Little Artists

Today was the first meeting of Playgroup Plus. Every week a different mom is responsible for picking a place for us all to go and providing lunch. This time it was at one of the mom's houses. She is very brave because I'm not sure I could have that many kids running around my house all at one time. She was even so brave as to let her theme be "colors." This means we painted. It was all washable but you can't always be too sure about that. Thankfully there were no mishaps and all of her furniture is still in tact.

When we first arrived we all just played. Here is Emma having a blast with tools. I'm sure Josh will be very proud that she is so comfortable around all the tools...far more comfortable than me.




Then we were off to break into smaller groups for painting. Here is the before shot:


And here she is with her new friend, Eli, as they ponder what to paint:


Here is our little group upstairs:


Colton is not happy here and Emma and Eli watch him with upset and confused faces. None of them like it when another one of them cries. It's cute that they already care so much.


From left - Parker, Eli, Emma and Colton:


Here is a picture of me and my little artist:


And here is their final product:


I'll start the bidding at $100...any takers? I think it's quite a bargain!

Chuck E. Cheese Please!

Today Emma and I had our first trip to Chuck E. Cheese. We went after Mother Goose story time at the library. We met up with four other moms there and we all had pizza and then let the kids loose on the rides and games. A whole new world was opened to Emma. Unfortunately, she fell asleep as we drove into the parking lot. Isn't she an angel?


She was sleepy because she woke up early this morning. And I guess between that and Mother Goose, she was already tuckered out. I let her sleep on my shoulder for about 10 or 15 minutes. We had ordered the pizza and were waiting for the rest of our group to get there anyways so it worked out well. Once the food came, I had to wake her up. She liked the pizza but she was way too distracted by the huge talking and singing Chuck E. Cheese Mouse robot behind us to eat.


After I finally got enough food in her, we all went to the rides and the games. The kids were all so cute on the rides. All of them had been several times so they knew which games were their favorites. Next time we'll know which ones to go straight for. For our first trip though, here is what we did:

Rode with Barney:


Rode with Chuck E. Cheese himself:


After a minute, she felt pretty chummy with Chuck, so she went in for the nose poke:


Drove the space machine:


Found out that she loves the sliding board:


Afterward, we went over to the huge Chuck E. Cheese that was singing so Emma could see him up close. I thought there might be a chance that she would be afraid of him...he is like 30 times her size! She LOVED him! She was so sad when he went behind the curtain for a break. She kept trying to open the curtain up.

It was a fun day and we'll definitely have to go again. Thanks to Martina and all our new friends for letting us join you!

Dancing Queen

Since this past weekend was the last weekend of hunting season, I knew Josh would be occupied. Therefore, Emma and I decided to take the opportunity to make a quick trip to Mississippi and visit some of my girls. We stayed with my friend, Alissa, who was my roommate all through college. I figure if you can make it that long living together, have no fights and still remain friends afterward, then we were definitely destined to be friends forever!

Alissa just had her first baby so Emma was very excited to have somebody to play with. She kept trying to share her toys with him but since he is only 4 months old, he just kind of looked at her. Here they are watching some television while Alissa and I were getting their things together. Aren't they just so cute?


One night we met our friends Anna and Nessa for dinner and we brought Emma along for the girls' night out. It was so much fun catching up and having adult conversations as opposed to baby talk all day. I was worried Emma was going to misbehave because she only took a 30 minute nap that afternoon. But thankfully she was very good. We even had some people tell us on our way out how well behaved she was. Yay! Emma gave us all a good laugh at the end of dinner. The waitress was clearing the plates and I was still eating. I was thinking to myself before she came around that I needed to stop eating because I wasn't hungry anymore. So when she came around, she took it and then asked if I was done. I said, "Yes" and she took it. Well Emma was very unpleased with this. I'm not sure what got into her but she gave this woman the stink eye! It was her 'serious face' but more of a 'you better back off or ELSE face.' She was so convincing that the waitress actually put my plate back down. And once the waitress left our area, Emma noticed the plate was back and I guess she felt very victorious because she smiled and clapped for herself. It was SO funny! I guess she was thinking that she was protecting my food for me. Very sweet. :)

Alissa's parents had a party one night and we all loaded up and went. It was so cold that day that it actually snowed that morning and afternoon. It took a lot of preparing for all the stuff we had to take with us. Lots of layers of clothes, hats, bottles, snacks, etc. We had a great time though. There were lots of people and tons of food. Her dad makes the best eggrolls so that was the main food attraction. They even had karaoke. After that night, I have now dubbed Emma the Dancing Queen because she was all about the music. I had to stand in the front row for every song while she kicked her legs and bounced up and down the whole time. I had a lot of people come up to me and tell me how cute she was. You'd think a baby would be scared with all the loud music and people all over the place, but not Emma. She was thriving on all the action. My arms were killing me by the end of the night! I had to take a break and go up to the house at one point just so my arms could get a break. Here is a picture of us with Alissa and JHA up at the house.


And here is a picture that I took of Emma as she is trying to put the cute ladybug hat on that Alissa gave her:


Before we left on Sunday, we went to brunch. Here are a few shots of Emma.

Waiting for food:


Playing Peek-a-boo:



A good time was had by all and we look forward to seeing our Mississippi friends again sometime soon!

Three Cheers...

...For THREE steps!! Yep, our little ladybug took her first steps tonight. It was an added bonus that Josh and I were both right there to witness it. She has really been making progress lately with her balancing so we knew it would be soon. We were just sitting on the floor and I had Emma in my lap and she stood up and took three steps towards Josh. Then she fell forward into his arms. She thinks it is more of a game to just fall face forward into us because she knows we will catch her. She laughs hysterically when she falls.

Then later on tonight we were upstairs with her and she did it again! She hasn't taken more than 3 steps at a time, but we're getting there.

I found out on Wednesday morning that I had strep throat. Not the best news especially since it is very contagious and I didn't want Emma or Josh catching it. Thankfully Josh was able to come home from work and stay with Emma on Wednesday and today. I started the antibiotics on Wednesday afternoon so by this afternoon I wasn't contagious anymore. Josh still quarantined me until tonight though just in case. Thank goodness he did or I might have missed the exclusive first steps!

A Shopper in Training

I bought one of those little shopping carts for Emma today. To say that she really likes it is a total understatement. I thought it would be good for her to be able to walk around without the help of us and learn to balance more on her own. It is definitely working. She has wanted to play with it since we got home. In fact, she used it so much that she wore herself out and took a 3 hour nap. I consider this money well invested!

Our downstairs makes a circle and I followed her around no less than 20 times today. Here is a short video of her with her shopping cart. She always looks back at me when she gets to a dead end. I think it is to make sure that a) I'm watching and b) to make sure that I am noticing she is stuck and for me to come help her turn around. It looks like she is ready to shop to me:



Before we got the cart, she was standing up for a short spurts without holding on to anything. But now, she is standing for long periods of time and balancing herself great. I think the distraction of all the toys and music right there at her fingers makes her forget to hold on so much. I don't think it will be long now before we have an official "toddler" on our hands.

Here is an action shot that I took of her:


I could never get a video of her from the front angle because as soon as I'd set the cart in place and walk back far enough to video, she'd already be right in my face. So, here is a video from tonight that Josh took after I did the set up.


She was also really cute playing with her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse shapes today. She kept fishing out the shapes, putting them in, then turning around to make sure I was watching, and then she'd clap for herself. So sweet.

What the Future Holds

Nobody knows exactly what the future holds. But here are a few possibilities that I have come across the past couple of weeks...

A future veterinarian - she squeals at the sight of any animal, especially her Nala. And she is so sweet and gentle with them. The other day at breakfast she even shared her cheese toast with her toy cow. How sweet is that?


A future CPA like her mother - Emma loves playing with my calculator and perks up anytime they start counting on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse:


A future engineer like her father - she is fascinated by electricity and power and it makes her day when I let her turn the lights out on our way out of a room:


A future musician - she stops what she is playing and turns towards any music she hears. These are videos I took of her as I put the instruments in her hands for the first time:



What I can pass along for sure are some things that have happened in the recent past. Last week we transitioned to one nap a day and I consider it a success. Typically she will take a 2.5 to 3 hour nap starting at 1:00. The trick is that she just has to have a snack when she wakes up so she isn't hungry for dinner really early. That way, her dinner can stay at the same time and she sleeps all night and keeps to her original wake up time.

Of course this isn't always the case. Yesterday Jaime came to watch Emma for a few hours and Emma never napped. Her schedule was thrown off because she took about a 25 minute nap on me while we waited for our food at the Pancake House after church. She slept through all the noise but as soon as food arrived at our table and she smelled the pancakes, she perked right up. She loves pancakes and really enjoyed the sausage!


She is also leaning towards wanting to take those first steps. She is standing up unassisted a lot more lately and for longer periods of time. I think she's still working on her balance and trying to make sure she's prepared before she takes off walking. I'm pretty sure she gets that need for safety from me because, let's be honest, Josh doesn't have those types of thoughts. We're working on the walking, but we're not in too big of a hurry to cross this milestone.

Another cute thing she is doing is cleaning up after herself. She'll take everything out of her basket or her toy bin and then slowly put them all back in. Once she is finished putting it all back in, she claps for herself. Granted, she always takes them back out again, but it's a start!

Lastly, since she is so independent, she wants to feed herself not only with her hands but with a spoon. She's started to do it and although it is messy sometimes (especially with yogurt), I know it's good for her to learn. It's so funny though to watch her pick up peas or carrots one by one and put them on the fork so that she can put the fork in her mouth. Adorable!

Riddle Me This

How does less napping during the day equal needing to sleep less during the night? She normally doesn't wake up until 7:45 or 8:00, but this morning she was wide awake at 6:30. I don't think I have any chance of keeping her awake until after lunch today to keep up with the one nap experiment. She's already getting the sleepy eyes and it is only 9:00 am. I knew this one nap transition was too good to be true.