In the past few weeks....

She loves her pockets (and allowed me to put a bow in her hair)!!  I feel like she has gotten so tall (or at least this picture makes her look tall). 

Say 'cheese'!! Interesting weather calls for interesting outfits.  

This shot is sort of dark, but as you can tell, Emersen loves not only sliding, but hanging and swinging before she slides.  It makes me so nervous! 

Just chillin' in the swing with sunglasses!!

Emersen turns 2!!

Emersen is 2!!! Wow!! That year flew by! :)

We started the birthday weekend by attending our first Easter Egg Hunt. It was very warm and sunny and also PACKED with toddlers. Luckily, Eme's age group went first and she knew right away that the goal was to get as many eggs in her basket as quickly as she could.

As you can tell, she had a great time and collected a lot of eggs! Then, after lunch and a quick nap, it was time for her Sesame Street backyard birthday party.

She was very excited to find a sand/water table in the backyard.

As well as a bouncy-house just her size!!

She even had some time with Dzia Dzia while in her swing (which was her gift last year). I can't believe she still fits inside it :)

Then it was off to dinner at the Opera House. Yum!

After dinner, it was time to open presents. She really loved tearing into her gifts :)

Cake time! Elmo!

Emersen with her birthday hat from Aunt Janet

What a huge bite of cake!!! I think that was the only bite she really had; she is still not really into sweets, which is a good thing, right?!?

Whew, what a wonderful 2nd birthday!! We had a great time celebrating and we were happy that Dzia Dzia and MiMi could celebrate with us. Happy 2nd Birthday Emersen!

A book club member!!

Emersen belongs to her first book club! It is called the Dolly Parton's Imagination Library and she has already received 4 new books. This program sends a new book each month to children for the first five years of their life. It is so neat!! These are pictures of her enjoying the newest book: Mine-o-saur.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! Emersen and I had a girl's weekend since Trevor was in Chicago with the women's basketball team for the NCAA tournament. The day started off a little rainy so of course we had to jump in the puddles.

Finally after our nap the sun came out and we headed to the playgrounds~yes, we went to 3 in one day~ and even saw the Martin St. Patrick's Day parade.

I was pleasantly pleased with the parade, well let's be honest; I mean with Emersen's reaction to the parade. It began loud with the police cars/sirens, but then there were really like 5 other things: motorcycles, people with dogs, golf carts, the Boy Scouts, and some miscellaneous people with babies in strollers. All in all, it was rather funny but definitely gave us something to do on a Saturday.

Oh, I forgot to mention that there was also a leprechaun and what kind of parade would a small town have without a tractor??? Hope you wore your green and had a great St. Patrick's Day!

Random shots

Just some random shots that I thought you might enjoy...

So I guess we're not really into skirts; instead, we are obsessed with our jeans...so much that Eme had a terrible time getting into the bathtub without them on. Oh, and she loves the pockets too!

Elmo is still her buddy :)

The tower of groceries she built one Saturday after going shopping with me...

Emersen's favorite seat in the house is on top of the couch cushions with an extra pillow underneath her. As you can tell, she really likes this seat :)

Stickers, stickers we love stickers!

Spur of the moment trip

Emersen and I decided to take a spur of the moment trip and head up to Indiana for President's Day weekend. We figured it was a great weekend to get out of Martin and it was a plus that this weekend fell between my mom's and Megan's birthdays. The girls had such a blast playing together as you can see from the pictures I posted. : )

Hmmm...not sure if this is cousin 'initiation' or not...but they had a lot of fun, even if Emersen was always the patient.

Dress up time!! At home, Emersen will have pretty much nothing to do with a skirt, let alone a tutu skirt, so I found this rather interesting.

Cooking with Nina!!

Relaxing with Aunt Megan (Zoe and Logan were really into Finding Nemo; Emersen, not so much).

Home again!! Emersen is sporting the headband that she borrowed from Logan and Zoe...it rarely comes off of her head :)

We had a great trip, even if it did end with us in an urgent care clinic Monday morning. Emersen woke up in a lot of ear pain and had a bad ear infection. I really can't complain since it is her first one since she had tubes put in back in June. Needless to say, it was a long drive home for us but we made it back safely. After a week on antibiotics and ear drops, I think she is feeling better. Let's hope so!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!! We spent the weekend playing and making our valentines.

Stringing beads at the table...

Painting the paper for the hearts

Emersen's valentines for her Kindermusik class and her 'college' class-

26 altogether!

A close up shot (I must say that I/we actually got a little crafty with this project)~the card says, "I like you beary-much"..and the bags were filled with Teddy Grahams :)

Then we got to open our gifts! Emersen loved ripping off the paper...

And was very excited when she saw her tutu skirt!!

It was a great day! Emersen had a fun party at school and came home to play with all of her Valentine's. We hope that you had a wonderful Valentine's Day as well!!