Breezy

Someone's too cool for pants today...

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Emma took her two Potato Heads for a ride in between the rain showers!

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Ni hao!

(Hello!) My cousin Brooke headed to China this summer to teach English to elementary students for two school years. Last week she had to return to the U.S. for a while so they could clear up an issue with her visa. Sooo... she was at the coast this weekend with her brother and they all decided to stop by for a visit on their way home today!

Brooke was teaching Emma some dance moves!


Emma loves Bryan and Nate's dog Brinkley (she's so soft!). Silly girl wanted to come up and slide with Emma!


Brooke brought Emma these cute little cat shoes from China!

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Isn't it funny how Emma's shirt has a dog on it?! Woof/Meow!


Snuggles with Brooke. (Emma was ready for her nap!) See you next time Brooke!!

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Sunday fun day

After her nap, Emma still wanted to snuggle on the couch with Daddy!


Emma is very girly, wearing her new birthday headband!


However, note the scrape on her left knee as well :) We were going to go for a little walk on a local trail today, and we had to turn around after just a few minutes. Emma tripped and scraped her knee and was pretty upset. Meanwhile, while we looked at her knee Zoe went and jumped in Fanno Creek while still on her leash. So, we had a bleeding knee and a stinky, dripping wet dog! We drove back home and Ed performed some better first aid than the back of the car, while I bathed the dog. So much for our walk! Emma was feeling much better once she had a bandaid on!

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What's up doc?

Emma practiced her doctor skills on Daddy tonight!

She listened to Zoe's heart for a minute, then just sat down to pet Zoe.

She leaned over to kiss Zoe, and when Zoe returned the favor she squealed and ran away!

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Now that's cold!

Tonight we went to Coldstone Creamery to get Emma's free birthday ice cream! It's all thanks to Coldstone's Birthday Club (thanks for the tip B-Dub!)! Emma had vanilla ice cream with M&Ms in it. M&Ms are her favorite candy!

So sign up now to get a delicious treat on your birthday! The coupon comes the week before and lasts until a week after your birthday. Of course, the coupon didn't cover Mommy and Daddy's ice cream :)
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Two year pictures

Today I took Emma in for two year old pictures. Here are some of the proofs!

As usual she was very shy at first:


Then she warmed up with some mama tickles!


I love how sneaky she is in this one!


We had trouble keeping the number two turned properly in some other pictures!

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The after party

As the birthday magic winds down a little, Emma continues to enjoy herself.

I got a picture of her trying to pop her balloons today. She rolls like this with balls, so she probably doesn't realize how fragile balloons are (despite our warnings)! Although, she hasn't popped one yet, so that just shows you what a powder puff she is!


Some of the balloons still had enough helium left to get up in the ceiling fan... Uh oh! Daddy was able to wrangle them free for us with an extension pole.

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Finally, playing Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Piggy-Bank!

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Happy 2nd Birthday Emma!!

Today Emma turned two years old! Or we noted at 8:13 p.m. she was exactly two!!

After church she got to take her new wheels outside for a spin around the neighborhood.


A neighbor kitty strolled by and Emma scared it away, er chased it, er tried to pet it!


We did another round of two birthday candles for Emma to blow out!


She took horsey for a ride - don't forget the sunglasses! The party balloons still had helium in them, so Emma got to play! She rolled on the pink one at one point, and it didn't pop. We were flinching!

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The first character that Emma recognized/loved was Chica from The Sunny-Side Up Show on PBS Sprout. Chica is a little chicken that squeaks when she talks! Every day they sing a birthday song and show a few cards that parents send in. Emma's card made it on tv! I made it as bright as possible to catch their eye. (The video is in two parts to cut out the middle. I recorded this from the video camera, so that's why you see a digital line that I got no matter what angle I filmed the tv from!)

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Beep beep, here comes a crazy driver!

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2nd birthday party pictures

(Birthday videos down below!)
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Emma started her birthday party day off with a little Guitar Hero!


Here's Emma on her new trike!


Emma's cousins and Grandma brought her a fun slide that they have mostly outgrown! Though, they still enjoyed sliding down it with her :)


Emma blew out her two birthday candles on the first try! Looks like it was a pretty yummy cupcake!


Cruisin' around with the boys.


Emma got some bathtub crayons from her buddy Brett. They were so much fun to play with tonight! They do wash off, otherwise you'd see her tattoo :)

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2nd birthday party videos

Here's Emma blowing out the two candles on her birthday cupcake today! It was so much fun, we might just have to blow out some more candles again tomorrow - on her actual birthday :)

After much deliberation and a few test drives at Toys R Us, we got Emma a little trike for her birthday. It reminds me of the Big Wheels I used to drive as a kid! We gave it to her this morning before the guests arrived so we could really see her response.

Her reaction at first was... tentative.

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Then she was a bit more inquisitive and played with the buttons - it makes some cool noises!

Finally, she got the hang of it! Wheeee!

Now she's squealing and zooming all around the house in it. We didn't take it outside this morning because of the rain!

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Thursday pics

The Little People decided to upgrade from their school bus to a couple of r/c Jeeps!


Emma got some of her hair cut today (just an inch or less off the back to even out the different lengths) as well as her bangs. She did great - she got to sit in a purple Jeep and she didn't cry or anything! She said "yeah" to everything the woman asked her, it was funny. Unbelievably I forgot to bring my camera :(

Hmm. Daddy's orange hat, Winnie the Pooh toothbrush, and upside down sunglasses. They don't come much cooler than this!

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Giddy-up!

Emma misunderstood riding her horse for "taking her horse for a ride!" She kept getting frustrated that there wasn't room for both the big old stuffed horse and her in the car, but if we dangled the horse out of the window a little, Emma could squeeze in too!

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Beep Beep!

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To speak or not to speak, that is the question

Today we headed out to Hillsboro to meet with Early Intervention, which is a state program that provides, well, early intervention to kids deemed to have a developmental delay. They had the information from our May visit to Legacy's speech therapist, who had recommended speech therapy. I had been frustrated at that visit because the test was quick and in some cases not reflective of Emma's actual abilities - she had been very shy. So, I thought this would be interesting to see what they found after testing her today.

There were two gals that we met with - a speech pathologist and a teacher. We walked into the testing room which had a regular sized table and a child's table complete with those cute little plastic school chairs. Emma immediately went over to the table, looked around and grabbed the barn to play with. The S.P. brought over a bin of animals and sat down with Emma, at first not saying much to Emma but playing with her. All the while she was evaluating certain factors about her interaction with Emma. Emma really liked the large plastic horse!

The teacher talked to Ed and me at the "big kids" table! She went through several test forms, including the Preschool Language Test which was the test administered in May. We were told to plan for a three hour evaluation, however, the testing was done in just under one hour. The two gals left the room to score the tests, and returned about 10 minutes later. They said that she did not qualify for Early Intervention (which was GREAT news to us!), and were pleased that this was our reaction. I said "So, do you think she needs speech therapy then?" and the S.P. said no, not at this time. She said if things hadn't changed before Emma turns three to give them a call and they would be happy to re-evaluate her. What a relief this was. She showed us Emma's scores on a chart. Emma fell into the "average" category. She explained that some kids Emma's age might speak 200 words, while others might speak only 10 words. She said that each of these cases were considered normal. We tried to figure out Emma's word count, and got to about 15. Later throughout the day we thought of several more words!! It's just hard to think of right on the spot.

Now, in the lobby where we waited there was a large poster of typical speech patterns for all young ages. I had read that for the 2 to 2 1/2 year old age range they should have 200 words in their vocabulary, which I've also read elsewhere. The S.P. said she does not like that poster and would love to rip it down! She said it's just not accurate, some kids are just going to talk more than others at this age. She noted that Emma has and is using all the building blocks necessary to start talking. When a child starts walking, they don't just stand up and run across the room. They take baby steps. Same with talking, they work their way into it, and she was happy with the things she heard from Emma while we were there.

Ed asked if we should have come today? They both said yes, absolutely. So, this was good to check, but I must say I am very happy that it's done!! Emma said thank you on the way out, and we all headed to Krispy Kreme (conveniently on the way home!) for a treat :)

Emma ate four little donut holes!

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