Birthday Dinner and Elmo

We went out to dinner for my birthday tonight. We didn't go last weekend because Emily and I both had bad colds. Emily wore the dress that Grandy made with the new blouse that goes with it and looked really cute. Here are a bunch of pictures of her. Before dinner, she had a great time playing with her little purse and a shirt that she took out of her room. She tries to wrap the shirt around her like she is putting it on.

After dinner, Emily had fun sitting and rocking in her rocking chair. Notice in 2 different pictures that there are objects in motion besides Emily! One picture has Elmo being dropped and another is moments after she tried to throw her ball.

Her big things this week have been practicing throwing a ball. Of course, Emily's throw looks good, but the ball tends to go down, not out. But it is fun watching her get so excited about it. She also started finally calling herself a name. She calls herself Emmy and it's pretty cute. She will get a play cup from her kitchen and say that it is for Mommy or Daddy and then get another and say it is for Emmy.

The last couple of pictures were from last weekend when Emily was wearing her Elmo slippers. She had her toy bottle and a cheese stick and was feeding them to the Elmo slippers!

Mommy's Birthday

I was lucky enough to be off of school for MLK, Jr day this year. Emily helped me open all of my presents. She was so excited about them, she didn't even care that the stuff inside wasn't for her and was of little interest to an almost 2 year old. Here are a bunch of pictures of Emily helping me open up my gifts.

For my cake, I had a trial run of the Elmo cake that we are going to try to make for Emily's birthday. Emily's will have the icing filled in a bit neater, but this was a test to see if we could get the shape of Elmo's head down and the relative design of the cake. We think it'll work out, but may have to do another test run when her birthday gets closer! Her cake will also have white icing instead of chocolate.

Busy Saturdays

We have very busy Saturday's planned for January. Emily is still finishing her swimming lessons that we started back in November. She loves going in the water and playing and moving around in there. This month, we started a parent child baby gym class. Swimming is from 8:30-9 and baby gym is 10:15-11. So it makes for a pretty busy morning. We'll be done with swimming at the end of the month so it won't be quite as bad then. We took another gym class at this same place over the summer when Emily and I were home together. Greg took Emily to gym for the first time yesterday because I was sick. He had fun and thinks that it is probably better for her than swimming. It teaches her some skills that she'll be able to use in other places than the pool. Emily is not a climber, so they work on that and the balance beam and jumping and lots of fun things! There are also 2 different song times so the activities are constantly changing which is good for the almost 2 year old set. Greg is happy to relinquish baby gym duties back to me for the rest of the time, though, he thought it is a better mommy child activity!

Emily also figured out how to climb up into her little rocking chair! She's been able to climb up on it, but not turn around, but she's got the whole thing down now.

Build a Bear

Picking out just the right bear

Taking him from the stuffing station

Giving the newly stuffed bear a bath

Putting Bear's Helmet on

Maybe it fits Emily better

A well dressed cycling bear

Showing Daddy

Looking inside the box at home

Taking the bear and box down the hall

Our adventure at Build a Bear began over the summer when we decided that Emily should have a bear to ride in the bike trailer with her. Not just a bear, but a special cycling bear. I ended up looking online and Build a Bear had a special edition cycling jersey, shorts, and helmet online. You couldn't get it in the stores by us, since it was from the Tour de Missouri, so we ordered it. It was near the end of the summer so we figured it would be a good wintertime activity when it was too cold for parks and playgrounds and bike rides! We finally took Emily last weekend to build her bear. We gave her 2 bear choices and she chose one of them. We watched the girl in front of us get her bear stuffed and then helped Emily choose a heart, put it on her forehead and give it a kiss to put inside her bear. She didn't like the loud noise of the stuffing machine, but then it was on to the bath! It is a neat plastic tub that has shower heads that blow air. She thought the tub part was cool, but was a little unsure about air blowing out of the top! Emily really liked getting the bear dressed and especially putting the helmet on him. When it was time to name her bear, we took over and decided we should name him Lance.

Emily was not pleased to give the bear to the person working there to check out. When we got it back, Lance was in a build a bear box. Emily wanted to carry the box and tried dragging it behind her through the mall. We vetoed that idea pretty quickly, so she finally settled for me carrying the box, as long as I walked next to her so she could see it. At home, she has continued to have a great time with the box. She loves to put Lance in and out of it and then drag it from the living room to the bedrooms and back. A couple of times she has put Molly (her monkey that she sleeps with) in it, but Lance has to come out first. Apparently in her mind, both Lance and tiny Molly can't fit together!

Cooking

Emily helped me cook dinner one night. After I dumped a box of rice a roni into a pot, I gave her the empty box. She took it over to a cabinet that she likes to play in and pretended that she was dumping the box into the mini crock pot in there. Then she pretended to mix it and put the plastic lid on. She repeated this over and over! It was great because she was in the kitchen with me, but was very well entertained.

Greg made cupcakes during the week so he decided to leave one un-frosted for Emily. One night after dinner we let her sit on a stool at the island for a special treat. She only had a few bites of the top, but she did love it! This is a very special treat for her because we hardly ever give her any sugary treats. I can still count, just about on one hand, the number of sugary things shes had. I'm sure that will change over the next year, but we're pleased we've made it this far!

The End of Winter Break

Playing with shaving cream mixed with food coloring

It feels neat on the hands...

Yellow and blue made green!

Clean me up, please!

Coloring time, picking a color

Working on a masterpiece

Elmo slippers!

We made the most of our time at the end of winter break while we were home. One afternoon, we gave Emily a bath and sat her down in her high chair for a snack. I got the great idea of putting some shaving cream in a zip lock bag with some food coloring and letting her mush it around. I made yellow, blue, and pink and figured we could talk about the colors and feeling. One of the bags burst open so we figured what the heck, we might as well let her play with it since she is in her high chair. She played with yellow first, then we added blue and talked about it making green. She had a lot of fun, but got herself covered! Glad I did this right after a bath, haha. She cleaned up pretty well, though. Next time we'll plan better and she'll have to wear the smock that she got for Christmas!

The next day, we got out the new crayons that Santa brought in her stocking and let her color with them in her high chair. She had a lot of fun with that, especially putting the crayons in and out of the box! It was much less messy, which was nice.

She hadn't gotten a good chance to wear her Elmo slippers while we were in TX, so she modeled them at home. She was pretty impressed that Elmo was on her feet! Thanks Aunt Jill!

Santa came to NJ

The morning after we got back home, we showed Emily that Santa Claus had come while we were gone. Santa brought Emily a really neat kitchen set, as well as a puzzle, a stacking set, and a toy car with a mommy and baby inside. She had a lot of fun exploring her new toys and has continued to enjoy playing with them each day.