Emily loves Christmas, as most children do. After New Years we pack up all our holiday stuff including books and videos until after Thanksgiving the next year. I feel like it makes it more special to put it out of sight. This summer Emily had been begging to read her Christmas books, watch Christmas videos and listen to Christmas music. I gave in and decided to have Christmas in July just for 4 days.
We brought out Christmas stickers, books, videos, music, plates and some clothes (no decorations). Emily had a blast! Look how well she wrote Christmas and drew a Christmas tree.
Reading Christmas books.
Crafts
We also made Christmas cookies. Yum!
It was very strange riding to the water park and swim lessons with Christmas music playing but we had so much fun!!! I think this is going to be a tradition from now on.
Just so I don't forget these "fun" moments, I am going to blog about one from today.
Today was the first day of VBS. I picked Emily up and she told me about her morning. We went to visit Jeff and then headed home for lunch and the water park. We stopped to talk to a friend of mine on the way out. Emily interrupted while we were talking and I asked her to wait a minute for her turn. Well, she said she would forget what she wanted to say and she fell down on the floor to throw a fit. This continued along with a bad attitude. I reminded her that we would not go to the water park if she continued to behave that way. Well, the attitude got worse on the way to the car so I told her we were not going to the water park. Well then she fell apart. Crying. "It's going to rain tomorrow. This is our last chance to go to the water park. If we don't go today we will NEVER go". On the way home I mentioned that we were out of mini bagels. This is her favorite bread for sandwiches. I asked her if she wanted to stop on the way home to get some. She cried and said "no, I will eat the bread we have at home". When we got home she refused to get out of the car. I asked her to come in and close the car door when she was ready. I walked toward the house. She followed me but the car door was still open. I asked her to go back and close it. She cried and yelled "no". I told her to go to her room and I went to close the door. Then she cried more because, "The thing I wanted the most was to close the door." Then she cried for about 40 minutes because we didn't stop for bagels. Finally, once she ate some food she became a sweet, happy girl again! I guess she was hungry! Holy cow!!!!! Such drama. These moments are so frustrating and funny and cute all at the same time.
God help us when she is a teenager!!!!!!
Emily took her second successful shower tonight. She tried a "stand up bath" when she was 3 and she hated it. She didn't want to get any water in her eyes. She kept saying that when she was a grown up she would take a stand up bath but not until then. We told her she might change her mind when she was a little bit older. She didn't seem convinced.
Emily has been doing so well swimming and at the water park this summer that Jeff kept asking her if she wanted to try a shower again. She agreed but she wasn't happy about it. Well, she ended up LOVING it. She giggles and says it is relaxing when the water hits her back. Two night in a row! We'll see if it continues. The first night she kept saying how big she was standing in the shower. "Am I as big as you mommy?"
Emily's picture made it on a brochure for the organization where she takes swim lessons. Pretty cool!
We started off the day before with some red, white and blue nails.
On the fourth we did some 4th of July art projects and got ready for a cookout with some friends. Here we are all ready to go.
So we show up for our cookout wearing our red, white and blue. We have our watermelon stars to share, drinks, lawn chairs etc. We are ready to go and it turns out the cookout was on Saturday...we were 3 days early!!! It was so funny. I was unable to open the attachment of the email about the cookout. I emailed to ask the time and discuss what we needed to bring. However, I forgot to make sure the cookout was actually on the 4th. After we laughed and visited for a minute we were off to find a new 4th of July plan.
We ended up going out to dinner and then to some local fireworks.
Here are Emily and Jeff enjoying the music before the fireworks.
We had lots of fun even though it wasn't what we had planned.
The 4th of July cookout- TAKE TWO! Look, there are other people here this time.
Emily cheered for the fireworks!
We enjoyed our two nights of celebration and fireworks and now we have a funny story we will tell for years to come!
Back in May, I had a girls day and night out with some friends. We went shopping (although no one bought anything), went to lunch, went to see Wicked, and then went to dinner. We had a fabulous time and Wicked was fantastic!
Notice that we were photo bombed. See the guy smiling for the picture behind us...hilarious!
Emily and Jeff managed to have some fun too. He sent me these pics throughout the day.
Every night Emily gets to pick out her own pajamas and she gets herself dressed. However, most mornings, I pick out her clothes and help her get dressed. I want her to be confident with dressing herself but we are usually very rushed in the morning so I am more involved in the morning than in the evening. I will admit that I also like having control over her outfits and she never argues so it works out well.
For the last few weeks we have had no camps and very little scheduled. We sleep late(r), stay in our pajamas as long as we want, and go to the water park A LOT. I have been using this time to allow Emily to pick out her own clothes and get herself dressed on her own. This is her coming to show me her outfit choice for the day. She is so proud of herself!!! I may let her start picking out her own clothes the night before. So far she has chosen very cute clothes combinations, however, I do reserve the right to veto really crazy outfits that don't match....for as long as I can!
Jeff was asked to take a UNCG opera, Pirates Of Penzance, to Manteo, NC. He was the technical director for the show in Manteo. We were able to tag along and turn his job into to a family vacation. Jeff was working in the evenings and had a few days where he was working all day but we were able to do a lot of fun things with him too. Emily and I had fun on our own when he was busy.
The day we arrived it was a bit chilly in the evening so Emily had on her rain jacket, the only jacket I had packed.
This was such a great opportunity for Emily to be around wonderful musical and dramatic talent. How many four year old kids get to do stuff like this? Here she is watching the dress rehearsal in the outdoor venue. She is "conducting" the orchestra.
Emily and I drove to Nags Head to go to the beach two days and Jeff joined us one day. Emily had a great time. She called going to the ocean going to the "beach, beach" because we were at the beach our whole trip but going to the ocean was the real "beach, beach"!
We spent a lot of time in downtown Manteo. It is such a cute area.
Here is the ice cream shop we ate at almost every day.
They had a cafe downtown that Emily discovered her love for root beer. We also found a great cupcake store that was featured in the TV show "Cupcake Wars" called Carolina Cupcakes. They had a fabulous playground overlooking the water that we played on at night.
If you haven't caught on by now, we did a lot of eating on this trip. Here is one of Emily's favorite places we ate. It was called Big Al's and it was a coke memorabilia inspired place with an old fashioned soda fountain. They had several dance floors and if you danced you got a sticker. Emily was all over that. She also loved the hush puppies.
Here she is in the big chair outside of Big Al's on the second night she requested to eat here. She got a round sticker for dancing this time:)
They had a children's show of the Pirates of Penzance each morning in the indoor theater. One morning we took Emily. She loved seeing all the people she met on stage. The kids got to go on stage at intermission and help change the scenery.
Then we went on pirate boat. They put "tattoos" on the kids and take them to a pirate boat for an hour and a half pirate adventure. It was so cool. When we arrived they had Emily's name tag ready for her to wear. They named her Eagle Eye Emily!
Emily's pirate tattoos. Nemo and Ariel.
The Boat...
They did a great job walking the kids to the boat keeping them entertained and safe.
The best part was the parents got to sit and enjoy the boat ride while they kept the kids entertained in the front of the boat. It was fantastic!
Looking at the treasure map.
There were mean pirates in other boats looking for the treasure.
They had to spray the water cannons at them.
Finally they found the treasure!
Eagle Eye Emily getting her share of the treasure.
Then they put on some "drinking music".
Maybe they gave them too much to drink.
Group photo time.
What a fun adventure!
Emily was asked to be in the cast photo for the opera. They took the picture in full costume on the Elizabeth II. Here is the boat.
Here is one of the cast photos. Can you find Emily and Jeff?
A close up view...
Emily with two of her favorite cast members.
This is "Ruth" the only girl pirate in the show. Emily LOVED her!
It was a terrific trip!
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