Growing Like a Weed!

It's lunch time again and time for another update. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to write about today and the main thing that keeps coming to mind is how fast this little girl is growing! We've been very blessed to have received hand-me-downs from my sister-in-law, Pam, and a former high school classmate of mine, Amy.

As we've received things, I've promptly looked through everything to make a mental note of everything that we had and I sorted everything into big tubs that are stored in our basement. We had a 2 tubs of each of the main sizes (6/9 mos., 12 mos., and 18 mos.) and we have one tub of 2T and 3T clothes. The higher up we go the less we have because the hand-me-downers are still working on some of those sizes. I was even organized enough to attempt to sort the clothes in warm weather/cold weather clothes, hence 2 tubs for each of the smaller sizes. (I blabber on about this system in hopes that someone out there can learn from it... when we started getting stuff I had NO IDEA how to organize everything. With my first batch I had tubs of shirts, pants, pj's, footwear, blankets, etc... and that quickly grew out of hand once we started getting various sizes!)

So! Back to Emily. At one and a half years old, Emily was still wearing a LOT of clothes that were size 6/9 mos. She was an itty-bitty thing but mostly has/had an itty-bitty waistline. (She'll be bummed if that doesn't stick around until she's 50!) Then, all of a sudden she started growing! Apparently this Kazakh Hillbilly (as Daddy likes to call her) thrives on cold weather and lack of sunshine. She does come from the frozen tundra after all! Anyway, something happened around November/December and she had a growth spurt and almost overnight outgrew ALL of her 6/9 mos. clothes and adorned a whole new wardrobe of size 12 mos. (Really cute stuff, too!)

Emily had all sorts of new clothes to wear for Thanksgiving and Christmas and then we started noticing that a lot of her onesies were starting to get too short. Thankfully, while we were on Christmas vacation we ran across several outlet malls that carried a lot of baby clothes and I stocked up on some 18 mos. onesies that I knew were we short on in the hand-me-down department... Remember the mental notes I made??? They're important!

As I was reflecting on Emily's attire over the past couple of weeks I noticed that now a lot of her pants were getting too short for her. She was wearing 18 mos. tops with 12 mos. bottoms but it looks like she's finally going to be graduating to all 18 mos. clothes before too long. The fun part in all of this is that she still has that itty-bitty waistline and Grandma G. gets a lot of practice taking tucks in Emily's clothes. It's a good thing she keeps her sewing machine ready to go at all times!

In essence, Emily spent about 4-6 weeks wearing size 12 mos. and jumped into her bigger size. It's a good thing we didn't have to fork out tons of money for new clothes for her! Hand-me-downs rock!

Along with these wacky growth spurts, we had Miss Em re-evaluated at physical therapy. In mid-January I noticed that she was starting to do a lot of tiptoe walking again and I thought we might need more help. I also noticed when we took her to the play area at Polaris Mall that she wasn't nearly as mobile as I thought she was when compared other kids even younger than she was. The fun part with growth spurts for any kid is that their bones grow faster than their muscles and a lot of times they end up tiptoeing until they catch up with each other. In Emily's case, this takes a lot more work and a little extra help because she's had such high muscle tone all along.

Prior to the re-eval, Tom and I decided that we're going to try to take her to the play areas at Polaris Mall or Marion's Southland Mall once a week if possible so she can crawl, climb, run, etc. and pick up some tricks from seeing how other kids work on stuff like this. We're also going to kick the PT up a notch and see if we can't get the stiffness worked out before another major growth spurt kicks in.

Okaaaay, so I know you really came here for the pictures and didn't really want to read all of that without some sort of reward at the end. So, here is the chocolately center of your virtual Tootsie Pop.

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On Feb. 5, Shrove Tuesday, our church had a pancake extravaganza at the Isler's house.
Emily and I are at the far end of the table and Daddy was taking the picture. Also on the wall by the door you can see Mr. Pineapple. For some reason, this past spring Emily was really taken by this and in the middle of our Bible studies would just jabber to no end to this thing! It was pretty funny, but I guess you probably had to be there (or be me) to really enjoy it to it's full extent.

Here's a better view of Emily with her pancakes.
She was especially fond of the ones with REAL blueberries in them!
Check out how much hair she has now!

The next morning, after our tummies were properly filled, I drove Tom to the airport so he could spend a few days with a couple of pastors on a mini-retreat in FL. He had a great time, learned a lot and came back refreshed. It's a shame he had to spend so much time in such a God-forsaken place. (Yeah, that's sarcasm.)

This picture was taken from the back porch of the house they stayed in!

I picked Tom up from the airport on Saturday night and on Sunday morning he was still awake enough to inconspicuously snap a picture of me playing under the table with Emily at church! (I was a bit surprised to find this when I checked the memory stick in the camera when I was looking for pictures this afternoon!)


And, for your video enjoyment... my sister, Michelle, created this lovely little clip for Emily for Valentine's Day. I'm not sure how long they keep the link active so enjoy it while you can!

After getting inspired by Michelle, Tom decided to try his hand at this and created a little clip of all four of us strutting our stuff! Again, not sure how long it will last so enjoy it now!

Enough for now... Be Blessed!