Emma Update!

Another sample from the artist as a young child... Emma brought home the happy face she drew for me at school today. I love how it has a little arm growing out of the side of it's face! Too cute!
In other news... we had an appointment yesterday and Emma was weighed & measured. 40+ inches tall and 42.7 pounds. She is a big girl! In fact, the last time we went to Disneyland, she kept telling TJ that "one day you could ride Soarin ober Cadifornia (Soaring over California) when you is big like me." Little stinker!
Today I had Emma's parent-teacher conference at school. According to her teacher, her strengths include letter recognition, beginning reading, writing skills, counting, numeracy skills, and general cognition. Essentially, the teacher says she "thinks well" - that she is able to grasp complex thoughts and understand advance subjects. Weaknesses are all in the social realm... apparently she needs to work on impulse control, having a short temper with her peers, and being non-communicative when she is upset or irritated. Ummm.... Hello? SHE IS 3!!! And she is my daughter! For goodness sakes, the teacher could have been describing me! Yes, people irritate me. Yes, I like to be left alone when I am in a mood! I think these are more personality traits than they are "weaknesses." That being said, Emma HAS been a bit mouthy lately, so we ARE working on behavior modification at home, but I'll never let that teacher know it! Personally, I think her development is right on track. I think I need to keep her active to keep her from being bored or sitting in front of the TV too much, but we keep busy. Lots of playdate, lots of learning activities, and she started gymnastics class last night and LOVED IT!!! A much bigger hit than Hiphop was! In fact, the instructor came over & complimented Emma on how well she listened and followed instructions. My girl is doing just fine...

Mini Mensa!

Emma and I have been working on her letters a bit more lately. Tonight she wrote her name all by herself for the first time! I'm so proud of my girl. She's a smartie and I sure do love her.

I also love how quick-witted she is on the uptake. Case in point... She has been having a bit of an issue trying to learn how to draw an "m." I had tried showing her how it was a mountain etc., all to little avail. Last night she had just drawn a pretty good "E" on her magnadoodle when I began showing her how to draw an "M" on mine. I then asked her if she could draw an "M" like I had. She paused, looked at me, smirked,... and proceeded to turn her drawing board 90 degrees and said "I'm done!" HAHAHA. She turned the "E" on its side so it became an "M." Love it!

Family Snow Day 03/05/2011!

So Karen was jealous of our impromptu trip on Thursday to the snow. And the Ames kids have been begging to take a trip to the mountains as well. Especially Lucy, who has been texting on a regular basis with messages along the lines of, "So? You and me? Wanna ditch work tomorrow and go to the snow?" Lol. So we decided a family snow day was in order before all the white stuff melted. Karen & I took all 6 of the kids up to Forest Falls on Saturday morning and they had a blast. There were only a few tears - apparently getting hit in the face with a snow ball when you are only 3 years old is kinda traumatic (TJ!). As is a sled ride when you start spinning too much and you were just yelled at for trying to drag your cousin down the hill with you too (Emma!). Other than that though, it was a fun morning. The surprise hit of the day? My waterproof sleeping bag that we decided to sit on and the sand toys I brought to play with. Lucy built a "snow castle" and Emma thought "snow doughnuts" were one of the funniest things she had seen in a long time! So much fun!

Happy Birthday Samantha Jean!

We had a great time at Samantha's birthday party this evening! She turned 5 years old and is such a sweet little girl. Emma just loves her to pieces! TJ came with us too and he had a great time, especially on Samantha & Carson's swingset. They have a great slide. :) The other big hit was Samantha's new Powerwheels Jeep. You can see that Emma kind of monopolized it tonight... got pictures of her riding with TJ, with Hayden, with Gavin, etc... Samantha wanted a princess tea party for her birthday so all the little ones dressed up. Emma wore her Rapunzel dress and TJ was Buzz Lightyear... again. It's hard to find manly dress up clothes for little boys! The last picture shows Samantha surrounded by all her new presents. She's holding the gift from Emma. I had a couple pictures of the girls dressed up in their Halloween costumes and I had them put on a puzzle since Samantha has been loving working on puzzles lately. I hope she likes it! :)

Snow 03/03/2011

Karen asked me to watch TJ & Kayla this afternoon when Todd went to work. For some reason, I had a second wind today and wanted to go do something fun with the kiddies. So I told them to grab their jackets and get in the car. Then I started heading up the hill without telling them where we were going. It's actually been pretty warm this week so I wasn't sure we would actually find any snow and I didn't want to hear whining if it fell though, so I kept it a secret as long as possible. I figured that, if the snow was all melted, we could still do a little hiking. Well, when we got up to Forest Falls, there was still TONS of snow. The kids were so excited and we spent a good hour that evening playing. It was a lot of fun.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

I got Emma dressed today without any particular planning. But when I spied the neck tie she made yesterday at school I remembered that it was Dr. Seuss's birthday and realized how well it matched her outfit. So here's my own little Cat in the Hat!

Ford Park

Emma & I had a nice afternoon at Ford Park today. The weather was great and she enjoyed playing on the playground. This child has no fear and was scaling right up the side of the jungle gym! The ducks were a big hit (as usual) and it turns out they WILL eat whole grain Cheerios! I had forgotten to bring stale bread so we stopped by CVS and it turned out it was cheaper to buy an individual cup of cereal than a loaf of bread. :) Our friends Erica and Tessa and baby Andrew came out to play as well. Tessa is getting so big and was talking up such a storm. The girls had a great time playing together.