Happy Halloween!

We asked Emma back in September what she wanted to be for Halloween. She was adamant that she dress up as Strawberry Shortcake. As luck would have it, we were at a consignment sale and Kurt and Emma actually found a Strawberry Shortcake costume! Emma was very excited! She especially liked the hat. She asked every day for a week if she could wear it.

On Friday evening, we met up with a friend and went to her community center's Halloween Party. Emma and Kate, who dressed up as a bumblebee, had a good time playing together before and after the party, but Emma was very timid the whole time we were at the party. She was very apprehensive about costumes which included masks. 

She was very excited to wear her costume to school on Monday for character day. She had a fun day with a costume parade and various forms of sugar. (I'm not sure I want to know exactly how much she ate, all I know is that her fingers and one eyebrow came home stained orange from a cupcake. She also told me her tummy hurt so I'm thinking she had a fair amount of junk.)

After dinner, she was excited to go out trick or treating. We got ready to head out and opened the front door just as the first group of kids was getting ready to ring the doorbell. There was a little boy dressed as the Incredible Hulk with a full mask which scared Emma. (She is not a fan of masks when she can't see the person's face.) We took her outside and went to our neighbors' who she loves but she was very shy and wouldn't say anything. After another group of kids came through and she saw how the whole process worked, she warmed up a bit and said Trick or Treat to a couple other neighbors that we see regularly.

After watching a couple more groups of kids come up to our house, she was ready to try it herself. "Mommy, I want to go to THAT house." It was super cute. At first I had to coax her but soon she would just say Trick or Treat herself and every once in while tell people she was Strawberry Shortcake. She said Thank you at every house and very carefully chose lollipops whenever they were an option. We probably went to 15 houses give or take before her pumpkin was full. Every few houses she would ask where Daddy was and we'd make our way home so that we could show him her loot.

We were very excited for this Halloween after she was so timid last year and she seemed very excited for it this year. We were so happy that she got over her initial shock of seeing the Incredible Hulk and had a great time! She told me that she can't wait for next year!

Emma's Playlist

In addition to kiddo songs that she sings at school and requests from a CD in Carrie's car, Emma has a few Top 40 songs that she loves to sing along and dance to. In the car, she will sing along and picks up more words every time she hears them. At home, she'll ask if we can play them on the computer so that she can either watch the video or dance or bounce on a ball to them. (She really enjoys dancing in just her t shirt and underwear...what girl doesn't??)

Her favorites, in preferential order are:
Hello, Martin Solveig
Party Rock Anthem, LMFAO
Pumped up Kicks , Foster the People
Superbase Nicki Minaj
I Wanna Go, Brittany Spears

In the more age appropriate genre of music, some of Emma's favorites are:
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (sometime she performs this as if she is a pirate: Twinkle Twinkle little stARRR.)
The ABCs (we're currently working on ...Q, R, S, T....instead of Q, R, X, Y and Z)
Baa Baa Black Sheep
Rain Rain Go Away
Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee

From the CD in the car, she is a big fan of
The Firetruck Song
Five Green and Speckled Frogs
and The Chicken Dance
She is also slowly beginning to clap and say the letters to DISCO (the ghetto version of BINGO) 

Television

Emma has several favorite tv shows. Her favorite of the day rotates between Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go!, Dragon Tales, and Yo Gabba Gabba. We stream all of these via Netflix on the Wii. Usually when a 23 minute episode ends, she would tell either of us that her show was over and ask for us to start another one. Within the last week, however, she has started grabbing remote, aiming at the television, and starting the next episode all by herself. Almost every time, she declares, "I did it!"
The first time Emma did it, Kurt didn't believe her and made her show him twice before he realized that it wasn't a fluke!

In the past, she has requested a specific show and every once in a while describes an episode that she's watched recently. She will now request a very specific episode, almost down to the actual episode title and we will have to scroll through the titles before we find it for her.

Yesterday Emma and Kurt had this conversation:
Emma: I need a new episode.
Kurt: Didn't you just start a new episode?
Emma: I wanted the choo-choo one. I can't do it. (She can only start the next episode in the queue, she can't scroll through the queue to find the one she wants.)