Picture post

We've taken lots of pictures over the past few days, so here are a bunch!

Continuing from the last post, these first two pictures are a great demonstration of the numerous shoe rotations we endure on a daily basis. She loved the little pink flip flops I bought her, as you can see:And yet, just minutes later, she was saying "Off! Off!" Next thing I know, she's asking me to put on her brown mary janes. "Onnnn! Onnnnn!"
Here Emma is displaying a recently acquired skill: the ability to reach the door handles and open doors. Oh boy. Time to break out the child-proof door handle covers!

One of her latest favorite toys is her box of big legos. She absolutely loves to stack them up as high as she can reach, and then she will recruit whoever is closest to help her stack them even higher. Fortunately, she doesn't get upset when they fall. She either says, "Uh oh" or "Oh boy" and then starts all over again. Here she is, on her tippy-toes, trying to put one more block on the top of her tower!On Sunday we went out to the Taste of Forsyth at the Cumming Fairgrounds. It was a little disappointing, with only about 10 restaurants, most of which we have already tried, but I don't think there are many food festivals in our area that are as big as the Taste of Alpharetta, so maybe our perpective is skewed. Regardless, we all enjoyed having a taste of Ben & Jerry's...especially Emma.
Last night, it was so beautiful outside that we decided to eat dinner on the back deck. Emma was very excited to have her own seat at the table. (After begging to come out of her high chair until Mommy & Daddy couldn't take it anymore and plopped her down in a regular chair at the table!) And here, 2 seconds later, we see why Emma doesn't get to sit in her own chair at the table more often.Even though she's not looking at the camera, this one was too cute not to post.

If we are going to have a blog that talks about Emma's activities and interests, we can't skip talking about Emma's favorite TV shows of the moment. There are 3 TV shows I'd say that she loves more than any others. The obvious one is Sesame Street. I don't know a 1 year old that doesn't love Sesame Street. She loves cookie monster, she loves when the count does the number of the day, and of course she is glued to the screen when Elmo's World comes on.

Her second favorite show is Jeopardy. We've been watching it with her since she was a newborn, and it always seems to keep her interest for the entire half hour. She loves the theme song, but she also loves when a Daily Double comes on. She'll drop whatever she's doing and clap when she hears the Daily Double sound!

The third, and probably her most favorite, is Little Einsteins. I have never seen her so captivated by something on tv (except for Elmo...see above). Her favorite part is when they all pat their hands in their laps to make Rocket blast off. She stands there and pats her legs and says, "Pat pat pat!" right along with the characters on the screen! I try not to have her watch too much tv, but at least this one is fairly educational. They teach kids about music and art, and they usually have a few animals, which is probably one of the reasons she loves it so much. As soon as the opening credits start, she gets so excited. It's adorable.

Can't finish this post until we give a special Happy Birthday shout-out to Mr. Alex, the cutest nephew ever, who turns 1 tomorrow. Happy birthday, big guy!

All about shoes

I finally broke out my flip flops yesterday, and Emma was obsessed with them all afternoon. Except she calls them "pick tocks". She tried so hard to walk with them on her feet, but she just couldn't figure out how to keep the little piece between her toes. Not to mention, they were about 3 times as big as her feet! I bought her a baby-size pair last night, so we'll see how she likes them today when we take them out. She was in bed when I got home, so she hasn't seen them yet.

Last night, I put her pj's on before I left to go shopping, and she insisted that we put on her brown mary janes. So she walked around for awhile with her pink monkey pajamas and her leather shoes. We certainly have a shoe-lover on our hands, much to Grandma H's delight! I'm sure they will have plenty of shoe-shopping trips together in their future.

Grandma & Grandpa H are in South Africa this week on vacation. I promised I would post lots on here while they were gone, and I've managed to let 9 days go by without a single post -- whoops! To be fair, I was out of town for a few days too. While I was gone, Emma and Grandma K had lots of fun together. I hear that our little girl is an expert weed picker. Good news for Mommy & Daddy!

Emma's (3rd?) cousin Nathan is visiting this week. We're looking forward to seeing him at church on Sunday. When I ask her if she is excited to see Nathan, she says, "Nay-nay!" Cousin Alex, Aunt Heather, and Uncle Mike stopped by to play for awhile last week. Emma's been working on saying "Alex" too, but so far she's stuck on just plain "Al." I'm just glad that she's finally started saying "mommy". It took her long enough!

Spring flowers

Emma loves to look at, touch, and sniff flowers any time she sees them. I bought some sunflowers the other day, and she has had a ball exploring them every day. I took some pictures yesterday, and they all turned out so cute that I put them in an album because it was too hard to pick just one to share. Click here to see them all.

Afterwards, we went outside to look at the hyacinths blooming. Emma's great grandma, Emma Sr., gave us daffodil and hyacinth bulbs this winter to plant in our new yard. Luckily, I had time to get them in the ground so that they would bloom this spring. The daffodils look like they are ready to burst open any day now, and the hyacinths - which are a beautiful shade of indigo blue - made their appearance yesterday. Thanks Great Grandma for making our yard so pretty! We will surely enjoy the blooms for years to come.

Walking in your footsteps

Daddy's shoes look just a little bit too big, don't they?

Emma had a busy weekend playing hostess for Mommy's coworkers on Saturday. We had everyone from the office over for a casual dinner. Emma had a blast playing with her new Elmo & Cookie Monster dolls that some of the girls gave her. She does a great impression of Cookie Monster if you catch her in the right mood. She also sat back and watched in amazement as her new friends Michael and Drew ran circles around her. Drew is 3 months older, and you'd never believe they were that close in age -- Emma is such a little squirt! I'll have to see if anyone got pictures of them together. Emma did great with all of the people around. I think she only looked around for Mommy once or twice. I think it helps that she sees all of them often, when we stop by the office. We were hoping to have warm, dry weather so that the kids could all run around in the backyard, but mother nature did not cooperate. Instead, we learned that our ottoman makes quite the diving board! Hopefully no one suffered any permanent damage... Before they left, Michael declared our house a "party house." I told him I would take that as a compliment!

This is the only kid I know who chooses to eat the crusts over the rest of the sandwich! I think she'll change her mind one of these days, but for now, she's all about the crust. We've noticed that she always eats the outside edges of her waffles first too. Maybe it's the same idea.

Emma gets to spend lots of time with Grandma K later this week. She is coming to stay for 3 days while I go to Las Vegas for a work seminar. (It's tough, but someone had to go!) Hopefully the weather will be nice here, so that Emma can show Grandma how she loves to sit on the front steps and play with the pinestraw. Endless hours of amusement!

Doctor in training?

As Miss Emma gets older, she is starting to show us more and more that she knows what she wants. The other day, she decided that she didn't want to have her arms in the sleeves of her new outfit...she wanted to have them out through the neck! I must have put them back in the sleeves 3 times, and each time she pulled them back out and stuck them through the neck. So we finally gave up, had a laugh, and snapped a picture.

Part of the reason we haven't had an update in awhile is that I have been steamrolled by what was diagnosed yesterday as a severe sinus infection. I made an appointment on Monday morning as soon as the doctor's office opened, but I had to take Emma with me. I was nervous about how she would handle sitting in the stroller while I was examined by the doctor. She ended up being a complete angel. She read books with me while we waited for 20 minutes in the waiting room, and then we read magazines and she munched on her goldfish crackers while we spent another 40 minutes in the exam room. While the PA was examining my neck for swollen lymph nodes, she whispered, "Look at her!" I looked over at Emma in her stroller, and she was touching her own neck -- checking for swollen nodes, no doubt! Then, when she lifted up the back of my shirt to listen to my lungs, Emma leaned forward and lifted up the back of her shirt too! Perhaps we have a future MD in the making...