2.5-year-old Emma

I haven't posted an update on Emma in a while, so here are some things about Emma who turned 2.5 earlier this month.

One of my very favorite new things that Emma does is sing primary songs spontaneously - in the car, at home when she's playing, whenever. Her favorite songs are "Families Can Be Together Forever" (aka "family song"), "I Love to See the Temple" (aka "temple song"), and "Follow the Prophet" (aka "prophet song"), although she also likes singing a lot of other songs with us like "I Am a Child of God," "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus," "I Want to be a Missionary," and "Book of Mormon Stories." She enjoys the more interactive ones, too, like "Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam," "Once There Was a Snowman," and "Popcorn Popping." A non-church song she likes is Winnie the Pooh's "Little Black Rain Cloud." In short, she really likes songs and enjoys singing which is adorable.


Emma often exerts her desire to be independent. For the past few months she has insisted on climbing into the car and into her car seat by herself (occasionally needing a hand when climbing in). If she can open something herself (e.g. a door, a snack) she has to do it (or else she will cry), and if she can't do it herself she has to be the one to get to it first so she can try and then ask us to do it.


She is a big fan of watching movies and will sit through a whole movie which I'm sort of glad for with baby coming due. Her favorite movie is probably Frozen although she is easily convinced to choose something else. I love hearing her laugh at funny parts in movies - her laugh comes out so freely, I just love it.


Playing is taking priority over eating in her mind which is not a very fun change. She's still a pretty good eater but does best when we eat together and have the same food. She can pretty well manage drinking from an open cup, but we still have her use sippy cups most of the time.


Her vocabulary has grown some and she speaks clearly most of the time. Some of her new most-used phrases include "I want it," "need help," and "MY do it."


Going outside is still one of her very favorite things. She loves when her daddy takes her for a walk (and so do I) and lets her go down the slides nearby and sit on benches and do hopscotch.


Three weeks ago she climbed out of her bed for the first time. She only did so a couple times that week, but has been climbing out more regularly after she's done sleeping in the morning or done napping. It only took one or two times of her climbing out just after we had put her down and us putting her straight back in bed to realize she couldn't just get out whenever she wanted. So for now she's still in a crib but we may very well convert her bed into a toddler bed within the next month or so. She naps well most days, although she occasionally has days she doesn't nap. Sometimes several days in a row she won't sleep during nap time, and then she will sleep during nap time for a few days. When she gets up from bed she makes sure to grab her Pooh bears and climbs out of bed with them in her arms. She turns off her white noise and grabs her puppy so she has her puppy and Pooh bears then makes her way out of her room and comes to find me. If I'm in bed still she comes into my room and says "go downstaaaaaairs!" (with a cute inflection) and if I take a while to get up she tells me "get up! Get UP! Go downstairs!"


Emma's counting skills have improved and she does pretty well counting items when there are 10 or fewer, although she still often double-counts or skips some. She also sometimes like counting things like this: "one two three thirteen seventeen eighteen!" In terms of colors, she still seems to be [what I call] reverse-colorblind and gets colors most of the time but mixes up black, white and grey.


Emma seems as excited as she can be about Baby Brother coming next month and we believe she'll be a great Big Sister, but his arrival will certainly come with a long transition for all of us.

Anderson visit

My parents came for a visit and it was wonderful. We are so glad we got to have them for a week. They drove up their truck filled with most of the stuff from my old room at their house.

Here are some pictures of what we did while they were here.

My mom free-handed whales and waves on a wall of the baby's room.

The crib will be moved to the whales wall.
We put up the sail boat canvases.

They helped get this stuff set up, also in baby's room.

We worked together to build this wardrobe bought at IKEA for the bonus room. (It's not crooked - it's just the angle of the photo.) 

My dad got our temple stained glass from my uncle hung for me which is great.
It's nice to have it up again rather than lying in my closet.

This IKEA cabinet my parents set up in the dining room. It's pretty. :)

New DVD racks that my dad got on the wall.

Added a shelf and hung a picture.

My mom improved the chair rail by removing what turned out to be several layers of paint (including a layer of avocado green?!?), greatly improving the detail of the rail, and repainted it. 

They bought and put together this organizer for our garage.
My old stuff is on it until I get around to sorting it.

5 YEARS!

Earlier this month Bry and I celebrated our 5-year anniversary. On the day of our anniversary (Friday the 16th) we ate out at a local restaurant that we hadn't tried before.

The day after our anniversary we got a babysitter to watch Emma while we went to see Wonder Woman which was pretty great. 

This past Monday, the 26th, we went with my parents who are visiting to the Space Needle and had joint-anniversary lunch at Sky City Restaurant. I was the only one who had eaten there before (thanks, Becca!), although it had been 9 years for me so I didn't have a really clear memory of it. It was beautiful eating up there and Emma got to go up the Space Needle for the first time since I had gone up after we moved here (with Bry and then a couple months later with my family) but not gone back up since.

Smiling over at Papa and holding her cup of apple juice.

 Clam chowder. Crab melt, tomato salad and quinoa.

Emma liked being at the top of the Space Needle.

Memorial Day Weekend

On Saturday we mostly took it easy but did spend some time doing yard work since the weather was clear. Bry did a lot, I did a little, and Emma mostly insisted we actually go for a walk rather than stay in the front yard. Ha. Sunday we enjoyed our time at church and time together. Monday we got outside and went to Kanaskat-Palmer State Park which was beautiful. Emma loved going for a walk/almost-hike that went along near a river (which sounded like "biver" when she said it). So grateful for good weather - although I was fine it cooled back down within a couple days. Extremely grateful we could have an extra day together as a family and grateful for those who give up so many days with their families to serve the country. 

CA Trip - April 2017

This is much belated. I thought I had posted about my trip to California last month but evidently I did not. Behold a random assortment of photos.

Since I arrived the week of Easter the cousins did a belated Easter egg hunt together. Emma picked up what to do pretty quickly and was soon practically a pro at finding the eggs and just getting the green ones.

While I was there we made a trip to the Oakland Zoo. Here are the cute girl cousins petting a little goat.

I thought she'd be better on the carousel than the first time she went on... apparently not. She seemed to enjoy it even though she clung on to me the entire time. Note that I did not even put her on a moving animal.

Nap-time sometime while we were there. This isn't how she usually sleeps but I found it rather amusing how tangled up she was in blankets.

We enjoyed a visit to see Sean and Renata. I think this was after we had crossed a street; Uncle Sean held her hand to cross and then she didn't let go after getting to the sidewalk. =) So sweet.

Hanging out on the couch snacking because why not?

I was happy to see greenery returned to the area. 

Sophiiiiieee

"RUN-NING!" in Emma's words.

Funny kids

Visiting Emma's great-grandma is always nice. Aiden was being a dork for pictures but was also being helpful sitting there so Emma could join in pictures.

Thank you to Becca for letting Emma and I stay at your house and for taking many of the photos I posted above. =)

Zoo trip just Emma and mommy

Our membership to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium is going to expire soon so I decided to take Emma while I still can. Emma did a super great job for the car ride and while we were there. It helped that it wasn't too busy (otherwise she would have run into more people - at one point she walked right into a large man who noticed her just in time and thankfully didn't fall on her). She let me push her in the stroller for a while and did was thrilled when I let her walk. She loved seeing the zoo animals.

Red wolves are so cute and they were probably the most active animal we saw. Many of the animals were sleepy.

Arctic foxes might just be my favorite animal on the planet. They're SO FLUFFY. They were napping when we first went to them so we went back before leaving.

Beautiful tigers.

This cute little otter was rolling in the hay when I came upon the exhibit.

Three snuggly porcupines.

Jellyfiiiiiish.

They got up! Alternatively.