Emily's 3rd Birthday

Three years ago at this very moment I was in labor with Emily. Three years ago, the nurses were trying to get me to "take a nap before pushing." Three years ago, I was rather annoyed with said nurses!

Emily's third birthday is here and I am just amazed at the little person she is becoming. She is absolutely, head over heels, in love with her little sister. She has so much love inside of her that she loves even finds love for inanimate objects. We went swimming this afternoon with Grandma, Auntie Joy, Jasper and Sawyer and Emily befriended a leaf. She asked me to pick it up for her because she forgot to grab it before I wrapped her in her towel. She became very upset when she thought it was going to drop on the floor. She really was genuinely concerned!

Emily is so imaginative at play. She makes all of her toys talk to one another all day long. She makes up and sings songs all day long as well. She remembers verbatim TV jingles, songs she hears on the radio and things we say to her. Yes, we have to watch our words... she will remember what we say to hear and bring it back up if we do differently.

She MUST give her sister a kiss every day when Danika takes her afternoon nap. There is no stopping her... once Danika is asleep in her bed she goes in there and gives her a kiss and sings her a night night song she has adapted from an episode of Caillou.

Every morning when she wakes up she hugs me, says, "I love you SO much," and, "It's a good morning in the living room!" She says this about the living room because our bedroom is super dark the living room always has the sun shining in. :)

Every night when she is ready for bed, she proclaims, "It's really dark outside, I think it's time for bed!"

Emily is an amazing helper with her sister. She happily picks out her diapers when they need changing, her pajamas at bed time, her outfit for the day, and will even sniff her bottom to see if she needs a diaper change! I am sure she will be over that one soon!

She makes us smile and amazes us every day with her imagination, love and sense of wonder. As much as I am excited for her to grow up, I wish I could just keep her this age for a bit longer. She is quickly becoming a little girl these days... no longer much of a toddler even. It truly makes me wish life would slow down a bit....

Happy Birthday to our sweet, sweet Emily Grace. We love you!

Such a good helper!

Missed a couple days of checking in here. We visited with Uncle Neil and Brandie yesterday. Grandma was there too! They are working on getting their bedroom/bathroom all finished. New paint, new lights and all new fixtures in the bathroom. It is looking great & a ton of work.

I am so glad Danika is starting to do well in the car. It really makes it nice to go places and not have her upset & fussing. I am on countdown (two weeks) before I go back to work, so trying to make the most of the time off with the girls.

Last night Emily and I went night swimming. I got her a new floaty for the pool and she loves it! It is from amazon.com and called a puddle jumper! It can be purchased by clicking on the picture!
It's actually Coast Guard approved & only $14.99 - apparently Walmart and Target carry them as well, not sure on pricing.

Danika tends to spit up a lot. Not sure where it came from as Emily was not much of a spitter at all. Nonetheless, Danika is a slobbery spitter upper :) A few minutes ago I went to take a picture of her. In the time it took me to get the camera and snap it... she puked all over. Yipee! Emily ran to get her a new outfit, towel AND washcloth so I could bathe her. How adorable is that? She always remembers every.last.detail. Emily is such a sweet big sister and such an amazing little helper. :)

Here are pics!

Forgot to turn flash on.

Fixed it & there was the puke!

Mommy's little helper!

CHEESE already!

Ahhh!!

Impossible to get a normal pic of her these days!

At least she is happy :)

Let the sass begin!

The last few days have been interesting for Emily as far as her new 'tude. I am being told it comes with the territory for age 3, but wow!

We were playing games on the iPad and I asked her to let me check something. Her response? "Mommy, you just need to calm down a little bit and we can share nicely!" Wow! Really? Guess what she hears from me at times? One guess... :)

Yesterday, I told her it was shower time. Her response? "When I am done with this show and playing my game I can take a shower. Ok, Mommy?" Well.....

And it begins!

I can teach them, Mommy!

Every year we have some birds build a nest on our balcony. This year, however, there are about 1,000,000 baby birds *at last their noise level makes it seem so* who have been hatched! We have been waiting for the babies to take flight, and this morning while Danika and Daddy were still sleeping, Emily and I got to see them fly! Of course, there was the one baby who kept flying into the sliding glass door, over & over again! Emily looked at me, jumped up & said, "I CAN TEACH THAT BIRDY HOW TO FLY!" She said, "Look, like this!" and proceeded to flap her arms and "fly" around the living room. My daughter is the sweetest thing ever. :)

Ready for the weekend...

Lazy Holiday Sunday

We started off the day with no plans, but Mom & Dad Bateman decided to go out to brunch at Geezers and so we got ready and met them there. It was a nice meal with Mom, Dad, Adam, Jennifer, Neil, Brandie and the 4 of us. Emily enjoyed seeing everyone and Danika was passed around and given lots of love.
We headed over to the house afterwards for a short visit & came home to relax. Daddy has tomorrow off of work and we are hoping Danika continues her sleeping through the night streak.. it is fabulous for ou whole household!

Proud

Just a little bit ago, Emily spilled my drink on the floor. She asked me for help cleaning it up & since I always tell Duke to get in his bed while cleaning things up, she told him to. When I walked back into the living room she said, "Mommy, Duke got in his bed!" She then walked over to Duke and pet him, saying, "Duke, good job! I am so proud of you for listening!"

Guess what Emily hears (not so) often when she listens!

We are headed over to try out a new restaurant called Cafe Rio this afternoon when David gets home. It just opened at 10:30 for the very first day & is supposed to be similar to Chipotle with more options, yum!