A Day in the Life of Emma

I've been feeling like Emma and Mommy are both getting bored of things around here lately, so I was trying to introduce some new things one day...I guess I figured since we were being messy we may as well do it all in one day. Funny thing is, at the end of the day, I didn't feel like I had done any more cleaning than on any given day! We started out with finger paints, which seemed to be lots of fun for her; she was none too happy that I put them away when she started going a bit overboard. Then we tried stickers on paper, but that was short-lived as she quickly got more interested in putting them on the table. Next was a bowl of rice. She seemed to really like the texture and didn't take long to start trying to eat it. The fact that it was hard didn't deter her; she still enjoyed it. : ) Onto a bowl of flour which was soon dumped out onto the table. She loved the new texture and rubbed and played in it for a good while. Mommy ended the flour time when she tried to start pushing it all to the floor. While I was trying to clean it all up, Emma did what she does quite frequently these days...stripped down to her birthday suit! Have any of you had a child that has had this nudity-loving phase?!?! We are so proud that she can actually undress herself now, but it's starting to come at inconvenient times, and we're not quite potty-trained, so it's never safe to have a little streaker in the house! She does love stripping off her diaper, going to the potty, "asking" to get up, and then wiping and flushing. We need to get a seat for her and start working on the getting something out before wiping...not sure if we're quite ready for that though. I'm not sure she can developmentally process the sensations and muscle control. We'll see. I just don't want to start too early and have a long, painful process. Anyway, the last few pictures are of Emma in Mom's classroom that afternoon checking out the butterflies her second graders have hatched. She really enjoyed those as well as checking out several classrooms. It's so fun taking her to the school I grew up in...hopefully, she'll spend her elementary years there too (as long as Ben doesn't get too strong an itch to build again and move to a different zone). Again, I am concluding a two day mass blogging session. Maybe one day I'll get more frequent, though I doubt it since Emma and life in general keep me way too busy!

BEACH!!

Yeah...we have a beach bum baby!!! Our family of three packed up and headed to Surfside Beach Thursday through Saturday of Mother's Day week-end, and it was wonderful!! Emma loved it, and said, "beach" first thing when she woke Friday morning. She didn't want to leave the beach and surely didn't want to sleep while we were there, so it was not the most relaxing time, but wonderful nonetheless! We were so happy to have her love the water and the sand as much as she did and are looking forward to our family trip in June--when we can leave her crying herself to sleep in a separate room and can hopefully get a break on occasion. : ) The Lord was very gracious to us as the weather wasn't looking great in the forecast as we were packing, but it was so beautiful most of our time there. We were praying we wouldn't get too much so that we could get out and enjoy the beach, and it only rained a little Friday morning. The rest of the day was gorgeous, and we were blessed with a late check-out on Saturday, so we got extra time on the beach! The Lord is always more gracious than we could ever come close to deserving! I definitely have a more than necessary amount of pictures since I had my new camera! Ben and I were playing with it a good bit and really like the continuous shooting mode.

On the way home, we stopped in Columbia to visit Mary Matheson, Rick and Will. Emma and Will love playing together, and it was a much needed break from the car seat! We had a great time with them, and Emma and Will played and played. Unfortunately, however, they weren't as good as usual at sharing...hopefully it was just that day! We are definitely having to work hard on learning to share these days. My parents came down for a little bit too because my sister and her family couldn't join us for Mother's Day. These pictures are of Will bouncing with Tigger; I thought they were too cute not to post.

New Camera

I finally got a new camera that I've been wanting and these are pictures from the first day and 1/2 where I was playing with it an LOVING it! It's the digital version of my good ol' Rebel that I used to be so attached to, and now, I think I'm attached to this one. I am a loyal brand person, and I've always happily owned a Canon, so I stuck with it and am VERY happy with it! Anyway, I've got a lot of learning to do, but if you see really good looking pictures in my future posts, you'll know why. : ) It is the camera not my skills! The bottom few pictures are Emma playing with Uncle Kent. She wouldn't touch his shaved head and was very uncertain about it for a while, but once curiosity got the best of her, she wouldn't quit rubbing his head. Very intriguing new texture. Also, the picture of Emma on the lawn mower with Ben was a big deal...she LOVES to play on his "tractor" until she hears it get cranked--then she is scared to death. I came home one afternoon, and she was just riding around the yard with him and was upset and made him turn it back on and get going when he stopped to speak to me. Of course, now she tries turning the key to crank it on her own when she climbs up to play on it in the garage...good thing it's a complicated machine to turn on and to operate!

Turkeys

These turkeys are some of my college friends' kids and Emma a few weeks ago when we were able to get together. Ben was in Kentucky hunting real turkeys at the time, and I've posted some of his pics below and told him he'll have to do the "writing". : ) I had a great time catching up with my good friends that I don't see enough and am disappointed we don't have a picture of us! My roommate and I did walk over to a yard sale and got some great things for our kids...I do think that was my first yard sale shopping now that I think about it.

The beautiful state of Kentucky. Thats where Todd and I spent four days at the end of April hunting turkeys. One of the farmers Todd knows in Marrowbone has some acreage across from the land we had gone to hunt. We got to talking to him when we got there and he told us he had a lot of turkeys on his property and we could hunt all we wanted while we where there. We did and we never left his property, there where turkeys everywhere. We killed four birds while we where there and had a lot of fun and laughs doing it. I only killed one myself while Todd killed three. He killed two monster gobblers Sunday morning with one shot. It was an awsome trip, and I can't wait to get back up there and do some more hunting.

Come See Me Festival

Rock Hill annually hosts a festival called Come See Me. I have very fond memories of the festival from childhood and was excited to take Emma to some things this year. First, we took her to Glencairn Gardens where they had all kinds of stuff going on, including ice cream sundaes. We ran into some friends and missed out on the ice cream, but Will and my sister made it in line before they closed off the line. Oh well! Will was so pumped to get to see and touch Diego...Emma wasn't really into that. They both LOVED the water though! My favorite and most vivid memory from the festivities is of Gourmet Gardens...lots of vendors in an area park with great food and drinks, so onto Cherry Park we moved. Emma had her first taste of real funnel cake (we got one at the circus a few months ago, but it was nasty). This one was freshly fried with lots of powdered sugar! She shared it with me and absolutely loved it! She and Will also had their first tastes of cotton candy (Ben couldn't resist!) The picture with both hands on her chest is her signing please as she begged for another bite of Daddy's cotton candy! Please is actually one hand; guess she thought two hands would be extra good manners and maybe work better. ; ) There were tons of great inflatables too--we decided to wait on that one, but she loved running around them and watching Will in one of them. We look forward to being able to participate more as Emma gets older.