The time has come...

We met Emma on October 30, 2005. She has yet to have a haircut, not even a trim, but I think the time has come. So, for those of you with a better eye than me (that means pretty much everyone!!), what do you think, just a trim or bangs??

Puzzles

Emma loves puzzles. She has 3 of them with big wooden pieces and she takes them all out at once, spills all the pieces and puts them back together. I have to say, she's pretty good at it too!

Bath time observations

Emma LOVES to pour water over her head. She always wets her own hair when I'm doing a shampoo. She's so independent in many ways. This is so odd to me because Thomas HATED getting his hair washed. I ended up putting decals on the ceiling above the tub to make him look up and distract him so I could wet/wash/rinse his hair! Emma has no such qualms. I'm sure she'd do great at swim lessons if she'd actually consider going anywhere near a swim instructor!!lol

Sometimes if I mention Emma's "sticky outy ear" (that's the medical term!lol), people say "what sticky outy ear"... see it now??lol What's interesting is that it was quite obvious on her referral pictures since she didn't have much hair and I never noticed it until someone pointed it out to me a few days after referral!lol We've been lucky enough to get a few pictures of Emma before she joined our family, including her finding ad, and the one easy way to identify her is her left ear. :-)

Emma's new thing is lying down in the tub...she loves it... just lies there telling stories! She particularly enjoys talking about her new boyfriend - Diego from Go Diego Go!! In the last little bit, she's actually started sitting and watching a whole episode (does it make me a bad mommy that I'm thrilled my child will now watch 30 minutes of TV every few days??lol) and then she goes on about it for days "mommy, Diego, turtle, Baby J., Bobo monkey, Emma see Diego, Go Diego Go"!!lol

Help!!lol

Really folks, could someone please come get that damn annoying wonderful new camera away from my mother...look what she's done to me now!!!

Another water baby!

Here's my other water baby. And yes, I will one day take pictures from a distance again, but I am so enjoying being able to do close-ups - something my old camera really couldn't manage. So here's Thomas... look at those long lashes... they're better than mine!

Ouch!!

Notice Emma's left eye - see how it looks a little red and swollen in the corner? See it? Yup, that would be my fault!! Guess I'm definitely not up for the "good mommy" award today!! I of course brought the new camera to take pictures at the beach. I'm used to a small "throw it in your pocket" digital camera. The new camera is BIG (Nikon D80 digital SLR) and it has a big lens on it. Emma asked me for something and as I leaned in to give it to her, the camera, which was on a strap around my neck, swung forward and the lens bopped her in the face....ouch!!! Yeah, no mommy award for me today, unless it's the clueless mommy award!!

At the beach!

If you read this blog regularly, you might have noticed that we often go to the beach. We LOVE the beach! Perhaps going to the beach in late October isn't the ideal time, but it's still beautiful and relaxing. So while the boys headed off to karate this morning, Emma and I headed off to walk on the beach.

Passport photos!

Yesterday, I took Emma to get her passport picture taken. I realize that many/most of our passport pictures look like mugshots and we all shudder at the thought of the powers that be in China matching us with our beautiful babies based on that ever so lovely passport style picture we all must provide with our adoption application. Anyhow, I wasn't thrilled with yesterday's picture and decided to take Emma to a different passport photo place today on the off chance we could get a picture which didn't look like her very first mugshot. Anyhow, here are the 2 pics. I swear these are both Emma and they were taken almost exactly 24 hours apart - does she not look like she just spent a month being the recipient of one of those TV makeover shows???lol Well, it seems obvious to us which is the better picture - what do you think? Honestly, if someone showed me these 2 pictures, I wouldn't even think it was the same child! You know how people say "oh, she looks just like so and so"... I don't even think Emma looks like Emma, forget about looking like anyone else!!lol Good thing we always have her "sticky outy" ear by which to positively identify her!lol

Frequent flyer!

One thing we've noticed about Emma is that she's not much for toys overall. She loves her books and she loves her puzzles, but she doesn't really play much with toys - well, unless you consider Gary, Thomas and I to be her toys as I think she often does! She loves playing at the beach or in her sandbox and she loves running around after the cats or pushing a stroller around (I'm trying to get her to follow in my stroller addicted footsteps!lol) She's getting pretty funny with her imaginative play though. She was on a few airplane rides over the summer and she loves airplanes and airports - she's always pointing to the airplanes in the sky. Let me add that she's also always been really obsessed with buckles - the ones on the carseat, her stroller, etc. Anyhow, her new game entails her saying "airport, airplane, fly" and then she links her fingers, says "buckle" and puts them against her tummy like she's flying and then she does this: "flies" on the table as you can see in the pic!lol

Her new - or maybe not so new thing - is bossing us around. I guess she's always minored in bossy, now she's picked it as her major!lol She tries to tell us all how to do things. When we're in the car, she tries to dictate who can have their window up or down and what songs can be played (right now her fave is on a Sesame Street CD and goes something like "womba womba womba woo woo woo, blah blah blah, monster in the mirror" - can't tell you how many times I've heard that one - obviously not enough to remember the complicated lyrics though!!) I was having a cup of tea earlier and she's trying to tell me when I can take a sip, when I can put the cup down, when I should give her a sip, etc. I'm telling HER she's not the boss of me... shouldn't it be the other way around?lol

So, any of your little ones (Emma is almost 22 months old) also not into toys but totally into bossing everyone around??

Seinfeld

Emma always refers to herself in the 3rd person - Emma do this, Emma want that, etc. - why does that always remind me of that Seinfeld episode???lol What was the guy's name? BTW, you can really find ANYTHING on the Internet these days. I just went to Ask.com and typed in "Seinfeld episode where guy refers to himself in third person" and guess what - a bunch of sites popped up - his name - Jimmy!!! :-)

Clothes, what clothes, let's talk food!

Some of Emma's little friends are getting very picky as to what they will wear - their moms can't dress them the way they want, the girls insist on doing their thing. Well, Emma could care less about what she wears. What I pull out of the closet in the morning, she wears. Sometimes she'll say " pretty", but that's about as involved as she gets. But, let's talk food now - different story altogether! Today at lunch I asked Emma if she'd like chicken pot pie, one of her faves. Her resounding NO was followed by "Emma want turkey breast, apple sauce and cado (avocado) ... thankfully mommy had them all on hand!lol Oh, and she asks for "Coke" all the time... she's noticed mommy's bad habit... not a chance I'm sharing though!lol

So tired!

Here's Emma lying on the couch tonight, telling me she's tired and ready for bed!

I'm trying out a new camera...unlike my old digital, I can now take clear and precise CLOSE UPS! This camera is way more complicated than my usual "point and shoot" style of camera and I still don't have much of a clue on how to use it, but look at this sweet face!!! :-)

Our fur babies!lol

The cats often show up in the background of pics but I thought they really should get a post of their very own... so here are "the boys" as Emma calls them!lol

Fun at the park!

Here are the kids playing at the park on what I'm sure will be one of our last nice fall days. And don't worry, there wsa someone within catching reach of Emma on the swing picture. She's so funny, she thinks she can do it all and I have to say, she's usually right - she's so strong, it amazes me - much stronger than Thomas was at her age! She's such a determined little one! We often call her "me too" because whatever Thomas says or does, you hear "me too" from Emma in the background. When we tell Thomas it's time for homework in the evening, "me too" has to do her homework as well, so we assign her a puzzle!lol She's 21 months going on 21 years!!lol

More Daddy style!

Umm...it would seem that daddy is starting a new trend - really, who needs their undershirt to be snapped and under their clothing...didn't Madonna wear underwear on top of her clothes???lol In his defence, this is how Gary put Emma to bed and he didn't realize his mistake until morning, and while he could have just quickly hidden the evidence, he let me see what he'd done and even take pictures so we could poke a little fun. So, his dressing style for Emma is a little interesting, but he is a good sport!lol

Unclear on the concept...

Should be pretty interesting around here in a few more years. Emma has started blaming Thomas for stuff. Today, she was saying "Tapa (she often calls Thomas Tapa or Gugu) hit Emma arm, Emma booboo on arm" and "Tapa poopoo, tapa stinky, gross"... well, Thomas was at school so since he wasn't home, he was definitely innocent. She'll have to work a little on her lies stories! She's also starting to blame everyone else when certain odours start emanating from her diaper - "daddy fluff, daddy stinky" (we refer to gas as "fluffing"...sounds so much nicer than the alternatives!lol)!lol She's such a funny little character!

Hippo Hug!

When Emma used to ask for a "triple hug", it sounded like a "tippo hug" and somehow, Thomas changed that into a "hippo hug" and that's what a three way hug is now known as in our house, a hippo hug. Here are Thomas, Emma and I sharing a hippo hug. :-)

Could be worse than Gary style!

Here is sitter style!!lol I'd put this dress on Emma this morning with brown tights. I took her tights off when she went to bed and I was off to get Thomas at school when she woke up so the sitter dressed her - she decided that what would go best with this dress was a pair of patterned leggings!lol It's a sad, sad day if I'm the styling one in the house!lol

Gary style!

We saw Emma style a few days ago - what happens when Emma dresses herself. Here's what happens when her daddy dresses her!!lol Any wonder I usually leave out the clothes for her to wear on her dresser every morning!lol And yes, those are PJ bottoms, not pants!