Machine

Emma is a cleaning machine lately. She always asks me what I am doing. If I respond with anything remotely close to cleaning up she quickly responds with, "Ohhh I NEED to help my Mommy." She is excellent with a vacuum and a Swiffer but her forte is dusting. I love this kid!

Happy Birthday to Daddy

We celebrated Josh's birthday on Saturday and I heard this song at least 50 times. Emma sang it all day on Sunday too. Although I like a good Happy Birthday song as much as the next person, I'm a little tired of it at this point. Nonetheless, we had a great weekend and had fun celebrating.

Emma painted a card for Daddy and we picked up some cupcakes for him.

The birthday boy opening a present

Singing Happy Birthday to her Daddy

Blowing out the candles

Enjoying the delicious cupcakes!

As Requested

After her bath tonight, Emma asked me to take her picture. So, as requested, here is her photo shoot.

She gathered all the dolls and stuffed animals that were sitting in the room and brought them over for her photo.
This her is saying, "Waiiiittttt - I not ready yet."

She gathered all the books from her table and brought those over too.

And then read them all to me.

You would think she could read with how wells she memorizes books. She knows if you leave out a word on a particular page. And if you ask her to read it to you, she virtually reads it verbatim. If you skip a page (because it's way past her bedtime and it is taking forever to get through the book because she wants to point out everything she sees), she says, "Oops, Mommy skipped a page. It's okay - we go back now." She doesn't let us get away with anything!

Dress Up

Saturday was dress up day! Emma LOVED this ballerina outfit and twirled around until she was too dizzy to twirl anymore.

Even ballerinas need to take a minute out from twirling to get their shades.

After twirling outside, Emma decided it was time to come inside and "work."

She literally sits down for 20 or 30 minutes and plays with my calculator. Once she figured out which button to push to clear everything out, it meant countless hours of fun. This is the game - push 3 over and over again until it fills up the screen and then scream out, "Look at ALLLLLLL the threes!" Then clear it, and do 4 and so on and so forth. Let me tell you, it gets really old after 6.

Happy 9/15

This 9/15 deadline is officially over! Between tax returns, recruiting and Emma's cough it's been a rough week and a half. But we have made it through successfully. Here are a couple of pictures from the week that I haven't had a chance to post.

Emma disrupting Nala from a cozy nap. Apparently she had brought Nala about ten Q-tips or "tips" as she calls them. Why does she love "tips?" Who knows - we just go with it.

This is how crazy Emma's hair looks after her pigtails come out.

This is how happy Emma is to get chocolate cake. She picked out some cake from the restaurant we ate at for dinner and she did NOT forget about it by the time we got home. Her first sentence after walking in the door -- "Mommy, I need my cake now." I couldn't argue - I needed some too!

Giving herself a breathing treatment - she's such a big girl! She has had a cough the past couple of days and from experience we know we need to get ahead of it and start the breathing treatments. Thankfully she is already sounding so much better.

Happy 9/15 to everybody!

Stir Crazy

For the first time in my career, I didn't have to work over Labor Day weekend. And what happened? It rained ALL weekend! It's okay though - it's better than working all weekend. Since we were cooped up for days, we decided to venture out in the rain on Monday and go to the mall. Emma had the best time running around (at top speed) and playing hide and seek in every store.

Looking out the window of the mall and telling me that it's still raining. I think she liked watching all the people run through the rain.

After some shopping and some lunch we stopped for a cookie break.

Later that day at home I walked in the room to find her having a party with her toys. She is too cute!

She always keeps things interesting - that's for sure!

Five Octagons

We all know how Emma loves to point out shapes so we were not surprised when one night a couple of weeks ago she said, "Daddy, I see two octagons." We WERE surprised however, when two seconds later she spotted three more octagons and she said, "Daddy, I see three more octagons - that makes FIVE octagons." Really?! She's adding now! It is adorable to watch her mind work. She adds everything now and she is so proud of herself.

The next day when I dropped her off at school I told her teachers how well she is doing with the adding that they are teaching her. Do you know what their response was? "We haven't started teaching her math yet!" I was stunned but I don't know why because she always shocks us with what she knows.

She is getting the biggest imagination lately. This weekend she had us playing one scenario after another. One minute we were on a mission to get her wand unstuck and then find the wand's Mommy and Daddy and then we were in her kitchen making a cake and waffles while singing Jesus Loves Me. Not sure which one of us had more fun!

I can also add sweetest little girl in the world to her resume. The other night I had a headache. She walked into the room, got up on the bed, gave me her baby doll, pulled the covers over me, kissed my forehead and said 'There, that will make my Mommy feel all better.' Melted my heart!

Horse Hug

I LOVE THIS LITTLE GIRL!!