"Emma Do It!"

Emma is now 23 months old - turning 2 in less than a month - and her independent spirit is starting to shine through. The phrase we hear more than any other is "Emma do it." Generally, I'm OK letting her do things on her own, unless it involves knives, scissors, elicit drugs/alcohol (which we stash in TONS around the house) :) - or I am in a HUGE hurry.

This darling little outfit was an early Christmas gift from her Aunt Laura! Isn't that head band adorable? Thank you Laura!

Emma now insists on putting her own shoes on. Some shoes are easier than others. She gets very frustrated when they don't go on properly and will then turn desperately to me for assistance. "Mommy Help!"

Emma is still a Daddy's girl. She prefers him over me 98% of the time. I think it is really cute, until this most recent round of morning activity. The last week I have gone to get her in the morning, when she promptly looks up at me and says "Daddy, hold you." When I break the news that Daddy is already at work (like every other BLASTED morning of her life) she breaks out into fits of screaming and crying. When I ask if Mommy can hold her, she violently retorts, "NO! Daddy hold you." She then refuses to leave her crib. Honest. I try to grab her and she squirms away and pleads to stay. Yesterday she told me to "shut the door" after in exasperation I told her I was gonna go continue getting ready until she wanted to get out of her crib. She was please as punch to stay in the crib and asked me to hand her some books to read. She seriously stayed there for almost 30 minutes - until she finally got bored and asked me to change her diaper.

We finally got some new family pictures taken - so the following five are for your viewing delight.

Emma has been terrified of Santa this year. We've tried three times to get her to sit on his lap and had fits of rage every time. She is so scared she shakes. It's so strange to me, because this is the social child of the year who talks and hugs everyone. When she sees pictures of him on TV or in books she always says, "Santa so nice." but in real life she goes NUTSO.

Emma has found her second half in the form of a pink purse given to her by our best family friends growing up - the Kearls. It does not leave her arm and multiple times a day, she opens the back door (purse in tote) and informs me that she is either going to "symphony, work, church or to play her violin at church." Can you tell what our lives involve? HA!

Emma is very amazing with names. She remembers everybody. Her favorite activity in church is to stand backwards in the pew, and start making "shout outs" to her friends in the middle of the meeting. "Hi Amber! Hi Aaron! Hi Whitney!" She seriously must have yelled out a dozen last week alone.

She has also taken to calling us "Greg and Tammy". In fact, just this morning I heard her sweet little voice calling out, "Tammy... where are you?? Tammy..." I think it is adorable, but Greg continually reminds her that his name is Daddy. Such a stick in the mud that Greg. :)

My Aunt Sharron's dog is named Maggie. As a nickname I will sometimes refer to her as "Magaliscious". Emma heard me say it one day and then literally THREE hours later, awoke from her nap and starting calling out, "Magawishuss! Magawishuss!" Now almost anytime we go to Sharron's, Emma will call her Magawishuss. So funny.

She has now started to refer to herself in the first person using "I" correctly. And has started to form basic sentences, usually involving something "pretty". On the way home from church last week we asked her if she had a good time in nursery, which she promptly replied, "I sing. Pretty song". Today when we put on her new dress she ran to the mirror and said "I like pretty dress!" It is so fun to see her little vocabulary flourish.

She loves to do things as a family and if the three of us our all home together (which unfortunately is not very often) - she insists that all three of us do the same activity. If she and Daddy are playing with blocks or reading a book or dancing, within minutes she will come find me in the house and request that I join them. "Mommy play blocks. Mommy read book. Mommy dance." She especially loves family prayer time and has taken a new affection to kneeling. She now wants to kneel for every prayer and it's hard to explain to her that we don't really do that.

She still LOVES singing and is singing some kind of song most of the day. She has really loved all the holiday music and her two favorites are "Jingle Bells" (which she really loves because of the HEY! at the end) and "Caroling Caroling" (which she loves for the stanza "DING DONG DING DONG Christmas Bells are Ringing"!). She has also fallen in love with the claymation movie of "Rudolph". She asks for it every day and when we heard the Burl Ives rendition of "Rudolph" on the radio yesterday she about lept out of her car seat and begged me to play it again. How do you explain the radio to a toddler? Can't really repeat it honey cakes.

Her memory never ceases to amaze me. I left my purse at a CVS about 6 weeks ago. I noticed it was missing about 1/2 mile down the road and promptly turned around telling Emma "Mommy forgot her purse". When we returned to that same store SIX WEEKS later... Emma promptly turned to me and said, "Mommy, purse go?"

We are so excited to celebrate Christmas with her this year!! She is at such a fun age and loves opening presents for her! What a darling little angel we have in our home.