6 Months! Emerson-on-the-go
Wow - what progress we have seen this month! Emerson is moving everywhere - he is crawling, scooting, rolling and even sitting himself up! He's become very opinionated about what he wants and when Norah takes a toy he is playing with, he lets her know that he is unhappy about it. He has been so much fun this month - taking him out and about exploring has been a joy.


Look at my skills.... :-)

Convention 2007 - Phoenix

Pi Beta Phi Convention 2007 was great! It was the most fun convention I've attended - great speakers, activities, people and more. We had over 70 collegians from our region attend, in addition to the other thousand Pi Phis in attendance. I'm already counting down the days till 2009. :-)

Our Region Seven Team, sporting our fancy R7 t-shirts

Many of the Region Seven collegians and AAC, after the memorial service and initiation ceremonies

Foundation Dinner - great entertainment and fun after-party

The Lake Oswego women in attendance - Mari Lou, Debbi, Heather and Maja

Fun women I don't see often - Luellen, Oriana, Carly (our newest R7 specialist) and me!

And the next convention is in...Dallas!

Blue Eyes

We visited Grandma and Grandpa before I left town this week - Norah and Emerson were as excited as always to see them! Emerson and Grandpa have matching eyes...and coordinating shirts. :-)

Bubbles

You may not be able to tell just by looking, but these are SPECIAL bubbles...they are Thomas the Tank bubbles!

Happy Fathers' Day

Norah, Emerson and I made a pancake breakfast for Ryan today - Norah tried to sneak bites of the batter...ewwww. Emerson munched on cheerios and watched us!We tried to make chocolate pancakes, but I think they tasted like normal pancakes. Hmmm. So I guess we just made brown pancakes. Very exotic...

In the afternoon we went on a walk around the downtown Willamette River Esplanade. Its about 3.5 miles , which was just long enough for Norah and Jones.
Emerson snoozed for a bit in the middle
Norah managed to avoid being run down by all the bikes that passed us by

Jonesy was so tired by the end of the walk - I should have brought a stroller for him!
East Bank Esplanade - where we began and ended our walk

If you didn't already know...

Norah is a princess ballerina - I went to get her up after naptime and she had crammed this dress on over her head and all her other clothes. It was about to strangle her and the only way I could get her to take it off was to promise I'd help her put it back on. I need to put a lock on her closet - everytime she is in her room alone she ends up with several extra skirts or dresses on. :-)

Showing off her fancy ballet moves - lots of kicks, plies and pirouettes

I should have taken pics of her mimicing Ryan's workout in this getup - she looked intense doing sit-ups in a dress!

Superman!

Emerson is so strong - he has been pushing himself up on his side, almost into a sitting position. He's also began scooching himself around and pushing up on all fours.

Lesson #1: Never leave a toddler unattended

I realized that things had become very quiet, and that Norah was hiding from my behind one of the ottomans. She had grabbed tube of desitin and was meticulous (and very quietly/sneakily) painting her face. It was hard to be stern when I was cracking up laughing. :-)

Junior Rose Festival Parade!

It's a parade!

Today we walked in the Junior Rose Festival Parade. There were THOUSANDS of children participating - what a crazy experience. It was also my birthday, and so we had the great pleasure of an overnight visit from Amariah and Ian. We stayed up waay too late the night before; the kids were pretty tired come parade time. We dressed up them up and decorated their strollers/wagons and were set. We were placed in a group with the other stroller/wagons and had to spend quite a while in the staging area...there were crying children everywhere. Eventually we were mixed in between a band and brownie troop, then were off! At first Norah, Emerson and Ian seemed a little stunned, but after a while they got into it. Ryan was really the star of the show, you know how much he likes attention. ;-) We had to make a hasty exit a few blocks from the end of the parade, when Norah had an uncharacteristic meltdown...this then led to poor Ian melting down when he realized we were no longer in the parade. Emerson just watched all the action. ROFL - we were quite a sight.

The rain held off and it was a beautiful day. Totally crazy but a lot of fun!Uncle Sam/Emerson
Ceasar Ian
Princess Norah

Junior Rose Festival Parade

More pics, click on the thumbnail!

Green Beans

Emerson has had rice and oatmeal, but today was his first day with a vegetable. This pretty much says it all...

Rose Festival Waterfront Village

This afternoon we visited Waterfront Village, down at Waterfront Park. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we really enjoyed ourselves! Emerson rode around on Ryan's back, watching everything and taking periodic naps. Norah went on several rides, saw a magician and a washboard concert, met a pirate and a gecko. Fun!!

more pics, click below...

Waterfront Village - Rose Festival

Swimming and Jiggles

Today we went swimming at Grammie Peggy's house. It was a relief from house selling chaos as well as the weather!

Grammie also had a present for Norah, a pug puppy just like Grandma's - and she named it Jiggles. No idea where that came from! They went online to register her adoption papers with Jiggles - really cute idea!