Emily - 4 years, 8 mo. - Apr. 16

Emily is featuring her "pets" this month.  Her pillow pet had a baby.  :o)  I will be curious if her occupation is working with animals of some kind when she gets older.

I knew when we had kids that they would ask questions, but I don't think I was prepared for the daily amount.  One of the most interesting questions this week was "Mommy, where does water and cheese come from?"  Send us your child's most interesting question.

3 years, 1 month

I call Emily my little inquisitor this month or "Curious Georgeina". I really should keep a tally of how many times she asks WHY in one day. She really does keep me on my toes.

It's amazing to watch Emily's imagination run wild. She recently began picking up stuffed animals or dolls and carrying on full length conversations with them. I'm excited to see what conversations she will try to have with her brother in a couple of weeks.

This month she received some new toys from the Grandparents and has had a blast playing with them. Mommo brought back A Barrel of Monkeys game and some Silly Puddy from her trip to the Velvet Ice Cream Factory in Utica, OH and Gimmy and Pappy brought back a snake from their visit to Montana - yes, a fake one, although Emily would probably love to have a real snake someday.

3 years old

Well, it's very hard to believe, but our little "burrito baby" as we called her is now 3 years old. She is such a blessing and we're so thankful the Lord has given us the privilege of caring for her. She has grown already into a lively, very curious little girl and we're excited to see what God has in store for her. Although we have no idea what she'd like to do in the future, if we heard right, this morning on our way to church we think she said "when I grow up I want to be an engineer".

As of Aug. 3 we finally were successful in ridding our house of all the fa-fas (pacifiers). Someone from Charlie's work sent him an idea involving a fa-fa fairy so we decided to try it. Quite a few months ago I had Emily decorate a box with paint and stickers and I wrote on it "for fa-fa fairy" and the plan was to box them up and actually mail them, however, knowing Emily I thought it would be best if she were to physically see them in someone else's hands. So, I asked one of our friends who recently had a baby if we could come over and pass on the fa-fa's to her new little one and see if this baby's Grandmother would agree to be the Fa-Fa Fairy. Emily played for a little while, and then reluctantly handed the Fairy (a.k.a. Mrs. Gayle) the box and watched her give the fa-fa's to the baby. Emily was a little upset at first, but was soon distracted when we told her we were taking her to a special playground as a reward for giving her fa-fa's to the baby. All in all I think this method worked well and even though we hear about the Fa-Fa Fairy every now and then, we are free of them, at least until baby boy Groff enters the world.

3 months 3 years

Picture Update

Randa and the boys and my Aunt Clara and Aunt Neva were able to come for a visit at the end of September. We really enjoyed spending time with them.






Emily has somewhat sensitive ears and on the drive home from Mommaw and Poppaw's house we passed a firetruck and I heard her saying in the back seat "it's too loud". She proceeded to put the car pillow around her ears. I was able to stop long enough at a light to take a picture.



Emily and I had the opportunity to take care of our friend's little boy, Ryan, a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot of fun and very interesting to see Emily's reaction to having another baby around the house. I thought she would be somewhat jealous, but on the contrary, she was very excited to have Ryan around. Every morning when she woke up she would ask where Ryan was. She was quite the little helper.

Fun in the Sun

Last week we had the opportunity visit with our friends, Shelli, Brooke, Karter and Ryan and had another opportunity to get used to swimming in a big pool. Emily was cautious at first, but quickly realized how much fun it was. She is especially fond of her first freckle which we noticed after leaving the pool. She says "Mommy, frackle".

23 months old

What an interesting month this has been as we are preparing to begin the terrific two's. Emily continues to be quite the communicator and it amazes me to listen to what she picks up. Most mornings when I go in her room she will say "Hi Mommy", but just recently she started adding "I...lub you" after saying hello. She asks quite frequently "ah, doing" (what are you doing?) and she will continue to ask that question until she receives an answer and even when she gets an answer she'll ask it again. Her funniest communication yet is when she says "no touching" to Charlie or any member of the house that is touching Mommy. I'm not surprised that Emily has a protective nature about her when it comes to me because I recently found out that Charlie was the same way with his Dad when he was very little.

Emily is very observant to sites and sounds around her. She enjoys telling me when she sees an airplane or hears a motorcycle speeding down our street. She also lets me know from inside the house when she hears the mail truck driving to our box.

Emily has the ability to switch from her sweet self to Miss Flossy Bossy in a matter of seconds. She enjoys trying to get one of us to come to her by saying "mere" and then she tries to move her pointer finger which ends up being upside down. Here she looks like she's saying in her best mafia voice the words of Sofia from Golden Girls "I spit on your grave".

22 months old - June 16

Say hello to Hula Girl. Back in May this year Aunt Kristen, her friend Veronica and Grammy Gin had the opportunity to go to Hawaii for an all-girl vacation. While they were there they scoured all over for this outfit that would fit Emily so we had to use it for one of her monthly photo ops. She was not too keen about putting it on until Aunt Holly said "if you put this on we can go outside". I'm sure this picture will reappear around the time when Emily gets married.

Things truly do change in one days time. One day Emily speaks one word requests/statements and the next day she's speaks understandable phrases. It is enjoyable to communicate with her at this age.

Emily continues to bring lots of laughter into our household. A while ago she wanted to help wash dishes so I stood her on a kitchen chair and scooted it close to the sink thinking she would just play in the water as she had done in the past. I stepped away while Aunt Kristen was watching her and returned to see Emily actually using a wash cloth to scrub the dish. We also noticed that Emily had one shoe on while washing the dish and of course there was water all over her onesie. Oh, one wonders how long this joy of helping in the kitchen will last. Just a challenge to me to continue making it a fun thing to do as part of our family and teamwork.

I'll post more hula pictures that Holly took once I get those.

Wet n' Wild

So far Emily has enjoyed playing in her pool from the Fannin's twice this Summer. Once with Daddy and once with Aunt Holly.

She loves to play with the boat she got from her Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Hanson, the Sunday they learned about Noah's Ark. She also enjoys sliding into the pool despite the expression on her face in one of the pictures below.

21 months old - May 16

This has been an interesting month. Emily loves playing outside which I'm very thankful for, but she has now begun to screech at the top of her lungs when I bring her inside which of course is not very harmonious to my ears. She thankfully calms down pretty quickly and finds something to play with inside for a while.

This month 2 of Emily's 3 Aunts have moved into our home so now she includes their names along with the entire family list when asking where everyone is in the morning. It's neat to see how she pronounces everyone's name. I need to get her to say the names on video because print just doesn't do it justice. My parents are called "Mammo" and "Poppaw", Charlie's parents are called "Mi Mi" and "Pappy", Cousin Jack is "Ja", Uncle Mark is actually Mark, Aunt Randa is "Ra Ra" which I thought would be an easier name to pronounce since Emily recently acquired a stuffed Panda from Mammo and Poppaw's house and I keep repeating Panda sounds like Randa. Kristen is "Kicken" which used to sound like chicken. She hasn't repeated Holly's name enough yet since she just arrived, but I'm sure her name will have some unique sound to it. Charlie's Grandmother "Gommy" is "Gammy". Soon-to-be Uncle Jose is "Augie" - I have no idea where that came from. Soon-to-be Cousins Cameron and Bub sound pretty close to their actual names.

I believe Emily's favorite foods this month are cherries and cheesy goldfish crackers. Charlie brought cherries home from a work thing and she asks for them pretty much any time she sees me open the frig. The cheesy goldfish were introduced while on one of our walks in the park with some friends from church and their kids. One little boy, Landon, who is very close to Emily's age, decided that he would like to swap his goldfish for some pretzels. It was so cute to see them negotiate with each other before the swap even while the Mommy's were moving them in the strollers at a brisk pace.

Our exciting outing this month was to see Go Diego, Go Live! with Mammo at the Palace Theatre downtown Columbus. We had absolutely perfect seats in the balcony just behind the railing. Emily had ample space to walk around if she wanted and we were high enough so we could see everything. She was tuned in for the first 45 minutes and then faded a little for the last half after the intermission. We had a lot of fun. Thank you Mammo!!

Emily is very curious to know what every noise is. Here she heard some birds and enjoyed seeing them fly.

20 months old - April 16

We've had a fun month with the weather being so nice and with the return of Mommo and Poppaw. Emily has realized she's a big girl now and enjoys attempting to go down the stairs in a manner similar to that of anyone above 33 inches and thankfully she's very careful to hold on to the railing. We've begun potty training so hopefully we'll be able to say bye-bye to diapers pretty soon.

It's fun to try new foods with Emily. We let her try sweet pickles and quickly found out that is not one of her favorites. Mommo gave her some cantaloupe and blueberries and she loved them both. Lettuce topped with a little Ranch Dressing is a new favorite at dinner time.

We've been saying a nightly prayer before putting Emily to bed and always begin with Dear, Jesus... and end the prayer with Amen. The other night I started the prayer and before I could get a couple words in Emily says Amen. It made me chuckle.

Easter Sunday

19 months old - March 16

It doesn't seem possible, but I believe our little baby is officially a toddler. She is still as funny as ever, but has recently had a little more "tudes" as we call them if she doesn't get what she wants. Oh the fun of teaching you can't always have what you want. On the flip side she is communicating a lot better and it's fun to interpret her words.

She still loves to get in her special cabinet in the kitchen, but she's recently added a pen and paper to the space for even more fun.

Her favorite food is still pretzels, but apples and oranges follow very close behind.

Her favorite buddy from church is a little boy named Noah. She says his name periodically throughout the week and then even more so after we get to see him in person. It's so cute.

Blizzard of '08

The blizzard of '08 dumped lots of snow which made for a perfect sledding experience especially once the snow was packed down.

Today Mark, Randa, Jack, Emily, Stephanie and I headed over to Mr. and Mrs. Wilcoxon's. As a youth I spent many hours on their hill. Strange how one's energy level changes as the years go by. Emily did not enjoy herself like I thought she would. The amount of snow made it difficult for her to walk around. I tried to put on her "new" black and red polka dotted ladybug boots given to us by Margaret Tornero, but for some reason she is scared to death of them. I even disguised them with a plastic bag before trying to put them on her, but she screamed all the more. Oh well, maybe more smiles will come next year.

18 months old

These 18 months have flown by and our little girl has grown into a full-fledged bundle of communication. My Mom says Emily is very much like me when I was her age in that I would babble some phrase, someone would say "what?" and I would repeat the exact same phrase.

These days she likes to "wash" her forks and spoons in a plastic bowl I give her on the floor and she still loves putting keys into anything pretending that she's unlocking it.

17 months old - Jan. 16

Oh, if we could only bottle the energy that children have and take a sip now and then. Emily was not feeling 100% again during this month's picture, but she still had the energy to squirm in the rocking chair.

She is our little "nut" and brings a smile to our face many times throughout the day. She definitely has a new found freedom now that she can walk. One of her favorite things to do is walk from the back door to the front door pretending with keys in hand that she is unlocking the doors. Another fun thing for her to do is help Mommy unload the silverware from the dishwasher. She would stand there for hours if she could, but eventually we run out of forks and spoons to put away. Her favorite foods are Oreo cookies, ice (that was a craving of mine while I was pregnant with Emily), Crispex cereal and pretzels which you see being shoved in her mouth in one of the pictures below. She can now say "ba-ball", "keys", "ice", "out", "down", "baby", "fish", "ches-cheese" and "bobble" (which we think means bottle).

Emily Favorite Toy

Emily got a ton of things for Christmas this year. Like all children she has her favorites. This is one of them. She likes to wiggle her hips to the music, as well as make the animals pop up. She even roars when the lion pops up. After she open this one we actually had a hard time trying to get her to unwrap the rest of her gifts. She kept walking back over to the box that this one was in and playing with it through the open part of the box. The part that is used to the "try me here". The video is a little long but it was too cute to cut anything from it. It is so fun to watch children having a good time. This toy has several different things on it and Emily goes from one thing to the next.

16 months old - Dec. 16

Although this was no easy task since Emily didn't seem to be feeling well, we were able to take her monthly picture with some semblance of a smile. Check out the very last picture for her Grinch-like look.

Emily has really enjoyed things that come with the Christmas season, plastic ornaments, jingle bells and especially beads. Thankfully she's not interested in touching the Christmas tree.

She is gaining a little more confidence these days in walking by herself and definitely let's you know when she is not interested in something. We also noticed we have a little dancer on our hands. Pretty much every time she hears music she sways her bottom side-to-side. She can say shoe, bye and wa-wa (water) and can also play the "gimme 5" game.