Lake of the Ozarks 2009

Last weekend the Wood Family took a trip down to the Ozarks to stay with some of Mike and Geri's family friends. I should have known that when they said we'd be staying in the "guesthouse", it'd be pretty great. Needless to say, I'm hoping this becomes an annual tradition. We had the best time, and I was sober! Who knew!!!

This is the view of their dock from the deck- it felt more like a resort than a lakehouse.

On the far side of the picture is a built in, gas fire pit. Awesome!

Ryan, Chris and Geri on the deck.
Cole, by brother-in-law, who can sleep anywhere...
Blue Steel.
Ignore me- isn't she beautiful???
There was a whole area by their dock that was all sand- she LOVED it...

Um, yeah. They don't have one lake house, they have two. The one on the right is the "main" house and the one on the left is the guest house where we stayed. Amazing.

God help me if she ever takes a Chi to those curls...
We put a lifejacket on her with her swimmies and it was perfect. She just swam around and loved it.

Ryan and Chris on the jetskis.

Cole, Sarah, Chris and Emerson playing in the sand on Sunday morning.

Love that shot glass sitting on her tray...

Oh yeah, they also had a bar on the dock...

The weekend was a great one- on the way back we stopped in Sedalia and I got a Guberburger- yummy! (That's a hamburger with peanut butter on it for those of you who don't know... Don't knock it till you try it!!!) Hopefully next summer we'll get to do it again with a little Wood baby in tow!

I love my dog...

Well let me start by saying that everything is fine now and Phoebes is safe and sound and at home. But we had a scare, let me tell you. She was gone for a total of 24 hours and it was just AWFUL.
Monday night, we had let Phoebe outside around 8 and calling her to let her back in, she didn't come. We looked and looked but with no luck. Long story short there's an opening in our fence we thought was secure but I guess not. We went to bed around 12:30 after looking up and down our street and all through our backyard. Let me tell you, in 8 years I'd never gone to sleep at night not knowing where Phoebe was or that she was safe. It was awful. I woke up on Tuesday and my mom came over and we made these flyers and spent all day going door to dooor handing them out and taking them to businesses around town. I was crying at the UPS store where we made copies and the manager, who was helping me, teared up saying she had dogs too and gave me my copies for free. People were so helpful and nice to us.
Anyway, so that night I stood on the edge of my driveway and handed out the flyers to cars passing by while Ryan drove around the area and nailed the flyers to phone poles. Then a car drove by and as I was handing him a flyer he said, "you missing your dog?" Long story short, his wife has seen Phoebe the night before and had her. They live about a block away. Whew!

I'm a bad mom and didn't have her collar on her so I was just a sick mess. Luckly, she's home now and I have a new appreciation for my first baby. Go give your dog a hug, they mean more to you than you realize!!!

No pics but a funny story...

So on Sunday we took the Emerson and Will to Amber's parent's pool in Olathe to swim before dinner. (Ryan had 8 ears of corn by the way...) Anyway, we were hanging out in the baby pool and Will came over and said something about watching him cannon ball in the big pool. I look over and Ryan is rushing Emerson over to the grass- I didn't know what was going on. I get up and I see puke on the sidewalk- I guess she had swallowed a bunch of water and started to get sick in the water while I wasn't looking. Ryan had throw up all over him so we took Emerson into the bathroom to get cleaned up. She was totally fine and Ryan took her swimming in the big pool with Will and Jonathan. Meanwhile, I went to check out the baby pool and see rigatoni (Emerson's tuna helper lunch) floating in the pool. So I'm wading in the baby pool picking out the pasta with my hands- awesome. The lifeguard had to call in reinforcement and they had to add a bunch of chemicals to the pool and then close the baby pool down. Wow. All in a days work, eh? I just thought you all would enjoy the visual of me wading through the water fishing for pasta...

She's Excited...

...and so are we! That's right, Miss Emerson is going to be a big sister. We're still wrapping our brains around it!!! She's not old enough to explain things to yet but the shirt sure is cute.


So I'm due on Valentine's Day and I'm 10 weeks along. I didn't have ANY nausea with her and I'm feeling less than stellar these days. It's all taken me by surprise because I felt pretty great the last pregnancy. I wake up feeling alright but as the day goes along and 6 pm hits (about the time Ryan gets home. Maybe that's saying something... ;) I start just going downhill from there. I wish I could puke- at least then I'd have some relief. Ugh. I'd appreciate any suggestions you moms out there have- I've tried lots of different things. Eating carbs seems to be helping the most. There goes my 82 pound weight loss!!!

Anywho- like with Emerson, we're not going to find out the sex of the baby, much to my mom and sister in law's chagrin. It was just too much fun last time! So the guessing game begins. I think it's a boy...

Since the nursery is already gender neutral, we had planned all along to only do one nursery and just move Emerson when the time came for her big girl room (a bit sooner than we had planned, I might add!) She'll be going next door to our guest room. I think Ryan's going to get started on that project sometime in the fall after the yard work stuff tapers off. For those of you who have seen the guest room closet, you know that Emerson will be competing for space with my shoes. Not sure what do to with that problem yet... Her clothes already take up the majority of that closet so we're good there.

We haven't started on names yet, really. I have a favorite girl name but on the boy front, I think we're hosed. I have NO ideas for boy names. And asking Ryan's opinions for boy names I get suggestions like Juan or Harry or Chipper. So I think I'm on my own...

I think I've answered the majority of questions people usually ask. Oh, Emerson and peanut will be 2 years and 3 months apart. Not bad. Either way, they'll hate each other in no time, I'm sure!!! So think of me these next few weeks- I'm hoping the "honeymoon trimester" will be just that for me again this time. Fingers crossed...


I thought I'd include these as well. Today I took Emerson to the Lee's Summit theatre where they have a summer movie series of kids movies for $2.50. I heard the movie was Elmo in Grouchland (who she loves) so I figured, what the heck? If she didn't like it we were only out a couple of bucks. I didn't know when a good age was to take a toddler to a movie but now was as good a time as ever. So I packed up her sippy cup and some snacks (and the binky of course) and off we went. I packed the camera and just ignored the stares as I took a picture of Emerson during the movie...


The seats are old school and fold up. Well, as I quickly learned, 22 pounds doesn't begin to hold the seat down. She almost got folded up like a taco. I saw some other kids had some booster seat things so we went and got one of those and from then on, she was good! She sat through the whole thing and was just amazed- I think I watched her more than I watched the movie. So fun!




So there you go! The secret's out! I'm going to go nap while I can... Have a good one!

I know...

...it's been forever! We've been all over the place but I've got loads of great pics to share... About a month ago we went over to my friend Alyssa's house to swim in her beautiful pool and we borrowed some water wings for Emerson. I thought she'd be too little but man, she was on her own swimming away!




We celebrated Ryan's 32nd birthday in Des Moines with his family- Emerson helped blow out his candles.

I had Griffin for a couple of hours and he is a smiling, cooing little thing! So cute!
Emerson snuggling with her chip and her cousin...
And regressing. Sure, she hated it when she was a baby but now she wants in it...
And on to the 4th of July in the QC with the Hoyts. The weather could have been better but we made our own fun inside!
The twins had their cake so Emerson got in the action with "Meh-Mo!!" (Elmo...) The boys were so cute eating their cakes. That's by far my favorite thing about 1st birthday parties.

Luckly Sunday was beautiful so we went out on the boats... and Emerson got to play in some real sand- not the pink kind in her activity tray.



She was pooped on our way back.
My BF Frannie had her second baby girl, Bella Grace so we all went to her house to meet the little one. She's tiny and so beautiful. On the couch is me, Angie Z!, Fran, Bella, Carrie O, and Fran's daughter Ava and then Appleton and Shelby. Man, we all go way back! THEN, last Saturday Chad and Jen Cross had their luau which I didn't get to go to because I had to work but Ryan took Emerson and I made him take lots of pictures!

What face is that???


Steady....

Ryan, Emerson and Quinton. Hopefully I'll make it next year- it's the only good meal Ryan got all week!!!
Oh, last but not least, I have this water bottle I just spray Emerson's hair down with and the curls just magically appear in perfect ringlets. (Wouldn't that be nice???) Anyway, she gets a hold of it and sucks the water out of it, which is kind of cute and gross at the same time. But now she's figured out how to squirt herself with it and she soaks herself! She loves it! If you enlarge this picture it's hilarious...
Well- I'm off to work! I promise, it won't be another month again before you hear from the Woods!