Snow Day

Grandy came in to visit on Wednesday afternoon and planned on keeping Emily home on Thursday and Friday. We got an unexpected surprise when school got canceled for me on Friday and Greg ended up abandoning his mission of getting to work when the roads were pretty slick in our town, and our town usually has the best roads of his commute. Unfortunately, Poppy was supposed to fly in on Friday, but between our weather and the ice storm that St. Louis had, his flight was canceled so he didn't make it until Saturday.

We had a lot of fun when we went out in the snow and it was especially nice for Grandy to be visiting so Greg and I could take care of the shoveling without taking turns inside with Emily. Emily had a lot of fun sitting on the couch with Grandy and waving at us out the window.

Emily was a bit unsure of the snow initially, but ended up loving it. We took Emily down the front yard on a sled which she loved. On Sunday, Greg decided to take Emily out on the deck to play with the snow on there. She was so excited to put her boots on and played with the snow with her bare hands (she kept taking her mittens off). She kept poking and touching the snow and dropping it through the slats of the deck. When it was time to come inside, she got so upset.

The next day, Monday, Grandy and Poppy stayed home with Emily. They took her out on the deck again and thought about bringing her bucket and shovel out with her. She loved that. She kept calling them "my bucket and shobel." Emily will be sorry to see the snow melt over the next few days.

Getting ready to go outsideChecking things out

Sitting in the snow, she didn't like the baby sled that is behind her

Sledding with Daddy

Sledding with Mommy

Poking the snow with a stick

Emily's School Party

Emily had her party at her sitter's house last Wednesday. Each kid (there are only 2 other girls) brings in a gift for the birthday child and the sitter makes a cake and has a bit of a party. Emily seemed to have a great time and came home with some cute new toys. She was very excited to talk about her party the rest of the day.

Happy

Most days if we ask Emily how her day was or how she slept she says "good." The other morning, Greg asked Emily how she was and she said "happy." Always good to have a happy girl!

Funnies and Firsts

I have a couple of funny Emily stories. They strike me as funny anyway because she is still a few days shy of 2 years old so still seems young to me. This morning as I was getting Emily ready, I sneezed a couple of times. Emily looked at me and said "Bless you." I was floored. It's not a manner that we've worked on with her. We focus on saying please and thank you and I'm sorry (she doesn't get that one yet). But, not bless you. So, she has obviously picked it up from watching and observing us. Then, when I went to blow my nose, she wanted to blow hers, too.

Greg, Emily, and I all walk downstairs to leave the house together. I usually carry Emily and Greg carries a bunch of our stuff. Then I hand Emily to daddy and they walk down the driveway to get the newspaper. It works as a good distraction for her since I'm leaving and she's usually not too happy about our parting. She told Greg that she wanted to get in her stroller and he told her that it is too cold outside today. So, she said "blankie?" Of course, if it's cold we keep her warm with a blanket. She just picks up all of this stuff so quickly.

Emily has also had several notable firsts over the last couple of days. We've been working on potty training and she knows what to do. Her sitter sits her on the potty at regular intervals and Emily goes most of the time. She stays in a diaper there, but at home, we've been trying training underpants on the weekends when we're home and have time to focus a little. It has not been the most consistent because we don't always have long stretches that we can focus on the potty. I put Emily in her underwear on Monday since she and I were home for the holiday. She stayed dry all day (diaper at naptime). We went out for a walk, had lunch and dinner, and played and she did great. Emily is going to be at home with Grandy and Poppy on Thursday, Friday, and Monday so they'll work on it and then when she goes back to her sitter, she'll hopefully be in underwear! Right now we've been using the thicker Gerber type training pants with a thin pair of Elmo underwear on top. She loves being able to wear Elmo undies!

Emily's other big first is that she had her first time out today! She was at the sitter's house and she and the other little girl that is close in age tried to climb the stairs while the sitter was making lunch. They know that is a no-no. So, they had a timeout together. Emily cried and was very upset about it. She's a pretty careful kid and doesn't like doing things wrong so I doubt that she'll try that again. The sitter said that she had a feeling that the other little girl had instigated the stair climbing. So, almost 2 and 1 time out. The sitter and I both agreed that she's doing pretty good.

Cleaning and Coloring

On Saturday morning Greg went to go play basketball so Emily and I used the time to take care of some chores around the house. I usually clean the floors while she is napping or playing in another area with Daddy, but I decided that she and I would manage. She decided that she wanted to help, so here are a couple of pictures of Emily helping me clean. I guess if this becomes a regular thing I'll have to shorten the Swiffer pole so that it is more her size.



Last night we went to dinner at a little hot dog/burger place near us. They have colored pencils for the kids to use. We haven't been there for awhile and the last time Emily wasn't overly interested in the colored pencils. Yesterday she loved them. They entertained her much longer than the crayons at other restaurants usually do. So when Greg went to the grocery store today, he picked up a pack for home. We let Emily color while dinner was cooking and she colored for awhile. Here are a couple of pictures of her hard at work.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from all of us! Below is the card that Emily sent to her grandparents and aunts and uncles. The other pictures were taken over the weekend, but in the same outfit that she wore for Valentine's Day. She was so excited to have hearts on. She even brought home a special Valentine's craft for Greg and I today!

Elmo, Cooking, and Smoothie

Reading about Elmo with Elmo Slippers with DaddyHelping Mommy make Play-Doh

Drinking her first smoothie

Emily has started to help me cook in the kitchen. And she loves to help! She stands up on a stool and helps me pour pre-measured things into bowls or helps me stir. The other night she helped me hold and count the cloves of garlic before we put them in the garlic mincer and minced them into the bowl. The last few nights when she's seen me start on dinner she runs over and asks for the stool and says "Emmy cook!" She wants to help!

Emily has had a lot of fun at the gym class that she and I go to on Saturdays. The class does a little warm up activity and some songs at the beginning, then gym time, then more songs and movement and a story at the end. At the beginning of this class, the teacher handed each kid a laminated card that had a picture of an animal that was painted on the walls of the room. The kids were supposed to find the animal on the wall and match their card to it and then make the animal sound. Sounds pretty advanced for kids that are 18 months - almost 2. The kids didn't quite get it initially. Emily had a pig and was near the pig, but it was unclear whether she knew that she was matching or not. Emily's the oldest and none of the other kids seemed to really get it, either. Fast forward to the end, we've gone to the gym and are back in the same room as the beginning. We've sung songs, played with bubbles, and pretended to be different animals. Now it's story time and Emily is chilling on my lap and sucking her thumb. Appears to not be paying any attention and is ready for a nap. The story was about Spot the dog going to the farm. A few pages in, Spot finds a pig. Well, Emily jumps out of my lap and runs over to the wall patting the pig on the wall. Everyone (including me) seems pretty surprised. We clap for her and she sits back on me with her thumb in her mouth. Next page is Spot finding the kitten. Well, Emily runs over to the kitten on the wall. None of the other animals in the story were on the wall, but the other parents and the teacher seemed pretty impressed. I certainly was. The next week in class Emily and another boy happened to be the only ones there. The teacher played the matching game again and Emily and the little boy each got to take 4 or 5 turns matching their animal with different ones on the walls. Now they both seem to get what to do with that. When Emily is at class, she barely says a thing. She is very quiet and observes everything going on. She seems to enjoy it all, but doesn't open up much. In the gym, she practices walking on a (wide) balance beam and jumping off of it onto a small trampoline, she climbs (with a bit of help) a ladder, steps over a bar, and across another wide balance beam and then climbs down the other side, and gets to play in tunnels and try doing somersaults. All in all it's a pretty fun class.

Emily has started calling herself Emmy. This started several weeks ago and now she spends a lot of time identifying who things belong to. We have Mommy's chair, Emmy's chair, and Daddy's chair and we do that for everything!

Emily has started to love pretend play. She pretend cooks, pretends with her baby, pretends with her tea parties. Now she loves to pretend to go bye-bye. She gets her play purse, puts the plastic keys in it with a few other toys and asks for her jacket. She carries the jacket and purse down the hall and says "bye bye, be right back." It's so funny. Then she comes back and says "I'm back!" When she isn't pretending to go bye-bye and we do actually leave the house, she loves to take her purse with her. It usually leaves the house with the play keys, a couple of plastic cookies, and the stuffed Elmo. She's certainly got an idea that she's a little girl.

Emily continues to be quite the talker. She picks up on everything we say. She'll hear a word once and be able to use it in context. At home we are regularly hearing 4-5 word sentences, but they are most understood by us, I'm not sure how many other people can understand most of what she says, but we do at home and that is supposed to be the important thing at this age.

We had leftovers for dinner tonight. Emily had a leftover chicken finger from one night over the weekend that we ate out and some leftover peas. She ate most of the peas and part of the chicken finger when Greg and I sat down to eat. We had a mix of leftover veggies on our plates that included some broccoli. She started getting really excited and asking for broccoli. We think it's great that she chooses broccoli over her chicken finger for dinner!

That is the Emily update for today. I'll try to post her Valentine's Day pictures tomorrow night!