Emily the Great

Emily is a wonderful little girl with a great imagination and a big heart.  She is very observant of people and the environment that surrounds her.  There are often times when Emily will be having a conversation either with me or other people that I am flabbergasted at her knowledge of some of the topics that I thought she knew nothing about.  At 3 years old Emily is very much into role playing  and imaginary play with her sister.  She takes ideas from shows that she has seen on television or books that she has read and will play them out with Avery.  For her third birthday, her Aunt Andrea gave her a play medical kit with a stethoscope and Emily loved it.  Everyday afterward she would come in from school and pretend she was a doctor and make someone become her patient, whether that was her dad, sister, me or a doll.  Emily also loves to play with her baby dolls and especially loves playing picnic by taking her play food and placing on her bed quilt on the floor.  Princesses and fairies are other characters that are among her favorites.

Emily has always had a great memory and a knack for remembering songs and rhymes.  Her memory is only getting better everyday and she comes home singing songs she has learned from school and will sing songs from her favorite televisions shows.  Recently, because of the holiday season, she learned "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and often sang it without being coerced, although anytime I would try and film her she would stop singing.  

A major hurdle we overcame this past month was the horrible but necessary task of potty training.  For months we struggled to get Emily to pay attention to the feeling of needing to potty.  She was always distracted with other things which would cause her to have accidents.  Then all of a sudden she took to knowing when she needed to potty and would come up and tell us.  I can now say she is officially potty trained and has a rare accident although I still place a training pant on her at night.

Emily is a great sister to Avery and for the most part they get along really well.  They both have moments of frustration which can lead to hair pulling, biting, or pushing. Emily is very protective of Avery and I have been told by teachers at their school that Emily will watch out for bullying around Avery when their classes blend at the end of the day.  Emily has no problem pushing another kid away if he or she gets too close to her little sister.  

Emily has grown to become a polite and thoughtful child with loving comments to everyone around her and a tender but playful young soul.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Emily and Avery are great helpers.  When it came time to put up lights on Nonna and Papa's house, they were front and center helping Papa untangle lights.  Although they were first in line to lend a hand, it didn't mean they were the best but it's the thought that counts.

Emily's 1st Thanksgiving Program

Emily had her first Thanksgiving program at school and I was super excited about it and called the grandparents to come join the fun in watching her in this monumental moment.  When I made this call I did not know what the future would hold nor did I know what the program would contain.  We all met up at Emily's school at 6pm and every parent and grandparent of each child in her class was standing in this small room heating up the air.  The teachers handed each student's handmade shirt, which was their outfit for their show, out to the parents to place on their children along with the obligatory Indian head piece.  As all this was happening Emily grew increasingly nervous and was asking to be carried which I should have known was a sign of what was to come.  As everyone became ready the teacher called the kids to the front of the classroom.  Emily went up by herself and then proceeded to start crying because of all the eyes on her.  So I went up to stand next to her thinking this would calm her down but instead she made me carry her and then never got down even as I bribed her with treasures and gifts.  So as some of the kids sang along to their Thanksgiving songs, of which they only sang three, I stood there with Emily as she gave the death stare to her father as he video taped this disaster.  As a side note, every child's shirt had their "Indian" name written on the back, Emily's teacher Danielle thought "Clumsy Squirrel" was befitting of Emily.

Halloween 2012

I was very excited this year about Halloween because I could finally take the girls around the neighborhood trick-or-treating as both of them could walk this year, as opposed to none or only one walking.  This year we had our neighbor Tiffany and her son Tygan join us as well as our friend Tara and her son Kash, who is only a year old.  Before we headed out, Kash, who was already in his monster costume kept taking Avery's baby stroller away from her, apparently he likes things he can push.  Our plan was to put Avery and Kash in the wagon and wheel them around the neighborhood trick-or-treating.  But because Avery had already decided she didn't like Kash, she was very upset she had to share her wagon with him, so instead I ended up carrying her all over our neighborhood as a punishment.  Due to me carrying Avery all over the neighborhood I didn't get too many great shots of our adventure.

Pumpkin Carving

As daddy was working nights, mommy took it upon herself to get the girls started on their pumpkin carving tradition.  We carved a cat because the girls are into kittens at the moment.  They helped me with taking the innards out of the pumpkin and mommy used the sharp tools to carve the pumpkin.  Emily loved taking the top off the pumpkin and then after that she wasn't interested anymore so she just drew on the paper covering the table.  Avery on the other hand enjoyed taking out all the pumpkin seeds so much that she actually started to put them back in just to take them out again.  Overall we had a great time but mommy's hand now need a massage.

Pumpkin Patch 2012

It is that time of year when the temperatures starts to drop and the time changes, which means autumn is here and it is time for our annual trip to the pumpkin patch.  Last year we were too late in arriving at the pumpkin patch because we had some costume snafu's and when we got them all straightened out the pumpkins were all sold and there was no more pumpkin patch.

I am pleased to say that this time around we were ready with our outfits and the timing was great because all the pumpkins were out so we could have our choice for the taking.  The only problem was the girls didn't want to cooperate with having their pictures taken so we didn't get any of those great sister pics as we did in the past.  This year it was all about touching and lifting the pumpkins.  Avery had to touch and feel every pumpkin she came across and Emily wanted to lift them, which really surprised me at how strong she is when she picked up some of the larger pumpkins that even I would have struggled to lift.  In the end we had a great time and the girls loved choosing their pumpkins to take home even if they wouldn't face the camera to capture the moment.