Emma Baking Some Muffins

As I’ve mentioned before, my little one loves to bake. Today we decided to make some whole grain banana nut muffins. Here she is mixing the ingredients….and being a little silly:0

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Emma X 2

Today we spent a little time with Emma’s friend, Emma and her mommy (my good friend), Lisa. Emma really enjoys spending time with her. We walked over to their house and brought over Emma’s scooter which her Titi Lissy and Padrino got for her. She LOVES to ride it. She’s actually getting pretty good at it now.

Her friend Emma has a bicycle, tricycle and scooter, so she had a blast trying them all out. We had a great time!

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Kids Museum = Fun!

DSC04531DSC04558DSC04582DSC04589DSC04622DSC04627DSC04635Today we went to the kids museum with Emma’s friend Alex and her mommy (my good friend), Erica. We saw an Imax movie in 3D which was phenomenal, then we had a picnic lunch that we brought from home followed by playtime at the museum. The girls had a great time. One of Emma’s favorite things to do there is play with water. She also enjoys playing in the garden, climbing around the pirate ship and pretending to be a doctor.

There are 2 water sections- indoor and outdoor. The outdoor one had a new sculpture of bullrushes:) Isn’t that something! I just learned their name 3 days ago and here they are again. You can see the girls posing in front of them below.

Emmarella doing Laundry

I know most 3 year-olds are not into doing laundry, cleaning, and helping out around the house, but our little Cinderella, um I mean Emmarella loves it! She is always asking me if she can help me clean, cook, bake, etc. Today, she wanted to fold the clothes. She took the clothes out of the dryer, folded it and matched all the socks for me. She even put everything in little piles on the couch, the same way I do before putting it in the laundry basket. She is a very detail-oriented child. She notices everything I do, and then imitates me when she’s “the mommy”.

She is such a wonderful little helper! It’s true that sometimes, her help might slow me down a bit but most days, I am just so glad to see her excited about helping, that I encourage her to help out. She always impresses me with her determination. She truly makes me proud:)
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Who Says TV is Bad For Kids?

You constantly hear how terrible TV is for kids, but you never hear that it can be good, in moderation of course. Tonight when I was reading books to Emma we came to a picture that was labeled “reeds”. Right away she told me, “They are also called bullrushes”. I am not familiar with the term bullrushes so I said, “birdwatches?, bullwatches?, birdrushes?, billrushes?, and as I kept guessing what she was saying, assuming she was mispronouncing the word, she kept saying, “No, bullrushes”.

When Mark came to the room, I told Emma to repeat the word to him. Same conversation as above occurred as Mark tried to guess what she was saying. Finally I said, “bullrushes?” and she said, “Yes, bullrushes”. That’s what she was saying all along but as neither one of us knew the word, we were guessing everything else but that. It’s not like any of my other guesses made any sense either, I was just trying to repeat what I was hearing:)

Now, Mark at age 40 and I at 39 have learned from our 3 year old what bullrushes are. If you knew….I’m proud of you too:)

Here is a picture for those who don’t.

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A little “Maggie and The Ferocious Beast” never hurt anyone….and in our case, it’s helped to build our 3 year’s old vocabulary (and her parent’s vocabulary, too)!

Emma with Pigtails

Every once in awhile, Emma requests for her hair to be picked up in pigtails. Because we cut her hair shorter than usual this summer, her hair wasn’t really long enough for pigtails. However, we were able to make some “low-hanging” pigtails to satisfy her request.

She is very much a girly-girl. Loves everything princess! Loves jewelry, purses, barrettes, nail polish, lip stick, etc. Here are a few pictures of my girly-girl all decked out with her pigtails and her jewels:)

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Don’t let the sweet little angel face fool you….she’s a tough cookie:) I love you my tough cookie!

Daddy & Emma

Emma adores her Daddy but she doesn’t always show it. Sometimes though, if she knows something special might be coming, like a trip to Goodberry’s for custard, she is EXTRA sweet to him. Daddy of course, won’t complain….he’ll take it when he can get it:)

Here’s proof of how sweet & loving she can be:

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Our Little Jumping Bean

Emma LOVES to jump around. Here is a picture of her jumping in her playroom:

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Art Camp Paintings

Emma had a wonderful time at Art Camp. Unfortunately after completing her 3rd day, she got sick so she was not able to finish the week. She was so excited to go that she still woke up on the 4th day and asked if she could wear a bikini to preschool. The 4th day was “water day” and she was really looking forward to it.

Her teachers were wonderful and her very first school experience was a success! I’m so proud of her for being so independent and confident. She was a real trooper!

Here are some painting she brought home from art camp:

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Emma’s First Day of Preschool Art Camp

It’s tough to think that Emma is so big already that she is ready for Preschool. It seemed just a little while back, that this day was WAY in the future. Well, it’s here and Emma couldn’t be happier:)

Although “real” preschool doesn’t begin for another 2 weeks, the preschool that Emma will be attending, mandates that the kids complete one week of summer camp so that they become familiar with the school, teachers, classrooms, rules, etc. So today was that first day for Emma. She had been counting down the days. When Mark and I went into her bedroom this morning, she was still sleeping like a little angel. We looked at each other and realized that our “little baby”, wasn’t a baby anymore. She woke up with a big smile and excitedly got up and was ready to go. Obviously we had been prepping her for this day by reading books about preschool and what to expect, as well as talking to her about all she would be doing.

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When she first walked into the classroom, she was a little bit clingy and shy, but that only lasted like 2 minutes. As soon as she saw the classroom centers with playdoh, paint, dyed-colored water, and mini-furniture, she knew she was in a FUN place. We helped her put her backpack into her cubby and she let us know she was ready to paint. She has 2 teachers- Ms. Sandy and Ms. April. We got our hugs and kisses and let her know we would be back in a little while and she let me Ms. Sandy put a smock on her as she prepared to paint a beautiful blue picture.

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As Mark and I watched from the door, I could see her talking Ms. Sandy’s ear off and laughing as she had a conversation with her. I could see just how HAPPY she was and how ready she was to finally begin preschool.

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At 1:00pm, we picked Emma up. She was at the reading center looking at “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. She saw us standing there, smiled, and quickly got up to come and hug us. She had sidewalk chalk all over her pants, so right away, I knew she had had a wonderful first day of preschool.

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Ms. Sandy and Ms. April both told us that she had a great day. They said Emma was the only one that knew that the bowl in the story, Mouse Paint, said- Cat. They were very impressed by her and said she was very “advanced”. They definitely thought she was prepared for preschool.

Emma didn’t give us too many details about her first day but she seemed to really enjoy herself. When we asked her if she played in the playground she said, “No, we played in the sandbox instead because it was too humid outside”:)