St. Patty's Day Fun

Saturday was really our first taste of spring weather--it was supposed to be warm and beautiful, so we decided to go to uptown Charlotte for the St. Patrick's Day parade.  Em was very excited about seeing a parade, but it was so crowded when we got there that she took turns sitting on our shoulders for the best view.

Here's former Charlotte Mayor, turned NC Governor as the Grand Marshall.

This was one of Em's favorite parts--all the Golden Retrievers!

There was a big kids' zone with a carousel, bounce houses and games.  Em got on the first time and wasn't very happy because "the bunny is not my favorite animal."

She was more excited to get back on her favorite animal--the doggie--but then decided she was going to be shy for a picture.

She was pretty happy when she got on the swings all by herself like a big girl!

And even happier when they started spinning around--she held on for dear life.

She talked Daddy in to standing in line twice for the big slide!

We stayed for several hours, and Em enjoyed exploring some of uptown with all the people and dogs.  It was a great day for a parade!

She was exhausted from playing, so she wasted no time falling asleep in the car. 

We headed down to look at cars--since my job no longer requires full time travel (hooray!), I'm turning in my company car and we're buying one.  We've been looking at the Honda CR-V, but Em decided she liked this little 2-door Accord :).

 

We were close to home at that point, and because we had bribed Em with ice cream for being a good girl at the car dealership, we went to Baxter Village for ice cream.  We didn't realize there was a big festival going on there too, so Em got to paint a picture (she told the lady her name was Peter Pan, so that's how her picture was labeled :)).

Then we saw a cupcake shop, so she settled for a double chocolate cupcake instead of ice cream.  She might look just like her Daddy, but she definitely has some of her Mommy in her too :).

The weather was perfect, and there was music and lots of kids, so it was the perfect environment for her.  She met this green frog and was trying to give him 5 in this pic.

She had a terrific time dancing, and jumped right in for some of the group dances.  We finally stopped to eat Italian for dinner and head home.  It was a full day, and Em was exhausted (we were too!)



Charleston Trip

Mick's Valentine's Day present this year was a trip to Charleston--I booked our hotel on a golf course and reserved an early tee time for him on Saturday morning.  We took Friday off and drove down that morning (only about a 3 hour trip).  Mick decided that he'd rather hang out with us than play golf, so we had a great time as a family :).

 

The weather turned out to be a lot colder than we expected, but we spent Friday afternoon eating seafood and exploring downtown, including the Market Street, which I love.

We took a horse-drawn carriage tour of downtown, and Em decided it was a good time for a little snooze.  Mick lucked out because he had a built-in heater with this sweet girl on his lap!

On Saturday morning, we headed to the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry.  It was incredible, and Em could have spent all day there easily.  There was a castle set up with little mini stations set up--dress up clothes, furniture, secret passageways to explore.  It was right up her alley.

They had a water play room that was by far her favorite--we went back at least three times. 

This little table had canoes that you could race down the rapids, and rocks to move across and change the direction of the water.

This room was full of golf balls, and all kinds of ramps and chutes you could explore, rolling the golf balls and seeing what happened.

She got a butterfly painted on her face,

and put on a puppet show (which was my favorite thing to watch).

These pictures are so funny to me--she didn't get the concept of holding her hands up over the "stage,"

but she was totally into the conversation between this turtle and lobster.

There was a huge art room with play dough, paper, glue, scissors, etc.  She made some Dr. Seuss-like trees with a little help.

And of course she needed no help to paint a beautiful masterpiece.

The grocery store was a hit--if you look closely, you can see the big smile on her face (and her wet sleeve from racing canoes).

It was set up like a Publix, except for the fact that they had people handing out shopping money when we first walked in.  Too bad the real ones don't do that!

She was very responsible, and put her cart away as her groceries were being bagged.

Receipt in hand, and reusable shopping bag on her arm.

Outside, there was a huge fire truck to play on,

and even clothes to dress up like a fireman.  The museum was worth the trip, even if we hadn't done anything else!  She loved it, and I think we'll go back.

We ate more seafood for lunch, and Em took a nap in the stroller as we walked through downtown and to the Aquarium.  We sat down and rested for a little while, waiting for her to wake up so we could go in.  When we did, she jumped right in--one of the first things she found was some animals to touch--I didn't catch the picture of her touching the snake, but she loved this little crocodile!

This was her "jellyfish are yuck-ay" face.

 There was a cute little play area that she enjoyed.

The nap had come at a perfect time and gave her plenty of energy to power through the whole afternoon.

This was our favorite part of the afternoon--the Madagascar wing had these lemurs that Em really liked.  She found a little underground tunnel to crawl in that led to this up close and personal viewing area.  A couple of lemurs flew over their heads, and I think this little boy is covering his ears because of Em's screams.

They both ended up laughing and screaming, and were hilarious to watch.

When we left, Em took the opportunity to put on one of her shows for us--she's quite the little performer.  There's a cartoon that she's watched a couple of times called Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood (on PBS, and based on Mr. Rogers)--one episode had Daniel's teacher singing a song in class about showing something special that each kid in the class could do.  We've somehow picked up that song after hearing it a couple of times--it's "Hi Daniel Tiger, how do you do?  Show us something special that you can do!"  We of course have replaced "Daniel Tiger" with "Peter Pan," and Em always shows us something silly, like this little pose.

We all have to take turns doing something--she'll sing Tinkerbell and Captain Hook, and we all do silly poses.  One afternoon, I got to school to pick her up and the kids were all in a circle taking turns doing something special and singing this song--yes, she had taught her teacher the song and gotten everyone involved in the game.  It was great :).

We were walking into a restaurant for dinner Saturday night, and Em tripped and bit her lip pretty bad--we ended up going back to our hotel, getting seafood at the hotel restaurant, and getting in our pjs to watch Peter Pan.  Sunday morning, it was time to come home!  It turned out to be a good Valentine's Day trip for all of us.

Witty Little Sayings

Em is really taking this Peter Pan obsession to a whole new level--she wants everyone to refer to her as Peter Pan, to the point that if someone asks her name, that's what she tells them!  Daddy is Captain Hook, and I'm Tinkerbell.  Her grandparents are Wendy and John (both sets), and Gracie and Bella are Mr. Smee and one of the Lost Boys.  It's a little crazy, and we keep expecting it to fade, but it hasn't so far :).  One of her favorite sayings from Captain Hook in the movie is "Swoggle me eyes, it is Pan!"  She's a silly girl.

Some of her "trademark" sayings are so endearing to us--she'll ask us to share something with her (food usually), and when we offer it, she'll say "can I have all that I want?"  I don't know why, but it just sounds so sweet.

She'll also say "I'm am" instead of "I am" if we ask her to do something that she's already in the middle of, which is cute.

I have this thing now where I'll ask her to get rid of her "mean girl attitude" whenever she's not acting nice--most of the time, she'll cooperate.  It seems to resonate with her when I can compare her attitude to a mean character (like Cinderella's stepsisters).  Sometimes, she'll physically throw her attitude it in the trash, or tell me "I'm not in a crabby mood anymore."  Other times, she reminds us that she can pout and cry with the best of them.  Her tears are really convincing, and she can turn them on and off like a switch!

We have a chair in our dining room that we use for her time out--she doesn't spend a whole lot of time there, but she knows what it means to sit in the chair for sure.  She was throwing a little fit one day recently and I told her to go sit in the chair--we had cleaned up a little earlier, and the chair wasn't pushed up against the wall where it normally stays.  She turned around (crying dramatically) and said "there's no chair for me!"  I couldn't help but laugh, and just told her to come sit in my lap.

Whenever she's having a particularly tough time with something, we'll ask her if she wants to take a break--her favorite spot for that is our bed, and her mood instantly improves when we do that.

I think our biggest challenge is still brushing her teeth--she really makes it tough sometimes in the mornings, and that's when I'm usually by myself, trying to get the two of us out the door.  Needless to say, we usually leave later than I'd like in the mornings.  What's most frustrating is how deliberate she is--sometimes she's perfectly cooperative, and sometimes she just fights every step.

What a roller coaster she keeps us on all the time!

Snow Day!

We've had such crazy weather lately--it will go from 70 degrees one day to 40 three days later.  Our area was predicted to stay cold all day and get snow on Saturday--we had given up on it since it rained all day, but the rain changed to snow around 5pm.  Em had taken a late nap, so we got suited up and headed outside.  The wind was blowing pretty hard, and the snow was pouring down.  In no time, the ground was covered, and there was several inches in a couple of hours.

We stayed out long enough to build a quick snowman, but came in after that to get out of the wind.

We went back out later that evening after the snow stopped, and everything looked so pretty all covered in white.

Em had a great time stomping around in the front yard.

On Sunday morning, it was nice and sunny, but still so cold that nothing melted, so we went back out.  Em took her beach and garden tools to play.

She shoveled snow for a while,

and then decided we needed to build another snowman.

This one turned out bigger, and then became a snow teddy bear.

Em was pretty proud of our creation!

This was her first attempt at a snow angel--she needed some help understanding how to move her arms and legs,

but once she got on a roll, she didn't want to stop!

It made for a pretty fun weekend!  We stayed out all morning and played, and then watched Em's new favorite movie, Peter Pan, that afternoon.  She'll watch this any chance she gets now, and has decided that she's Peter Pan, I'm Tinkerbell, and Mick is Captain Hook.  She'll often decide not to answer to anything but Peter Pan!  This has been going on for a couple of weeks now, so we keep thinking she'll change her mind, but it hasn't happened yet.

 

I really like the old original Disney movies--they're short enough to keep her attention, and the plots are always things she enjoys.

Another Playdate

A friend of mine from work has a daughter almost exactly one year younger than Em, and we've been wanting to get together for a while, so we made it happen on Saturday. We went to Sports Connection, where we've been before--at Em's request.

Since Emma is younger, I wasn't sure if she'd enjoy it as much as Emily, but they had a good time together.  Guitars, basketball, bounce house, and bowling!

We finally got them to slow down enough for a snack, and Heather and I were able to catch up a little.

Now Em can't stop talking about Emma and Ms. Heather!  I love watching her make friends, and she does it so easily :).