Snippets from early May

I'm a little behind on blogging, so here are some quick snippets from the first couple weeks of May...

Skyping with Grandpa Chare on his birthday, May 1:


Malea's birthday card craft for Khun Ta (a.k.a. Grandpa):


Our rendition of Wheels on the Bus. I think Emmy is enjoying it.


The girls (Malea, Emmy and Grandma Su) and I explored part of the 100 mile garage sale on Friday, May 6.  We started in Red Wing and drove along the Mississippi to Lake City, following any garage sale that caught our eye.  Our haul: 1 blue stuffed elephant, 1 rice krispie treat with sprinkles, 1 I Spy game and 4 wind chimes, Not that impressive, but I'm not much of a shopper and it was mostly a fun and relaxing way to spend the day.  Didn't take any pictures of the garage sales, but here we are picnicking in Levee Park in Red Wing:


On Saturday, we took Malea to Quarry Hill Nature Center for a Nature Toddlers program.  Malea got to see a real live tadpole up close,


and touch a warm egg with a chick inside!


And what toddler program would be complete without a craft?! Together with Papa Felix, Malea pasted together the lifecycle of a frog, from egg to tadpole to frog!


Is this a future doctor in training? Malea wanted to make sure that her little sister wasn't sick anymore!

Emmy's working on tummy time,


while Malea enjoys her first visit to the House of Bounce!

Posing among the bluebells along the Mayowood trail.




Malea decides Yai needs a little help pushing Emmy!




Seeing all the bluebells in bloom brings back fond memories of a stroll with the Aadlands three years ago when I was pregnant with Malea.  It was our first time on this particular trail, and although this picture (19 weeks with Malea) doesn't show any bluebells, they were in full bloom back that day too!

Emmy is really starting to fill out, and we're seeing hints of her social smile!


These g diapers are super cute! Unfortunately, my predictions of when Emmy is mostly likely to pee vs. poop aren't always accurate and the g diapers have yet to completely contain #2. Any tips?

Easter weekend & Emmy's 1st cold

Unfortunately, Emmy's first Easter weekend wasn't a very festive affair.  Both she and I were pretty sick the entire weekend.  I had a fever of 102.8 and Emmy battled her own 100 degree fever.  Tylenol gave us both a little relief, but between frequent nursing sessions (a good thing!) and general fussiness, both she and I were pretty wiped out most of the weekend.  Luckily, Yai is still in town and was a tremendous help with holding and soothing Emmy and entertaining Malea.  A sick mom is no fun!

A sick, but still relatively content Emmy:


Fortunately, even though Emmy and I were feverish and stuffed up, Felix and Malea were spared from our germs and spent lots of fun times hunting for Easter Eggs at Bear Creek park, singing at storytime at ABC Toys and searching for Easter egg dye kits (they were sold out at many places by Easter morning). 

Felix took this clip as the Saturday Easter Egg hunt officially started and I love how Malea takes off running across the grass.  She's so excited that she forgets to pick up eggs!



Malea was a little hesitant about being so close to the funny looking rabbit, but here she is with the Easter Bunny!


On Sunday, Malea was SO EXCITED about coloring Easter eggs!


I rallied for a few hours (Tylenol is great!) to decorate Easter eggs with Malea before crawling back in bed to endure a few more rounds of sweats and chills.  (Thanks Papa for hunting down the Easter egg kits and setting up a fun activity for your girls!)










On Monday, Yai taught Malea how to make one of her favorite Thai snacks - salapao (a.k.a. humbows).  Malea was a great helper and might have polished off the whole batch if we had let her.  She's definitely a salapao fan like her grandma!








Fortunately, by Thursday both Emmy and I were feeling much better.  I had my 6-week post partum appointment and our OB, Missy, got to see how well little Emmy is growing (and gave me the all clear to resume regular activities)!


Since we were downtown, Emmy and I took the opportunity to stop by and see a few work colleagues.  It's always fun to see the smiles when a baby pops up at work to say hello!

Sibling pictures

Our daycare had Easter photo sessions a few weeks ago and, along with Malea's session, we also got to bring in Emmy for a few sibling pictures.  So here are the first studio pictures of the Diehn sisters, all dressed up for Easter!

1st visit to the dentist

We've been lax about getting Malea to her first dentist appt.  According to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry: "Your child should visit a pediatric dentist when the first tooth comes in, usually between 6 and 12 months of age.... or no later than his/her first birthday."  Oops! Well, better late than never, right? 

Malea happily showed off her pearly whites while checking out the reading material in the waiting room.


After a moment of hesitation when she was called from the lobby, Malea was persuaded to head to the exam room with promises of seeing animals!

"Would you like to come with me?" asked the staff.
"No." replied Malea.  (At this point, Felix was thinking this was the beginning of a disasterous first visit to the dentist.  It wasn't that long ago that Malea had the dance recital picture meltdown!)
"We have animals in the back, and they have teeth that you can brush! Would you like to see them?" 
"Okay, let's go."

Once in the room, Malea climbed right up into the chair, asked lots of questions, and went to work brushing the teeth of a bunch of different animals.  She also checked out the dentist's tools - gloves are so cool! - and got an official count of her teeth: 16!  Seems that Malea has yet to get her 2 year molars.  I've heard that these teeth are especially painful coming in, so I think we may have some middle-of-the-night crying/cuddle times ahead.  But all in all, a very fun first visit to the dentist!

Who's the biggest?

Question for the day... Of our 3 napping babies, who's the biggest?


They've all recently been weighed - Guinness and Peaches at their last vet visit on March 11, and Emmy at PAIIR's Extraordinary Newborn class on April 20.  Their stats:

• Peaches: 11.7 lbs
• Emmy: 10 lbs, give or take an ounce or so. (Her official weigh-in was 10 lbs, 4 oz, but since she was weighed with her clothes and diaper on, the nurse figured it was closer to 10 lbs.)
• Guinness: 14.7 lbs

So Emmy's still the littliest Diehn, but she's been eating like a champ and I don't think it won't be too long before she earns her own version of a "Milk Monster" nickname! 

While I'm happy that she's growing so well, I'm already feeling wistful about the thought of putting away the newborn sized clothes and moving up to size 1 diapers.  Emmy felt so light and little when I first held her (she was almost 2 lbs lighter than Malea at birth!)... This precious time is going by so quickly!

Trike!

We had a brief spell of warmer weather in Rochester recently - perfect for bike riding!  We had been thinking about getting Malea a tricycle (she loves riding on the ones they have at her daycare) and, instead of doing our usual intensive research, we decided to head down to Toys r Us and see which bike Malea liked best (and would fit her well).  Malea tried to steer us toward the powered riding toys,


but we finally decided on a red Pixar Cars the Movie-themed trike to call our own.  I found the cutest Hello Kitty helmet and bell and we were in business!








Malea's super big, squinty-eyed grin says it all... trikes are the best!