Emily Reads Books

Emily is really into her books these days. She loves to read. Her favorite books are the ones with interactive features like sounds, buttons, or doors that open. I caught her reading to herself this afternoon and ran for the camera.

Row Row Row Your Boat

Ok, so we're still working on the words, but here is a clip of Emily singing her rendition of "Row Row Row Your Boat." The merrily, merrily, merrily part is my favorite. No fair evaluating my singing. I never claimed to be an American Idol finalist.

Emily loves to sing. In addition to this little tune, she can sing a fairly good portion of her ABC's and also "Rain Rain Go Away." Not too bad for a little one not even 20 months old yet. It's funny too, because I can look at her sing a little clip of a song and say "Emily sing" and she will try to sing the song right where I left off. It is so cute. Enjoy!

Poor Zoey

Am I a bad pet parent for letting this happen? I hope not.

Emily's New Choo-Choo

After the trip to the Life & Science Museum and the ride on the "choo-choo," we got Emily her own little Thomas the Train set. She loves it! (And daddy loves that she will play with something other than little pink baby dolls.) She can't quite reach all the way around the track (as you'll see), but she'll figure it out soon enough. If you listen really close, after she pushes the train around the track, she stops, grabs her shorts and says "poop." Indeed, right after we shot this little clip, I was upstairs changing diapers. HA! Potty training will be coming up in no time!

4th of July - Trip to Durham Life Science Center

We took Emily to the Life Science Museum in Durham yesterday for the 4th of July. She had a blast! I think the highlight (for all) was probably a ride on the real live "choo-choo train." Emily was thrilled. She is totally into choo-choo's now. In fact, we got her a little tiny Thomas the Train set at Target today. It just has 2 trains and a little circular, wooden track. More than enough for her (no more granddad miller - at least now). She also loved the music exhibit. She loved hitting the drums with the little stick. Of course, she could have hit the pretty windchimes (substantially quieter) with the stick too, but now. Loudest = most fun. We also took her to see the butterfly house. We were a little worried about that since she is so scared of bugs, but she loved it. There were a ton of butterflies. She even almost got to touch one! See pic attached. She was quiet taken. Now we look for butterflies in the yard. There were also some great exhibits just for kids under 6. She had a great time there too. There was a farmyard where Emily got to see a cow, sheep, a turkey, a donkey and pigs. There were tons of other exhibits that we could not get to before it was time to head home for a nap. But since we all had so much fun, we bought a membership before we left! Now we can hardly wait to go back. Much fun had by all and a great 4th overall!

Teeth Brushing

Who would have thought brushing teeth could be so much fun? I guess Daddy just makes everything fun.

18 Months

Emily turned 18 months old this month and we took her to get some pictures done. Amazingly, the studio even gave us a CD with all of the images. Here are our favorites. She is getting so big and is looking less and less like a baby and more and more like a little girl. I love it and hate it all at the same time. She is climbing up on everything, trying to jump, and singing all kinds of songs. She can't get a lot of the words yet, but if you listen, you can make out the songs pretty easily. She is even counting to 10. That cracks me up...even more so every time she misses 8. She is such a joy.

Too fun not to share

This is really more "grandma" than Emily, but I jsut can't resist posting it. I can't believe I caught this on video.

Beach Trip!

We took Emily to the beach this weekend for her very first vacation. She absolutely loved it!! We knew she liked the sandbox at the park and from the time she was born she liked the bathtub. Plus, she loves the swimming pool too. So we figured the beach with endless sand and water would be a big hit. We couldn't have been more right. She absolutely loved it. All of it. She loved the sand. She dug in the sand. She crushed Daddy's sand castles - "Boom". She loved the waves. She laughed and squealed every time another rolled in. She loved the seagulls. She chased them at one point. She loved the airplanes that flew over with the little banners. She kept yelling "Eh-Pain" everytime another one flew by. It was too funny. I'll post all the pics on Kodak later today. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorites. Enjoy!

Sunday Fun!

Here are two new little video clips of Emily taken today.

One is of her playing with her baby wipes. We got a big box at BJ's a couple of weekends ago and she LOVES dumping out all the packs and playing with them. Not sure why we buy toys when she likes things like baby wipes!

The other clip is of Emily discoverying something new in the bathtub. I swear you can see the little wheels turning in her mind. It is funny.

In other news, Emily is talking up a storm. New words include mailbox, airplane and counting from one to five. She is also working on "excercise" (from "The Going to Bed Book"). Today in Target she tried to say "umbrella." It was funny. You need the context to really understand her new words, but she is getting close. These are really fun days.