Valentine's Days!

We have been celebrating Valentine's Day for 2 days now and it isn't even V-Day till Sunday! Yesterday we went to a Valentine's playdate at Erin & Sophia's house where Emma had a great time playing with her friends, as usual. The kids were so cute exchanging their cards and candies. We also made friendship bracelets, which were a big hit with all the little girls. Jen & Hayden brought cupcakes too, which everyone enjoyed. Then we went home and finished addressing/ labeling Valentine's cards and candies for all THIRTY of Emma's schoolmates and all TWELVE of her teachers. Emma loved hand delivering to each teacher this morning and telling them "Happy Valens!" She is so cute. The kids had a sugar overdose at school today though. Lots of parents brought in goodies, so the kids had a party early in the day. I got there to pick her up just in time for snack, which was more goodies. They were actually giving my kid a cupcake AND a popsicle for snack! She was also sent home with an overflowing goodie bag. Emma really is a sweet child, if you catch her at the right moment, and she was happy to share some candy with TJ. So they each had a lollipop and I have now hidden the remainder of the candy to slowly dole out over the next few days. The bottom picture was Emma's guilty smile as she came into my room AFTER I told her no, she could NOT have a cupcake from the fridge! (Note the obvious smear of frosting on her lips!) She has been having a blast so far. I think we will do some Valentine's crafts tomorrow and keep the fun going. Emma is so in love with Valentine's Day! And, for the first time in a long time, I'm not hating it. Its amazing the perspective you can gain when you decide to see the world through the eyes of your 2-year-old...

My Valentine's Card from Emma

This is the Valentine's Card Emma made for me at daycare. I think its so cute the way they used her handprints to make the heart shape!

Park Picnic

We had the morning off from work and daycare today since it was President's Day so we decided to go to the park. We met our friends Sarah, Zach, and Ava for a picnic too! Emma was very excited to carry her own lunch box full of goodies and she actually ate really well and without even clamoring for Zach and Ava's french fries. She just happily ate her sliced tomatoes, cheese sticks, hot dog, and tangerine. Then the kids enjoyed some time on the playground. The swings were a big hit (as usual) and Emma also brought her tricycle with us. She did very well with sharing and let Zach take turns zooming around the playground with her. We had a great morning!

A Worldly Palate...

Emma loves her some sushi! As we were driving home from Baron's birthday party yesterday evening I was talking with Emma and mentioned that I really wanted some sushi. She calls out "I want sushi tooo-ooo!" I laughed and said, "What do you know about sushi little girl? Do you even remember sushi?" She said yes and said something about "sticks." I asked if she meant chopsticks and she started giggling and said "yes!" So I asked Emma if she would like a California Roll for dinner and she started chanting "I need a Cadafonya Roll! I need a Cadafonya Roll!" So we stopped and got takeout for dinner. It was delicious and Emma loved using her chopsticks, especially with the little adapter thingy they gave her to keep them together. The pictures are kind of blurry, but you can see she did pretty well with them! I guess my 2-year-old has an adventurous palate. I hope it lasts...

Baron's 2nd Birthday Party!

Emma has a little friend at school named Baron. Baron is about 4 months younger than Emma and they have been inseparable since they were both on the infant side of the day care center. Even when he was a tiny little guy, Emma would love on him and try to keep all the other kids from getting too close. They have been to each other's 1st birthdays and Baron went to Emma's 2nd birthday party too. Baron turned 2 years old last week so we went to his party yesterday. He was so excited to see Emma come to his house! Baron was smiling so big and kept chanting, "Emma! Emma!" It was too cute. Emma decided to be shy for a bit and it took her about 10 minutes to warm up. But then she saw the little indoor jumper Baron's parents had set up and she was good to go! Running up and down the hall and bouncing away. The little ones wanted to go outside too, but it was too rainy and muddy, so we had to stay inside. The kids had a great time anyway though!

Tales of a Two-Year-Old

Just wanted to jot down some of Emma's thoughts and quotes and "accomplishments(???)" from the past few days...

On a light note, Emma sure does make me laugh sometimes! Its amazing to me to watch how that little girl processes information, blends it with what she already knows, and comes to her own conclusions. A couple of days ago we sitting down to watch a movie. I can't remember now what it was, but whatever it was, it was distributed by Universal Home Video. So the opening credits are starting and there is a close up shot of earth, rotating around on it's axis as the camera zooms out. Emma asked (like she does with EVERYTHING), "Mommy, whats that?" I told her it was the world. She said, "The world?" I told her, "Yes, thats the world. Its where we live." She thought for a long minute then said, "yeah... its small. Where's the boats? We ride the boats on the world." It took me a minute to catch up with her when I realized that she was talking about the Small World ride at Disneyland, which she calls "the boats." I guess she knew the actual name for the ride all along, but just preferred to call it "boats." So now that she's seen a picture of the world getting smaller, there must be boats on it! So smart, my girl!

On a more serious note, Emma gave me quite a scare yesterday. We came home early yesterday afternoon because we have both been fighting colds for the past few days and needed some extra rest and down time. So I put on an Elmo DVD and we snuggled for a bit. After a few minutes, Emma got up and was playing with toys on my bedroom floor. Apparently I was more tired than I thought because I dozed off for about 10 minutes. When I woke up, I noticed that she had some white powder on her face and asked her what it was. She said (proudly, I might add), "I took cold medicine Mommy!" I looked around and saw the now empty bottle of children's cold tablets sitting on the floor. She had climbed up to my dresser, got the bottle, opened it, and ate the entire bottle. Normally, these pills are kept with the rest of the meds, out of reach. But I had been carrying them with us a couple days ago and had absentmindedly left them on my dresser when I emptied my pockets in the evening. There were probably about 40 or 50 pills in there! So I immediately called poison control (you better believe I was glad I memorized that phone number years ago when I used to babysit!) and told them what had happened. Luckily, the only meds I generally give Emma are all natural, homeopathic blends of vitamins and minerals. They told me she would be fine and that there was nothing to worry about. In fact, they said that there is such a small amount of active ingredient in this particular tablet, that they NEVER worry about accidental overdoses... which leads me to question why I'm actually buying it if it doesn't have much in it! So, luckily, Emma was okay. We had a serious talk about only taking medicine if Mommy or Grandma or Auntie Karen gives it to her and Emma actually looked like she understood. She was very serious and told me she was sorry and won't take medicine again. Here's a bit of something to think about though.... today was the first morning Emma woke up and wasn't snotty or coughing... Maybe she took enough of the active ingredient in her overdose to actually have an effect???? Hmmm...

Aquarium of the Pacific !

We went to the Aquarium of the Pacific again yesterday. The organizer of one of our playgroups had arranged an awesome deal so we could get a group rate admission of only $6.00! Plus Emma is under 3, so she was still free! This was too good a deal to pass up, so Grandma, Karen, and TJ joined us as well. The little ones had an awesome time. The touch pools and play area were big hits. No surprise there ~ these little ones love any excuse to play with water and get a bit wet. The sharks were very appealing as well this time. Ema & TJ really liked the display table one of the aquarium docents was manning. I think they were intrigued by these because they were able to touch the animals here but they didn't move back! We also took time to check out the 3D movies this time and they were pretty cute. Only 15 minutes or so, so very toddler friendly as well. The only problem was that the animation was actually a bit TOO good and Disney-esque, so Emma & TJ kept asking when Nemo would be on the movie and they were very upset to find out that they didn't get to see him. After we explored the aquarium for a couple hours, we went across the street to Bubba Gump's for dinner. The food was good and it was great to have a meal with just us and the babies. TJ and even Emma were pretty well behaved for the meal and Emma was just excited to get some "chrimp (shrimp)!" She loves her "chrimp and fench fies!"