Memorial Day is for Swimming

We decided to do Memorial Day weekend up right this year, which means we didn't stay at home at all. We started at the zoo to see the new baby elephant. Pretty freaking cute! Emmy just stared at him and said "baby! baby! ooohhhhh!"

Besides that Emmy cared about each of the animal for approximately 3.2 seconds and then told them "bye bye." It's really hard to care about much of anything when it's 850 degrees. She was more intersted in taking off and putting on her hat, running around and walking in her new favorite way. You are chosen to hold one of her hands, it's not necessarily the person closest to her. And if she choses you, you better run because patience is not a virtue she inherited. Ok, she never really had a chance of getting it from me anyway. I couldn't decide which one of these I like better so you get to look at both. You can see just how many curls she has now! She's getting more and more everyday!
We capped off Saturday with a little swimming in GiGi and Pop's pool. At first she said "no, no, no,no" but then she got wilder and wilder. You'll notice the "Vacek Open Mouth" in all the pictures below. It's a family trait that means you're REALLY REALLY having fun =)

First she poured water on Daddy's head. That was pretty fun.

Then Daddy poured water on her head and that was REALLY funny.

Then she said, forget that wimpy bucket, I'm going to stand under the gigantic high pressure spigot. HILARIOUS!The rest of the day, poor Blake spent making Emmy "JUMP!" this was the best of all. Blake can't lift his arms today, but it was worth it to Emmy. She also went down the big kid water slide, by herself. DARE DEVIL!

The next day guess what we did, we swam MORE! We tested out the Graesser's new pool for a Memorial Day cook-out! Ellie showed us what she learned at swim lessons, and Benjamin made Emmy look like a big wuss with his serious jump off the edge of the pool!

And we had lots of fun, as poven by the gigantic open mouths in this picture!

From Khasakstan to Galves-stan

So life has been a litte crazy lately because of some big projects that I had going on at work. We have all reached new levels of exhaustion. I'm taking a bunch of clients around to do some benchmarking on some of Chevron's most important projects. One of those projects just happens to be in Kasaksthan. Kasak-what you say? That's right. I basically got on a plane without having a clue where I was really going. 15 hours later I ended up just north of Iran. The good thing is, I got to fly first class! WHOOHOO! I don't know if I can go back, just LOOK at my footroom!

Kasaksthan (or at least the part I was in) looks a lot like Midland. Flat, brown, bare, and really kind of ugly =( I think other parts are actually very nice.) There was only one green part in the entire place and that was around the sewage retention pond- NASTY!)

My hotel in Atryau was very nice and brand new. But here's where I stayed for a night, no that's not a prison, this is the camp for the plant, which is basically and hours ride into the middle of nowhere from the bigger city I was staying at. Since most people who work at the plant work rotational, the rooms are set up for them to live while they're onsite. It's kind of like a little town. They have bars, a swimming pool, and the picture below is of the movie theatre. Yes, the food was nasty. They eat powdered eggs, I just couldn't go there.

That's about all the pictures I got because I had to be "Cool" with the clients and not run around like a geeky girl with my camera. Overall summary: Food:eh, People: Nice, First class travel: YES PLEASE!

When I got back home from my whirlwind trip did I rest, of course not. We headed out to the Stros with Caroline! It was Carloline's first Astro's game and amazingly she sat completely still and silent for 6 innings. Betsy and I just stared at her for a while. Betsy decided she's going to the Astro's game weekly =)

The next day we headed down to Galveston to look at a beach cabin that Mom and Dad are thinking about buying. We were excited to take Emmy to the beach for the first time. we slathere on the sunscreen and decided to give it a test run before we all got in our swimsuits. Emmy's feelings about the beach can be summed up in one picture...

HATED IT! That's a look of sheer panic on her face. She didn't want to be put down, didn't want you to hold her in the water, didn't want to look at or talk about the water and forget the sand. She just shook her head and said "no, no, no, no, no, no, no.." I think we may pretend like this never happened and call her next time the first time at the beach. We still had to take a family picture juuuuust in case =)

17 Months: No Cupcakes

At 17 months Emmy is doing a lot of the things she did at 15 month, just better. She:

* Has 8 teeth! Two top molars, four on the bottom and two on the top. FINALLY more teeth!
* Weighs about 28 pounds and has grown a couple of inches. She's getting taller and leaner but is still a little chunky monkey.
* Her animals are still her favorite toy but she's liking to color and draw more. She also like to stack her blocks.
* Will imitate anything you say! Her favorite game is to go through all the words she can say. We have a few new animal sounds as well! This is the turkey and rooster.

* Has started learning her colors. So far we know yellow, purple, pink, and blue, but everything is usually "buuuu"
* Gives REAL kisses with some suction and a smack.
* Says "I Love you" "Tank too" and "Peas"
* Is still getting ear infections one after another (I'm over it)
* Has pretty much got hopping down. She's actually leaving the ground
* Knows most of her body parts (belly, toes, fingers, eyes, mouth, head, ear, etc.)
* Still singing and dancing. She's getting pretty good at Old McDonald!

Tea and Snowcones, Moms and Grads

What a wonderful weekend full of family and fun! We celebrated a graduation, celebrated, well ME!, and got the first snow-cone of the season! Summer is here!

Friday afternoon Emmy has a Mother's Day Tea at her school. Being new to the whole "School" thing I called and asked how people dress since it was officially a "tea." The lady on the phone assured me that yes, everyone gets dressed up, all the mommies wear dresses and the little girls all do to. So Emmy and I got all dressy and got ready for Emmy's first tea party!

Well, when we were walking in, I saw the mommy in the gym clothes chatting with the mommy in the capris, and the other in her pajama pants I knew that someone had seriously lied to me. I told Emmy that being overdressed is ALWAYS better than being underdressed but it doens't make you feel any less stupid ... anyway... Emmy's teacher had the room all cute with teapots and cute decorations. Emmy enjoyed some cookies with all her friends.

So while Emmy was chowing I looked around at all the cute decorations. My eyes caught the pictures of all the pretty mommies with their babies and then I noticed something. See if you can find me in the picture below.... That's right... I'm the camel. Turns out Emmy's teacher is a little saucy! If you don't bring you pictures when they request them she turns you into a CAMEL!!!!!!!! Blake and i are going to have to get better at this whole fielding requests from school in a prompt manner thing... snarky teacher! I better do the next thing or there may be donkeys in my future...

On Saturday we headed down to Port Neches (for those of you keeping track that's three times in four weeks!) to celebrate Leslie's graduation from high school! WE are so proud of her achieveing this important milestone. She's headed to UTSA in the fall and we know she'll accomplish great things. Dejo and Ken hosted us at Elena's for yummy fajitas and good times with the fam.Emmy really really REALLY liked the cake.

Today we headed over to Shade in The Heights for a Mother's Day brunch. I was lucky to get to celebrate with all my mommies as my parents and Sean joined the Vaceks for the celebration.

There's only one thing redeeming about a Southeast Texas summer, and that is SNOWCONES!!! For the past few weeks I have been desparately searching for a snowcone to kickoff my summer. Blake gave me one last gift and finally found an open snow cone stand! I'm a little bit of a snow-cone snob, so not just any will do. Mams in the Heights did not dissapoint. Summer can now start!

I think it's safe to say that Emmy has now found a new favorite thing. She even said please and tank too if it got her more bites =)

I always knew I wanted to be a mommy, but I don't think I had ANY clue what I was asking for. This job challenges in ways that no one could ever prepare you for, but it is SO SO SO SO worth it. That beautiful baby girl is the best thing that has ever happened to me. She has taught me the meaning of family, of love, and of pateince. I am so blessed.

Thank you to all these beautiful mommies in my life. You are so very apprecaited and very loved!
Happy Mother's Day!

We be jammin....

This weekend found us back in the Port Neches area for another Big Event.

This is my beautiful cousin Angie with her new husband Jeremy.

It was a beautiful wedding and we got to hang out with the extended fam from my dad's side.

This is my dad with all his brothers and sisters minus one.

I even got to have a few 'ritas with my grandfather.

There were so many adorable little girls at the wedding and Emmy just jumped right in and started jamming with them all. Gigi taught her how to hold hands and dance and she would just run out on the dance floor and hold out her hand until someone would grab it. Then the jammin would commence.

She even got Gigi on the dancefloor with her cousin Rayleigh and Aunt Mary.

Even though she was the smallest little girl there, I think she had arguably, the biggest JAM!



Before the wedding we had a few minutes to snag some pics in the rose garden at Terrel Park.

These are some of my favorites!

This weekend

This weekend started out really fun with Brandon's birthday! It was a really fun blacklight minature golf place (yes, such a thing exists) called Shanks. Happy Birthday Brandon!

The golf was fun, but the real highlight of the night was something called Balladium. My uncle described it as "where you shoot each other with foam ball cannons" but it was so much more. Ever since he read that description, Blake was counting down the days. He was in absolute heaven as he planned reaking massive havoc on my dad and Sean. It was six minutes of intense, nerf-ball foam shooting, loud music blasting boy heaven. Blake showed no mercy as he pummeled my dad and Sean, Courtney, and even that little girl in the room. Thank goodness they were nerf balls.

Emmy played a little "skee ball" as we call in the family with Gigi. She somehow earned 25 tickets. Given that I earned about 4 tickets when I played, I'm feeling a little inadequate....

On Saturday we went to Port Neches for my good friend Lauren's shower for Andie Lynn! It was beautiful and we had such a great time. She's a beuatiful pregnant woman. They kind that kind of makes you a little mad she looks so good =) I'll let Emmy tell you JUST how much fun she had!

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This weekend was so so so so so so so fun! Me and my best friend Caroline got to have so much fun together! Mommy and Aunt Betsy said we were going somewhere called Port Neches for a shower. I thought we had a bath in our house, but whatever. I love to take a bath. Mommy said we were really really really late. I don't know what that means either, but I DO know that I got to this great place called Chick-fil-a! Mommy kept climbing over the middle of Aunt Betsy's car to sit with us in the back. I think she liked it better with us. She kept saying something about "butt and stuck," but I don't know what that means either. I just kept eating french fries. They are SOOOOOO good. I wonder why Mommy never let me have then before. After we ate and Mommy went back to sit with Aunt Betsy, Carloine and I decided to sing. We sang as loud as we could. It was SO beautiful! Caroline is such a good singer. We even sang with our hands over our mouths and spit a little. I like to spit right now, it's so fun. Mommy and Aunt Betsy just smiled at us and told us how cute we are. I know. We sang for like fifteen days and then we stopped the car! It was time to take a bath!!!!

Caroline and I got out of the car and got ready to take a bath! For some reason everybody had their clothes on. Someone asked Mommy when we came in " You know this is a shower around a pool? " I heard Mommy say something that sounded like "well spit." I LOVE to spit and I love pools! This is going to be SOOOOOOOOO fun!!!!!!

Then I saw Ms. Lauren! Isn't she beautiful! Ms. Lauren is about to have a little girl like me named Andie. I have been waiting SO long for Andie to come. Mommy told me it's soon. I'm really excited for Andie to come and be a new best friend!

Guess who else was there. KATE! I haven't seen Kate since my birthday and guess, what, she is TOO funny. She gets "Surprised" a lot. It's really funny. I told Kate that we were all going to take a Bath in the pool and spit and she got really excited too! SO we all got some food and went outside. I sat patiently and ate food with Mommy in her lap. I ate some cupcakes and cookies and a little more cupcake. But guess what, nobody ever took a bath! I kept waiting and waiting and waiting and we all just sat there. I decided I needed to get down from Mommy's lap and check out this pool. Everytime I would get close three or four mommies would jump up and say "ahhhhhh!". It was HILARIOUS! I kept doing it over and over and over again. Then I decided to go check out some rocks. I put a big handful in my mouth. They were pretty good. Then guess what I found, a bunch of toys for dogs! I licked those too. They were pretty good too. Not as good as the rocks, but pretty good.

For some reason Mommy and Aunt Betsy looked really tired, so I think they wanted to go inside and take a nap. That's ok because when we went inside, we found even MORE stuff to play with.

Caroline and I were feeling really happy after eating the cupcakes and guess what, we started playing tag. I LOVE tag. It's so fun to chase Caroline around and around and around and around the coffee table and the kitchen. All these mommies were in my way. Isn't that rude of the mommies to get in our way! We just ran around them and screamed and screamed and screamed. It was SO fun!

Mommy and Aunt Betsy started talking about something called "margaritas." They were looking really tired so I think that Margaritas must be what they call thier nap. We must've played tag for three or four days when all the mommies came inside. I guess they had finished taking a bath. I never got to though. Mommy and Aunt Betsy said that it was time to go. I was having SUCH a good time. We wanted to stay and eat more cupcakes and play tag and dig in the trash and throw the remotes. Even though I didn't get to take a bath I had so much fun!

We said bye to Kate and Ms. Lauren and got back in the car. Caroline and I decided it was time to sing some more songs. I spit a lot too. We sang so loud and beautiful. Mommy and Betsy didn't tell us we were beautiful again. They just kept talking about these margaritas. They must be pretty good, but I was just worried about my singing and laughing at Carloine. She is so funny!

Then we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner and I ate an entire bowl of mac and cheese. Mommy and Aunt Betsy didn't say one word during dinner, I think they missed thier nap today and they said Cracker Barrel didn't have margaritas. After dinner they gave me my blankie and aisey but I was just too excited thinking about my fun day to go to sleep. Caroline and I sang some more and clapped and laughed ALL the way home! I heard Aunt Betsy and Mommy say that Caroline and I weren't invited to any more showers. That's ok, I had SO much fun today, but I like my bathtub at home just fine!

I can't wait to meet Andie Lynn. She can play tag with me and Carloine, and we'll teach her how to sing like us. She's going to be such a good friend!