On the Go

Emma and Mommy have been on the go for the past week and a half.  Unfortunately, we have not stopped to take many pictures during all of our experiences.  Here are some highlights from our first week together.

Emma loves to visit the Children's Museum.  Her favorite exhibit has a stuffed dog that goes into a dog house.  She also loves the Dora the explorer exhibit where she can go down the rocket ship slide and power a car with nuts that she collects in a basket.  This week was summer sensory at the explore station.  Emma enjoyed playing the the sand and picking up the fake bugs on the grass.

Emma getting ready for story time at the Maplewood Library

Almost every day Emma and Mommy go swimming at the community center.  Emma loves playing with the floating balls and jumping off the side of the pool.  She has just started to kick her legs and swish her arms through the water. 

Besides fun at the pool, Emma and Mommy designed a waterslide for Emma's bath toys.  We hooked up the hose outside to a plastic gutter.  Emma loves sliding her toys down the slope.  At the end of each trip down, she claps for the participant.  Froggy and Beaver are definitely favorites for waterslide fun.

Even though water is one of Emma's favorite activities, she does like to do an art project here and there.  We made a fruit loop rainbow and used yogurt for finger painting.  We also tried to make flowers from Q-tips and clay but that didn't work out so well.  We just ended up playing pick up the Q-tips instead.

 Emma fingerpainting

Over the weekend, we did lots of things with Daddy like visit the Manitou Days Parade and watch Shakespeare in the Park at the Lake Harriet Rose Garden.  Unfortunately this year, we did not make it through the entire play.  Emma decided that she wanted to be part of the cast this year and convinced some of the members to let her join.  They gave her some shakers to create some additional suspense, however, Mommy was unsure that the suspense was coming at the right time.  Mommy was excited that Emma got to participate but then became a bit worried when Emma decided to show off her musical talents to lots of audience members.  Needless to say, Emma got a little too restless about halfway through the show, so we decided to take a walk around the lake instead.  There were so many people out because it was one of the first nice days this summer. 

Round and Round

Emma is learning how fun it is to spin around and around, whether it be standing or even sitting!

I'm Walking

Over the past week, Emma has learned how to walk on her own.  Currently, she can make it across the living room before she tips forward onto her hands.  One of Mommy's favorite moments from the week was watching Emma take out Daddy's socks from the clean drawer and put them in the dirty clothes bin (at least she knows where they should go once they are used).  Mommy thought that she would only have enough energy to do one or two socks, but Emma had a master plan to empty the entire drawer.  As soon as Mommy was onto the scheme, Emma was quickly whisked away to an alternative activity.  Mommy has no need to do even more laundry than she already does.

Another favorite moment was watching Emma dig for her tennis shoes in her cubby and then bring them over to Mommy because she wanted to go outside.  Emma loves being outdoors.  Throwing and chasing after her colored balls is one of her favorite outdoor activities (thank you Grandma and Grandpa Maas).

One final memorable event from the week occurred at the supermarket.  While Emma and Mommy were in the checkout line, Emma was holding Mommy's coupon book.  She accidentally dropped the book onto the floor and let out a big "Uhhh, Ohhh."

The Children's Museum

Emma, Mom, and Dad spent the morning at the Children's Museum in downtown St. Paul. Emma spent most of her time with the big kids in the blue foam room and the water room, along with a side adventure into a factory. Finally we went all the way upstairs to the small kids area, where Emma thrashed about in a wetland until we had to leave so we didn't get a parking ticket.

Takin' a break in the cattails

My first bike ride

It wad really chilly outside, but Emma loved all of the sights and sounds. She snoozed most of the way.

Emma still loves Alli

What could be more fun than teasing Alli with Blue?

Another Weekend of Fun

We had another fun-filled, exhausting weekend.  Mommy and Emma went to the school carnival on Friday evening.  Emma had a blast meeting all of Mommy's former students as well as lots of babies who also were attending the fair.  She loved watching kids pull turtles from the "Turtle Pond."  With her cute smile and arms stretched out she was definitely one of the hit attractions at the carnival.

On Saturday, Mommy and Emma met up with Carolyn, Yeng and Sofie.  Emma made her first visit to the History Center.  Once again, we received the attention of just about anyone that passed by.  Emma's favorite exhibit had to do with farming in the Midwest.  She loved looking at all the fake little chicks and asked to go back to their window many times.  She also loved listening to the live music played as part of a Civil War reenactment scene.  Although Emma found it hard to keep still, we learned about how women helped in the war effort and even had a lesson in how they took photographs long ago.

Emma's latest facial expression is one that Mommy remembers doing when she was little.  It looks like "O mouth" is back for another generation.