LOVES books! we can read the same story 2-3 times in a day, or sometimes we read different books up to 5 times a day. did i mention i can recite most of "one fish, two fish...," "go dog go," and "where the wild things are" (to name a few) from memory? this has to be a valuable skill for when i return to the workforce full-time. i know employers are all scrambling to find someone who has a library of children's books memorized in her head.

sledding sunday

after the storm cleared out saturday night, we decided to go on a sledding adventure sunday afternoon. the walk to the hill was VERY, VERY long, but we made it. emma was a bit hot and cold about the whole situation. sometimes she was really into the snow and the sled, other times she just wanted to be held. she did manage to go down a wee hill with aaron. both tyler and aaron managed to get a few runs down the hill, though the trek back to the top was definitely tiresome. by the end of the day, we were all worn out and ready to settle in our jammies for the evening.

as always, more photos of our adventures on flickr.

drink up buttercup

emma's 2nd attempt at drinking out of (non-sippy)cup. this time, there weren't as many spills, and she kept asking for more refills. maybe if she drinks enough then she'll feel compelled to use her potty, which has pretty much been forgotten now.

going somewhere?

sillies

emma and tyler taken over by the sillies tonight before her bedtime.

when will it end??

since yesterday afternoon, we have been hit with snow, snow, snow. according to the news yesterday, the whole STATE of ohio has been issued a winter storm warning through sunday. it has been snowing non-stop, with plenty of wind to top it off. i think we've gotten at least 2 feet of snow so far. good thing i'm not traveling anywhere this time around, eh? we did venture out in the afternoon for oren's 1 year birthday party, though we did not linger too long. during our brief adventure in the snowy terrain, we saw a number of cars stuck in the snow. it's times like these where i'm thankful we have a 4-wheel drivin' suv.
















































speaking of oren, here's the second t-shirt i embroidered for him. notice the last photo below almost looks like the first EXCEPT that the horseshoes are upside down. that was the first one i embroidered until aaron kindly pointed out my mistake. hey, i don't know these things. i'm not originally from this country...english wasn't even my first language...so i would say it was an honest mistake.

visit number one

had my first pre-natal visit w/ the midwife today. since this is my second time around everything was quick and straight to the point. just the way i like it. the only downside this time is that there are now 8 midwives @ the hospital instead of 3...yikes. that means that my chances of getting my usual midwife for delivery will decrease, because i'll be getting whoever is on call. but it's still better than the 30 some OBGYNs that are there (and there's no way i'll be able to meet that many during my whole pregnancy). at least whoever delivers the baby won't be a complete stranger. we did talk briefly about waterbirths. depending on the midwife i can either labor and deliver in the tub or just labor in the tub...interesting. i'm sure soaking in warm water would help w/ the labor pains...maybe if my labor is long enough this time around i'll try it.

saturday snow day

building snowmen (well...a snow family), sledding down steps, and some snowball fighting. all in a day's work.

embroidery t-shirt

this is one out of two toddler t-shirts i'm embroidering for a toddler birthday present. i didn't have time to order a pre-made design so i did this one myself.