Christmas 2010

Ok, again.... I give up. I've been trying to post a bunch of photos from Christmas but after about seven tries on two different browsers, I give up. Sorry folks. There were some cute ones too! Photos from Christmas Eve, Christmas Morning, and more. But the blog universe has given me no encouragement on this front so I'm done. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. For now here's what I could actually get posted. Sorry there's not more.

So big

{Ok, another disclaimer.... I have been trying to post this post for days. I am having major issues lately with uploading current photos and videos. Now granted, I am not as quick posting as I used to be but the issues I've been having with blogger are really vexing. I am unable to upload any of the videos I have been taking of the girls. So there are videos of Emily crawling and Sophie singing Beatles songs and I can't get any of them up there for you all to enjoy. Sigh. Maybe it's time to switch blog platforms? We'll see... But I promise I will try to figure this out in 2011 so as to not keep you waiting so long.)

Another exciting week here at the Oxenfords. Emily is now sitting in a high chair and eating like a real champ. So far, she has had rice cereal, mashed bananas, pears and today some sweet potatoes. She's also had teething cookies and a few cheerios. Her appetite is much better finally and I think eating more solid foods is definitely helping her poor little tummy because she spits up a lot less now, too. Tonight we ate dinner all four of us together at the table (with Sophie and Emily both in their own special chairs). It was absolutely hilarious and ensued into a laugh fest. See... Emily cracks Sophie up and Sophie cracks Emily up and then Jim and I crack up because they are laughing. It was pretty funny. Gosh, we are either going to have the time of our lives with these two girls together or we are in sooo much trouble or probably a healthy mix of both, huh?

Emily is also crawling so fast and so determinedly that we even have had to put up "baby jail" to keep her contained once in a while. Unless you are right on top of her, she is off and running and ready to pull down that low hanging ornament on the Christmas tree if you let her. Sophia is still in the midst of Beatlemania. She demands to watch at 48 minute compilation video of combined mini Beatles documentaries multiple times a day. And she'll call out to us and say "what's that one, Mommy?" and I have to ask Jim "what's that one, Daddy" and he'll tell her what the song is (her daddy's the Beatles fan and his knowledge of all the songs on the documentaries is muuuch better than mine). Honestly, I like the Beatles, I really do. And, JIm LOVES the Beatles but to tell you the truth, we are both getting a little sick of them. The Beatles are on All. The. Time. It's all she wants to watch. Is this normal for a 2.5 year old? Who knows. But Sophie is clearly enamored with her Beatles and well, it's a heck of a lot better for her to watch that than SpongeBob (we don't watch SpongeBob in our house) or some of the other shows she is allowed to watch.

So much to tell!!

Sophie and her tree



Sophie and Grammy making gingerbread cookies

Happy Emily


I can't seem to keep up with this family blog anymore... Sigh. Poor Emily. So much going on and no time to blog about it...

The BIG BIG Big with a capital "B" news in Emily's world is that she is crawling. I mean, really truly crawling. In fact, I think now she might be trying to pull herself up already. The girl moves fast. I am not even kidding. And, she's eating. A lot. She downs her bottles like there's no tomorrow. She is eating mashed cereal and bananas and even had her first evening meal (usually we have just been feeding her in the mornings) tonight when Dee Ree fed her dinner and she LOVED it. She is a messy eater and tries to grab the spoon constantly and wants to feed herself.

In other news Grammy was in town for a few days and we had such a great, albeit short, visit with her. We are SOOOO happy we got to spend some time with her while she was in town (shhhh... don't tell her that we would have kidnapped her had we been faced with the prospect of not getting to see her while she was here).

What else? Oh well, can you say Chriiiiistmaaaasss??? Yes, we are the early Oxenfords this year (VERY UNUSUAL for us, we know) and we already are decorated with our lights up, our tree up, our cards almost ready to go out and yes, the shopping almost done. Yes, you can choke on whatever food product you might be eating right now... You heard me. The shopping is nearly done! Honestly, I can't believe it either. I'm so happy about it I could just bust though. Now, all I have to do is figure out when I can wrap it all.

Sophie, because really I can't possibly have a post without mentioning Sophie now, can I???? Sophie is um, pretty darn excited about Christmas. She picked our tree and she did an amazing job helping to decorate it. Sophie seems to have gotten more mature somehow in the past week or two. We don't know what quite happened but I'm telling you, she is just getting so big. If I could only get her out of diapers.... More on that soon as we have a big potty boot camp plan that we're almost ready to implement!!! Stay tuned!

Turkey Day - Belated Update

Hope all our family and friends had a nice Thanksgiving!!! We had a lovely day and went to Aunt Dee Dee's for the big feast. Here are some photos from the day. We are thankful for all our loving family and friends this Thanksgiving and always. We are also thankful for the good news about Grandpa - that his tumor is shrinkng and the treatments he has been under for many weeks are working. We are thankful for the good news about our cousin Ben who is now engaged to his girlfriend, Pam. We are thankful for the news that Jim's cousin Teresa is having another baby. And we are of course thankful for our beautiful and wonderful girls. They are both growing so fast and are the loves of our lives!!

(Note, I started this post about a week ago now. I had some trouble uploading Thanksgiving Day photos so I just haven't been able to finish the post. Sorry to keep you waiting!)

Happy 6 Month Birthday Emily Anne!!

Today is Emily's 6 month Birthday!! Happy Birthday Sweet Emily Anne!!! 6 MONTHS!! 6 MONTHS???? Really? Half a year? Already????Now she is closer to "1" than a newborn. Soon she will be crawling and then walking and then running around with her big sister (who truly cannot WAIT to have a mobile plaything and partner in crime).

Already Emily is now sitting up by herself. She still is a bit unsteady but you can let go of her for longer periods of time and she balances herself really nicely. She is rolling all around on the floor and rocking back and forth on her hands and knees like she just needs that extra little push to get her going and she'll be crawling all over.

Hair beautiful fuzzy hair is growing in - more and more each day it seems! And I'm very happy to say that she is sleeping longer stretches at night a lot more, too. Some nights she only wakes up once (not too shabby!) so there is hope at the end of the sleeping through the night tunnel.

She had her first ear infection last week which was really tough. She was clearly in agony and had the worst night where you just could not put her down and she was screaming all the time. Thankfully, her sweet daddy held her and got her to sleep finally but when she woke up still screaming in the morning we knew it was time to head into the doctors office. In truth, I was a bit relieved to know it was an ear infection after all because nobody wants to see their baby in that much pain and misery and not know how to help them or what it is, you know?

And Emily now can basically get out of her own car seat. Like a tiny version of Harry Houdini, she squirms around on her left side and uses her arms to push up and peer over and try to make her way out. It's um, a little disconcerting to say the least. Last night I was pushing her around in Target and I saw her little head poking out of the side of the seat. Guess she needs to be strapped in all the time now!

Jim and I also think that Emily says "mama" now. Look people, I know it's early for her to be talking but she says it clear as a bell. Guess she is going to be verbally advanced like her big sis!!!

Other than that we are super excited for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends and then spending the next few weeks really enjoying Christmas with our two beautiful girls. Just think, NEXT Christmas Emily will be running around and talking along with her big sister - heaven help us all!!!

Emmy Bouncing

I have really been meaning to post more videos for you here cuz I know the grandparents LOVE the videos but since we got our great new point and shoot camera, we've had some troubles uploading videos because they are in HD and way too large most of the time. We have to find a way to make the file sizes smaller so we can post videos more frequently for you. I promise - we'll work on it!

In the meantime, we just got back from a long weekend get away with Dee Ree, Pop Pop and GGMom. It was a beautiful weekend in a beautiful place (Peddler's Village) with some of our most favorite people. We were very lucky to have had the opportunity to go (thank you Mom and Roger!). That said, boy oh boy, traveling with two small children and staying together in a hotel room especially when the small children are on different sleep and wake up schedules is very very challenging. Add to that the fact that Sophie got a woke up with a cold the day we left to go and Emily got the same cold the day we left to come home and you have a fun mix there, don't cha? All that aside, we had a grand time in "the village" and ate like pigs and Sophie had a blast spending time with her beloved DeeRee as always.

Now, we are looking forward to Turkey Day and of course gearing up for a very magical holiday season with not one but TWO beautiful little gorgeous girlies this year. Only 40 days till Christmas!!!

Halloween 2010

I'd say Halloween 2010 was a huge success. We managed to pack A LOT of Halloweening fun into the Halloween week culminating on Halloween Day. For breakfast on Halloween Sophie got to have M&M pancakes to start her day off right. We took GGMom out to breakfast and then made a special visit to the Minchins (who are BIG Halloween people themselves). After our visit with the Jersey crowd, we headed home for a little real food and a nap and then geared up for the big event. All four of us went out trick or treating this year and we had a great time. Probably only were out for about an hour which ends up being the perfect amount of time to hit our street and one or two other sections of streets near ours. Sophie wanted "MORE TRICK OR TREATING" which was her gleeful battle cry as soon as she would finish saying "thank you" and come down the stairs of each house. What can I say... the little girl has a sweet tooth like her mommy and hasn't met a candy she doesn't like yet. She didn't have any major meltdowns and went to bed later than usual but not too late and with very minimal if any sugar crashing drama. It was a good Halloween for the Oxenfords.

Early Halloweening

We're pretty darn excited for Halloween around these parts. It's been a busy week starting with last weekend when we went to the Harvest Festival at Reading Terminal Market on Saturday and then the Boo at the Zoo on Sunday. Then this week we had a playgroup Halloween party on Wed. at our house and a school Halloween party on Thurs. and then Fri. we went back to Beaumont Retirement to do a little Halloween parade for the residents. Shwew!! What a week, huh? So here is a preview of the girlies in their Halloween costumes for ya!! Of course, there will be more pix from this weekend's festivities soon, too. Sophie is basically a Trick or Treating pro by now and simply cannot wait until Sun. night for the big Trick or Treating bonanza. She has also discovered the pure sugar rush of candy corn (guess it was bound to happen sooner or later). Should make for an interesting Halloween tomorrow!

Happy 5 Month Birthday Emily Anne

Emily's 5 month birthday was yesterday. 5 Months!!! 5 MONTHS!! Assuming that she is the last baby that Jim and I will ever have (and yes, that IS what we are assuming at this point) we are quickly progressing away from baby-hood and she is moving her way ever closer to toddler-hood. Yes, yes, I know she is not even crawling yet but think about it... In one month, she'll be 6 months old and well frankly 6 months to 12 months than 0 months. And she is closer to crawling than any of us even realize, I think. The little girl is on the go. She wants to constantly roll everywhere. She is even trying to crawl and assuming the "bridge" position and rocking back and forth! We have a feeling she will be an early crawler and will crawl a lot more than Sophie ever did. (I think that knowing Sophie's personality as well as we now do, she did not take to crawling because it was icky to get your hands and knees dirty.) Folks keep saying that Emmy is the one to watch. That she might even be *more* stubborn than her bigger sister (NOT POSSIBLE), that she might be trouble with a capital "T" and that she is more determined than Sophie (again, not possible). Only time will tell but I'll admit that she is IMPOSSIBLE to feed with a spoon because she refuses to let you hold it (she must hold it herself and get banana mush all over her face and hands and you and the floor). She is also so strong that if she has hold of your finger or your hair or hand, it truly is a challenge to try and release her death grip. She is still a happy sweet little girl although she does have something going on these few days (not sure if it's teeth or reflux or what) that is making her a little less smiley and a little harder to console than usual. When Emmy smiles she smiles with her eyes (her Daddy calls her "sparkly eyes") as well as her sweet little mouth. She laughs a full belly laugh if you nuzzle her tummy or tickle her sides. She is totally enamored with her big sister and loves to watch every single move she makes. She is the sweetest little Schmoopsie we ever did see and we love her so very very much!!! Happy Birthday Sweet Schmoopsie!

Oh, and here's a public retraction... Emily does NOT yet have her first tooth. We were apparently wrong. Or, it's been sucked back into her gums. I don't know how Jim and I both hallucinated that one. But we both thought we saw it. Jim even thought he felt it. But it sure as all heck isn't there now. Chalk it up to sleep deprivation, I guess.