Allen's new hobby

About a month and half ago Allen found a new hobby: geocaching. That is, using GPS to go on scavenger hunts. It's pretty fun (I'm sure I'll enjoy it much more without the bowling ball in the front) and the kids LOVE it. They call it going treasure hunting. Basically, people hid small containers, give you the GPS location, and you try to find it. Inside the container is a log book and sometimes other fun treasures. One Sunday we drove up towards Mt. Charleston and turned off at Harris Road. There's a nice little hike that takes you through a pretty canyon. Just beyond the canyon was the cache. It was a little further than we'd thought, but the it totally wore the kids (and me) out. Emma cracked me up. She was very interested with rocks. She's saying "OH, pretty rock..." She wanted to put them in her pockets, but they weren't deep enough. So she got her brother to carry them for her. We didn't notice until the way back when we saw Riley's pants were falling down. You can see the bulges of the rocks if you look closely! I told Emma to go catch Allen. She was so cute she ran as fast as she could saying "Wait Daddy! Wait Emma, hand!" He didn't hear her, but she was very pleased when he stopped and scoped her up on his shoulders. In parts of the canyon the walls are so narrow that you can hold your hands out and touch both sides of the wall. We found the cache! The kids were so pleased. We don't always find it, but when we do there are smiles all around. The kids were excited to see what was inside. It's basically a trade. You can take something out, but you need to put something in. Allen tells Riley that we have to share. Riley got a compass and Emma got a elephant eraser. We put in a key chain and a silver dime. It was nice to get out of the house for an hour or so. The fresh air did us all a lot of good!

Happy Birthday Emmaline

I've been meaning to post this for almost a month... I finally got a picture of Emma that I thought really captured the changes in her during the last few months. She's really changing for a toddler to a kid... But she's still so cute and funny that we forgive her for growing up!

Emmaline Christine Leavitt turned two years old! It's hard to believe that it's been two years since that day. I have to admit, it was one of the worst days of my life! I was scared and felt so guilty. Weird huh? I had been watching way too many shows about preemies during my pregnancy. When they talked about what was going on with her I actually understood. I was very grateful that I'd felt like I need to watch those shows. I also learned she could be way worse off. Those 10 days in the hospital were some of the hardest of my life. I have never felt so useless. We couldn't hold her, feed her, bath her or even change her diaper. But I'm happy to report that she is great! She talks well. OK, Emmaline never stops talking! She's sweet and sneaky! She loves to doing things she KNOWS Mommy doesn't like. We have love getting to know her. She's really funny, and LOVES to make people laugh. She's got a bit of a temper... We are working on that.

She adores her big brother. She follows him everywhere and wants to do everything he does... most of the time. When she doesn't Riley gets upset, but she is fiercely independent, and will do things her way! Emma is really looking forward to meeting her new sister and loves to give my baby belly hugs and kisses. Emma enjoys playing mommy and taking care of her dolls. But one of her favorite people in the whole wide world is her Daddy. Emma has been a Daddy's girl from the beginning. They have had a special bond. Emmaline give the best hugs! We love her so much!

Happy Birthday little girl!

more on cars

So, we spent all of last week trying to get our cars fixed. Such a pain. But, at last I can say that we have two, yes two working cars! YEAH!!!!! It turned out that the van's problem was very simple. When they installed the new battery they didn't put the resistors on tight enough. This cased the the resistor to pop off the batter and cased power surges through the van. Power surges cased system failure in the AC, and made the a fuse for the driver side window pop. As for the the driver sided sliding door... the van thought that the gas door was open. There's a sensor that wasn't getting pushed... the mechanic adjusted it! Now everything works!!!

Allen spent much of last week fixing pipes and hoses in his car. It was kinda like two steps forward and one step back. Thankful, it has gotten him to school and back so far this week. Car problems have been the focus of our lives for about a month now. Hopefully we can now concentrate on getting Allen ready for finals and our family ready for the new baby.

We spent Saturday rearranging the bedrooms. Originally the plan was to put the two girls together in one room, Riley having his own. On further reflection, we decided to put the two kids that sleep through the night together. Why mess with a good thing? We made Emma's room into a playroom until the new baby needs it. We put all the books and most of the toys in there. It seems to be working out pretty well. Emma loves the big kid bed. We put her on the bottom bunk. The only hitch we've had it Emma waking up EARLY!!! Monday she was up before 6... it was still dark outside. And see woke Riley. The only up side was they took a LONG nap in the afternoon, so I could sleep.

Halloween?

So, I've been racking my brain on what to dress Emma and Riley up as for Halloween. I asked Riley what he wanted to be... yeah, not so helpful. He had a different answer just about every time. However, pirate came up many times. I didn't want to do pirates again... big pain, and I just don't have the energy I had last year (being almost 8 months pregnant will do that). I finally got the Halloween stuff out today. Mostly we have a few costumes. In my mind I was going to dress Emma up in a Tiger costume Riley had worn when she was a baby, but the costume was too long... ugh. So, I tried it on Riley, too short. So, I finally gave in and let Riley try on last year's costume. It FIT! I was shocked! Yes, the pants aren't pants but shorts... so what, it's a pirate costume, if you look a little rag-tag it makes it cooler. Well, I figured I had nothing to lose.. and tried Emma's on her.. It fit too. Hmmmm. So, does it make me a bad mommy if we are going to go as the same thing this year? I hope not. As for me, I think I'm just going to be a great big pumpkin. I'm round enough for it! This was last year. I was so sure Emma would be walking (yeah, not so much). But we made her stand for just a few shots. I think it looks pretty cool. We will have to find some sort of shoes, and of course Riley wants a parrot. And, if you get one for him, Emma will have to have one too. (She's gotten quite vocal about what she sees as unfair treatment. If Riley gets something, she wants something too.) But this is a small thing to me. I know where to buy fake birds, and I'm sure their black shoes will be fine. Get Emmaline some tights and we are done! I don't have to worry about what they are going to wear anymore!!! Yeah!

Prayer

Over the last few months, Riley and Emmaline have both decided that they want to say prayers. It's really cute. Generally we will prompt them on what to say. Although, Riley will look over at you and "I can do it!" it's really fun. At lunch today, it was Emma's turn. Without any help she said the prayer.

"Heanly Fader, thank yu for da hot dogs, thank yu for da apple sauce, and dee yellow chips. name of Jesus CHRIST. AMEN"

It made me laugh so hard! In cased you missed it. We had hot dogs, apple sauce and potato chips. My babies are growing up!

I hate cars

So for the past month we have been dealing with car problems. I HATE car problems. I find them frustrating, aggravating, make me crazy, and there's really nothing I can do about them crazy things. First Allen's car basically blow up. We think the head gastic blew (please excuse my ignorance, but if you asked I couldn't really tell you what it means) and we spend a great deal of time and effort trying to fix it. It finally came down to: do we keep throwing money at this hoping that it something we do fixes the problem, or do we start looking for a different car. I'd love to say "new" but yeah, we are in the 3rd year of law school, there's no such thing as new. We decided to start looking for an additional car. We found one, it seemed to be running good... yeah, seemed to be. The next day when Allen took it to get smoged... smoke and death. Oil was leaking, and smoking and the dumb thing didn't pass smog... not because it was smoking (again you'd have to ask Allen, I'm not sure what was wrong). UGH! Thankfully my dad is around. He and Allen spent yesterday working on the car. And this morning it passed smog, it doesn't smoke or die!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!! So, Allen's car is working... and my van is possessed.

I'm serious. A few weeks ago the back ac stopped working. Actually, the fan blowing air in the back stopped working. This is a really headache because this means no heat, ac, air anything is going on in the back. It also made the front ac not work as well. A couple of days later, the driver side door slider stopped opening... very irritating. When we bought the van you could only open that door from the inside or with the auto doors... now you have to open the driver door and pull the door open. A couple of days after that the driver side window stopped working... So, now when the ac isn't cooling the only air coming into the van is from the passenger side window. We figured it was just that the van has a lot of miles on it, and it's starting to wear out... not so my friends. Yesterday, while following Allen to my parents' house everything started to work! I went over a bump and boom the fan started to work. I went to show my dad by opening the doors for the kids, and Emma's door opened! And low and behold the driver side window rolled down! Oh my goodness!!! It all worked for most of the day yesterday... and then just like that! Everything stopped again... I was one sad panda. I really hate cars!