Happy Anniversary

I don't have a good current picture of them, but today is my parent's 35th Anniversary!! Those higher numbers are getting more rare these days, so I thought it was worth mentioning. Definitely worth celebrating! We are grateful we have two sets of parents who have modeled long term commitment in marriage!

Week-end Fun

" Paint! Paint!" I hear these words several times a day now; Emma LOVES to paint! I kept my nephew Will a little Saturday morning so the two of them could play together, and he was very excited to paint too...and serious, too! The nice thing about Will painting is that he's less messy and cleans himself up better than Emma. : ) As you can see in the last picture, Emma was getting very frustrated that she couldn't get the paint off her hands! Frustration, that's an emotion we're frequently working and trying to talk through these days. One of the harder things about teaching kindergarten was realizing what all one doesn't know that early in life. These days I'm having to learn what it's like to learn from day one, including naming and dealing with emotions. I love how much parenthood educates!

Below are pictures from Saturday night. We went up to Mooresville, NC to visit one of my college roommates and spend time with some of my other college day friends. We had such a good time relaxing on the water and catching up with everyone. We were kind of surprised at how much Emma enjoyed swimming in the lake. She got in her float for the first time this Summer too; every other time, she's been ticked about it. Steph cooked us a delicious meal for supper while I fed Emma and Ben, Ryan, Ashley and DJ took the boat out for some skiing. It was a great evening and, I always love my time with old friends and wish I could have it more often, but I am grateful that our friendships are good enough to last through time and distance. And it's such a blessing to have them love my husband and Emma just as much! Emma absolutely loved her time with them and had a laugh fest with DJ and Steph before we left...lots of chasing, tickling, scaring, and I'm not sure what all, but I know she was having the time of her life! I think DJ and Steph might've been too. ; )

Big Girl!

Emma has started having some time in big girl panties and loves wearing them! The first night I tried them, she went to the potty and actually used it twice with no help and no accidents; we were amazed! The story hasn't been the same since, but we weren't expecting it to happen that easily so it hasn't been too disheartening. I haven't decided to go full force with the potty training thing; we're trying out a couple of things trying to figure out the best route for Emma. Ben got her a potty seat that's on the big potty which she loves and doesn't like to share...Anytime you use her bathroom, she has to undress and try it herself. I'm still not so sure about the muscle control yet, but she's definitely very interested, so we're working on it a little. I think I need to get a timer for myself to remember to take her. I just don't think about it...unless she's in panties. I think we need to get a potty for the car so we can try to stay consistent even when we're out...I don't know about those public restrooms! If anyone has info or tips on that part, we'd love to hear!

Fun, Fun

Time, everything takes more of it these days...such as cooking. Emma loves to help and do what Mommy's doing, so I try to ask her to help when I can. She now pushes the chair on in the kitchen when she wants to help. The top pictures are from the other day when she helped me make biscuits. We made star and heart shaped biscuits, and she was so adamant about doing it herself. The biscuits were slightly tough from all the handling, but it was great fun, and she, of course, had to get a bite (I apparently used to have to taste while cooking, too...well, I still do!). After dinner, she and Daddy played blocks. She enjoyed throwing them that night, which is why I waited and got the foam ones.

Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping beauty is all I can say. I always think she's a beautiful girl, but there is something intensely beautiful, precious, and peaceful about a sleeping baby or child.

Emma turned 18 months July 6 (I know we're getting close to 19 before I write!), and we had a great check-up. She was 21.5 lbs, 31 3/4 inches tall, and her head measured 18 " around; 50% in height and moved from 3% to 10% in weight this time. She's moving right along on the "milestone" chart as well. We were asked at our visit if she was closer to the 20 or 30 word mark. After a minute, we guessed 30. We got home and started thinking and listing and realized she is well above the 30 word mark, we just hadn't realized it. I started making a list just for our knowledge...feel free to skip over the list, but here goes:

names: Momma, Dada, Tan (for Tanner) MeMo, MoMo (these are names Will gave my parents), Kent, MaeMae, Rick, Will, Nannie, PawPaw, PapPap, DJ, Kay (friend Kayleigh), Drew, Hayden, Jonathan (or something like that)

other words: hat, hot, toes, nose, eyes, ears, teeth, please, more, all done, thank you, night night, kiss, boo boo, Bible, pray, play, paint, blocks, baby, ice, top, cup, ball, milk, eat, snack, cracker, cookie, kick, rain, treat, tee-tee, poop, bowl, bird, tree, plane, off, on, back, animal, hey, bye bye, hello, slide, ride, truck, sandbox, potty, pay, out, go, in, hair bow, paci, sit,cheese, light, uh-oh, backpack

I haven't counted but am sure it's past 30. Some of my favorite words: hair bow--she calls them her bairbows, so sweet! If she'd just leave them alone!! ; sit--she pats the seat or floor and says "sit, Momma" (or whatever name fits at the time) It just makes me happy that she still wants me to play with her, another of my favorites; "play, Momma!"; Ice is what she calls water for some reason--probably because we get ice and water out of the fridge door, and ice is easier to say; animal--"manimals! manimals!" is what she says when on the potty--that's the book she likes to look at; pay--she likes to take my debit card and try to pay at the store, it's so cute unless she messes it up, and I have to redo it--then I feel like we're becoming a nuisance!; Hello--she says that when the phone rings now; boo boo--every night when we get her Bible out to do her devotion, she says boo boo over and over again until we find the David and Goliath story, it's the cutest thing!

A couple that are lesser favorites: Paci--it's only been allowed for sleep times for the last several months, but I'm afraid that one's going to be a killer to put out of the vocab; uh-oh--we're starting to have to explain (sometimes with spankings) that uh-oh is not in the right context when it is something you are purposely doing!

softball

Another softball season finished! We had fun this year even though we finished less than .500. It's just nice to have something Ben and I can do together. B'ball and softball only overlapped a week this year, so that wasn't too bad. These are a few pics from our Saturday tournament a couple of weeks ago...we lost, won, and lost to go home. It was Sooooooo hot and miserable! Emma loved the ball field, and my mom was gracious enough to entertain or chase her most games. About midway through our season, she started noticing signs that we were going to play ball, and she loved helping get us out the door! Ben would usually put his Ebenezer shirt on while I was cooking or putting dinner and dishes away, and she would search for my shirt and bring it to me, yelling, "Momma, Momma"!...the words play or ball would usually come with the shirt, and she seem to know we only wore certain shoes to the red dirt hole! Most nights we all came home with at least one layer of red dirt! I am grateful for the fellowship and the ability to still play a sport, even if it's not one of my favorites! : )

Fashion

Last week-end, a few high school leaders and myself put together a fashion show/sleepover for our girls in youth group. It was so much fun, and they were so creative and hilarious! DJ was our emcee, and Jamie, Erin, and I were the fashion critics. The categories for the night were:

Fancy Dress Wear, Wacky Tacky Whatever Wear, Ghetto Gangster Wear, Electric Eighties Wear, Get Your Game On Wear, and Sleepy Slumber Wear. We videotaped the whole thing, and of course had the fun playback time afterward. DJ's birthday was that Saturday, so we surprised her with a cake after the show. It was a great night of fun and fellowship just being little girls together. We had a little time to hang out and talk afterward too. Ben and Emma went to spend the night with Adam and Jonathan (Jamie's husband and son) because Emma would have never gone to sleep with all that fun! The four of them had lots of fun at their house though, and it's always good to get some Daddy time!

Toddlerhood

Ben, Emma and I took our second trip to Chuck E. Cheese's a couple of weeks ago to have a fun family night together. We were surprised at how much she enjoyed it the first time, so we knew she's be loving it this time, several months later! We sat in the toddler zone so she could eat and play as she wanted...much better than fighting through dinner! Thankfully, she wanted to sit and eat with us for a little while, so she ate a decent bit. These first couple of pictures are from the toddler zone when she was riding the Barney tractor...and putting a coin in by herself. She sees something once, and stores it in that memory; watch what you do and say around her! When we finished eating and had enough of the toddler area, we ventured out to the bigger kid area where she rode a few things, took a couple of pictures, played skee ball, and just ran circles around the chaos. We all had a great time, and then we headed to Toys R Us to finally buy her some foam blocks and a baby stroller (that was not in the plans, but she LOVED all the baby stuff, and the stroller was fairly inexpensive).

Messy, messy...for some reason, Emma likes to drag tons of toys to one spot around the house. This day it happened to be the stairway. She took a few babies to the landing and played a while too. It is cute, but she sure leaves a trail!

This is an outfit someone gave us at our church baby shower, and I loved it! We have finally hit the 18 mos mark and can wear it!! I love the headpiece, and Emma does too. You can't tell it too much in the picture, but it's a pink check and, she insisted on wearing these pink check shoes she has that definitely clashed! I don't too much care what she picks out, but I did try hard to get her to pick her white sandals...no success! I was running errands with Mom that day which is why I was hoping to sway her, but oh well! Some people in public commented on her looking adorable, so maybe it didn't clash too bad from a distance. : ) From what I hear and see, I clashed and dressed pretty tacky myself back in the days of childhood too. At least she's a girl who knows what she wants!

Below are a couple of videos from Chuck E. Cheese's:

Babies!

Emma and her babies...she LOVES her babies!! She started getting interested a couple of days before we left for the beach in June and plays more and more with them. Guess they're more interesting than Momma sometimes! We have fun pretending to be mommies together with the babies, and it is fun to see her try to grasp the difference in fantasy and reality.

I was trying to soften up and care for my aging feet one Sunday afternoon, and Emma was intrigued! She was giving her feet a bath with mine until Ben got the camera out for a picture. Though it wasn't as relaxing with her joining me, it was definitely fun. She wants so badly to do things like us!

We threw a little surprise shower for our friend Aimee at the pool a few weeks ago. I met her at Ebenezer Park back in the spring, and she started joining our Refresh group...she and her husband joined our church last week too! We have loved getting to know them and are enjoying building new friendships with their family. They have a 2 1/2 yr old little boy that Emma plays with. She is due near the end of August, and we can't wait to add another baby boy to the mix!

Independence Day

We spent the 4th out at Ben's parent's house with his family and had a great time! Emma was excited to see her cousins Matthew and Mikayla and had fun swimming with them! The Howell's had tons of great food, and we enjoyed playing some badmitton after dinner. The kids were all very interested as well! It was so good to see Heather and her family as well since we don't get to see them too often! Emma did seem to remember them from our trip in May, so hopefully our visits will be frequent enough that she knows her cousins!