Big and Small!

Thomas and Emma

Meg and Kate

What kind of creature??

Emma, what kind of creature did you just find?? This is what happens when you ask your 7 year old to dress himself for bed after his bath!!lol

Not too prissy!

I know some little girls are quite prissy and don't much like any kind of mess...that's not our Emma!! Here she is playing outside after I was watering the sod that was just layed in our back yard... she seems quite proud of the mess she's made. Janice, you'd be proud of me, I don't mind any kind of mess she gets into outside, unlike the messes she tries to get into in her high chair which you know I'm not fond of!lol Anyhow, she went straight from the back yard to the tub!

Emma, are you SURE that's a hat and not a toy???lol

Outdoors...finally!!

I swear it feels like it's been raining every day for about a month... okay, an exaggeration, but only slightly!!! Here's Emma finally enjoying some back yard fun! We pulled Thomas' old house out from under the deck and my father built it up again...needs a washing, but Emma is loving it. She also loves the sandbox although she doesn't quite seem to get the concept of leaving the sand IN the box...I think I'm going to have to buy stock in a sand company to keep up with demand!lol

Keira, Rebecca, Emma and Thomas

We headed up to Kevin and Dana's for a wonderful lunch - Kevin sure makes a delicious home made pizza! Here's a pic of the girls...beautiful aren't they! And then there's one of Thomas with a dragon on his head... ah boys!!lol
The girls look so small next to him, don't they...and he's only 7 years old and 60 lbs soaking wet!lol

Chicago

While my sister and parents were here, Gary and I headed out overnight - to Chicago. It's one of our fave cities. I love Frank Lloyd Wright and included is a pic of his Robie house - too big for a full pic, but you get the idea... great space. Also, one of my fave parks in Chicago - just next door to the Art Institute - it looks so different every time we drop in. Anyhow, Emma did great with my family and it was wonderful to have an adult getaway, even just for one night. We took some great architectural tours, both on bus and on foot and did some fine dining...nice and relaxing. :-)

Out of the way doll!!

My parents and sister are visiting. My father made this lovely doll cradle for Emma's dolls. Well, no sooner had my parents given her the cradle that she'd thrown the doll out and gotten in herself... tight squeeze, but that doesn't seem to bother her!lol And of course Emma being Emma, now she likes to stand in the crib and make it rock...she looks like she's surfing or something!lol This kid is such a hoot and she's giving me so many gray hairs - she's just full speed ahead!

It's a dog's life!

We went up to Carolyn's today for a visit. Carolyn has a huge family room with a ton of toys - what do the girls decide to do - take up the dog's bed and play with the dog toys!!lol On the way home, I stopped at Toys R Us and bought a sand and water table...much to our relief, it was much easier to put together than that other plaything I bought!lol

Mothers Day

Gary got original with my Mothers Day flowers today... isn't this cool... it's a fruit flower bouquet!lol We had a lovely day - we all went to the zoo and had a fun relaxing day. Then I got dinner in bed and a movie while Gary hung with the kidlets. I watched Match Point - it was good...so was the pizza. :-)

Just when we thought...

We were just saying Emma was eating so neatly these days...and then we turned our backs on her for a minute... oh well...I hear yogurt is good for the skin!lol

Girls, you want to know how to get this great look??

Well, just dip your hands in yogurt and them clap them together really hard... and remember to close your eyes because it spreads everywhere!!
Oops, I think I just got busted!

At the beach again!

Emma and I dragged Thomas and Gary to the beach today. It wasn't exactly beach weather, but that meant that we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was really lovely. :-)

Emma laughing at having sand on her little piggies!

I've done an antique finish on this pic... Emma enjoying the view!

Thomas and Emma playing in the sand.

A black and white of Thomas burying his piggies.

Monkey Bars - Emma

Emma loves the monkey bars. Whenever we're at the park, she keeps standing under them and saying "uppa, uppa, uppa" which is how she says "up". Thomas has been showing her how to use the monkey bars and I'm amazed at how long she'll just hang and swing. And don't worry, when she lets go, it looks dramatic, but Marilyn, our sitter, is right under her catching her!lol I have no idea if this is typical for a 16 month old, but Emma really seems to be strong to me...I know there's no way Thomas could have done that anywhere near her age, he would never even have thought of something like that! The other thing Emma loves to do is play basketball. She grabs the ball, holds it over her head and runs full speed towards the basketball net, screaming "uppa, uppa" all the way. As she nears the net, I lift her in the air and she slam dunks... she could do this all day!lol If this child doesn't end up loving sports or gymnastics, I'll be really surprised!

Emma

Just a cute closeup of Emma at the beach today...notice a few grains of sand around her mouth!lol

At the Beach

After the farm, we headed off for lunch and then the beach. Emma actually slept through lunch, but, boy, can that Rebecca fool you...she's so tiny, it's funny to see how much she can put away!! She even likes lettuce for goodness sake, what 17 month old likes lettuce...maybe she can convince my 7 year old to eat it!!lol Carolyn says she'll eat anything she can reach and she's not kidding!!lol We then went to the beach. Emma loves the sand, but Rebecca is withholding judgment! Emma likes playing in the sand, Rebecca seems to find a little too messy for her liking!lol Here are a couple of pics of the girls, one has Rebecca looking on dubiously as Emma plays with some sand and in the other, I think she's telling Emma that she should eat the sand first and tell her how it is...see Carolyn, there IS something little Miss Rebecca won't eat!!lol

At the Farm

Carolyn and I took the girls to a little farm today to check out some animals...the girls enjoyed the cows, sheep, horses, chickens, roosters, etc., but I think the ducks were a big favourite! We almost lost Carolyn when she had to dive over a fence to retrieve Rebecca's hat from the chicken coop!!lol

Oh, look at the ducks, maybe I can climb through this hole and get closer!

Nope, that didn't work, maybe I could climb over this silly fence!

Well, who knew, drop a Cheerio on the ground and the ducks will come right to you!

Flower Girl!

Tip toe through the tulips!

I can do it myself!

Beginning of meal...

End of meal...so there's still a little room for improvement on her table manners!lol

Emma is insisting more and more on feeding herself and mommy is getting more and more used to the mess this creates!lol She's having trouble "spearing" some food with her plastic cutlery so she's now moved up to this great regular but kid sized cutlery set some friends gave us for her... she's having great success with it and Emma being Emma, anything that she uses or does that seems to be the same as the rest of us, the better it is... she seems to have forgotten that she's only 16 months!!

Tagged...

I got tagged by Judy a few weeks ago on the "tell us 6 weird things about you" thread, but haven't had time to answer...now I'm lying here, can't sleep, so seems a good time to answer!lol Now if I was technically savvy like Judy and many others, I could put a link with her name so you can see her site and see what's weird about Judy and I could link others I'll tag at the end, but I'm not and I won't!lol Let's just say a lot of people have a lot of funny and really weird things about them in the Blogging world! Anyhow, I'm sure those of you who know me might be able to add way more than 6 weird things, but here are a few:

1. I have very sensitive hearing and loud chewing drives me around the bend... I swear I can be on a different floor in our house and hear my husband eat an apple!!lol There are loud chewers I know not to sit right next to at a dinner!!lol

2. I can't shut my computer down for the day if it says I've got 13 e-mails in my inbox... I either delete one of the messages or send myself a message to make it 12 or 14!!lol Friday the 13th doesn't bother me at all though.

3. Hair that is not attached to a person totally gags me... I find it particularly gross at public swimming pool change rooms... wet hair on a floor is the most gross thing, especially if you're walking around barefoot!

4. I love raw cookie dough and as a child, I'd make chocolate chip cookie dough and just keep the bowl in the fridge and eat it over the next few days... people didn't worry about eating raw eggs back then... don't do it so much anymore!

5. I'm blind in one eye... nobody can tell unless I mention it, however, it has contributed to my lousy tennis game since I have no depth perception on the left side and therefore my left backhand stinks!lol

6. In my family, we eat meat pie with molasses... it's something my grandfather used to do... sounds gross I know, but quite tasty. I find it gross when I see people put ketchup on meatpie!!lol

There you go, 6 weird things about me...now if any of you other Yangxi mommies want to play, come on Carolyn, Jackie, Debbie, Janice, Shelley, Rachelle, Shannon, consider yourselves tagged... hey Shelley, you can do 6 odd things about Mark, that should take no time at all!!lolol Anyone else who reads this with a Blog want to do it, consider yourselves tagged. You can list your weird things in the comments here or on your own Blog... Now, let's see if I can get some sleep! Have a great weekend everyone!

Cool girl!

We have a coffee table in the family room which has storage drawers. Emma has now figured out how to open the drawers and is picking out all kinds of things...who knows what's in all those drawers! Anyhow, how cute is she with these sunglasses. She calls sunglasses "black"... I guess she does this because sometimes when she's grabbing for my glasses, I refer to the sunglasses as the "black" glasses. Anyhow, how cute is she! :-)

Here's what I think...

Here's Emma showing me what she thinks of my constantly taking pics of her!lol

It's finally done!!

A few weeks ago, I got this play structure for Emma. Should be really easy to put together right...any idiot could do it in half an hour. I swear, it's taken us a few weeks to get it together...I'm honestly pretty handy, but this thing just didn't fit right!! After our many failed attempts to get the first 3 main pieces connected, I loaded the whole thing into the van and went back to Toys R Us to ask them if they could put it together, because I thought it was defective. So, a couple of guys come out to my van and start working at it, and sure enough, 5 minutes later the 3 pieces are together... so, the playset is not defective, the 3 people in my house trying to put it together are!!lol Anyhow, the 3 pieces are too big to load assembled, so they take it apart and off I go, hoping to be able to get it to work again once I'm home. So, unload all the pieces again, and back to work. Sure enough, the 3 main pieces fit together no problem and we think we've got it made until we get to the final pieces. These 2 platforms have to fit together within a slot...we can't for the life of us get them to work...we've had 3 adults trying to force this thing together without luck. Every few days we go fight with this now beyond annoying contraption which is taunting me every day and we just can't get those last pieces together and without them, the structure isn't stable so it can't be used. Today, I was at the hardware store and I bought a HUGE rubber mallet... we head out to do battle again and with the help of the mallet and a hockey stick to widen the slot, we finally got it all put together!!! And of course we had Emma out playing with the playset but given the choice, she'd rather just climb the deck stairs...after all that work, she's gonna play with that contraption whether or not she wants!lol

What's in the tree!

Last night, Thomas and I were settling in to watch Amazing Race when something outside the window caught my eye... look what was in the tree just by our window: a huge raccoon!! Not a great pic, but Thomas loved it...when he was around 3, his favourite animal was the raccoon. I remember once we were at the zoo and we asked him what exhibit he'd most like to go look at - he said the racccoons!! We told him we didn't have to go to the zoo to see those, we had them in the back yard!lol

My day, part II

After leaving Justin's house, Mommy and I went to the park to meet our friends Katie and Holly (can you believe Mommy didn't take ANY pictures...must be a first!!) and Holly and I played on the swings and in the sandbox and I even got Mommy to come down a big slide with me. After the park, Mommy and I walked to the vet's office to pick up some cat food for our 2 cats and then we stopped at a little grill to pick up some apple and cheddar pannini - yummy- and then back home... boy, I'm getting tired, just can't get comfy in my stroller!!

My day, by Emma

Again, an absolutely gorgeous day. We started the day by going to visit with my friend Justin. His mom let us plant flowers and play in the sandbox.

Hello!

Emmma's really turning into quite the little character. When we walk into her room in the morning, we get this really exaggerated and loud HELLO, a mild example of which is on the video. Also, she thinks the absolute most hilarious thing in the whole wide world is: speed bumps!!lol When we drive down a street with speed bumps, she just laughs hysterically...it's the funniest thing to hear her... very sophisticated humour our Emma has!!lol

Go Rebecca Go

Here's Rebecca, practicing her driving... what a good driver you are Rebecca!

You bet I'm a good driver - I'm ready for the real thing!

Park Time!

I had a dentist appointment today and miracle of miracles, everything ran on time and I was even out of there earlier than expected! Since it's such a gorgeous day, I called Carolyn to see if she and Rebecca wanted to meet us for an impromptu visit to the park...here are the girls enjoying the park!


This is kinda cool!

I think I'm ready to get out of this swing now...and where did my socks and shoes go!!

Baby swings are NOT for me!! Ah, I love the slide!