Family Reunion

My grandma was turning 90 on Memorial Day weekend, so the family had planned a birthday party/family reunion to celebrate her.  We drove up on Saturday morning and got there around lunch time--we met up with Jason, Jenn and Julie at Grandma's house, where they had arrived the night before and spent the night. We had lunch there and stayed for a while just to spend some time together before the crowds arrived!

We had hotel reservations in Lynchburg, about 20 minutes from her house, so we headed there for the afternoon on Saturday.  This is the best we could do for a group picture!  It's nice to have, because we rarely all get pictures together.

We picked up some groceries for our rooms, ordered pizza for dinner, and Em and Cody watched part of a movie before we got them into bed pretty early.

The day of the party arrived, and we headed to Pamplin, VA to my cousin Archie's house to help get everything ready.  Em wanted to help with the flowers and decorations.

Chase wasted no time finding a four wheeler, and Cody and Em joined him for a little photo shoot!

Em got in some good snuggle time with her Grandma!

One of the few times you'll see these two actually smiling in a picture at the same time!

This is more like it :).

The kids enjoyed their own little picnic when it was time to eat--there was delicious BBQ, chicken and hot dogs with plenty of sides.

When it was time for the cake, Great Grandma needed a little help with those 90 candles!  Cody, Chase and Em are her only three great grandchildren and were the youngest party guests--they were happy to pitch in!

Grandma and Great Grandma with the grandchildren!

One of the whole crowd--well, almost (we didn't start taking pictures until a couple of people had already left).

A rare family photo of us.

We were all glad to get back to the hotel that night where the kids could go to bed early again--none of them had naps all day, so they had time for a quick card game and were done.

Our room setup was perfect, because the rooms were right next to each other and opened in the back into a courtyard that was deserted except for us, which was really nice.  We ordered Chinese food, shared some wine, and just enjoyed each other's company!  Times like those are too few and far between for us.

Gymnastics Show Week

Tonight was Show Week at The Little Gym where Em takes gymnastics once a week--that meant that all the parents got to go in the gym and watch the kids demonstrate all they'd learned throughout the class!

Especially considering that Em started halfway through the class, we're proud of what she's learned.  She has really gotten over her initial fear of the balance beam, and now prances across it even when she doesn't have a spotter.

Her flips are much stronger now, and she likes monkey jumps, which are the introduction to a cartwheel.  All of the kids were awarded medals at the end of the session, which got them pretty excited!

Honestly, Mick and I could do without gymnastics each week--we do like watching her, but her behavior isn't always ideal when we're there and she can see us.  By the time she's in this class, she's been listening to a teacher and following instructions for 9 hours, so it's sometimes tough for her to focus completely.  She loves the activity though, and most of the time does a great job, so we signed her up for a summer session.

This was some of her class with her teacher, Ms. Missy, who Em LOVED!  She will miss her as she moves up to the next class, but hopefully being with the 4-5 year olds instead of the 3-4 year olds will help her focus.

Four Year Checkup

It truly seemed like four years old was a lifetime away when Em was 2 and getting her last round of shots, and now it's here!

We went on a Thursday afternoon after school, and she was in great spirits--she got a gown to wear this time, and the technician was a young guy, who she thought was very handsome (and told him so).  She showed off her crazy vocabulary and did well with the vision test.  He redid one part of the hearing test a couple of times because she didn't hear the deepest beep--we weren't overly concerned about her hearing since she had a couple of pretty advanced hearing tests when she was seeing the ENT specialist.  I think she just has very selective hearing, so if the beep took too long, she found something more interesting to do or talk about while she waited.

As usual, she went straight for the reading material.  They always have books in the exam rooms, but I sometimes take a few of her favorites too, just in case we wait long enough to go through all of them.

When the books were done, she put on a little dance show.

And I got her to stand still long enough for one smile :).

Overall, she's perfect--she regained the weight from when she was so sick last month and weighs 41 pounds now (82nd percentile).  She's 43.25 inches tall (95th percentile).  She did fantastic until it was time for shots--she had two (boosters for MMRV, Polio and DTap), and is now done until she's 10 years old!  Now that had better take a little longer to get here.  She put on a pretty good screaming/crying show for the shots, and even limped around after we got home, saying her leg hurt.  Funny that it really only hurts when she's not jumping, playing or doing something she wants to do.

Em can write all of her letters, and can spell some words--usually, she'll ask me to tell her the letters of the word she wants to write, and she'll do the writing on her own.  We're working on beginning reading, and when we really take the time, she does a great job with sounding out some very simple words.

Nighttime potty training has been a much better experience than we imagined--she's so happy to be out of pull-ups completely!  I still get up once in the middle of the night to take her to the potty, and she almost never wets the bed.  Once in a while, if she drinks a lot of water later than usual, there will be an accident, but the sheet protectors have been great, since they prevent having to change the whole bed out at midnight.

Em's personality continues to blossom, and she makes friends so easily.  She is truly a leader (her teachers have told us this repeatedly), and always knows the right thing to do.  Of course, she doesn't always make the right decision, but typically responds pretty well to correction, and fully understands the concept of rewards for good behavior.  We've struggled a little bit with consistency in our discipline, but I think we're getting much better.  She sometimes makes it tough to stick to our guns when we threaten to take something away as punishment, but we're improving.  Honestly, the most valuable thing we have with her is books, so when she doesn't cooperate at night or won't listen, she gets her bedtime stories taken away. That's a tough one for me too though, since that's one of my favorite times of day!

We still struggle with brushing teeth more than any other routine--hoping we'll get over that eventually, but that's one that I'm not willing to back down on, so it makes it easier to be consistent.  Now we are working on some simple chores and helping with routine things around the house--she doesn't have an allowance, but loves to get loose change for helping with things, and we both feel strongly about teaching her that she needs to earn money instead of expecting it for nothing. It's nice right now, because she values a penny as much as a quarter :).  So we're working on things like different values of money, starting to understand how to tell time, and some other basic concepts like those.

She loves board games and card games, so we'll sometimes play games for an hour or so after dinner at night when it's not too late.  She loves Crazy 8s, Slap Jack, Old Maid, Candy Land and Go Fish, but has some other cute games too, and will play for as long as we will!  She really enjoys the time she has playing with us (or with other kids), but can also play by herself so well for a long time--we'll sometimes hear her in her playroom singing, reading or acting out scenes with her different "friends."  She's a fun girl :).

The Blimp!

The MetLife Blimp was in the Charlotte area for a golf tournament this week, so they gave employees an opportunity to sign up for tours.  I thought Em would like it, since she knows that's where I work, and since she's seen the blimp several times since our buildings had their grand opening.

It was enormous!  I guess when you see it in the sky, it's just tough to imagine how big it is.

We got to sit in the gondola--I was in the pilot's seat and Em was co-pilot.  It's really only big enough for about four people.

It was tied down, but when the wind blew, we still moved around quite a bit.

This is literally how big it is!

I was glad we went--probably not an experience we'll get to repeat many times in life!

First Real Playdate

Em really hasn't had any true playdates--other than having friends over for her birthday party, and sometimes kids in the neighborhood, but her friend Aamani invited her over to her house for a true playdate, and Em was super excited.

They had a great time--she's a really sweet girl, and her mom and I are friends, which helps since I'm there with her while they're playing.

The weather wasn't too hot, so they had a great time outside.

And then enjoyed some pretzels and water to cool off.  It was a fun morning, and Em is now excited to have Aamani over to our house!

Kitchen Helper

Em loves to help in the kitchen, but her favorite thing is baking sweets!  We ran in the grocery store on our way home tonight and she decided we needed to make brownies, so we picked up a box of brownie mix. When we got to the checkout, Em was delighted when the cashier asked her if she wanted to help scan the groceries!  She was pretty good at it!

One day, we made chocolate pudding popsicles, and she really loved them :).

Daisy Dance Recital

After Em's few months of dance in the program at the Y, we decided to switch her to the Daisy Dance program at her school.  She really wanted to be in dance with her friends, and this also freed us up one night a week, which was nice.  She has class during school hours, one day a week, and it's basically the same program she would have done at the Y.

They were having a very informal "recital" after school last week, so we ran home to change, and I tried to fix her hair--I've been practicing with braiding, and getting a little better at it.  A friend of mine from high school now has her own Etsy shop and makes hair bows and things--she sent this one to Em, which was perfect for the occasion :).

I still don't have my good camera fixed, so I didn't get any great pictures--the show was in the school gym, and the dancers got to choose what they wore, so none of them matched.  They gave them these flower headbands to wear, which was cute.

After it was over, everyone brought flowers for their dancers :).

 This is Em with one of her best friends, Aamani.

Little Artist

One of Em's favorite things to do is paint, and she'll take any opportunity to do it.  She prefers paint over markers, crayons or chalk (probably because it makes the biggest mess).  

We went outside while Mick was doing yard work one morning and got some rocks to paint--then she decided it was more fun to paint each other :).  It was hot enough to rinse off with the water hose and then give the dogs a bath, which is always more fun as a team effort!

Later that weekend, she wanted to paint her own nails--she actually did a pretty nice job!  Every one was a different color.  It's neat to see how much more precise she is with coloring and drawing now!

Strawberry Festival

Fort Mill has an annual Strawberry Festival that we've been to before and liked it, so we decided to go back this year.  Friday night was kids' night, which meant you could pay one price for unlimited rides--Mick and I were both home early, so we went that afternoon.  The weather couldn't have been more beautiful!  Em loves these picture props, so we had to stop at every one!

And at the characters--there are a bunch of food trucks and local vendors, in addition to the fair rides.  This one was a potato/french fry vendor.

Em and I had to pose with the strawberry!

Mick always gets to be the lucky one to go down the big slide with Em.  I held our place in line for the helicopters while they waited for the slide--it worked out perfectly, and we were able to walk right on for the helicopters when they got to the bottom of the slide.

Em said we were going to fly to Boston in our helicopter.  Aunt Julie, it might take us a while, but keep an eye out for a little blue dot :).

There were some rides that were really too small for us to get on, so Em was happy to go solo, but was thrilled when a little girl got in next to her!  She loves new friends.

This hot air balloon ride was great to watch--her little face was so full of joy and excitement the whole time, it was just priceless.

Then she found the real strawberry of the festival!  I remember how tiny she was when we met this guy for the first time a couple of years ago--crazy how fast it's gone.

There was a huge banner with Sharpies so people could sign or write messages, and Em happily added her name to it.

When it started to get dark, the temperature dropped pretty quickly and we were glad we had sweaters.  Em found one more friend to pose with on our way out.

Field Trip Day!

Em's class takes field trips fairly often--they're usually only a couple of hours long, and they stay pretty close to school.  There's a strawberry farm about a mile from her school, and she's been looking forward to this field trip for weeks!  I decided I would take the morning off to go with her class, so she was even more excited for us to go together.

Bella was due for her annual checkup and shots, so I made her an early morning appointment since I knew I'd have time to drop Em off, take Bella to the vet and back home before meeting Em's class at 9:30.  I put Bella in the passenger seat, only to walk around to my side of the car and find her in the driver's seat!  Em thought it was the funniest thing, and was thrilled to tell everyone at school that Bella was in our car.

Once the bus dropped the kids off, they climbed on a big wagon for a hayride around the farm.

And then it was time for picking!  We had a guide assigned to our class since there were multiple field trips there that morning.  The two ladies in the back of the picture are two of Em's teachers--Ms. Kathy and Ms. Nancy.

Each child got a pint container to fill with strawberries to bring home, plus the parents could choose to buy extra.  I got a box and we set off to pick!

There were so many ripe strawberries, it didn't take us long to fill Em's container and mine.  She did a great job of picking out the really red ones--the lady told us "the redder the better!"

The kids had to bring a lunch, and they gathered at these picnic tables to eat together.  It's always funny to see all the variety that parents pack (myself included)--it's tough to know what they're actually going to eat, so it seems to be better to pack a little of everything.  These are two of Em's good friends--Emmy and Brynn.

After lunch, they had some time to play--there are a lot of kids' activities that would have kept them busy all day, but nap time was calling, so when they headed back to school, I headed home.  Em really looks forward to field trip days, and it's fun when we can be there too!

Mornings

Everyone has a morning routine, and we're no different.  Mick got in the habit of leaving really early when he was picking Em up in the afternoons, and now that I work so much closer and I'm picking her up again, he has continued to go in early.  He's out of the house by 5:30 most mornings, so Em doesn't get to see him when she gets up around 6:15, and it's just the two of us.

We are still pretty limited on the amount of TV she watches, so mornings are her time--she gets to pick two cartoons, and this picture  is her usual setup while she watches.  She wants to bring down a group of "friends" every morning--her bed is like a zoo, and she has at least 25 stuffed animals on it with her every night.  She would bring them all down if I let her!  Then she sits in "Daddy's chair" and spreads her friends out so they can all watch cartoons with her.  She chooses her cartoon, then chooses her breakfast, and enjoys some down time before we start getting ready for school.

In the last two weeks, she's started sleeping in underwear instead of a pull-up.  She has hated her pull-ups for quite some time now, but she rarely made it through the night dry, and she's such a sound sleeper that she doesn't wake up if she's wet.  We've had a few accidents, but I think we've figured out the secret formula now.  I set my alarm for 12:30, and get up to take her to the potty--she barely wakes up to go, so I carry her in and sit her down.  If she goes once during the night, she seems to make it through fine.  As an extra precaution, I've also found some waterproof sheet protectors that have a soft, padded top that I can just put on top of her sheets to prevent changing her entire bed if there's an accident.

Spring Fling

Thursday was Spring Fling at Rainbow Station--each class has chosen and practiced a song or two that they perform on stage.  Em had been practicing and was really excited about it--I asked her on the way to school if she was going to sing in her loud voice so I could hear her.  She responded "no, I'm gonna sing in my beautiful voice."

They all did a great job!  Em sang her heart out, and loved it!  Here's the video: Click Here

I stopped to pick up some flowers that Mick could give Em when her performance was over, and she really loved them--she was so proud!

When we got back in her classroom and were ready to leave, she decided to try on this St. Patrick's Day hat and pose with her flowers :).