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Category Archives: Emily

Pleasures of Spring

09 Apr

Spring is here a bit early this year.  Flowers are blooming.  Bunnies are hopping around nibbling on the grass and the robins are working on finding an early breakfast most days.  I love waking up to the sound of birds chirping as a cool, gentle breeze drifts in through the slightly opened window.

Well, usually it’s a gentle breeze but, sometimes I wake up in the arctic tundra.  The weather has been very sporadic this winter and it hasn’t changed its personality for spring.

We just returned last week from a spring break trip to a pastor’s conference in Tennessee.  What a much needed retreat for our entire family!

There was time to check out the picnic area at Cades Cove.

There was time to pause along the route to enjoy the scenery.

We took time to pause for a picture,

to learn to skip (plop) stones,

check water temperatures,

and pose for a second picture.

We went for a nice long hike!

We even had some more time to pose for another picture in front of our cabin at the Tuckaleechee Retreat Center while I played with the settings on my camera.

We took time to visit the aquarium and checked out the itty bitty jellyfish.

had a few shark sightings,

and held our breath for a cheesy picture.

We also sat for a bit outside to enjoy the weather while I played with my camera settings a little more.

Then, we rode the glass elevator to the top of the 400 foot high Space Needle in Gatlinburg, and enjoyed a beautiful rain shower that turned into thunder and lightning show before we decided it was time to head back down and visit Bubba Gump’s for lunch.

Then, we dressed up like tourists and enjoyed our final days on vacation before we took a long 12 hour drive home… yeah, we got stuck in traffic for a REALLY long time on the way home.

 
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Posted by on Apr 9, 2012 in Emily, pictures, Tennessee, Vacation

 

The Whispering Meteorologist

19 Mar

There’s a daily occurrence at our house that involves Miss Em checking the weather on her Dad’s phone and/or reading the current temp, highs/lows and humidity on our mini weather station.

When we came home tonight, she was quick to watch the thermostat and read off each temperature change. Earlier this evening, it was “almost 80!” (79*). A short while later, I heard her announce that it was 73.

The best weather report though happened as she kissed her daddy goodnight on her way to bed. She leaned into his ear and rather than saying, “Goodnight, I love you,” she very lightly whispered, “It’s 71.”  And off to bed she went.

 
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Posted by on Mar 19, 2012 in Emily

 

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Playing with Sheep (and color)

19 Mar

Today’s fun picture.  (I apologize if you’ve already seen this on Facebook… I just wanted to make sure it made it into the archives of our blog!)

 
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Posted by on Mar 19, 2012 in Emily, pictures, Vacation

 

Storm Warning… And Other Foul Weather

28 Feb

Emily is consistently interested in the weather forecasts when she sees them on TV and checks our home weather station daily. Over the weekend, she noticed that Tuesday night (tonight) we were supposed to get some “stormy weather”. Her immediate thought was to tell me that she would probably have to sleep in our room on Tuesday night because it was going to storm. I reassured her she would be fine and she would be sleeping in her room.

On the way to her kindergarten program tonight, the first glimpse of a slightly gray cloud prompted her to remind me that it’s supposed to storm tonight… and she might have to sleep in our room.

She tried one more time tonight to bring the conversation up and added, “Pleeeease? I promise not to laugh when Mommy toots or snores! I’ll be real quiet!”

Secret’s out!  I’m a classy broad!

Oh really?!?  You laugh as though you never do either one of those things.   Oh Puh-leeeease!  <grin>

 
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Posted by on Feb 28, 2012 in Emily

 

Toothbrushing Can be Dangerous!

21 Feb

This morning, Emily was a bit too enthusiastic in brushing her teeth with her new singing toothbrush. She was so excited she jammed it into her upper gum.

When I picked her up at the end of school day, she informed me that it still hurt.

“Well, you probably bruised it,” I stated.

“Oh no! Does that mean I have to go see the TOOTHODONTIST?”

 
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Posted by on Feb 21, 2012 in Emily

 

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Serenaded by a Little Girl

10 Feb

This week we’ve been serenade a couple of time by the Little Miss.

Earlier this week it was “Five Little Junkies Bumpin’ on the Bed”.

Tonight’s music was courtesy of the jingle on a TV Commercial.  ”I’m Sixty And I Know It”.  (We didn’t bother to correct the lyrics.  ”Sixty” sounds better than “sexy” when it’s coming from a 5 year old.)

 
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Posted by on Feb 10, 2012 in Emily

 

Crack-Up

08 Feb

She’s five.

She can belch the alphabet and giggle all the way through it.

Last night she had her words mixed up and serenaded us in the car on the way home.  She sang “Five Little Junkies Bumping On The Bed” (at the top of her lungs).  She had no idea what she was saying but she finally got the words right on the last verse and sang “Five Little Monkeys Jumping On The Bed”.

She was bummed out last night because when we told her “We have an appointment tomorrow night to get our taxes done.”  She really wanted to get them done right then.  This is a consistent theme with our daughter.  One year, she actually had a pretty major meltdown because there was a really big snow storm on the night we had scheduled for taxes and everything was closing early.  Through sobs and tears that night she whimpered, “But I want to get my taxes done….”

Tonight Em was cuddling on her Daddy’s lap and leaned within 5 inches of his eyeballs and very matter-of-factly stated, “Wow!  You look tired!”  She then proceeded to point out the dark circles under his eyes and the fine lines on his face.  Glad it was his lap she was sitting on.  I have a lot more dark circles, lines, and my gray hair count is catching up with The Hubs.

This girl also has a very keen sense of smell. She stuck her nose almost IN her Daddy’s mouth and asked what the smell was on his breath.  (Let me just say that someone’s nose that close to my mouth makes me very uncomfortable but apparently sniffing each other’s breath is something they do fairly often.)  He told her it might be the smell of a drink he was drinking.  ”No.  It smells like food.”  And then the investigation and inquisition began.  I’m not sure if she ever closed the case or if she chalked it up to daddy being a lunatic.

Just another 24 hours of life in our family.

 
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Posted by on Feb 8, 2012 in Emily, pictures, Ponderings

 

Snow Momma’s Life in 24 hours.

25 Jan

Created at 5:30pm one day. Melted away by 5:30pm the next.

One of the many joys of living in Ohio:  You never know what the weather is going to do from one day to the next.  Thankfully, I had informed our daughter early on that Snow Momma might not last very long.  In true form, Snow Momma was gone in 24 hours and still looks like just a snow turd in our yard just 3 days later.

 

 
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Posted by on Jan 25, 2012 in Emily, pictures

 

2nd Day of Sledding (and Snowmen!)

22 Jan

Tap, tap, tap… “Mommy, it’s light out, ya know?”

“Yeah — but I’m not done napping yet.  I’ll get up soon.”

Ten minutes later, I managed to crawl out of bed after my Sunday nap.  Man, I love those things!  (Well, who am I kidding?  I like any kind of nap!  I’m really good at them!  But I digress…)

When I find Em, she’s sitting on the couch with a new set of clothes on.

“Mom.  You know I accidentally slept with my clothes on last night?”

I’m wracking my brain and specifically remember her picking out a pair of “summerish” pajamas that she wore last night.  I’m sure of it.

“Em, you DO realize that this is still Sunday, riiiight?”

“Oh, no!  I thought it was Monday and I was going to school today!”

Fast forward about 20 minutes and we were back out in the snow.

This kid has been looking forward to building a snowman since our first dusting of snow.  Around here, you never know when or if you’re going to get this kind of snow again so we had to take advantage of it.

Now remember, it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve made any sort of snowman.  I always have this idea in my head that it’s going to be really fun and really easy (because everyone’s snowmen always look really good).

However, those dreams are hardly ever my case.

(I apologize for the bad lighting in the pictures… we didn’t get outside until about 4:30pm and we were losing daylight fast!)

Example #1: Frosty the Termite Mound

Example #2: Lumpy the Snowman

Almost done... Snow Momma

Em's very own Baby Snowman

I started to make my own baby snowman and determined pretty quickly that my gloves were VERY dirty. Can you tell?

My Baby Snowman and if you look really close you'll see the hubs in the window.

Now that Daddy was up from his nap, we begged him to help us find a carrot from the fridge for Snow Momma’s nose and then finished our creation!

Nose in place and a kiss goodnight!

Momma Snowman and her maker

And when the Snow Momma was finished, we took a final opportunity to sled once more in the backyard before it melts this week.  The track was fast and fun!


…. as a follow-up, when we came inside we told Daddy how tough it was to make the snowman and how much work it really was.  He didn’t seem to be buying it.

Later, I found out he thought THIS was the snowman that we had been working SO hard on…

...really? This took an hour to make?

It wasn’t until he went outside to pick up pizza for supper that he became acquainted with Snow Momma!

Ah, family life.  Hehehe…

Soooo. What are your thoughts?  Do you like to make snowmen?  Do you roll them or have to sort of pat them together like we ended up having to do?  Are there special tricks to making snowmen?

 
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Posted by on Jan 22, 2012 in Emily, Family, pictures, Videos

 

First Day of Sledding

21 Jan

We had quite a bit of snow come down overnight and today was a great day for sledding.  The sun was out, the snow was deep and there was no wind to speak of.

I hopped on the sled and made a few starter tracks and the rest is history…

 
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Posted by on Jan 21, 2012 in Emily, Family, Videos

 
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