Bananas!

We sometimes refer to Emma as our "monkey girl" since she loves her bananas...she calls them "nanas"...you should have heard her at the grocery store yesterday when she saw a whole display of "nanas"... boy oh boy, was she excited and everyone in the store could hear her!lol Also a cute pic of her sitting "in" a tree... I think we can safely say that spring has now sprung... that's Emma is her first summery outfit... can't wait to put the winter jackets and hats away!!

Meeting some family!

We were away for a few days and Emma got to meet a whole new bunch of people, including her cousins Sophie and Finn. She was hesitant at first, but as you can tell, by the end of the night, she was chasing Finn and Thomas under the table!lol Sophie is a week younger than Emma and a head taller!lol

Emma and Toby love music!

Emma is always playing with the CD player in the basement playroom. It's a 3 CD player and she likes to go from one CD to another. There's also a double tape deck and while we haven't played the tapes in years, I guess a couple of them have been in there all this time and Emma's been alternating the tapes with the CDs (can you believe how much better the sound quality is on CDs!!lol). Anyhow, today, she took a cassette out and I don't think we'll be listening to Melissa Etheridge again until I get the CD of the now destroyed tape! I hadn't listened to that tape in years, but with Emma playing it every day, I've really grown to like it again so I'll have to go out and get the CD!lol

More on Bubbles

@@Too cute! What a sweet cat. How has the adjustment been between the two? Are they buddies or arch enemies?You are very brave to allow bubbles indoors (thinking more about the spill and drip from the wand ?!) @@

I thought I'd post to reply to Jackie's above comments on the original Bubbles post. Emma and Skvira (don't even ask - Gary named him...I named our other cat, Toby, a perfectly normal cat name!!lol) don't get along great. Emma likes to hit him and pull at him (all the while saying "gentle"!!) and he's not enjoying it. Toby pretty much stays away from her but Skiv likes to hang out with me and seems to feel that Emma is taking up too much of my time...I'll often have one of them on one knee with the other on the other knee. I think Skiv thinks he was my baby and Emma's taking up too much of my time now!lol Here's a pic of Emma doing her own bubbles - these are great bubbles Jackie - the container is small and practically spill proof and the wand is so small, there really isn't any drip and it's small and easy enough for a child Emma's age to use them on their own... now if I could just get the cat to do his own bubbles!!lolol BTW, this pic is from last week and Emma had a cold - runny eyes, runny nose and red cheeks!!

A visit to the zoo!

It was a gorgeous day today so we thought we'd spend part of it at the zoo. Thomas loves animals and enjoys checking out the zoo regularly. Emma had never been (well, other than the Beijing Zoo) and it was interesting to see her reaction - she loved seeing the animals and got quite excited at certain ones - particularly the birds who roamed free and occasionally crossed our path. Thomas asked if I could post his fave animals of the day on the Blog - 2 jaguars. :-)

Bubbles!

It's hard to tell who enjoys chasing bubbles more, Emma or the cat!!lol

Who needs tights!lol

Sometimes, Emma likes to put together her very own style!lol

Fascinated!

That's my girl - already, she's fascinated by shoes!!lol

Big Brother!

Here's a picture of Emma admiring her big brother - "gugu" as she calls him... Gary tells me this is big brother in Mandarin...I'll have to take his word for it!

Motoring!

I'm learning how to motor around...okay, mainly Mommy pushes me around because my legs aren't quite long enough to reach the pedals - or the ground for that matter!lol But I am a growing girl... by the end of the summer, they'll be eating my dust!lol

Enough is enough!

Mommy put me in a dress again - what's going on here... Carolyn's being a bad influence on Mommy!!lol I also noticed that my closet was full of summer dresses... oh well, at least I won't have to wear tights with them!

Again!

So I agree to wear tights once and here I am again!! Of course I look wonderful in this really cool dress Auntie Lisa got for me. :-)

Lithographs

I was playing around with my photo software and noticed a "litho" option and used it on a couple of pics... interesting results. :-)

Dressing up!

Here's Emma wearing her first EVER pair of tights!!lol Other than for her photo session, I've never bothered putting Emma in skirts or dresses - she wore skirts in Florida, but that was easy, no tights required!lol I just don't think that winter and dresses mix well, not for us anyhow, but today it's gorgeous out and I knew she'd be fine on our walk with just tights and her "blankie" covering her legs in the stroller...no snowsuit needed anymore - yippee!!! Here's how clueless I am about fashion (you want to decorate your house, call me, wanna know what to wear - don't call me!!lol) - total tomboy here - that when I went to Carolyn's this week, I brought along a few spring dresses from Emma's closet to ask her what colour tights would work best with them!!lol Her Rebecca wears dresses probably as much if not more often than pants, so she's my expert!lol

Another fun day at the park!

Today was another gorgeous day and I met my friend Holly at the park. We had a lot of fun and I spent a lot of time on the swings - I think I like them now!

After all that running around, a good nap is needed on the way home!

Let's try this seesaw!

Good friends!

Let's go through the tunnel...Holly, can you read the graffiti??lol

Playdate

We had another fun playdate with Carolyn and Rebecca today. The girls hung out at Carolyn's house, went for a stroll and played at the park... they're just so cute together!

Playing at Carolyn's house... Emma, can you catch me??

Relaxing at the park

C'mon, going down slides is for babies, climbing them is where the challenge lies!

Holding hands while strolling!

Have a drink!

Emma loves water, she asks for it all the time and won't drink anything but water and her formula. She loves to drink from a glass, like the rest of the family does. She's 15 months going on 15 years!lol However, as you might see, she's a little unclear on the concept - she drinks but then doesn't seem to quite get that the glass has to remain upright... let's just say that our weekend was filled not just with wet shirts for Emma, but wet feet for the rest of us!lol

Seven and a half!

Thomas just had his half birthday, he's now 7 and a half. Here he is enjoying a cupcake in celebration. Later in the day, he lost one of his front teeth! This is tooth number 5, and the first on top.

More fave vacation pics - Thomas

Thomas enjoying some time at the pool

We went to this place called Wannado City and kids get to "experience" various professions - like being a doctor or policeman or miner or baker, etc. Anyhow, Thomas was a policeman and he put Emma and Gary in jail but here he's helping them make a break for it!lol

Thomas and Emma playing on the beach

Well, that's it for Florida pics. I have to say though, going on vacation with Miss Emma is not exactly relaxing!!lol We were thinking of going to Ireland in a couple of months but now we're rethinking that!!lol She was really easy to take everywhere when we were in China, but she wasn't really mobile yet - now, she's super mobile and wants to always be on the go, so it's a different story! Thomas loved our time away. It's the 3rd year we head to this hotel so he's quite at home and he finds the place really relaxing and let's face it, it's so nice to get out of the cold and not have to wear layers when you go out the door! He also discovered chess (they have one of those "life size" walk on chess boards). This was Emma's first experience with the pool and ocean, and she loved both. She wasn't afraid of anything. We had to keep her from chasing the waves in too far!!lol Unlike Thomas, Emma is an adventurous eater and we had trouble keeping her out of the calamari and clams - ah, those clams at Legal Sea Food - so yummy... can't get decent clams around here!lol

Some fave vacation pics - Emma

Just a cute Emma pic

Emma checking out the setting

Emma fell in a hole!

Emma seems to be a real magnet for the 10-12 year old girl crowd and there always seemed to be a little girl around trying to get her hands on her. Most of the time she wouldn't hear of it, but she did go with Alex from Missouri, pictured above, and spend a good part of her plane ride home today with another little girl, Hayley.

Looks like she's got the beach to herself!lol

It took a little while to get that whole walking in sand thing down...