Our Little Guppy

Em started swimming lessons this morning at the local YMCA.  It's a nice Parent/Child class at the not-so-nice time of 815am.  Keith did the class with Emmy today, while I supervised from the sideline & snapped some photos (and cleaned up the babe after she puked up her breakfast...gotta teach her not to swallow so much pool water!).  This was her first time in a pool, and she freaked a little when they first got into the water.  By the end of the class, Keith had gone under with her a few times, and she was giggling.  Got some cute pics & video...

Call me crazy, but we're thinking of getting a minivan.  We're likely going with either the Odyssey or the Sienna.  We test drove the Honda today, and got a rough idea of what they are going for at that dealership.  Of course, I've been doing research out the wazoo and am ready to put on my negotiator hat.  We will probably hit the local Toyota dealer tomorrow to drive the Sienna.  Gotta say, it was amazingly easy to get the kid into her carseat in the van...no contorting my body into the backseat or wrestling side doors.  Nice.  Will keep ya posted on our decent to the dark side.  

Weekend Update

We did a whole lotta nuttin' this weekend, and it was nice.  I did Dream Dinners yesterday morning, and got us stocked up a bit on yummy dinners for this month.  If you've not tried them before, and find yourself heating up frozen pizza a few too many nights per week, I urge you to consider giving DD a try!  Tasty, I'm telling ya!

Emmy had a little fever Saturday evening, and with a slug of Motrin, it went away and she rested well.  Poor little thing has been Miss Crabby all weekend because she's getting 2 teeth in at the same time.  She's drooling up a storm, and hasn't been eating well.  These nasty little incisors are really tearing her up.  

We did find time (and a window of happy kid time) to visit a local park.  Emmy loves to swing and giggled the entire time.  We introduced her to the slide, and the jury is still out on that one.  We played in the driveway with sidewalk chalk, rode the Big Wheel (remember those?!), and took a wagon ride.  

We rented National Treasure 2 tonight, and thought it was enjoyable.  Not quite as clever as the first one, but we only paid a dollar to watch it...so no complaints here.  Our local grocery store has a DVD rental kiosk, where all videos are $1.  They have lots of new titles, and it's all done out of a little red box.  It's a great deal!

Little Artist

Two lessons learned during our artistic adventures last week...

1) brushing crayon out of your child's teeth is harder than it appears

2) fingerpainting seems like a good idea until your child becomes hysterical once she realizes there's something on her fingers (and comes running to you for comfort)

Strawberries & Cinnamon

We had a lovely weekend...Saturday morning we headed out to Family Fun Day at Blue Cross Blue Shield.  This is an annual event that Keith's employer puts on as an employee appreciation thing...it was hot as blazes, but was fun!  Emmy & I jumped on a bouncy set, and Keith took her down a big inflatable slide.  We had lunch, met one of Keith's coworkers, and got outta there as the temp hit triple digits.  Later in the day, once the sun was lower in the sky, I took Em out on the patio to play on the water table and eat a homemade frozen strawberry yogurt popsicle.  Now, before you think "this girl's outdone herself, making homemade yogurt pops!", let me fill you in on just how easy this was!  I got the recipe from that cookbook Jerry Seinfeld's wife put out (all about hiding healthy fruits & veggies in simple recipes).  It's as simple as this:  2 Cups strawberries (you can use any fruit you like), 2 cups plain yogurt, 1/2 to 3/4 cup powdered sugar.  Put it all in a blender or food processor (can I say again that I LOVE my Cuisinart food processor!?)  I got some cute little popsicle molds from Target, and TA-DA!  They were quite tasty, and Em enjoyed her first frozen-treat-on-a-stick.  

Emmy has adopted an attachment item.  Several months ago, our friend Lennie gave us a cute little pink cape, crocheted by his Aunt in New England.  She didn't think much of it at the time...but she rediscovered it this weekend.  How nice that she wants to wear a cape when it's 100 degrees outside.  She takes the thing everywhere and wants to sleep with it at night.  I need to snap a pic of her wearing it, because it's truly hilarious.  (shhh...she doesn't know yet that I forgot it at daycare today...and daycare's closed for the rest of the week!!!)

I made Em her first cinnamon toast on Saturday, and I think she approved.  I got all nostalgic about eating at least a truckload of this as a kid, staying at my Gramma's house.  She always made my brother an egg sandwich for breakfast (no idea what her secret to this is, as I simply can't replicate it) and me either French crepes or cinnamon toast.  Everything tastes better when it's made by Gramma, must be because it was made with so much love!

Here's a couple pics to tide you over until next time...

Emmy's First Bubble Experience

It didn't quite go as planned...I had no idea bubbles were so scary!

Couple Cute Weekend Photos

First Boo-Boo!

Poor little Emmy!  She's becoming such a brave explorer, and unfortunately, today decided to attempt walking off the deck stairs.  We've got 3 steps that lead to the concrete driveway on the side of the house, and USUALLY she avoids the steps like the plague.  Not today.  She was walking around on the porch, and I asked her to come inside...her new word is "outside, Outside OUTSIDE"!  (she wakes up from her naps and this is the first work out of her mouth!)  Needless to say, she didn't want to come in, and when I started walking towards her, she started walking towards the steps.  Silly me, I thought she wouldn't attempt them, as she's always seemed scared about them.  Nope, she walked right up to the edge, turned her head and gave me "the look", and I knew she was going to step off.  I was about one step from her when she took a header and rolled down, landing face-first on the driveway.  Luckily, she was just shaken up and had a couple little scrapes on her hands & nose.  She got her first band-aid, and learned a new word..."boo-boo".