Sunday, July 13, 2008

Catching Up

We've been so busy over the last month I have not gotten around to posting on the blog, but here is a short synopsis of a few of our recent activities:

Most notably, Emily turned FOUR YEARS OLD on June 10. Our little baby is no longer a baby, nor a toddler, but a full-blown little girl with ideas of her own and some attitude to go with it. Okay, I admit she still acts like a baby sometimes with tantrums and crying and all, but she is also getting big and smart and very independent. She learned to write her name all by herself a few weeks ago and likes to do grownup things like answering the phone and typing on her computer. She can type all the family's names by herself!

On the day of her birthday, we made cupcakes for her to take to her preschool class. She was excited to add the pink sprinkles on top and wear her favorite skirt outfit. She really likes to wear skirts all of a sudden, although we make her wear shorts under most of them so she doesn't end up showing off what's underneath!

I wanted to make Emily a special breakfast for her birthday, so I made her this parfait using green gogurt, blueberries, raspberries and an apricot on top. She was so excited about it that she didn't even eat it. I think she might have eaten some of the apricots off the top, but the rest ended up in the refrigerator for another week until I caved and dumped it in the trash. Next time I'll just put oatmeal in a fancy glass and call it good.

We let Emily choose anywhere she wanted to go for her birthday dinner. She chose Sonic Drive-In. It was a bit hot, but that's where she wanted to go, so that's where we went. I was kind of glad she didn't choose Chuck E Cheese or something!

The big 4-year-old birthday party was held at a place called "Pump It Up" where they have all kinds of inflatable slides, bounce-houses and obstacle courses for the kids to play on. It was a lot of fun for them and easy for us - we just show up, let the kids play for an hour, then go into a room for cake/ice cream and presents. Then we leave and don't have to clean up or anything. They even washed my ice cream scoop and cake server for me. It was awesome!

You might notice the random Aladdin and Jasmine figurines in front of the cake. Emily wanted a "Jasmine and Aladdin" cake for her birthday, but I didn't feel like trying to make one of those. So I made what I thought was a cute cake using her two favorite colors as decoration, thinking she would love it and forget all about Jasmine and Aladdin. Well lo and behold, when I excitedly showed her the cake in the fridge before the party, she asks, "Where's Jasmine and Aladdin?" Uh, oh. So I packed up the figurines, put them next to the cake at the party, and everyone was happy. Emily got her Jasmine and Aladdin cake after all.


In early June we also signed Emily up for a dance class (above) and a gymnastics class (below). She has fun and it keeps us busy when she is home all day.
Emily also had her very first checkup at the dentist. She did really well and had no cavities.
And Allison had her first taste of ice cream...

and popsicles. All in the same night. She loved them both!

1 comment:

Melissa L. said...

Fun pictures! I love the Jasmine & Aladdin cake story. :) BTW, I'm wondering what other kids Andrew's age typically do in terms of eating & sleeping (how much, how often). It's one thing to read books or websites about it, and an entirely different thing to find out from people I actually know! I think it'd be useful to help me gauge whether he's getting enough of both. Would you mind commenting on that on my blog?