A visit with the Griswolds

Last weekend we had a great time hanging out in Chestertown with our good friends Ryan and Lindsay. We met up to go apple picking at Lockbriar Farms first.

When we arrived, we found out that there were raspberries for picking too!

It was a beautiful day, and we all had a great time!

Emma really enjoyed getting to help pick the apples,

and putting them in the basket. She also has a new word, "papples"!

We had a great time with Ryan and Lindsay walking around the college, and then eating in the new (and pretty awesome) dining hall.

Ever the music lover...

Here is another longer video of munchkin. She pulls out one of her favorite dance moves around 3 minutes in (maybe she's been watching too much of Steven Curtis Chapman...a few of you will get it!)

Also, any (free) and easy video editing suggestions would be appriciated!

Tot School: Letter A

Emma is 20 months

Read more about Tot School at 1+1+1=1

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We are down to the final weeks before our newest addition arrives, so I felt like I really needed to have a good plan about activities to do with Emma or else I'll end up just having her "play" and she will be bored in no time! This week we started doing a letter of the alphabet...A

We took a trip to the Baltimore Zoo to get the week started. Emma enjoyed seeing the animals in person SO MUCH!

Emma loves books so much, I checked out several books with 'A' themes from the library (ants, airplanes, apples). She has added airplane and apple to her quickly growing vocabulary! We also read Dr. Seuss's ABC book a number of times, focusing on the letter A. She recognizes alligators now, and will clap her hands together and say "snap, snap".

One of our activities early in the week was coloring an apple with a letter A on it...Emma loves to color!

I found these really cute coloring pages at All About Coloring!

We've also had a lot of fun using sidewalk chalk lately, now that it is a little cooler out during the day! I drew an apple and a letter A for Emma, and she really liked pointing to it and saying apple every time we went outside.

We capped off 'A' week by going apple picking over the weekend! Emma really enjoyed Lockbriar when we went for berries earlier in the summer. We had a nice surprise and found out that there were raspberries too!

But of course, we picked a number of apples. Emma was super excited, and has loved seeing the apples on our dining room table.

This week we are working on the letter B, and its been a blast! More on that next week!

A Conversation with Emma

Hardcore

Monday night was the first Ravens game of the season, broadcast on Baltimore TV, which we do not usually get in Delaware. Our friends brought over their digital antennae to see if we could get the signal up in our loft. It worked well, as long as someone held the antennae....

Then Martin walked over in a corner with a metal coat hanger and jokingly said, "what if this helps?"...perfect picture! No joke!

We ended up fixing this contraption:

Digital antennae sitting on top of a metal trash can on top of the ironing board....with a few metal coat hangers thrown in for good measure!

It worked, the Ravens squeaked one out, and if the rest of the season is like that game, they are going to send me into labor! Keep it up Ravens!

Trip to the Baltimore Zoo

On Saturday, we visited the Baltimore Zoo with Grandmom. It was a perfect day - a nice cool breeze in the morning, sunny and warm (but not too hot) for the afternoon!

Emma had a great time seeing all the animals she knows from her books! We saw ostriches,

Signing for more

Zebras!

Looking for the cheetah

Emma loved pointing out the giraffe

Little cutie!

Can you tell that these two are related?

Emma in the Oriole Bird nest!

And with Grandmom in the heron nest

The view through the giant turtle shells

Emma loved getting to ride on the train!

A real "live" choo-choo!

Looking at birds with Daddy


Emma loved petting the goats! This was a big change from a few months ago at the Delaware State Fair when she got upset if the goats (behind a fence even) looked at her!

She loved following them around, and even pulled the tail of one!

Riding the big turtle (tur-tur, right Aunt Sarah?)

And we waited until the way out to get a family picture...somehow we all look pretty good still, but we were totally exhausted! Probably Emma's favorite part was the chimp house, which we didn't get any pictures of because they were all behind glass. She loved watching the monkeys and got a very up close view of one that swung on a rope right in front of us!

Finally, some cooler weather!

I have been loving the temperatures in the 70s! It makes baking so much more enjoyable!

Although I am looking forward to when I can bake without this getting in the way (and getting covered in flour!

August Book List

I started off August by finishing the Han Solo trilogy. These books were really fun to read, especially since this last book ends right where Episode IV (A New Hope) begins. If Lucas had only let Ms. Crispin work on the dialogue for the prequels, they would have been so much better!









As part of BookSneeze, I was given a copy of this new Anne Bradstreet biography to read and review. I am still working on the review post, but I did really enjoy the book. I am not into poetry as a general rule, but a few of her poems were assigned in high school, and I have loved her ever since. I especially liked that this book gave background information about the situation for Puritans like Anne who were new to America, and that Anne was able to accomplish so much writing while taking care of her family, her many children, and often in poor health herself!





I listened to this John Grisham book on cd, which is great because I am able to do dishes, clean up, and cross-stitch while listening to the story. This was not one of my favorites by Grisham, except for the ending, which I found to be unique and perfect. One of the main characters has what I would consider to be a fairly legitimate conversion experience in the book as well, which was very interesting to read.









The Hunger Games was on the summer reading list for many schools in the area, and I really enjoyed it! Its youth fiction, so it goes by very quickly and easily. I can see this book becoming the new generation's version of Lord of the Flies or 1984. The author has woven such a compelling story that is full of political issues that are relevant today. I would not be surprised to have this assigned in a Political Science class at the collegiate level at some point too.








I got this book from the library to read to Emma (which we have done), but I ended up sitting in bed and reading the whole thing one Sunday afternoon. It was so much fun to read through all of the Curious George stories in a row and exciting that Emma is old enough now to begin to enjoy them too!









Read any good books lately??

Emma and Joshua

Emma and I had a fun day yesterday visiting with Karene and Joshua. Emma really loved seeing Joshua again...she calls him "Cha-Cha"....so cute!

Emma was very good about being gentle (for the most part) and enjoyed holding his hand and giving him kisses on his forehead.

He was so sweet and took a great nap on the couch while we chatted.

Big Girl!

Over the weekend, we got Emma's new room mostly ready for her...we just do not have her bed yet. We are hoping to go pick up the bed this week, but since we're not sure when it will actually happen, we decided to try having Emma sleep on her crib mattress on the floor in her new room.

I talked with her about her new room while we got her ready for bed and we sat with her for a few minutes, but she was so exhausted, she seemed like she just wanted to go to sleep! We covered her up and she waved goodbye as usual...and we didn't hear one peep from her! Out of curiosity, we check on her an hour later. She had flipped sides of the bed, but was sacked out, still on the mattress!

This morning, I ended up waking her up (and she has not been sleeping in this summer!) and she was still on the mattress! She seemed very excited to wake up in her new room. I got a few pictures of her cute bed head. We'll see how naptime goes, but she could end up just loving that too!