To Charleston & Back

Mommy and Eme took a trip to Charleston last weekend to visit Ms. Jen.  We have a beautiful weekend.  Felt like we were driving south to catch the last of summer.  Eme was amazing on the car ride down and back and pretty much went with the flow everywhere we went.  Of course, when she started acting up all I had to do was bribe her with a few M&Ms (bad mom!). Thanks for having us Ms. Jen.  We're definitely coming back for the food & wine festival.

Eme still continues to impress with new skills. She can now recognize most of her alphabet, all of her numbers through 9  and even spell G-O.  We're working on S-T-O-P.  She also knows that a shape with six sides is a hexagon and one with eight is an octagon.  She's also a prolific artist and is learning to cut with scissors.  She can cut a piece of paper into pieces less than 1 mm by 1 mm.  It's pretty hard to clean confetti this size out of the carpet.

She loves to read and has asked Santa to bring her a baby doll for Christmas.  She also got her hair cut today in a little bob with short bangs.  She looks like a baby doll.

Cute

Here's a picture taken at My Jonas' Pumpkin party a couple of weeks ago.  Eme spent most of her time following around My Michelle.

Lucky Little Lady

The pictures show the play house My Jonas built - it's wonderful and we've already spent quite a lot of time sliding down the slide and playing house.  She doesn't really like to share her Jonas!  You also see pictures of our cold, wet, really fun trip to the fair with Taty and Captain.  Eme is finally tall enough to ride some of the rides.  She enjoyed the fair food too.  You also see a picture of Eme playing bedtime with Daddy. She makes sure Daddy is comfortable and has everything he needs.  Then she kisses him good night and tells him to cry when she leaves and to lose something so she has to come back and find it. It's a pretty complicated game, so it's nice that she tells you exactly how to play. : )

Eme Kate has such a wonderful family, including a grandfather who will have parades with her over skype. Thank you to everyone who gives so much to our beautiful, smart little girl. Eme Kate is one lucky little lady.

Cutie Eme

Eme got her pictures taken this past weekend at JCPenny. For some reason I can't upload them on the blog, but you can see them if you visit...

https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTPP0364111876JCP
and enter Customer Name (HEATHER MONACKEY)

Summertime

Beautiful picture of Eme that pawpaw took when he visited.

My favorite picture of pawpaw and Eme

Here's Eme in her big girl bed with her sheets and YELLOW comforter.

Going down the water slide mom and dad created with a hose on the play structure Just Jonas is building. We joined the pool this year too and she had a great time playing with her friends, but she wouldn't go down the waterslide because it was too steep. She would, however, jump off the diving board - quite a work out for mom!

Eme and LuLu Hugging

Daddy and Eme steering Captain's boat.

Kai and LuLu enjoying the boat ride.

My Jonas - as Eme calls him - posing with the cousins.

At the beach. We had a fun sand cliff to play on. We built sand castles (a major change from early this year when we mostly just destroyed sand castles.)

Playing choo-choo train in the tire tracks on the beach.

Walking out to the beach on the boardwalk. There were times when we could look both ways on the beach and not see a soul. I swear Ocracoke is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

The view from our hotel room overlooking Silver Lake in Ocracoke. We had a great room and balcony. Will defintely stay there again!

Eme playing on the sand.

Feeding "the birds" on the ferry to Ocracoke

First haircut 2.5 years old and finally has enough hair for a real haircut.

In the fire engine getting her hair cut.

Playing in the rain with her cow umbrella.

Another rain picture : )

Eme Kate in her big girl bed. You'll see another picture in this post with her real bedding, complete with a yellow comforter. So far she has transitioned to a big girl bed with no problems.

Her favorite thing at the zoo - the misting tree.

Shucking some corn. We had a great garden this year. Didn't grow corn, but Eme helped grow tomatoes, beans, okra, cucumbers, watermelon, butternut and spaghetti squash, etc. She also got really good at shelling cow peas.

Getting corn silks out of her toes.

I know it has been a really long time since we posted. Sorry! We've had a great summer and Although this is no excuse, we lost the cord to one of the cameras making posting pictures a little more difficult. Alas today Jeffrey heroically found a replacement. These pictures are all out of order - for that I apologize.

Eme continues to do great. She spent her summer hanging out with Ms Cathy, her preschool teacher. She will be going to back to school on Wednesday, which I know she is excited about because adults are really no fun to play with. We have no imagination and must be told how to play.

She moved to a big girl bed. I promise to post pictures later and is potty trained for going pee-pee. She is so potty trained that I think she pee-peed in her diaper last night and sat straight up in bed and yelled that she could not find her toilet paper. It was pretty traumatic. She will not yet go poopy on the potty, but I know we are close on that one too.

My favorite saying right now "I am not big girl enough." She is a very sweet girl who has a mind of her own, but generally does everything you ask of her.

Thank you for still checking this blog even though we've posting has been erratic.

Going to the Beach

Had a blast at the beach for a week. Auntie Lauren, Uncle Kai and Lulu came too. Such fun. Seems like so long ago already!

Why Oh Why Momo

Eme Kate is now calling me Momo and Jeff Dado. Don't know where our new nicknames came from, but she asked me last night if I was her Momo.

Also, she is starting to ask why to everything.

Momo: It is time to go inside.
Eme: Why do I have to come inside?
Momo: Because it is getting close to night night.
Eme: Well, why?
Momo: Because it is getting dark outside.
Eme: But, why?
Momo: because the sun is going to light up the other side of the world.
Eme: Why?
Momo: because they need sunlight too.
Eme: Why?
Momo: Goodness gracious. Come inside right now!

Homegrown Honey, Big Boots, and Fat Lips

Eme Kate has been busy over the past couple of weeks. She has her first real crush. She LOVES Stormy the Hurricanes mascot. He's a very cute, personable pig that she met at her second hockey game. She loves him so much that she stood up on mommy's lap at the game when she saw Stormy and started waving both of her arms yelling "Stormy Over Here. Over Here Stormy."

She also got to visit Jonas out on his land when he harvested some of his honey. He got A LOT of honey and Eme is still enjoying eating it. Jonas even gave her her own jar which she regularly reminds us in NOT for mommy and daddy. We set the tent up on Jonas' land, rested and had a snack. We also went to the river house and had a lot of fun going out on Captain's boat. Eme might become a sailor yet!

We joined the local pool this year and Eme delighted everyone there today as she played in the really freezing water. She liked it so much that regardless of the fact that she couldn't stop shivering and her lips were blue, she still really wanted to stay in and was very upset when we had to leave. We're excited that it is so close and is a really great place to meet other kids that live close that might want to come over and play. It'd be a real bonus if the kids' parents were fun too.

Lastly, Eme was playing bubbles on the deck this afternoon and did a very graceful turn and then fell face first into the deck and busted her lip. You can tell in the picture that she has a fat lip. I told her that little girls who hit their lips always get to eat popsicles. For all of you who know Eme, you also know that her thinking that she gets popsicles every time she hurts herself could be a problem. She really likes food. I hope she doesn't constantly tell me she hurt her lip.

In other news, Eme is almost totally potty trained for number 1. She even tells us when she needs to go potty, which is totally amazing to me cause it happened really fast. Something funny though... when we were at the pool today (which has a very open floorplan and the noise in the bathroom carries BAD) she cheered me on when I went tee-tee in the potty and told me good job, mommy! Maybe it is time for a little less celebration each time she tinkles in the potty? Now, if she were to go number 2 in the potty, I think I'd bake her a cake!

We'll be heading to the beach for a week this coming Friday. Yeah! Can't wait!

Playing and Crashing

Harassing the baby when she is sleeping.

Almost ready to go to sleep. She has so many things in her bed these days I'm not sure how she fits. The inventory include a cow flashlight, grover, a mutmey the monkey, a baby doll, a cloth book, clifford the big red dog, pat the bunny, a little lift the flap book and a water bottle. She also insists on being covered up by three blankets regardless of the temperature. If one of these things is out of wack, then no sleeping can occur.

Poised to go down the slide - again. The slide has been so well used this week that there is a bare spot where the grass/weed combination that covers our backyard has been worn down to exposed dirt.

Eme going wee. Eme also makes sticker, pieces of paper, her baby doll, her stuffed monkey, onions she picks in the yard, leaves, the ball and mommy and daddy all go wee.

It's official we surpassed the 100x down the slide mark. The playground has been up for about a week and it has already been well used! You can see by the pictures that we've been having lots of fun on it. She is also convinced that the slide was MEANT for her because it is her favorite color - Yellow!

Eme is starting to repeat some really funny things that I thought I would share.

This morning when Jeff put her socks on her so she was ready to go play outside, she quipped - "Rock On." When mommy was driving her to Taty's yesterday morning she exclaimed to the car in front of us at the stop sign "Move Dude." And, earlier this week when we asked her if she was happy, she replied "I'm Walking on Air." Not quite sure where she came up with these (except for the Move Dude). She also says funny things regularly like when she doesn't like something she says "Eme Can't Like That."