Emma Unplugged

Emma loves to sing these days. She sings all the time. And if she hears a song twice, she can pretty much remember the words. In fact, she and Daddy spent some time listening to his iTunes playlist last night, and gave her opinion of the songs and artists as they came up. (For example, she's cool with Billy Joel or Keane, not a big fan of Dave Matthews or Rush.) She's becoming quite the techno whiz too, as she has figured out how to operate Daddy's iphone like a pro!

Here is our little songbird with her acoustic take on a classic:

This kid is so good, she can even "play" a non-instrument!

More snow fun

Last weekend brought another round of snow our way, about 3 inches this time -- a really big deal! In fact, there was enough snow on the ground to do some actual sledding. Unfortunately, none of our neighbors has a real sled. Big Emma next door offered to let our Emma try going down the hill on her pool floatie, but she kept falling through the big hole in the middle! Maybe we'll have to invest in a real sled one of these days...

We tried to build a snowman, but the snow in our yard wasn't cooperating. So we built a snow mound instead. I thought I was coming through big time with a real carrot for the nose (we usually only have the baby carrots, so it was a lucky coincidence that we even had a big one). But Emma decided she wanted the carrot to be the mouth instead of the nose. She's the artistic one...far be it from me to stand in the way of her vision...

After some time spent outside, we thawed out with some hot chocolate and Emma's favorite Kid Songs CD. Here she is, looking at the snow on the back deck while cutting a rug to It's A Small World. This gives you an idea of how giddy she gets when it snows!

And speaking of artistic, here's a family portrait recently drawn by our little Picasso. That's Daddy in brown, Mommy in red, and Emma in yellow.

Piggy

We all know Emma loves to do any kind of art project, so it didn't seem out of the ordinary when she asked for some paper and began drawing with markers before lunch today. While we were eating, she kept drawing. Circles are her favorite thing to draw lately, so she drew a circle, added a mouth and two eyes and said, "Look Mom, it's a smiley face!" I told her it looked great, and then she said she was going to add legs and arms and hair. I looked over and saw a very cute little smiley guy and asked her if I could keep the drawing. She said, "Wait! I'm not done. I want to give him a nose... I know, Mom... he's going to be a pig!" I wondered what would happen to the poor smiley guy's face in the process of her attempting to draw a pig nose. When she was done, she held it up:
This was without any help from me, I swear! This kid appears to have some talent. Maybe someday, when she is a world-renowned artist/photographer, this will be on display at the Louvre...

Vacation pictures

We had a great time on our Caribbean getaway, and Emma had a great time with her grandparents while we were away. We wouldn't dare steal Emma's spotlight and post our vacation pictures on her blog, but there are tons of them, and you can find them on Tim's Flickr page.

Here are some of the best pictures we found on Emma's camera. Looks like she stayed busy!

Her favorite dog, FreddyShe made Valentine's Day cookies with Grandma K
They visited the library

And then it was off to Chik-fil-a for lunch & ice cream
She made a trip to the aquarium with Grandma H & Aunt Laura

And bounced at Monkey Joe's with Grandma & Grandpa H

Grandma & Grandpa K gave Emma some party hats she took along to Grandma & Grandpa H's house so that she could continue the celebration of the 2 best days of the year...Mommy & Daddy's birthdays!
A visit to Great Grandma G's place
And her favorite kitty, Ralph
We went to the playground this week (on the one day when it wasn't raining), so that Emma & Cooper could see each other and play together for the first time in over 2 weeks. As soon as they saw each other, Emma yelled, "COOPER!" and Cooper yelled, "MY EMMA!" and they ran up to each other and shared the sweetest hug ever. I wish we had video because it was such a cute moment. They are best buds for sure.

We're off to Big Emma's house next door this evening for a Superbowl party. We'll see if Emma's camera makes the trip...