Sorry, been a while!!

I always seem to go in spurts.. I update the blog every other week for a while, then I get behind and forget all about it. :S
Updates:
We are still doing good and we are loving this awesome weather. Last week and part of this week is has been 60-70's! We have been outside a lot. We have been on walks, Avree has been riding her motorized "four wheeler" and playing in her sand box. But I heard that next week we might get snow!? WHAT! This is crazy weather!
This weekend Emmersen will be 6 months old!! I can't believe it. I for sure think the second time around goes MUCH faster! I really feel like she should only be 2 months old! She is sitting up for a short amount of time by herself and she is doing this "backwards scoot" where she arches up her back and kicks/pushes her feet and she moves all throughout the room. Pretty funny to watch but also a bad thing, cause she WON'T sit still and stay in one place if you lay her down. She LOVES her big sister and cracks up laughing at her.. even when Avree isn't being funny. :-) I love how Emmersen lights up when she sees Avree.. melts my heart! So glad they will have eachother growing up.

Avree will be 3 here in another week and a half! CRAZY! She is becoming quiet the "little lady". She is such a sweetheart and is always doing things to help mommy, daddy or baby sis out. :-) She still has her "moments" and is stubborn and still a little shy, but when she opens up she is such a wonderful little girl!

Matt and I are truely blessed with amazing, healthy girls!

At the beginning of March, we went to the Great Wolf Lodge with my Dad/Barb, Shelly/Jay, Steph/Luke. We had so much fun and the kids loved being able to run around and swim.
(the pictures I took inside the indoor water park are really foggy)
Avree and Kaiya going down the slide-

Aunt Shelly and Em-

The guys did this all weekend... played cards

Emmersen really liked Luke! :-)

We also ate at the TRex restaurant..

The same weekend that we went to The Great Wolf Lodge, we also got Emmersen baptized. She did GREAT and of course was so adorable in her white dress. We asked "Uncle TT" (Matt's youngest brother) and "Aunt Shelly" (my sister) to be her Godparents.
Here are a few (from my little camera) pictures from the baptism:

Sickness hit the Melhus Girls!

Last week Thurs, Avree started getting a mild cough and a runny nose (clear). Well it kept getting worse and Friday night she had a temp. It didn't last very long.. maybe an hour or two but her cough was sounding worse and worse.
On Monday, I was talking to Barb (Nama McCulla) and she has told us that "Aunt Steph" (Kaiya's mom/Barb's daughter) got Bronchitis the day after we were at her house. (We went back to Pella the 1st weekend in Feb, for Kaiya's bday party).
We had a Dr appt Monday night for Avree, so I thought for sure Avree had bronchitis since she was exposed to it. But I was surprised when the Dr said her lungs and ears were clear, but her throat was red. She has a throat infection (not strep). He gave us a prescription and we were on our way.
Well Emmy started getting a cough too and it was starting to sound like Avree's. So the next day (Tuesday) I made an appt for her. I figured it was probably a throat infection... NOPE.. A double ear infection and the starting phase of bronchitis!! I couldn't believe it (well actually I could, but I couldn't believe Avree didn't catch bronchitis but poor little 4.5 month old Em did!) They didn't want to wait for a prescription to kick in, so they had to give her an antibiotic shot! I felt so bad for her, cause just last week she had to get a couple shots and now another one a week later! Poor thing! She wasn't very happy and had a hard time falling asleep last night. Thankfully she hasn't been fussy (her normal, smiley self) and is eating and sleeping fine!!
We are *hopefully* on the mends and Avree will be going back to school tomorrow! (yay, for me) I am just so glad I decided to make another appt on Tues (we were just at the Dr monday night for Avree), otherwise I am sure Em would have gotten a bad cause of bronchitis (just because she is so little).
Hope you all stay healthy :-)

Dr. Appt

Well Emmersen FINALLY had her 4 month check up.. more like 4 1/2 month check up :) She was suppose to have her dr appt last week but we had to reschedule cause of the "big snow storm" we were getting.
She had to get her 4 month shots too, which I hate! I always had Matt come with me to Avree's dr appts when she had to get shots (I think he missed one) and he started coming with me to Emmersen's too but he wasn't able to make it to her 4 month shot appt. But big sister Avree was with me :-) Avree first started off sitting with Emmersen on the table, but then Avree started getting a little worried that she was getting some shots too. She kept asking if it was baby Emmy getting the shots and not her. :-)
Emmersen did great with the shots, cried for a couple seconds and that was it! Yay!
We have confirmed she is our short, little "beaner" :-) She was measured at 23 3/4 inches long (10-25%) and weighing in at a whopping 11 lbs 13 oz (5-10%). So she isn't going to be as tall as big sister Avree but that is ok! :-) As long as she is healthy (which she is!), that's all we care about.
Well nothing else new in the Melhus household... same old, same old :-)

4 months old!

I know I have said this SO many times with Avree and now I am going to be saying it with Emmersen.. I can't believe how old and how fast she is growing!
Emmersen is 4 months old now and is such a petite little thing :-) I think she got the Melhus gene for height. But her height and weight together are proportionate, which is good! She weighs about 11 pounds 5 oz (I will get her exact weight/height on Wed when we go to her 4 month check up). She is wearing clothing size 0-3 month and a few 3-6 month things and wears size 1 diapers. (Some of this info on her is for my records)
She takes 2 long naps during the day (about 2-4 hrs each nap, but just depends on our schedule/plans during the day) and she usually goes to bed between 8/9 PM and usually gets up anytime between 6/7 AM and will go back down till 8/8:30.
I am thinking she may start being a thumb sucker.. :S If she doesn't have a paci or toy in her mouth, she goes right for her thumb. She HAS to have something in her mouth all the time.

Things she likes:
-Mommy!
-baths
-mirrors
-watching the ceiling fan/light
-watching Avree and LOVES having Avree talk to her
-she likes to be held up in the air like an airplane
-starting to really like her carseat (she sometimes naps in there even when we are at home)
-loves cooing and blowing raspberries
-laying on the floor kicking and playing with toys
-her paci!

Things she dislikes:
-bottles
-being away from mom
-being posed for pictures (we do a monthly photo shoot)
-being in the car for a long period of time

She has been a pretty good baby, but like I have said before, she is more tempremental(than Avree). She smiles and giggles everytime we talk to her. It is so adorable! But she sometimes gets herself so worked up and then has a hard time calming down. (She isn't as easy going as Avree, but those babies are hard to come by :-)) She sleeps great, which is awesome! ;)
I am so happy and blessed to be able to spend my days with her, watch her grow and be there for her! We are blessed!
I still have days were I look at her (and Avree) with amazement that we (and God, of course) created these 2 wonderful kids.

Side note about Avree:
Avree still goes to her PDO (Parent's Day Out) and STILL has a hard time in the mornings at drop off. I was hoping by a month or two of school that she would be ok with going. She is talking non-stop (full out sentences), but sometimes we have a hard time picking up some words she is saying. Since I am around her everyday I can usually figure out what she is saying :-) She is a little sponge and really picks up on a lot of things we do/say. We are trying to work on her shyness around people/friends. (If you have any advice on that, please let me know.) She is offically night potty trained (nap time and bedtime). She has been potty trained during the day since she was about 17/18 months old and now she is potty trained at night! YAY!

Here are some recent photos we took for Emmersen's 4 month photo shoot:

It's been FOREVER!

I can't believe it has been about 2 months since my last post! Sorry! December was a busy month for us as we were in Pella for a week, then came home for a couple days to unpack and then repack to head back to Pella for Christmas.
We had a great Christmas with all of our families. We are so blessed and we are so thankful for TWO amazing and healthy girls!
We started the New Year off at home. We decided it would be easier to stay home, watch movies and put the girls to bed at their normal bedtime. I was hoping to stay up till midnight, but I fell asleep. :D Matt did wake me up a couple minutes before midnight and I watched the ball drop on TV and back to bed I went. haha. Hey, I am a mom of 2, what more can I say ;)
I can't believe January is almost over and I really can't believe Emmersen will be 4 months tomorrow! (I will have a new post on that)
A couple weeks ago I decided to head to FL with the girls to visit my dad and Barb (they are in FL the whole month of Jan). This was completely last minute, so Matt wasn't able to join us. I was a little apprehensive about flying with them by myself but it actually went ok. I wasn't worried about Avree at all, I was just worried about Emree. She is very tempremental and doesn't like to be held a lot. She prefers to lay on the ground and kick around. Which I knew would be hard on a plane. She fell asleep each plane ride before take off and slept for part of the flight but she is such a light sleeper so she would jump and wake up every time they got on the intercom. Landing was a different story! I was trying to keep the paci in her mouth so her ears wouldn't pop, but that didn't seem to help. She would get fussy during landing and once I got her calmed down and she swallowed or would suck on the paci for a bit, they must have popped and she was fine. I am glad to say that I can and did travel with 2 kids (3 months and 2.5 yrs) on an airplane, by myself! But I don't plan on doing it again... for a while atleast :-)
We had a GREAT time in FL. Wish we didn't have to come back to this cold, snowy weather!
While we were in FL, my mom and her best friend happened to be vacationing in the same area! (They do a girls trip every year in FL) It was awesome to spend time with them and my dad! Avree loved having them all so close to her :-)
Here are some of my favorite picture while we were in FL:
Plane ride:

Snuggling with gma/gpa McCulla in their bed:

A Day at the Beach: (Emmersen's 1st time at the beach/ocean)

Our last night in FL:

Great Gpa G (Barb's dad)

Big sis holding lil sis :-)

"gma" Carol (AKA Coral) :-)

Plane ride home:

Sorry for the picture overload! Hope you enjoyed them :)