Happy Girl

Smiley

The back of her hair

Carrying Santa around

A couple pictures of Emily from Sunday. I had taken her to get her hair trimmed on Saturday, so this is with her new haircut. They didn't cut much off, but shaped it up very nicely and it just looked so cute! Emily's sitter has also commented about how great the cut is.

Emily figured out the whole Santa thing over the weekend. Not that he is the big guy who will bring her gifts on Christmas, but who the stuffed Santas are and recognizes him in pictures. She also knows that Santa goes "Ho Ho Ho."

We went to a mall for a little bit on Sunday afternoon before going out for Greg's birthday dinner. We stopped at the shoe store and had Emily's feet measured since she's been in the same size shoe since early August. I had her measured about a month ago and she was still good, but we wanted to get it checked again. Emily went from a 5 to a 6 Wide. We had no choice but to get her a new pair of sneakers for her growing feet. She loves them and is happy to wear them each day. Up until now, we've had a little bit of a struggle in the mornings to put her sneakers on that she needs to wear to her sitter's house because she really wants to wear her Crocs. These new shoes haven't been a problem. I wonder if she should have been in a wide shoe all along and would have been more comfortable. She never complained once her shoes were on, just putting them on.

Those were the highlights of our weekend. Greg's birthday was Monday, but since it is getting late here, it looks like I'll get those pictures up tomorrow.

Santa Picture

Well, we tried to get a picture of Emily with Santa and it just wasn't meant to be. She wanted nothing to do with the big guy, so I ended up sitting on Santa's lap with her on me. We tried just Emily, but got several of her leaning off the lap to get back to me. Santa was very nice and wanted to make sure that we could see Emily's face in the picture.

There are also a few of Emily running around in the new jumper that Grandy made for her. Looks awfully cute!

Tea Set

Stirring the tea

Feeding some to baby

Having some tea for herself

Giving baby the rest of her cup

All of the friends at the tea party

I got out the plastic tea set that I had gotten (used) from someone several months ago. Emily has been "feeding" her stuffed animals a lot lately and has been fake feeding everyone for months. She loved the tea set and right away practiced pouring tea and serving it to her stuffed friends. The tea set was first brought out on Thursday afternoon and it has gotten a lot of use the rest of the weekend, it is definitely Emily's new favorite. She is starting to get very into some pretend play which is a lot of fun. And she loves babies. Any baby that she can spot in a picture, in a book, or when we are out gets pointed out very excitedly.

On Friday after Emily and I got home, she was sitting in her high chair having a snack and I sat at the table next to her. She was talking and talking and I wasn't catching most of what she was saying. Then it dawned on me, she was singing "Ashes, ashes, all fall down." She had learned Ring Around the Rosy at her sitter's house and was singing it! This was the first time that something that had happened during the day she had been able to "tell" us about in the afternoon. Big milestone for us. I sang the whole song to her and her eyes lit up like, "What??? You know this too???" We sang it and did the motions all weekend. It's her new favorite and she will randomly start singing the ashes part all the time.

This week Emily has been using sentences a lot. She still talks some gibberish, but a lot of what she says is in multi word sentences. We still don't understand all of it, and I seem to understand more of what she says than anybody else, but she is using a lot of sentences. She has been using sentences before this, but this week we feel like we've seen a big change from solo or 2 words together into more sentences than anything else.

Big Leaf

Greg found a really big leaf outside last weekend when we were picking up leaves. It was huge. Emily was napping, so Greg saved it to bring inside to show her. She thought it was pretty cool! After they finished looking at it and playing with it, Emily helped Greg send it flying away outside. We finally finished with all of our leaves this weekend! The yard was clear last Sunday, but the winds blew and more fell from the trees during the week. Most are down now, if any more come into our yard, we'll deal with them in the spring. On to winter...