Outfits

I made an outfit for a little boy who is turning 2 this month. His birthday party is going to be a transportation theme so his mom wanted him to wear something special for the party:
I also FINALLY finished this pillowcase dress for Emily. I've had this pattern and fabric since before Christmas and finally got around to finishing it. These will be great for the summer. I love these dresses! You can take an actual pillowcase and make it into a dress or buy fabric:

Feeling Sickly

Emily has been "puny" this week. So there hasn't been much to post about. She is fine in the mornings but by the afternoons and evenings her fever has gotten higher and she just wants you to hold her and she falls apart over the smallest things. The doctor said she's just got a head cold virus so we'll see. Here's what we've been doing all this week to keep the peace:
She is smart enough now to know that she could watch Sesame Street any time of day because she knows I have them on our DVR. I used to could tell her that it wasn't time for Sesame Street . . . but that ain't workin' anymore . . . my girl is too smart. So because she wasn't feeling good we've been watching Nemo, Little Mermaid, and Sesame Street . . . alot . . . I hope I haven't damaged her brain cells : )

Speaking of damaged brain cells . . . I have been doing some goofy things lately. When it's time to pay bills I always enter them in Quicken and then go on line to our bank and pay them. I've done this twice a month for YEARS now. But last month when we got our power bill and gas bill I noticed that they were both really high . . . at first I just thought . . . oh well we must have used more energy last month . . . then I realized that we had been charged a small late fee and had a previous balance. So I looked in Quicken and saw that I had paid both of the bills last month . . . but goofy me never went on line and actually PAID them. I didn't even realize my mistake. Glad to know that they don't shut off your power and gas for missing one month.

But that's not all . . . I got our bank statement in the mail the other day and realized that our check to GA taxes for 2008 only went thru for $100.50 but we owed them $150.00. So I looked at the copy of the check and the check was for the right amount . . . but on the written part of the check I put "One hundred and 50/100" . . . so of course that is what the bank honors. I didn't realize this mistake until April 29 . . . after tax day. I called our accountant and he called the appropriate people and we had been charged a whopping .72 cents in interest for our $49.50 balance due. So I mailed them a check yesterday for $50.22. Let's hope that's the end of that. I'm surprised I didn't catch it and 5 years later have the department of revenue put a lien on our house for all the interest that added up for our small $49.50 balance : ) They like to do stuff like that to the "little people" of the world . . . and that's all I'll say about that.

Fun with Friends

This morning Emily and I met Jill and Olivia at the Aquarium. It was a PERFECT day to go. This was the smallest crowd I've seen since visiting there. We also ran into Lewis and his friends! We went to the big wall exhibit first and there were only 2 other people in there . . . which is amazing since usually you can barely find a place to sit down. Of course Emily and Olivia only wanted to stay in there for about 20 seconds : )


Here is our short stop at the Beluga Whale exhibit and then off to run to see "more fish":
This is the first time I've seen the octopus out. He's usually hiding in the corner:
Olivia and Emily decided they needed a short rest from all that running:We ate lunch at a picnic table in between the coke museum and the aquarium. Olivia and Emily had more fun chasing all the pigeons than seeing the fish!
After lunch we walked across the street to a playground. I'm not looking forward to school being out because I'm sure this summer this place will be covered with kids:

It was a great day and we enjoyed it! Thanks Jill and Olivia!!!

Emily

Emily is 2 years, 3 months, and 1 Day Old Today!

This is the dress I made at the sewing class I took in B'ham with my sister a few weeks ago. I finally got around to hemming it and putting buttons on the dress last night:

I let the day slip by yesterday without a post of Emily on her milestone. It didn't hit me until this morning that today was the 19th. We had a relaxing day yesterday and had friends over for dinner and had an enjoyable evening. Sarah Anne turned 4 so we gave her a shirt for her birthday:
The girls had so much fun playing last night. It was fun to watch them run from Emily's room, to the living room, and the kitchen playing with toys. The adults enjoyed talking with each other!

This morning I got an updated picture of the 3 of us:

Lately when we pray together at night, Emily thanks God for all the people at the grocery store. I don't know where she got that from but so far she has prayed for them for 3 nights in a row. Maybe God is prompting her to pray for those that need it : )

Trampoline

Yesterday I needed to go to a sewing class and Joe was working late . . . so our neighbor kept Emily for us until Joe got home. They had a small trampoline at their house and they said Emily loved it. They got some pictures of her last night and gave them to Joe when he picked her up . . . of course Joe was on line last night trying to find that trampoline so he could buy her one : )

This is my absolute favorite picture of her. She looks like Rocky when he runs to the top of the steps:

Playground and PlayDoh

Yesterday we went to a local park. It's at a church so I assumed it was just for the church but someone told me it stays open all day long and is for anyone to use. It's a great park that is fenced in and is really close to the house. Emily enjoyed all the slides. When we first got there, there were only 2 other boys running around. Emily kept running after them and saying, "Hey guys, here I come" and would try to catch up with them. They didn't pay her much attention though. They did go down the slide with her one time when she managed to catch up to them:


Slides are still her play of choice. I try each time to get on a swing with her but she will have none of it. That's so wild. She has never liked swings. Joe doesn't like them either so I wonder if it's a genetic thing.

Emily also got to play with PlayDoh for the first time yesterday. She got a couple of packages of it in her Easter eggs Sunday, so yesterday I pulled it out for her. Of course the first thing she tried to do was eat it. I said, "this is NOT food." So for the rest of the afternoon she would look at me and say, "this is NOT food" and keep playing. We made some snakes, a dog, and some snowmen. But Emily really just liked tearing it up into little pieces:
We have been dealing with "No" and running away when we tell her to do things. I've tried popping her on the leg, losing it with her (which I know isn't right) and it's done nothing. So Joe and I decided to start taking away her favorite toy and putting it on top of the TV in the living room for the rest of the day where she can still see it but can't have it. I'll just pile the toys up for every No until the next morning and she can have them back. We'll see how that goes. Any suggestions from you guys would be great! And if you hear "wailing and gnashing of teeth" coming from Marietta it might be me and Emily having a bad day : )

Easter Egg Hunt

This Sunday we went to an Easter Egg Hunt after church. I was so excited because we didn't get to go to the Marietta one a few weeks ago that rained out. Emily was all dressed up in her fancy dress that DeeDee made, and sadly I never got a picture of us all "gussied up" on Sunday. Right after church I changed Emily's clothes so she wouldn't get her dress dirty. Anyway, with this being our first Easter Egg hunt we weren't prepared for what happened. We lined up under the preschool sign that they had and took a couple of pictures of Emily waiting for the hunt to start:

Then we followed the line towards the direction where the eggs were waiting. The director said something but we couldn't hear her since we were towards the back of the line. Then all the kids took off. But because we were walking down a narrow pathway we had to slowly wait our turn to start running for the eggs. When we got there . . . there were no eggs . . . and all the kids and parents in the front were clapping and going thru their stash . . . what! Joe saw two eggs hidden in some bushes that no one saw in their zest to grab all the ones in plain site (in about 25 seconds I might add) so Emily dug around to get the two eggs left:

I was so disappointed. My mind was quickly trying to figure out how we were going to let Emily go on an Easter egg hunt since this one started and was finished before we even realized it. Then a sweet little girl from church came up to Emily and started putting some of her eggs in Emily's basket . . . that was so sweet! We thanked her very much . . . and although I was sad that Emily didn't get the excitement of getting them herself, I was thankful she was going home with more than 2 eggs. I made sure to find the little girl's mom to praise her daughter's ability to share. That's really hard for a preschooler.

By the time we were walking back to our car they were letting the older kids go to the back of the yard for their hunt. I was tempted to let Emily run with them . . . but I stopped myself. We had been invited to the Barnes house for lunch so we headed to their house for a nice afternoon of fellowship and a meal . . . thanks LeAnn!

So lesson learned . . . when you go to an Easter Egg hunt . . . be in the FRONT of the line. Knock people over if you have to . . . just kidding . . . but only a little : )

That afternoon we went outside and I hid Emily's eggs for her to go find them, i.e. toss them around the yard for her to run after them. She had fun doing that . . . and she really LOVED opening the eggs to eat all the sugar inside. One of the eggs had Pop Rocks in it . . . um . . . who did that? Why would you put pop rocks in eggs for preschoolers. Anyway, we told her it wasn't candy and threw it away. I told Joe I was amazed at how quickly Emily has learned what candy is. At Halloween she just liked playing with all the packages in her pumpkin and dumping them out and putting them back in. By Easter she wanted to open and eat all of the candy at once : )

Here is a video of Emily singing. I love to hear her sing and this video does not do her justice. She was shy in front of the camera and was really only singing because I asked her about 50 times to please sing for mommy. Listen to the deflated "yea" at the end of Jesus Loves Me. That's how she felt about me asking her to sing for the video. But at least I got her on here to remember how cute she was when she is a teenager : ) If I really want to get her voice singing I just need to crack her door open at night and record her after she's gone to bed. Joe and I stand outside her door and laugh because she always sings songs at the top of her lungs when she goes to bed.