Fun Friday

Today we went to Art Quest ...one of Emily's FAVORITE places!

And So It Begins...

Anyone that knows Emily knows that she LOVES to talk!  She talks from the time she wakes up until it's time for bed.  Jeff says it's all one giant run-on sentence.

Last week she made and received her first phone call from a friend.  She and a friend at school exchanged numbers.  She was so cute having her little conversation.  Again...she's growing up so fast!!!

Fun Friday

I decided the first week of school that every Friday would be "Fun Friday" and we would do something fun after school.  

The first week we baked cookies following a recipe from one of her library books.

The second week we went to get frozen yogurt.  Sorry, no pictures:(


The third week we went to the Science Center.

This Friday we went to McDonald's for a snack and playground time.  Emily has been asking to go to McDonald's because we hardly ever go!

We love Fun Friday!!!!!

Labor Day Weekend

We were so happy to have three "stay-at-home" days with Emily after her first week of school!

We woke up in the daylight which was fabulous!!!!  We went to a local park and played on the playground, road the merry-go-round, the train and went on a boat ride. The next day we went to a jumping place with friends and we got special treats both place.  I didn't take many pictures but here are a few.

  

School Lunch

Emily's teachers requested that we wait a few weeks before coming for lunch to allow the children to get used to all the routines and procedures.  Today was the first day I was able to come and eat lunch with her.  Emily usually brings her lunch box to school but today I stopped and picked us up something and brought it to school.  It was fun to see her in her school environment.  This is a picture I snapped of Emily and her little friend that she talks about all the time.  I had a lot of fun and plan to come and have lunch with her every few weeks.  She is such a big girl!

The Week Before School

The week before school started was busy.  It was a mix between good and bad.  We came back from Tweetsie on Saturday night.  

Sunday: church

Monday: Kindergarten tea at school.  Then we went to the grocery store.  As we were getting out of the car, Emily was stung by a yellow jacket.  We got right back in the car and hurried home.  I had a crying girl in a lot of pain.  It stung her left pinkie finger.  After Benadryl, tylenol, a boo-boo pack, a mixture of baking soda and water, freezy pops and lots of snuggle time on the couch watching TV, Emily began to feel better.  Yellow jacket stings HURT!  The worst part was what was planned for Tuesday.

Tuesday:  5 year old check up.  All was fine but she had to have her kindergarten shots.  4 shots and the flu mist.  Bless her heart!  A yellow jacket sting and 4 shots in 24 hours:(  She cried a lot and said it hurt more than she thought but not as much as the yellow jacket sting.
Next we went to Panera for lunch.  Then we had to stop at the store for some Tylenol.  She was hurting a lot.  Next she got to choose a fun place to go as a reward for making it through the shots.  She had been saying for a month that she wanted to go the the Children's Museum.  We stayed for about 4 hours.  Lots of fun!

Wednesday: A park play date and a picnic lunch.  

Thursday:  A play date in the morning with a friend at our house.  Then another friend came over to play in the afternoon.  Open house at school.

Friday:  Another morning play date at our house in the morning (same one as yesterday morning.  She came to hang out with us Thursday and Friday morning while her mom went to work.)  Then off to the water park for the last time this year.  Open house at church.

Saturday:  Lunch out as a family and then bowling.  This was Emily's first time bowling.  We had a lot of fun!

She really liked watching for the ball to come back through the ball return:)

We played two games and in both games Jeff was #1,  Emily was #2 and I was last place both times.  Jeff did suggest that I use the bumpers and the ball roller like Emily.  Maybe then I would have had a chance:).  It's sad but true!  Notice Emily's strike!

Sunday: Emily moved to her new kindergarten class at church!

It was a fun and busy week before our new kindergarten adventure!

Good Bye Water Park

Emily has loved the water park this summer.  She would have gone every day if I would have taken her. Sometimes it was just us and sometimes we met friends there but we always had fun. We usually went about twice a week.  She is turning into my little water bug.  Bye-bye water park.  See you next summer!

My Lunch Date

Emily and I have enjoyed going out to lunch together about once a week. Her favorite place to eat is Panera. This is one of our last lunches out together before kindergarten began.  We will have less of these lunch dates now that school has started but I know there are still many Panera lunch dates to be had!  Soon I will be able to go have lunch with her at school.  I can't wait!

Our Tweetsie Trip

On August 17th we headed to the mountains with some friends for a weekend getaway.  We left Friday morning and drove to Boone.  We spent some time at Mast General Store and then had lunch.  We rented a log cabin with some friends for the night.  It was really cute.  Much better than a hotel.  We wanted to be able to hang out after the girl went to sleep.  

We got settled and then headed to Tweetsie until it closed.  If you go after 3pm (they close at 6) you can go the next day without buying another ticket.  It was great.  We got to do some things with no lines and then we came up with a plan for the next day.  We headed back home Saturday evening after dinner.

The first thing we did was ride the train.  It is a real coal-fired steam engine train.  

The train has a Cowboy and Indian Show!

Emily LOVED playing in the jail.

Friday night and Saturday we were able to ride a lot of rides.  

The Tweetsie Twister was Emily's favorite.  It makes me and Jeff dizzy.  Erin was more than willing to ride it with Emily so we let her do it.  We would have done it but it was nice not to have to do it:)  They rode it MANY times!

Most of the time Erin rode it with both girls but the first time she rode with Emily and Eric rode with Taylor.  Taylor was so little most of the time you couldn't even see her on the ride:)

I don't like heights.  However, I will ride roller coasters all day long.  They don't bother me because I am strapped in well and they go so fast I don't have time to think about how high up I am.  I do NOT do well on rides that are up high and go slow.  Emily wanted me to ride the Ferris Wheel with her.  Ferris Wheels are not my favorite.  I don't mind them when they are moving but I hate how much they stop at the top.  I did ride it with her.  She was so sweet.  She said, "mommy just squeeze my hand if you're scared."  Then she kept saying, "are you okay honey?"  So precious!

I was the only one who road the free fall ride. It was great...

but the chair lift scared me to death!!!!!  I rode it four times.  It goes up really high and it goes really slow and the little bar doesn't lock!  I hated this thing!  Going up was worse than going down.  It was the only way to go up to the top of the park without getting separated from your group.  You could walk or take a bus but it took much longer.  Look at Emily and Jeff at the end of their chair lift ride.  They weren't bothered at all by it:)  

We also panned for gold and gems.

We visited the petting zoo.

We went to a few shows.  Here are the girls clogging.

We had a wonderful trip.  This was the first trip to Tweetsie Railroad for all of us.  It was a really nice theme park.  Very low stress, not too crowded and really pretty!  The weather was so nice too!  The girls had a blast!  I'm sure we'll be back again!