Holidays

I've missed three - Mardi Gras, St. Patricks and Easter - so here are a few photos, with my apologies.

Em loves that she gets to wear ALL her pretty beads on one day a year.



We took the kids to see the Alexandria St. Patrick's Day parade -


Em on St. Patrick's Day in Mommy's shirt


And Easter Sunday's St. Alban's Easter Egg hunt (and obligatory stop on the playground for good behavior)

And while she actually looked for eggs this year, she was more interested in the cookies.

Chatty Cathy

My my, does the girl TALK! She spent ten minutes on the ride home from the sitter's telling me everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - she ate today. It was exhausting.

She is now starting to order us around. "Get it, Mommy." is a favorite. She also yells "No Sadie" at BOTH dogs, regardless of whether it is Sadie or Marty. She also tells her baby doll that she can not have "Snoopy" snacks, because 9 times out of 10 when she asks Mommy, Mommy says no. We watch two movies on repeat - Yo Gabba Gabba and Little People. She will randomly tell me the plot of the Little People - takes a minute or so to figure out what the heck she's talking about. She loves watching the birds out in the snow. We decorated a house for the "Birdies" and hung it in our front tree.

She also knows how to really get to Mommy - when arguing over whether a bowl was blue or not (it wasn't, but she insists everything is blue, because it's her favorite color) she blurted out "BOO! BOO DEVILS, Mommy! BOO!". This Devils fan was crushed and she laughed hysterically.



Being Goofy at the Botanical Gardens

Big Sister at the Building Museum


Busted stealing pretzels from the pantry.

CHEESE!!!

Emily's Acting Debut

Emily was asked to be in the St. Alban's Epiphany Pageant. Her official role was as to be the understudy to Baby Jesus - or Back up Baby Jesus. You know, should Baby Jesus not be able to fulfill his baby duties, Emily would be called on.

At rehearsal, Baby Jesus nailed his role, so Emily was given the option of being an angel or lamb. While we first chose to stand with the angels, it was clear there was serious competition to be the cutest angel at church. Almost every little girl aged 9 through 1 were suiting up to be angels, elbowing each other out of the way to get closest to the manger.

So we walked over to where the shepherds gathered. There were 9-10 little boys and a few girls all waiting to be shepherds. Some taking their shepherding duties more seriously than others. However, they only had one donkey and one lamb to watch over. So, being an expert at making sheep noises, Emily seemed perfectly suited to play a lamb. At practice, she would walk up to the manger, point and BAAA at the baby so we figured we had this part nailed.

Until it was time to leave for church this morning. Meltdown city!




The very cranky lamb was not at all interested in going and looking at the baby. She cried about 15 minutes before leaving the house.





Once we arrived and put our lamb hat on, she began to warm up to this whole pageant thing. We even brought her lamb puppet along, since St. Alban's was experiencing a major lamb shortage this year.


After they all came in, Em had zero interest in looking at the baby. The angels were all in the way anyway. The other lamb had run back to his father. Emily is looking at Mommy, as I'm frantically whispering "STAY THERE!!! GO SEE THE BABY! WHERE IS THE BABY?"



Instead she parked herself right up in front. Sat. Posed for pictures. Danced as the congregation sang.

As the "director" of the play kept saying, "She stole the show!"




When it was all done, she got her well-deserved cookie and donuts as we greeting her adoring fans. "No autographs, people. I'm eating here."

Christmas slide show

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Snow and Crayons

Our First Snowfall! Not a lot of snow, but enough to put on snow gear and take a few runs down the front lawn in the sled.

She really wasn't thrilled. Even with Daddy playing in the snow too - our "city baby" yet again proved to be really unhappy when exposed to the elements.






This is more Emily's speed. Some paper and a handful of Crayolas make Emily a very happy kid.


Notice how she holds the crayon! Just like a pencil!


She spent most of the time putting the crayons back in the box upside down.

18 Month Checkup

We're now 31 inches long, weigh 21 lb 12 oz, and have a head circumference of 18 1/2.

That's about 25% for height, 50% for weight (finally!) and still 50% for head. We're getting to be more average.

Had four shots - for the first time, she connected the two together and after the first one, had to be held down. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree on that front (I was a TERRIBLE shot taker!). Finally got her flu shots (regular and Swine). No side effects!

She still has a VERY extensive vocabulary that seems to have just exploded in the last two weeks. On Thursday, she asked Mommy for panties instead of a diaper. I don't think she's quite ready yet, but bought some Elmo and Zoe panties anyway. She was so proud of herself walking around the house in them on Friday night!!!

Mommy's Little Helper

Emily is now into "helping"... she helps with laundry (takes stuff out of the basket), helps with unloading the dishwasher (hands me each plate or bowl), and now feeds the dogs. She does this whenever she feels that "Mar-EE" needs "FOO". Of course, the poor dog only gets two or three kibbles at a time, and is yelled at to "MOOOOVE" if he's in the way of Emily putting food in the bowl.