warning: extreme niecy cuteness ahead

So adult board game time was lots of fun, but the best part of the week was definitely hanging out with our nieces. It was our first time meeting 11-month-old Sadie and she just might be the happiest baby I've known. She is always smiling and she loves to wave in a way that looks like she's unscrewing a light bulb. If you get her really excited, she just might do the two-hand wave. I wish I could have captured the wave on camera, along with her happy pterodactyl-like shriek, and the cute way she would smile when she saw me--by moving her head forward from her body, sticking her chin down, and grinning, all in the same motion.

Playing and chatting with Emerson, who just turned three, is also great fun. She is certainly beginning to exert her own will more often, something that can be frustrating for Mike and Tanya, and easier to laugh at for aunts and uncles who haven't experienced this yet, like us :) Emerson has quite the vocabulary and loves to ask questions. When I showed Emmy some of my facebook pictures, she had a hard time recognizing Eric in some of the pictures in which he was clean-shaven. Me: Do you know who that is? Em: No. I don't know. Me: That's Unckage. Em: But why he don't have his fuzz on?

With Tia Mia's boots on:

Emmy's first french braid and my first attempt in a long time:

Em relaxing in her perfectly-sized recliner:

I think she liked it.

We gave Em a hat like mine for Christmas, and whenever I put it on, she asked me, "Why you have my hat on, Tia Mia?"

Sadie was more fun to play with than whatever was happening on the Wii.

Have I mentioned that I love being an aunt? I'm super excited that we'll get to see Sadie again in a few weeks when we visit Scott and Hilary in Chicago and that we'll see our nephew, Justin, in Michigan! And hopefully it won't be too long before Ms. Em and company come down to visit!