Outdoor times!

The rain has finally stopped and we are living outside for probably 5-6 hours everyday.  Emma loves to help me water flowers, weed and pick up sticks in the yard.  We have a rain barrel and she is addicted to filling her watering can...gets so excited she can't wait for her can to fill up.

 

Gramma Cheryl bought her a water table that Doug set up this week and within 10 minutes Emma had herself completely drenched..more water was on her and the deck than stayed inside the water table.  To say she loves the water table is an understatement.

 

Today is Memorial Day and we are spending most of the day outdoors, despite the 90 degree temps.  Emma was helping Doug wash and wax the cars this morning before it got too warm and I think we are going to bust out the sprinkler after nap time.  Emma is getting ready to have her nap now, but I brought her inside for a few minutes to cool down.

 

In a few weeks, we are having a new deck built and I am positive we are going to live on the new deck this summer, playing with the water table and sitting in the baby pool.  Emma starts her pool lessons next week and hopefully she is still as much as a water baby as she was in Hawaii last September.  Only a few more months and we will have been a family of 3 for a year now...what a difference a year makes!

Busy, Busy, Busy

The best word to describe Emma is busy...she really doesn't stop all day long and sweats non-stop even if everyone else in the house is cold. Emma loves to "exercise" and especially loves butt lifts...they really aren't butt lifts, but it is the funniest movement you have ever seen a 20 month old perform. She breaks into "exercises" that she sees her mama do a few times a week, but Emma's movements resemble the inappropriate and awkward dance from "Little Miss Sunshine". Emma has a fondness for kickboxing and downward dogs...her downward dogs are pretty good. Last night we were going through one of her picture/word book focusing on the movements page and we got her to do a supported handstand and an almost back bend. Emma thought the back bends were hilarious and got to giggling so hard, she really wasn't in one, but kept asking to get into back into back bend formation just so she could laugh.

The rain is driving us nuts, we have had practically no outside time in 2 weeks now. We try to do as much as we can to get Emma burning energy everyday without the benefits of sunshine and grass under her feet. We have been "exercising", dribbling/passing balls, and marching around in circles through the kitchen, sunroom and family room. Emma's coordination is spectacular...not that I have any other children to compare this too, but she is already able to dribble the ball and she is jumping, albeit clumsily. Our Little Gym session ends June 4th and we will move onto swimming for the summer, then re-enter the next grade up at Little Gym in the fall. The next level up they focus on more gymnastic like activities and I'm excited to see how she takes to it. She is able to walk across the balance beam without missing a step unless she becomes distracted. Once she realizes people are watching her, she wants to ham it up and her balance is gone because she is showing off her smiles and looking at everyone.

Emma's First Easter in the USA

I don't recall what Emma has in her mouth in this picture as she likes to "savor" her last bites...I think this was after lunch, so it was probably a carrot or a Vanilla wafer. We didn't go overboard with celebration on Easter because Doug was working, Emma woke up with the sniffles and let's face it, Emma can't comprehend Easter or the Easter Bunny yet, so hopefully next year we will have more fun hiding eggs and talking up the Easter Bunny. Her basket was filled with some candy, new outfit, shoes and swimsuits...she starts swim class in June! We invited Uncle Jeff and Auntie T. over for dinner and had a nice evening of family time and playing. Emma really enjoyed taking things out of her basket and the bag that Jeff and T. brought her...she loves walking around with gift bags and taking objects in/out of them, so the bag was days of entertainment.

We gave her a piece of chocolate from her basket and we aren't sure if it was coincidence or not, but she went bananas afterwards, so we ate the rest of her chocolates, lol.

Emma is really into arranging and organizing objects right now. She has 4 chairs that stack together and she likes to move them about the room stacking, unstacking and putting the chairs in places adults would never dream of. I have a cellphone picture of the chairs after a bit of her redecorating and wish I could transfer the image to the blog because it's hilarious. At one point, she had the chairs arranged like a concert or wedding was about to take place!