22 Months Old: What's Happening

This month has been insanely busy for me at work, so I've really been slack with my posts here. It feels like whenever I'm not working or sleeping, I'm trying to squeeze in every minute with Emily and Mick, and we never have enough time.

Em is turning into such an independent little girl--she is very sweet and loving, but also has her typical toddler moments. We're working really hard on sharing, because that is not a strength of hers at the moment! She's very possessive of her toys, but especially of Mick and me. She doesn't like it if the other kids come up to give hugs when I pick her up from day care, and will quickly tell them "No--Emmy's mommy!" Her teachers have said a few of the kids will correct each other when they do something wrong, and we've noticed Em will sometimes even correct herself as she's doing something (but no, it doesn't usually stop her).

Her sense of humor is really coming alive--she amuses herself (and us) constantly, and will do silly things and just laugh at herself.

She really seems to like repetition--whether it's books or songs or just telling Gracie and Bella "no" when they get too close to her food at dinner time.

Em is nonstop, all the time. She loves running, climbing, and doing anything physical. She adores being outside, which is great since we really haven't had a winter this year, so we've spent a lot of time in the backyard playing.

Jumping is her favorite thing right now--she's been able to jump a little for a month or more now, but she's really perfecting the "both feet off the ground" jumps. Every time we take her mattress out of her crib to change her sheet, she wants to put it on the floor so she can jump a little :).

She still loves to cook in her kitchen, but her play doh is also a favorite, as are her blocks.

She wants to build a tower as tall as she can and then knock it down--she finds this hilarious, for some reason.

After her first hair cut, we really noticed a difference in how quickly her hair is growing and how thick it's gotten. She'll ask for me to put bows or barrettes in her hair, but won't leave them in. I wish she would, because her curly hair almost always looks like a mess, and her bangs hang down in her eyes.

One of these days, we'll get one to stay :).

All the Way to Z!

Tuesday night, Mick and I were upstairs with Em getting her ready for her bath, and she was in a particularly silly mood. We were all having a good time singing and dancing, and Em took off singing her ABCs...and went all the way through to Z! We were so excited and surprised that we didn't say anything for fear of distracting her and stopping her in the middle. We were all thrilled when she got to the end, but of course she wouldn't do it again when I got the camera.

We've been trying for a repeat performance all week with no luck.

Another Birthday Celebration

We headed down to Atlanta on Saturday morning for Zachary's 6th birthday party--it's so hard to believe he's six already!

The weather was terrible, and we got a little bit later start than we'd planned, so we got there a little after the party started--it was at the bowling alley, which was a perfect place because there was plenty to do. Em had a great time with Grandma and Papa, eating and playing games.

There was an arcade and laser tag, so truly something for everyone.

Of course, Zachary's cake had blue icing that she had to try :).

And her party favor included princess stickers that ended up (where else?) on her tummy.

Emily didn't sleep the whole way to Atlanta and we were a little worried about her not having a nap, but she hung in there until we left the bowling alley, and then was asleep in her carseat before we got out of the parking lot! We all had dinner at Uncle Robbie & Stacy's, and headed back to the hotel for a not too late bedtime. Em had a good time at the hotel--her favorite part was riding the luggage cart.

Sunday morning, we all had breakfast together and then headed home. The weekend was too short, but still fun. Uncle Stacy did much better taking pictures than I did, so I'll have to steal some of his!

Happy Dragon

Every time Em comes grocery shopping, we park and she yells "dragon!" because she knows she'll get to take a ride on Harry the Happy Dragon--the mascot of Harris Teeter.

She loves it! We just have to make sure we always have 50 cents on hand, or we park on the other side of the store :).

Double Birthdays

Uncle Jason and Aunt Julie both have January birthdays, so we decided to all get together for a long weekend--Em's school was closed for MLK day on January 16, so I had already taken the day off. Everybody got here on Saturday morning, and we had a really fun day just relaxing and staying at home. Jason had brought more than half a bushel of oysters, so he and Mick started the steamer in the backyard. The weather was chilly, but we spent the whole afternoon outside blowing bubbles,

playing cornhole,

and just enjoying being together.

Sunday, we decided to go up to Discovery Place Kids in Huntersville, just north of Charlotte. Cody and Emily had such a great time!

We all spent the afternoon chasing them around from activity to activity. It's truly the perfect place for kids--there was everything from an ambulance where they could examine patients to a water table (that Em loved!),

a bank with a drive-up ATM,

and a stage that she just had to dance on (but wouldn't put on a costume).

There was even a puppet show that she made herself comfortable and enjoyed!

She loved shopping in the grocery store, milking the cow and picking up eggs from the chickens too--just too many pictures to only choose a few!

It was a great weekend, and we topped it off with birthday ice cream cake on Sunday night :).

A-B-C, Easy As 1-2-3

I started counting with Em one night several weeks ago, and she alternated numbers with me until we got to 10. She knew every number, and I was so proud that I told Mick she could count to 10. He, of course, didn't believe me, until she did it for him too! She'll repeat numbers higher than that, but can only go to 10 by herself. Her favorite number seems to be 3--if we ask her how many of anything she wants, it's always 3.

She's also up to G in the alphabet--she'll hum the tune and dance to the rest of the song, but can only go to G by herself. Grandma gave her a sweet little stuffed giraffe that sings the alphabet song, and Emily likes to push his tummy and dance to the song.

She knows the words to her favorite songs, and we really started noticing it more during and after Christmas, when she would sing "Frosty the Snowman was a jolly, happy soul." She likes to change that one by giving Frosty a carrot nose instead of a button though :).

Funny Stuff

Emily says some of the cutest things sometimes. Her daily sheet from Gateway always has their breakfast, lunch and snack listed with how much she ate, and one day recently, her teacher wrote that they had peas and carrots with lunch. Emily picked out the peas and ate them, but said "no carrots, Miss Brandie." Too funny!

Hiding

Emily still loves to hide, and she's getting better at sneaking around and trying to play tricks. She's so funny when she thinks she's being funny, because she gets so amused with herself and giggles with the sweetest little smile!

I love it when she gets in the pantry and hides--she'll stick her toes under the door and say "want Gracie get 'em! want Bella get 'em," wanting them to come lick her toes.

Bella usually obliges :).

Relaxing Weekend

After a couple of busy holiday weekends, it was nice to have one with absolutely no plans whatsoever. The weather was gorgeous and ridiculously warm for January (low 70s!), so Gracie and Bella got baths, and we spent most of Saturday outside.

Em wanted her hat and my sunglasses so she could "go to town" in her car.

She had a great time blowing bubbles--it got a little windy in the afternoon, so all she had to do was hold the wand up!

Honestly, she gets more excited about blowing the bubbles than she does about chasing or popping them.

A Few More Favorites

Here are a few more new things Emily has enjoyed playing with over the last couple of days! This little doctor kit is great--she's been listening to heartbeats and giving everyone shots between answering her busy pager!

She wanted to run around in her diaper before we put real clothes on this morning, so we let her try out her "Boogie Monster" legs--this kit came with a book about the Boogie Monster, a CD with boogie music, and these cute little furry monster legs that she can wear when she boogies!

Her favorite things are still books though, so we enjoyed some snuggle time at the end of the day today--this is the definition of relaxed--check out the little crossed feet and the tummy hanging out of her shirt!

Happy New Year!

The worst part of the new year for me is the un-decorating. I love the way our house always looks at Christmas time, and everything feels so warm and happy. Even if you love your house all year long, it seems to look a little naked when you take away the decorations.

Even more than I dislike taking everything down though, I don't want to be the people with Christmas lights up at Valentine's Day, so we packed it all away today! Emily was a great helper, once she figured out that she didn't belong in the storage bin!

We were a little worried that she would be upset to see the tree go, so we took it down during her nap today. She definitely noticed it was gone, but seemed okay with it. Now when she asks "Santa, where are you?" we have to tell her he's gone back to the North Pole!

Christmas...Again!

Mick was on call the weekend of Christmas, so we knew not to really plan anything where we'd have to be at home. That meant we'd celebrate Christmas with his family on New Year's weekend! His parents, grandma (Lala) and nephew Landon got in on Thursday night, so on Friday, Em was excited to show everyone her new kitchen!


Em's Uncles Robbie and Stacy and cousin Zachary got here Friday, so we all had dinner together that night, and she and Grandma read some stories before bed.

Saturday was a great day--we all had breakfast and then split up since some of us had a few last minute things to buy. After a little bit of shopping and wrapping gifts, it was time for lunch. Emily went down for a 3 HOUR nap (!) and the weather was gorgeous, so we all spent some outside and had a little cornhole tournament. Unfortunately for us, Robbie & Stacy came out the champs :).

When Em woke up from her nap, she and Grandma put on a kitchen concert while we finished preparing our Christmas dinner and got everything in the ovens.

Then it was time to open gifts! Emily gets very excited for presents, but she wants to stop and play with each thing she opens, and is quite protective over her gifts. This Shirley Temple movie from Lala was the first thing she opened,

and as you can see, she didn't want to put it down as she opened her next present.

The cash register from Zachary was a favorite--it goes perfectly with her kitchen, and even has a little credit card that she keeps swiping :).

Grandma and Papa brought her this rocking horse that has been passed down through Zachary and Landon both--she played with it when we were in Brunswick for July 4th, and loved it just as much this time!

You can barely see that she's also rocking her new baby doll in this picture--Grandma picked out one that she has loved carrying around the last few days. She has extra diapers that Em likes to wear as a hat :).

We had a traditional holiday dinner with plenty of food, but fewer sides than usual--although when you have marinated turkey, homemade mac & cheese and fresh canned green beans from the garden, what more do you need!? After it got dark that night and everyone had eaten, we had to set off some New Year's Eve fireworks. I didn't get pictures of the biggest ones because Em got scared and we had to come inside.

We had a good time even with the smaller ones, and of course the sparklers!

Only a few of us made it past midnight to ring in the new year!

We always hate to see everyone go home, but since Zachary's birthday is in January, we'll see them again soon!

21 Months Old: What's Happening

Another month has flown by, and Emily continues to grow faster than we can even believe. She's very independent, and wants to show us how "Emmy do it" with everything from getting dressed and undressed to helping unload the dishwasher, and grabbing her Swiffer every time the vacuum cleaner comes out.

She loves any kind of art (or anything that makes a mess), and it's so fun to watch her in her element. She gets Gymbo stamps every Saturday morning after class--just a rubber stamp of Gymbo, but she wants them on her hands, feet and tummy every time. We bought her a couple of stamps of her own, and it's very apparent that she enjoyed them.


Em hasn't used her high chair in months--it wouldn't fit close to our table, so when we moved to the new house in July, we just put it away and started using her booster seat at every meal. We love the fact that we all sit down to dinner together at night, and she seems to enjoy being at the table with us. She knows where each of our chairs is, and will ask us to move if we sit in the wrong one!

She continues to be a good eater most of the time. She almost always eats a great breakfast, and most days eats breakfast at least twice (once before we leave and again at school). She does pretty well with lunch, and dinner is getting to be a toss up. Some of her favorite foods are a little surprising--broccoli still tops the list, and she loves fish (especially salmon), green beans, peas and corn. Rice is something she asks for a lot, and she prefers it over potatoes. She loves cheese, and of course bread. When we have bread with dinner, we've started serving it at the end of the meal--it's the only way she'll eat anything else on her plate! Ketchup (or pretty much any sauce) is another trouble maker at the table--if she sees ketchup, she'll want to eat it with her fingers and not touch anything else. Pizza is the one food she'll always say she wants for dinner if we ask her--the only problem is that when she sees Daddy's black olives, she doesn't want anything else. Silly girl.

Our challenge with meal time is that she wants to play now more than eat. She'll sometimes take a bite or two of her food, and then pick up her plate and dump it on the floor! I mentioned it the other day to her teachers, and they couldn't believe it because she's so well behaved for meal times at school. We're working on our consistent reaction when she does it, and have even tried a time out chair a few times, which really seems to hurt her feelings. One night, she dumped her food on the floor and Mick told her to go sit down--she put herself in the time out chair and cried! Sometimes it's tough not to laugh at some of the things she does--but we know the behavior won't be cute and funny for long.

Em battled a 24-hour stomach bug this month, but she bounced back pretty quickly. It seems to be that time of year again when there's so much sickness going around--we're hoping she can steer clear of most of it this winter! It's nice that she's beginning to communicate with us when she doesn't feel well and tell us what hurts.

She's becoming more imaginative when she plays--one afternoon, she sat in Mick's recliner with Mickey and her baby doll and rocked her to sleep. Check out her funny little smirk as she tried to convince us that she was sleeping too.


She's becoming more attached to her stuffed animals, and she always wants to hold at least a few of them when she dances (which is anytime she hears music). Here she is dancing with Gymbo and Frosty.

Emily's vocabulary has to be at or above 200 words now. I was keeping a list of her words, but it was difficult to capture them all. I hope she'll always have the same love of books she does now, because I think us reading with her all the time is part of the reason she talks so well. She remembers everything and everybody, and is excited to keep telling people "Merry Christmas" or "Happy New Year." She won't know what to think when the holiday season has passed. I have to admit that I'm sad to see it go this year too--it has been a great month!

Christmas

Mick and I stayed up on Christmas Eve to help Santa's elves put Emily's new kitchen together, and could hardly wait until the next morning. She was up nice and early, saying "Santa, where are you?!" We had been talking a lot about Santa coming while she was asleep, so I'm not sure if she really remembered or not.

We decided to do breakfast before presents, because we figured she wouldn't eat once she got in her kitchen! We had pancakes and then let her open presents. She was very precise and tore every shred of paper off of the gifts--we gave her a stuffed Gymbo (the clown from her Gymboree classes), and Aunt Jenn, Uncle Jason, Cody and Chase sent this very cool baby stroller, which was great for carrying not only her baby, but also food and dishes once she got to her kitchen!

She was so excited by those two things that she wouldn't have cared if that was it, but Santa had dropped off one more surprise.

The kitchen came with a bunch of food, dishes, pots & pans and utensils, and I had set it all up for her--she came right in and made herself at home.

She missed absolutely nothing! Through the rest of the day on Sunday, and again Monday, she'd be in the middle of something and just stop and say "I wanna cook!" and run in her play room where we have the kitchen set up.

She liked cooking for Mommy, Daddy, Gymbo, and even gave her baby doll a chocolate chip cookie at one point. She enjoyed playing with one of us in there, but we'd catch her having a great time by herself too.

The eggs seemed to be her favorite--she'd flip them over and just laugh. Such a little clown.

I think Em had a pretty merry Christmas :). I honestly took more video than still photos, so check out the videos on her link to the right!

SANTA!

I was off work on Friday, so I kept Emily at home so we could have a girls' day together. We had a free pass from missing one of her Gymboree play classes, so we went to a music class this morning. Emily had a great time dancing and trying out tons of new musical instruments!

From there, we headed to the mall. I was determined to give her one more shot at Santa. We got there and there was about an hour wait for Santa--the mall here has a pager system, so we signed in and took our pager. We spent some time in the bookstore, which Emily loves--she'll just pick a book off the shelf and sit in the middle of the floor to flip through it. She also had a great time playing at the indoor playground, and we grabbed a quick lunch before our pager went off and we headed back.

Emily was SO excited to see Santa, and I was just hoping she wouldn't lose her nerve. She got more and more giddy the closer we got, and when it was "Emmy's turn," she not only went to him, but she held out her arms, let him pick her up, and sat in his lap!

I was so proud of my big girl :). She told Santa her name was Emmy Claire Jackson and she wanted him to bring her toys and yellow nail polish. Beautiful.

I snapped a few pictures with the camera on my phone while they were chatting.

She gave him a hug goodbye, and waved to him as we left. She was totally starstruck!