Christmas Cookies

I promised Emma we would make cookies when I got home from work today so... here are her creations. If you look closely you will see that no one was watching her with the sprinkles. Oh, and you will notice in the first picture the snow plastered to our slider because it's a blizzard here!

Snow Day?

Well we were supposed to get some huge ice/freezing rain/ snowstorm last night and this morning with 5-12 inches accumulation...didn't happen. We had some sort of freezing drizzle from 3 am until about 8 am and some snow after that, but the roads were still ok enough for school. The 3 schools here within 10 miles of our house were the only 3 schools in a 60-70 mile radius that were open! So Matt went to work and now I get to work tonight until 11:45. I also got my schedule for next week and I have a whopping 33 hours! So my only 2 days off are Monday and Christmas. I did tell them I could work on Matt's days off, so I guess it's my fault. I'm not complaining too much though since hours will be drastically cut the second week in January.

The girls are both doing good. Emma is actually understanding the concept of Santa bringing presents. The only thing she wants is a sucker...if I had only known that before I got her a ton of stuff! I am more excited for Christmas this year because the girls are old enough to maybe enjoy opening presents and playing together Christmas morning. These are a few pictures from the last snow storm we got before Thanksgiving. Isabella looks a little unsure about the whole snowsuit and about the sled, but I assure you all she was squealing while we pulled her on the sled.

15 days til christmas....

Well now that it's almost Christmas I guess I should post a Happy December! It has been an eventful past few weeks. We had Thanksgiving dinner at my grandma's house and then I had to work at 4:30 the next morning. I've basically been working the past few weeks until last weekend.

I went to put Isabella down for her nap and my back decided to stop working. Thankfully I dropped her in her crib and she stayed asleep! I then spent 10 minutes trying to crawl out of her room. Once I made it to the living room I grabbed the phone and called matt to come home since I couldn't stand up. Of course this whole time Emma was afraid and starting to cry because I was sobbing and couldn't get up. A few hours later I was able to stand and take a few steps and Matt took me to the chiropracter. He confirmed what I had suspected I had a severly pinched nerve in my lower back. Now I must say this happened on Friday and it is now Wednesday and I am still in pain. Matt was gone Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday for training so I had to do all the picking up of the girls, so I don't know if that added to me still being in pain, but I am. This has been worse than childbirth!

I have also been trying to get a good picture of the girls for a Christmas card, but I don't know if that's going to happen. Isabella does NOT sit still for longer than 2.3 seconds! On the other hand Emma is very good at posing for pictures now so I do get good pictures of her. So we shall see if I can get a picture together to send out cards before Christmas. I am running out of time now though. Here are a few of the blooper shots. Hope everyone is doing well and getting geared up for the holidays.

Isabella's Birthday Update

We had Ella's 1 year checkup on Friday...She was 22lbs. 9 oz. (75th percentile) and 30 inches (80th percentile). So she is getting big! She is pretty much running now and is very active. She also says: mama, dada, hi, bye, baby and also moos and barks. She continues to be a good baby and only crys when her sister takes her toys away or when she's hungry. This kid could go days without sleeping as long as she has food in her tummy she's happy.

Emma is doing good as well. She puts complete sentences together now and still loves books and reading. Matt took her to see her first movie last week while I was working. I'm happy to report she made it through the whole movie without moving. She also knows most of her colors, letters and can count to about 12.

I'm posting a few pictures here from the party and I'll try and get the rest up today or tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Baby!

Today is Isabella's 1st birthday! She is a very busy girl and will not really hold still for pictures, but here are a few I got today. I'll post another one sometime this weekend with her stats from her doctors appt. and pictures from her party.

Cold, Snowy, Sick and Tired!!

I know....it's a horrible sounding title for this post, but it's the honest truth. First it is freezing cold now and it snowed last night, although it thankfully didn't stick! And thanks to stupid daylight savings time ending Matt and I are both painfully sleep deprived! The girls are waking up at normal time, but that has now become 6:30 am... I have also had a very busy week of working non-stop. Not to mention all us girls got sick while Matt was gone last week at work training.

Ok, so that's enough of that. Isabella turns 1 this week!!! I cannot believe it has been a whole year already. We are having a party this weekend for her and she also has her 1 year checkup on Friday, so I'll post her new stats then.

Trick or Treat

So I guess I'm just a bad mother. I didn't get any pictures of Isabella in her costume and only a couple of Emma before we left for trick or treating. Emma would barely stand still and we only went to a few houses, so not so many pictures. It was also Isabella's bedtime when trick or treating started and she was crabby by the time we got home. So for your viewing pleasure the only good picture of Emma in her costume. I'll try and dress them up in the next few days and get some more pictures. She's a monkey by the way....

Pumpkins or punkins (as Emma calls them)

Yesterday we had some friends come over with their girls and we all carved pumpkins. Isabella of course wanted to eat all the guts and Emma lost interest after the other girls got here, but we all had fun. Once I finished the first pumpkin (the one that says BOO!) we put a light in it and then that was the hit of the night. Here are a few pictures. I'm going to put the rest up in a new folder on the Picasa site.

Happy 11 Months!

I took some pictures on monday, which was Isabella's 11 month birthday. She is now walking and trying to run after Emma all day. I posted some of the pictures on the picasa site under "Isabella First Year". I want to try and get some video of her walking and put it up. She was also smiling for the camera this morning, so I'll try and get those up later.

This one is right before running to me:Look at the lips on this kid...And finally, this one was really cute...not so much with me in it, but the girls.

Pumpkin Party

On Sunday we went to a friend's daughter's birthday party. They had it at a local farm with fall activities. There was a hayride and some stuff for the kids to play with. On our way out we stopped and got a few pumpkins. Hopefully I'll get some time off in the next 2 weeks so we can carve them. Here are a few pictures from this weekend.

Hello October

Well it's October already and boy is time flying by this year! Isabella turns 1 next month and Emma is almost completely potty trained! Just a quick note to let you all know that I finally got some new pictures up on the Picasa site. They are under the folders: The girls, Isabella and Emma 2. Hope you enjoy!

The address: http://picasaweb.google.com/seggers12

Grandpa Visits

So my dad and his wife visited last week. They left for home last Monday, but I've had a busy weekend of work, so this is my first chance to post. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful while they were here, unlike the turn it has taken today.

We went to John Ball Park Zoo in Grand Rapids last Friday. We stopped and ate a nice lunch at Olive Garden first so we got to the zoo a little late. We only had about 2 hours to walk around before they closed, but as anyone who has been there before knows 2 hours is PLENTY of time to see that zoo. I'm happy to report Emma did not have a single accident the whole time we were gone. She wore a pull-up just in case, but it was still dry when we got home.

Saturday we went apple picking. Nothing too involved. Just a quick trip to the back of the orchard for some Empire apples. They are my absolute favorite apples in the whole world! Sunday everyone went to the beach in the morning while Isabella and I hung out at the house. I made a nice chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and corn on the cob and Isabella took a nice nap. Then Monday Matt and Emma went to drop them off at the train station for their long trip back to Washington. Of course after waiting for the train for an hour they finally called Amtrak and found out the train was still an hour and a half away. So we packed up the car real quick and drove to Chicago to get them to Union Station to catch the train to Washington. We made it to Chicago in record time, dropped off our company and headed to Ikea.

Had a good time shopping at Ikea, but had to get going to avoid traffic....yeah right. Of course we were stuck in some crappy traffic on the way home, but still made it home for dinner. Now today I am still trying to recover from the last week and a half. I worked Wednesday and Friday nights and all day Saturday and Sunday. And now I am being paged by Ella. Still working on all the pictures. Here are a couple from the zoo and apple picking.

Quick Update

So we started some serious potty training last Saturday and I am happy to report that Emma is pretty much potty trained. She had a couple of accidents Sunday morning, mostly because she wasn't telling us when she had to go. She has been wearing diapers overnight, but has woken up dry every morning but 1. The best thing is that she now hates to put a diaper on and would rather wear big girl undies! I have a few new pictures and I'm going to try and get them on the Picasa site tonight. My dad will be here tomorrow night so I probably won't have much time to blog or put pictures up for a few days. Oh, and not to forget the baby, but Isabella is now taking a few steps at a time by herself. It will probably be a few more weeks before she's running, but she is pretty mobile. She also likes to climb on the couch and crawl around now. There is a picture of her on the couch with the remotes and she did all of that herself.

September already?

Wow how the summer has flown by....I realized at work last night that school starts today. Thankfully I don't have any kids in school yet, but wow, summer is over. Since I started working it seems like time is going by faster. I have less time at home with Matt and the girls because I'm working almost all day every weekend. I'm trying to not let it bother me since we really need the money, but I feel like I'm missing my girls growing up. Emma will be 2 and a half next month and Isabella turns 1 in 2 short months.

A quick update on the girls...Emma is still working on potty training but is really more interested in playing and talking than the potty chair. She is very petite still...only weighing 26 pounds and only tall enough for 18 month size pants. Isabella on the other hand weighs 22 pounds and is only about 3-4 inches shorter than Emma. She is 9 and a half months right now and is almost walking! She can stand up by herself and will turn and kind of take a few steps, but isn't quite there yet. Emma is also mastering the alphabet and is starting to spell small words. She knows most of her colors and can count to 10. I guess she will just be my genius midget.

My dad will be here to visit in a few weeks so I hope to have all the pictures organized by then, but keep in mind my hours have doubled at work lately since people have gone back to school. So I will do what I can on my days off.

Nothing New

Realized I hadn't posted in a while, but that's because nothing has been going on. Well not nothing, but nothing exciting. Just work, naps, playing and sleeping. I'm still trying to get the pictures edited and moved to the desktop computer. I have been a little less than motivated to work on the computer since I can't start doing any of it until Emma is in bed and lately that has been almost 9pm. She has been driving me nuts lately as she seems to be in her peak of the terrible 2's! I have also been trying to work on some genealogy stuff in between pictures, so it's just taking longer than I want. Here's Isabella eating magnets off grandma's fridge.

Happy Birthday/ Dave Matthews

So my birthday was on Friday and I picked up a shift and went to work. I know, I know, but I need the money. Besides we had plans for this weekend anyway. Yes, Matt and I went out of town overnight without the girls!!! My mom came and stayed while we drove down to Noblesville (Indiana) and saw a Dave Matthews Band concert. The last concert we went to was in New York on our honeymoon. We used to go to at least 1 every summer, but haven't in the last couple of years because of babies. I must say it was an awesome concert. The band was in rare form....well different from what I've seen the previous 5 times. Dave actually put his guitar down for the last song and danced around the stage. Even Matt had never seen him do that before and he's seen twice as many concerts as I have. They also covered a Beatles song (Money, that's what I want). Needless to say it was a great concert, one of my favorites. It was also nice for us to spend some time together doing something we used to always do before kids. So thank you very much grandma and Ashley for coming and helping!!!!

Bunnies and sheep and pigs...oh my!

It's been a while since I posted, but I have a few good reasons: both girls have been sick for over a week now and matt and I are both getting it. I have also been working, so there. Last weekend Emma had another repeat of her waking up with a really high fever. We had plans for that sunday though...we had to pick grandma up from the airport so we were gone all day. When we finally got home her fever was 103.7. So we drugged her up and I took them both to the doc. the next day. They thought she had strep throat, but the test was negative. Isabella had double ear infections and she was really congested and snotty.

They were feeling better by thursday so we went to the Van Buren County Youth Fair. It's the fair I always went to when I was younger because my cousin's showed pigs there. Some friends of ours went with us and we had a good time. The friends that went with us are both pregnant and due in a few weeks and man was I glad I'm not pregnant!! When we got in the car to go home the temp. said 97!! Once we finally got going down the road it was 91! Add to that the humidity was about 90%, so I'm sure it actually felt like 100 and some degrees. Needless to say it was hotter than @%&*!

Here are a few pictures from the fair. We got to hold a chicken and pet some bunnies. We also saw sheep, pigs, cows and horses. I am still working on the picasa website and editing pictures. I will post when it's done.

Happy 4th of July!

We had a very busy few days and I am now finding time to post some pictures. Matt had Thursday and Friday off this week and of course I had to work those nights, but we still had fun. We went to Grand Haven on Thursday for a quick trip. We took our rings in to the jewelry store and walked downtown a little. Then we had a nice lunch at BW3's....mmm....chicken wings. We got home just in time for me to get ready for work. Friday we went to the parade in South Haven. We invited our friends Nick and Faith and their 2 little girls to come with us. Grandma was out of town, so we partied at her house. We also met Amanda and Jocelyn and sat with them at the parade. After the parade we grilled out at my mom's and then headed home for me to work.

Saturday we hung out at the house and pretty much did nothing. Well I did about 6 loads of laundry and some cleaning. Today we went cherry picking and then came home and had some very good grilled salmon with wild rice and peas. It was the perfect end to the weekend, well the food and the fact the girls were so tired they passed out and haven't made a peep.

Hope everyone had a great 4th. Here are some pictures:

The Binky Fairy!

So the binky fairy came to visit on Wednesday night. For those of you who don't know the concept. You gather up all your binkies (pacifiers) put them in a special bag and set them out for the binky fairy to come and get them. She takes them and gives them to all the babies in the world that need binkies. Then she leaves a special surprise in the bag for you in the morning.

Well this sounds like a super idea and your kid goes along with it until she gets into bed and asks for her binky. Then she throws a freaking tantrum when you tell her they are gone. Then after an hour or so of screaming and fighting she finally falls asleep only to wake up at 1:30am screaming for a binky!! It has been a couple of days now and she finally gets the concept that they are for babies and she doesn't ask for it, but she's still being a pain in the butt about going to bed. Although she has been more difficult to get to bed lately anyway. So hopefully by next week she stops waking up in the middle of the night and Matt and I can finally get some sleep again.

Oh, Emma got a travel aqua doodle, a princess crown with some matching jewelry and an elephant webkinz. Ella also got a hippo webkinz. She doesn't use binkies but there was 1 small sized binky left so we put it in too. We also have been collecting hippo's for Ella and elephant's for Emma and when the fairy saw both of them together at the store she just had to get them for the girls.

Yet another new trick

Yes, Isabella has another new trick. She is already pulling herself up on furniture....be afraid, very afraid. She's going to be walking in no time. We had an exciting weekend as Emma woke up Saturday morning with a 101.3 degree fever! She was of course wide awake screaming at 6:30 am and I of course had to work from 11-3. Oh, and for those of you who don't know I am working again (well outside of our home work) at Old Navy. Just part-time a few days a week and only when Matt is home with the girls. Anyway, Emma laid low on Saturday and took some Advil a few times. She woke up Sunday feeling like her usual self so we went to my grandparent's house for dinner. It was a nice quiet day.

We also got our new camera last week, so I've been taking a ton of pictures. I am also trying to reorganize all our photos both on the computer and on the website. This means I haven't been putting much up lately, but they will be up soon. We are also trying to get the computer in a better set up so I can edit the pictures more easily. Here are a few new pictures of the girls to satisfy you until I get them all up.

Quick note about the last picture. Emma doesn't like the flash or noise that the new camera makes, so I have about 30 pictures of her doing some variation on this face. Once I get a better picture of her I'll put it up.

2 Mobile Kids

Well Isabella finally started to crawl forward. She's been rolling around and going backward for a few weeks now, but last week she finally went forward. She is still a little wobbly and not real fast yet, but she is moving. I have to get the video camera out and when I get some footage I will post it. For now here are a few pictures from this weekend. We went to a D-day reenactment on Saturday and have a few pictures.

Random Pictures

I have a few new pictures to put up. I haven't had time to update the picasa yet because that requires me to organize the pictures first and that requires work! There are some pictures of Emma on her new swingset and some of the girls in the bath tub.