Monday, December 28, 2009

Emma is 2 years old!

Today Emma is two years old! Happy birthday Emma! Yesterday we had a party for her with family and friends. We had an Elmo party and she loved it. I made the cake and decorated it with Elmo's face (see previous post for a picture!) Daddy helped by tracing out the template from a picture online. Emma really loved the cake and enjoyed eating it.

She has grown and changed so much this year. Her hair is really getting long, and she's so tall. Tomorrow we go for her 2 year appointment. I think she's at least 35 inches tall, we'll see tomorrow! She is speaking in sentences and saying so many new things. She says "no way", "surprise", "more please", "need help" and so many other things. It's really hard to kept track. She has 4 teeth left to come in, her back molars. I may never know when she gets them, she doesn't really let me check her mouth too often.

She sings all the time. She'll sing "Mommy" over and over to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle" or Barney's "I love you, you Love me" song. It's really sweet to hear "Mommy" repeated so many times! Emma's new favorite song is "The Wheels on the Bus". We sing this all the time, even when I'm putting her to bed. She asks for it by saying "beep beet?", which is how she says beep-beep for the horn on the bus. As we've been singing Christmas songs this month, she's picked up words to those too. She can get parts of Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-Noses Reindeer. Mostly she says the last line of each verse, it's so cute. She also likes to call us "MommyDaddy" as one word when she's talking to us both.

Emma loves to read and is really good at pointing out what she sees in the book. She will see an animal and say "pet?" and pet the picture. She knows a few colors, red, green and blue, and she's counting more. Sometimes she will count and say "2 by 2 by 2" but now she's said "1, 2, 3."

She really enjoyed Christmas and opening her gifts, for Christmas and her birthday. She received a tricycle, a basketball goal, a guitar, lots of Elmo toys and books, lots of art supplies, a new table and chairs, and a train set. So far I believe that Mommy and Daddy love the train set more than Emma does, we are always trying to make new designs with the pieces!

-Ronda

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Tonight as we put Emma to bed, we read "T'was the Night Before Christmas" to her. Then after I left, Tony read her a book called "What is Christmas About?" He told her about Jesus and that we celebrated Christmas because it's his birthday. She then said several times "Happy Birthday Jesus." It was very sweet! Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Duck!

Today Emma said duck! It was cute (you're surprised, I'm sure)! She was actually playing with a little soft penguin that she found with a small baby rubber duck. She decided that the penguin was the mommy duck and started saying "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy...duck!"

She also put on pants by herself for the first time today! They are soft cotton pants and she was able to get them on in the right direction, but they were inside out. She pulled them up as much as she could but her diaper bump stopped them in the back.

She really loves to see school buses these days. We see them often when we are taking Daddy to work and picking him up. She says "beep-beet" when she see one. She also loves to sing the song "The Wheels on the Bus". If we see a bus go by she'll ask me "Mommy, beep-beet, me, please?" Which means "Mommy can I see another school bus please?"

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Playing in Ernie's house

Emma gets down on the floor for maximum playing room!

No more gates (mostly)!

This weekend I decided that I was sick of the gates dividing our living room and kitchen from the rest of the house. So we took them down, except for the gates on the top and bottom of the stairs. We still have the big fence keeping Emma from the TV, but the two gates being gone is so nice! I feel like our house is bigger and we can move around easier. Emma seems happier to just have the option to go in the other rooms, but mostly she stays where ever we are. She's even stayed out of the little bathroom with the cat box.

This morning I was getting Emma dressed and told her that I had a hoodie for her to wear today. As I pulled it over her head she said "hoodie, Emma's hoodie". Also this morning she very clearly said "Big Bird" when Sesame Street came on and he was on the screen! So there's two new words just in an hour this morning!

She really likes to hold hands, especially when we are in the car. She asks so sweetly, "hold hands?" I love to hold her little baby hand, it's so soft and sweet.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Ernie's house!

Emma loves to play with her little Ernie doll. I found him at a garage sale for .25 cents. She has decided that her Little People House is now "Ernie's house". She loves to put Ernie in the house and then yell "we're home!" That's one of her favorite phrases right now, "we're home!". She yells this anytime we pull into the garage, and often when we arrive anywhere, not just our house.

The new words continue to pour out everyday. I just can't list them all, she's just talking too much for me to keep up. "Dirty" is a new word, but that's all I can remember. She also knows what a computer is. Tony and I were talking about the computer and she went over to the laptop and pointed at it and said "duh-duh". I think that's her generic word for things she doesn't know how to say yet.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

A Haircut and a Visit to Santa!

We've had an incredibly busy but good weekend. Friday evening Tony's office had an open house at their new offices. We dressed Emma up and took her to the party. It was hard to manage her at times, she wanted to run around and there was an awesome deluxe train and village set that she was very interested in. And Santa made an appearance so Emma was very excited. She was first in his lap and made two more trips back to just sit on his lap! She received a little car with Santa in it and she's been playing with that all weekend. Here is Emma in Santa's lap on Friday.
















Saturday morning we took Emma to get her first hair trim. We went to my hair dresser, Morgan. We just wanted the front of Emma's hair trimmed up because it was really getting long and in her eyes alot. She's not always happy to let me put it in a ponytail and clips don't usually stay in her hair. Emma did so great. I brought along a lollipop and that made it so easy. Emma was very content to sit and let Morgan trim her hair. After the trim Morgan gathered up the hair (despite my best efforts to knock the hair on the floor) and tied a pretty purple ribbon around it, so we have that for Emma's baby book. Here are a few pictures.


































After Emma's haircut we dressed her back up and headed to the mall for another visit with Santa. Emma was excited, but she did pretty well waiting in line. We got there early but still had to wait about 45 minutes. She was so happy and her picture came out great. I've got to order Christmas cards with the picture now. After the picture Emma got to ride a little train they have set up. It just goes in a circle but it was very neat, the train cars had doors and windows. Emma sat in a car to herself. She kept yelling "Hi Mommy, Hi Daddy" every time she went by us.

--Ronda

No more hair in Emma's face!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Thanksgiving Week

Last Monday Emma and I left town to go visit my parents, her Grandmom and Granddad, for a few days before Thanksgiving. Emma had a great time there. She loves to play in the yard, looks for the kitties, and explore. When it's time for Grandmom to feed the cats, she claps her hands and calls for Callie and Scruffy. Emma quickly learned this brings the kitties running, and she was soon calling "Callie, Callie" and clapping her hands together!

Grandmom and Granddad just live 2 blocks from the train tracks, and we took Emma to see the trains several times. She would point and say "my train!". I told her that they were her trains but they had to keep going and make their deliveries. We also picked pecans and Emma enjoyed eating them. Once she spit out a big mouth full of pecans, I guess she got a bitter one.

She enjoyed swinging on the porch swing with Granddad.































She had fun playing with Grandmom's hat.
















Surprise!















On Wednesday evening Daddy arrived from Austin and we set out for Lindale to visit Grandma and Grandpa. Emma was really good on the drive. We sang the "Wheels on the Bus" for a long time, and it eventually evolved into a weird Star Wars version! For example, we sang " The Yoda on the bus goes "there is no try", "there is no try", "there is no try", etc. It was fun and Emma enjoyed hearing new words to a favorite song.

Thursday we had Thanksgiving with Grandpa and Grandma, Uncle Todd, Great Uncle Rickey and Great Aunt Sharon, and Tony's cousin David, his wife Susan, and their kids, Chance and Chloe. Chloe is about a week younger than Emma, so they enjoyed playing together. It was nice to have kids running around playing together. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling great on Thursday so I didn't get any pictures on Thanksgiving. I did get a few pictures of Emma playing the bass and mandolin and I posted those previously.

Emma loved the bass and kept asking anyone who would listen to take her back into the back bedroom so she could look at it. She lovingly padded it and told it "hi bass" many times. She also slept great while in Lindale, going until 7:30 most days and 8am once. She also starting singing the Barney song very clearly, getting more and more words in the song. I just love to hear her sing that song!

It was a good week despite my getting sick, but we were glad to be home on Sunday. Now it's time to get ready for Christmas and a certain little girl's two year birthday!

New hat and coat!

Swinging in the Cold.