I'm back!

I can't believe it has been such a long time since I've posted! We have been incredibly busy and grown SOOO much in these past few months!

Camila is now closer to 3 than 2 (her birthday is in September) and she knows most of her letters and some of the sounds that go with them. She can count almost to 20 perfectly (19 still trips her up somehow), and we're getting better at recognizing them. I'm hoping to teach her to write her name before she goes back to school. She's SO smart and soaks up just about everything you can teach her. The problem is she has figured out that once she learns to do something I stop doing it for her and occasionally she doesn't put much effort into things she doesn't care for.

But don't dare call her a baby! Even the other day, when I was carrying her and playfully singing "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee", she corrected me, "No, a BIG GIRL bumblebee!"

She takes great care of Emi, often announcing, "I'm teaching Emi new words!"

For about twenty minutes one day they had an exchange that went like this:

Camila: What's your name, Emi?

Emi: Name?

Camila: No, you say EMI!

Emi: Emi!

Camila: What's your name, Emi?

Emi: Name?

Camila: NO!

She has become acquainted with the term "get married" but doesn't know exactly what it means. I told her I couldn't go to the beach with her one weekend because my grandpa was getting married and I had to go to his wedding. Soon after that, her mother was trying to explain it was their wedding anniversary, not anyone's birthday, so she showed her their wedding album. A couple days later she announced, "I want to get married too." She pointed to a large white real estate office we passed on the road. "I'm going to get married right there. And I like purple. I'm going to marry Jeff." (If you don't know, that is the Wiggle in the purple shirt.) "And I'm going to do it all by myself!"

"Awww but you're supposed to have your friends and family at a wedding!" I pointed out.

"Okay, you can come. And Emi and..."she proceeded to list probably 10 friends from school.

"That sounds good, but I think you're going to have to wait a while. You're a little young to get married, and besides, everybody's not married. I'm not married."

"Awwww I'm sorry! You can marry Anthony!" (The blue Wiggle, my favorite)

So the plan now is to go to Australia one day and marry Jeff and Anthony. She tells people this, it's HILARIOUS!

Emi is doing well. She turned 16 months old this month and is our accident-prone little girl. They thought she broke her arm once, but it was just nursemaid's elbow. She got some get-well balloons out of it though. She thinks she's a big girl like Camila and keeps up with bigger kids (which is usually how she gets hurt), but has no objections to being babied still. She loves to snuggle in your lap and give kisses.

She is talking a lot too, parroting everything she hears. Camila has taught her one color: PURPLE! Camila loves purple, so that is Emi's favorite too, for now. We're working on our other colors, but she is less interested in these boring things than Camila. She loves animals though, particularly cats. I'm not at all fond of cats, but there are some around the corner that behave themselves, so we visit them on walks.

She does her animal sounds, but my favorite is "Emi, what does the little pig say?"

She goes, "Wee wee wee!"

She also, for some reason, LOVES bugs, snakes, lizards, and frogs. She tried to catch a roach for me once (as I was trying to chase it with the Raid...we've never had roaches but the drought drove a couple in). She begs for the snake at the pet store. Her absolute favorite toy at Walgreens the other day was a rubber "life-like" frog. I don't know what it is, but I will never understand it!

Of course, her biggest accomplishment so far was that this morning, she pooped on the potty! She has been telling me during or after the fact, but this morning she came to me before. She's so tiny I have to hold her up even on Camila's child-sized seat, but she sat there a minute and did it! I was so happy that she caught on and became VERY proud of herself. She walked around the house clapping for herself for probably 5 minutes exclaiming, "Potty! Yay potty!"

So sadly, we are getting farther and farther away from being babies over here. Mom has vetoed a #3 for now, though the rest of us are in favor. (I think she probably has the best reason to say no, though.) A baby brother would be a great addition, or even another sister. However they plan to move in approximately a year, and it would probably be easier with a 2 and 3 yr old than with a 2 and 3 yr old plus an infant...especially since I have no plans to go along. I hate the thought of letting them go, but I just don't feel led to go with them right now. It's going to be a hard thing though!

Here are a couple pictures just to catch you up....

Eating her cookie for going potty; so proud of herself!

They had to get rid of their dog, so Camila desperately wants a pet. I recently took in two guinea pigs. They've been more high maintenance than I wanted, but Camila is really enjoying them.

One local pet store has animals of every kind and many of them so you can touch. Today they took a ferret out for someone and let me hold one for her to see. She likes them better in the cage, but she loves bunnies and guinea pigs. One week she decided one of the bunnies was hers and begged me every day to take her to see her "little bunny fella".