Poll

Just a quick note in case you use a reader to view our blog. We've added a poll on the right hand side to see if everyone thinks we'll have a boy or a girl this time around.

Hopefully the baby will cooperate and will let us find out this upcoming Friday!

Cookie Advocate

Tonight Emma was dilly-dallying while eating dinner. I really just wanted her to finish up and told her that if she finished before Daddy got home she would get a special treat. She skeptically looked at me and asked, "What kind of special treat?" I have no doubt that if I answered the incorrect item, that dinner would not have been finished. Since I had nothing specific in mind, I told her that she had to finish in order to find out. This seemed to work for a few minutes, until Kurt walked in the door. Since it was about 3 minutes after I gave her the first incentive, I didn't think it was quite fair that she didn't finish yet and told her again if she just finished she would get a treat. Kurt remembered some cookies that we had stashed away and showed them to her. As you can imagine, she quickly finished her dinner. I told Emma that Daddy was her cookie-advocate. Before bed, Kurt asked Emma who her cookie-advocate was, she promptly replied, "Daddy!" with a big smile.

Although I've known it for a while now, we are definitely in for some trouble since our 2 1/3 year old apparently has rudimentary reasoning skills. :)

The Big Room

Emma had a wonderful time spending the majority of her day in the 3-year old class room today! The day care director told me that she first asked Emma if she wanted to go to the 3-year old room and Emma said no but when her friend Layla said yes, Emma changed her mind. The director told me that Emma was not clingy at all and went right in and didn't look back. The teacher in the room, Miss Kim, told me that she did wonderful all day, she ate lunch well, napped well, and played with the other kids well. She said that Emma follows directions very well and is very polite. The vice-director told me that neither she nor Miss Kim could believe that Emma wasn't even 2 1/2 yet and that she did everything just as well as the 3 year olds.

The director told me that she hadn't really considered moving Emma up so soon, but would think about giving her more time in the 3-year old classroom since she's seen how well she does in there. This makes us happy because, Emma has always seemed to thrive whenever she's been placed with slightly older kids.

Emma was very happy on the way home from school today. Usually, I'll try to ask her about her day and she replies, "No Mommy, later," or on good days, I'll get one word responses. Today, though, she was more than willing to share. I still had to ask questions, she hasn't quite progressed to just babble about her day, but her eyes were shining when she told me that she played with Cameron and Taylor and 'that other boy.' And she was very excited that she got to play with playdough and that she made a birthday cake and a GREEN robot...with moving hands! She even shared that robots talk in a nasally voice and say, "Waaaah Waaaah Wahh!"

When Daddy called on his way home, she eagerly shared her big day with him on the phone. This is huge because Emma rarely will talk on the phone let alone for several minutes!

We're so excited that Emma had such a great experience in the 'big classroom' and hope she gets to spend some more time there soon!

Emma's going to be a big sister!

Like I said in the last post, we were really busy this summer and have many fun stories to share. For right now our most exciting story is that Emma is going to be a big sister around the end of March! She is very excited for her new role and has  preparing by taking care of 2 dolls, Baby Sister and Baby Boy, quite well. She makes sure they get lots of sleep and likes to fed them applesauce. She also gets quite distressed when they get dirty during their meals and insists we change them. (for the record, she's just pretending on both the food and changing them since their clothes don't come off) She enjoys holding them frequently and showing them off with the sweetest voice and smile, "Mommy look at my Baby. See Mommy?"

Also for the record, Carrie is only having one baby, although we won't know for another month or so if it's a boy or girl. Currently, Emma's name choices are Sleeping Beauty, or Baby Hazel after our friends Ashley and Matt's daughter Hazel.

Carrie has felt well for the most part, just more exhausted than usual. Luckily some of that seems to be passing. Although running after a toddler is exhausting in and of itself!

Stay tuned for more about our summer as well as more current stories!

Pictures....FINALLY!

Obviously I'm ridiculously far behind on the blog, hopefully you haven't given up on us completely. I have many stories from our very busy summer to share! Hopefully these albums will make you smile until I can write some stories!

Split Rock - 4th of July

Blueberry Picnic!

Emma in July

Emma at the Beach!

Emma in August