Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

OK, I have no idea how to format pictures but oh well! Em and I have had a crazy few weeks and are finally settling back down into a routine. My girlfriends came from Texas a few weeks ago on their way to Hilton Head for Thanksgiving. Over a bottle of wine on their second night here in Atlanta it was decided they would hi-jack Emma and I and take us there as well for some R&R. It was just what we needed. I couldn't have asked for a better time and love them both dearly for showing us the best time ever and treating us like gold! We played, went to the beach, turned Em into a fairy princess and taught her how to eat out in a restaurant since that is all we did. :):) Emma and I headed back home the Wed. before Thanksgiving. The trip was going great until we hit a stop. There had been an accident and it took us 2 hours to get through it. Em was such a trooper..telling me she had to poop for the last hour of our road block but holding it like a big girl the whole time! We finally got home after 7 1/2 hours and met her daddy back at our house and he took her for the holiday while I unpacked and re-packed to fly out the next morning to spend Thanksgiving with my mom. Flying on Thanksgiving was a breeze and since I was flying on a buddy pass from my brother... I even got upgraded to first class which was Fab! Had a great visit with mom and Pop and finally ended up home on Monday after having to reschedule my Sunday flight due to all the bad weather here in Atlanta. It was a total on the go 2 weeks but I couldn't have asked for much more. The look in Em's eyes when I picked her up from school on that Monday said it all after us being apart for 5 days....

Not much new with us

I really haven't updated this thing because well quite frankly, our lives just aren't that exciting! I experienced a lay off from my new job over a month ago and since then have been trying to find something new and enjoying every minute that I can with Emma. She is still in school a few days a week to keep her used to her routine and to her friends and teachers but we have been having a really great time. Lucky for us it coincided with our friends maternity leave so we have had lots of play dates and have kept really busy. Thankfully I have tremendous family support from my family as well as Scott's so that coupled with the fabulous unemployment benefits that I receive are keeping us afloat. It is my goal to find something closer to where we live. Lets face it, in this housing market we are unlikely to sell anytime soon and after commuting downtown for the past 8 years it will be a welcome change. That being said, there aren't a tremendous amount of jobs out there with this economy so we'll just have to see what materializes. I'm glad Obama won the presidency! Sorry Jody! I hope that he can make some changes, it was an amazing election.

As far as Ms. Emma she is doing great, no real new milestones for her. She just continues to grow into this cool little girl. She has the most amazing memory of any little kid I've seen and loves to learn. With minimal help from me she can count to 30 and she is trying to learn the days of the week. She has most of her books memorized and we play on this reading website and she is starting so sing the phonetics song's that they use which is no surprise because she sings songs all of the time. She gets that from both mom and dad I think! I don't try and force any of this on her, she asks to do it and it is fun to watch her mind soak it all up. She has a great imagination and is very independent but at the same time she is this sweet little snuggle bug that loves to give out hugs and kisses that will melt your heart! Emma...you are also BOSSY but you crack me up because you still use manners and always say please when you are doing it. Her new favorite show is Superwhy which is what she is dancing to in the video. They have this "hip hip hooray" song at the end of the show and she likes to get down with it. It is a great cartoon by the way on PBS that also focuses on teaching reading.

People keep telling me that Emma looks more and more like me, she was a spitting image of her daddy when she was born. This turn of events of course makes me happy. :-) I am glad that I have her so much of the time, as in like 99% of the time, because she needs a good influence at such a crucial age.

I'm ready for Thanksgiving to be over, not a fan of that holiday and I'm ready to move on to Christmas. I cannot wait to see Em's reactions to it all this year. My best friend is coming from Texas tomorrow and we are going to try and get the house ready for the so that it will be magical for Emma. I can't wait.

I told you our lives were boring...peace out. :-)

My MEME

I was tagged by friend Melissa to do this MEME thing. The idea is to write six things about yourself and then "tag" 6 more people to do the same. I think almost every one I know with a blog may have already done one so I don't know who I'll tag...the buck may just stop here but oh well. I don't know how exciting this will be but here goes.

1. I never thought that I wanted children until my nephew was born. I was in the delivery room for the entire birth, and god bless my SIL because she did it all naturally. (Pass the drugs to this girl please and thank you.) Anyhow..it was just such an amazing moment for me at that stage in my life and I fell so in love with that little boy and I just knew that I wanted to be a mommy one day. I really hope to have another baby one day but if I don't I am so so so content with the fact that I was given the chance to be a mom and that someone needs me as much as I need them. Emma has forever changed my life as all you mom's reading this can relate to.

2. I am very scared of the dark. (yes mom...still!!) I sleep with the t.v. on every night and if I am in bad weather I immediately start searching for any means of fire to keep the room lit with candles or lanterns and flashlights or all of the above. Like the power could go off in my office for example and if I am in sudden pitch black dark I will have a panic attack until someone can find a light source.

3. I used to swim and dive competitively and one year I made it all the way to the state championship in diving. It was held in Millidgeville, Ga and I think I was around 11 years old...that was a long time ago so I really can't remember. I do remember feeling so good about myself for making it there. I was a very competitive person when it came to sports so I was so excited. I didn't do that great, I think I came in sixth place. I remember that before I went to do my first dive I went out to "test" the diving board and you cannot do this in a state competition so I came to find out. Ooops. But it is still a great memory that sticks with me to this day.

4. I am fiercely loyal to my family and friends. My family means the world to me and my friends are amazing. It makes me happy that I am still such good friends with people I have known from the 3d grade, from middle school etc. I'm thankful for the new friendships I have made as well. So if you consider me to be a friend..I've got news for you, your stuck with me.

5. I would love to write Children's books and I think I would be good at it.

6. I love word games, word puzzles, crosswords, the jumble...if I don't make it on to the Wheel of Fortune one day I will simply be crushed. Words just make sense to me. I often wonder how I ended up working in accounting because I have to be honest...I suck at math. So go figure right?

This will be short and sweet. Emma loves her "moon and star" pajama's and of course for some reason at the end out of nowhere she wants to do a somersault. Where did that come from? HA! She is the funniest little girl!

September Happenings

Yes, here is is October 5th and I haven't even finished catching up on September yet! Lets see..on September 12th Emma finally got her first haircut. We took her to Pigtails and Crewcuts and it is the cutest little children's salon. Emma did great. When it was all said and done you could hardly tell she even had a haircut but I still thought it was cute just as well. Emma was also chosen to be the Student of the week at her school. I just love her daycare and they are so great about making the kids feel special. I will be so sad if I ever have to move her from this center even though I have thought about doing it so that we can spend more time together, even if it is in the car. For right now I'm pretty content with just leaving her. Finding a daycare that you trust implicitly can be tough so I figure I shouldn't mess with something that is working so well.
On September 22nd our good friend Kiersten welcomed a new addition to her family, 10lb 3oz precious baby girl Allison! She is an adorable bundle of joy and I could not be happier for her and for her family. Emma and I went to visit and of course Emma loved the new baby as well as hanging with her pal Elliott. It is so fun to watch our kids grow up. Emma turned 2.5 on the 25th and I still can't believe she is on her way to 3 years old!
I cannot believe it is October already, where does the time go? We are starting to get ready for Halloween and Emma seems very excited about it. I still have no idea what she is going to be this year?? I probably need to get on this little task. Emma's Grandma and Grandpa Mac, my dad and step mom, will be coming into town that day and we are having some friends over so it should be a very fun Halloween. I am looking forward to it.
Oh, and Emma has taken a liking to Football............her daddy is so proud!! Seriously, we were at a birthday party yesterday for sweet little Kate and there was football on in the other room. Out of the blue Emma says "Come on Mama, lets go watch some football" It was too funny. We had a great time at the birthday party, hat's off to you Lolo for an excellent party, and I couldn't help thinking back to when Emma turned one..it seems so long ago.

Wow, well I have no excuse. Well yes I do. Our lives our crazy. But we are doing really well for the most part. Emma just got over having strep throat. It is so hard to see your baby so sick but luckily she bounced back really quickly. So much has been going on. I started a new job 3 weeks ago. I am working for a restaurant group in Midtown and I love it. They own Restaurant Eugene, the Holeman and Finch Public house and they just opened a bakery called the H&F Bread Company. I am doing accounting for them with an old co-worker of mine from when I used to work for a catering company doing the same thing. It has been a breath of fresh air. My old job was just about to ruin me so it was great to get out of there and realize that I still have a brain. It is still a commute but I love my new schedule. I work 8-5 M-Th and work a half day on Friday's which means no more Friday traffic. Whoo hoo! And more time to spend with Emma over the weekends. It was a fresh start that I definitley needed!

Emma is just crazy ol Emma. We finally got her first haircut last friday which was a lot of fun. You can't really even tell but they cleaned it up and it was fun to do and have our "first" haircut together. Unfortunately we missed 3 weeks of swim lessons between bad traffic, Labor day and then a lightening storm but we finally made it back this past Monday. She walked right down the steps of the pool and just started "swimming" I think she did it for about 10 seconds or so before she realized she was doing it on her own and then sunk. Hopefully we are on to something. We may do it one more month after this and then take a break for a while. With the Holiday's coming up etc. it will just be too much. I'm not sure how the Holiday's will work for us this year. I'm pretty much just ready for it to stay September forever. I have some rough months coming up ahead but I know that I'll get through them.

It seems like I always think of so many things to write and talk about with Emma etc. but when you wait too long to mention them it gets tough. I will let that be a reminder to myself to update this thing more. :)

AHOY!!!!!!!!!! Emma loves the Backyardigan's these days and that is from one of the episodes. And as you can see the kid is fearless. She just came back from a weekend with daddy and I swear kids can change in two days. Since she left she started making this scrunchy face I have never seen before and it seems like her hair got longer. Emma has been a sweetheart lately compared to what we were going through. I'd like to think the terrible twos were already over but I'm not that dumb. :) One can hope right?

Em loves the moon these days. We can still see it in the morning when we are going to school and she likes to try and find it in the sky the whole way there. My mom always sang this song to us..."I see the moon and the moon sees me and the moon sees somebody I want to see. God bless the moon and god bless me and god bless the somebody I want to see" so I started singing it to Emma and now every day she says "Sing the moon song Mama" It is pretty sweet.

We are back at round two of swim lessons with Ms. Amy and all is going well so far. We will probably do it for at least two more months and then take a break for the Holiday's and the Winter season. They keep doing them but I just can't imagine having a swim lesson during the middle of December?? No thanks. :):)

I wish I had something new and exciting to talk about but I just wanted to update something since it had been so long.

Habla Espanol?

So in typical Emma fashion the other night she just starts spouting off one through five in Spanish. It took me a second to catch on that that was actually what she was saying but then I realized it. I of course had to try and get it on video. She sort of butchers it but that just makes it all the more endearing. We just have the same old same old going on so no need to keep rehashing it, but we are finding new techniques and ways to deal with the issues at hand. We are so thankful for all of the support we get from our friends, our online friends, and our family!! Emma...mama say's" you are way to gifted to keep acting up like this." :)
In NBR news....I really feel that personally I have turned a corner in the past few weeks, and mom re-affirmed that as well when we were talking tonight, that she thought so too. I just feel much happier these days. I have had very limited talk and or texting with Scott over the past few weeks and it has made such a difference in my outlook on things. I feel like I am ready to date again but that is not to say I have one lined up. LOL. But if something were to come along I have finally let go of "what was" enough to try and start "what could be" It is very liberating although at the same time I know that Emma is priority one and dating isn't going to be like it was when I was in my 20's, or hell even my 30's. It is almost scary to think about how thorough you have to try and know someone before you would even think of having them around your child. I know there could be exceptions to this rule of course but I think you get what I mean. I'm in no hurry so we'll just see what happens if anything. I'm honestly just thrilled that I can even type this after going down the road I have been down.
Emma is with her dad for the next two days so mama is going to treat herself to a much needed pedi tomorrow after work....I can't wait!!

Emmaisms

She has not by any means been a perfect angel lately as I think we know but she does the sweetest things sometimes and it is at those moments that you know why you had kids. A few ramdom things that have made me smile.
"Mom, come give me one more hug hug." I did and she says. "Thanks mom, that was sweet."
"OK Mom, you go downstairs now...I'm going NITE NITE" Who can complain about the kid that is asking you to leave so they can go to bed?? :)
"mama, I want kisses through the rails" We used to do this in her crib when she was a baby where we would kiss down the slats of the crib. Now she likes to do it at the top of the stairs through the openings in the walkway on the staircase. It gets me every time.
Emma loving the Olympics. She came down from a nap and swimming was on so she got so excited and said "I'm going to sit in the chair and watch this waters" Then they were showing the mens cycling and she got in front of the t.v. and started screaming "pedal pedal" It was too funny.
At lunch today. "I'm going to finish this lunch and then I'm taking a nap" Again, I am so blessed to have a kid that tells you when she wants to go to sleep. And the way she says it is just so endearing.
"shoo fly..I'm gonna get you buggy" For some reason we have had this huge fly problem lately so we spent the morning killing them. Fun times. Emma started to really enjoy flinging the fly swatter around. :)
GAH..I'm sure I could go on. Emma, you are an amazing, sweet, smart, funny little girl and mama loves you so much. (despite the fact that you again purposely peed on our staircase tonight while throwing a tantrum.) SMOOCHES.

Tickle Monster

It was a perfect way to end a crazy evening. With lots of giggles. Because I tell you leading up to our tickle fight it was not that happy. On top of a double ear infection poor Em came down with double pink eye so I know she isn't 100% herself but good lord.So she was better by today so I took her to school. I picked her up today and her teacher told me that she had been mean and aggressive to her friends and basically was not minding very well. We had a talk about it on the way home and went about our evening. We went upstairs for a bath and all hell broke loose. On the way to the tub she picked up a sippy cup and winged it at my head..not once but twice. Then into the tub we went and had a good quick bath. Got Em out of the tub and she immediately smacked me across the face. At this point I got her dried off and told her to go right to time out. She walks across the room sits down looks at me and says"Ha. I'll pee pee on the floor" and she proceeds to do just that. She SO did this on purpose. So I scoop her back up and put her on the potty to finish and go to tend to the pee mess. I turn around to see that she has grabbed the J&J soap off the sink and is squeezing it all into her hands. I try to clean it up and she rubs it all over her body. Back into the bath we go...rinse the soapy mess...back out to get dried..another smack across my face...back to time out...more pee pee on the floor..this time with the proud delcaration of "I Pottied myself" Ahhh...it was a crazy 45 minutes. What a mess that little bit can be. I don't know how to get her out of this hitting stage but it is driving me insane....I am definitely seeing more and more that she got mommy's temper and disposition. :) Love you Emma!!!

And to the Publix........................

So here is Emma saying the pledge. I titled it "and to the publix" because most of the time when she tries to say "and to the republic" its sounds like we are about to go shopping. heh heh. Em has a double ear infection but hopefully her meds are kicking it by now, she seemed to be feeling much better..especially after telling me she had FIVE boogers in her nose. This kid loves to count. She is off to Key Largo in the morning but she is going to ride into work with me first so yay for that and I am glad to spend every last second with her.

Slacker

That sums me up in a nutshell when it comes to my blog. We have just been so super busy. I don't even have a new picture or video to post. :( I've been meaning to get some video of Emma reciting the pledge of allegiance. One night before bed she just started spouting it off. She never ceases to amaze me. My mom and step dad were in town for most of last week. It was a crazy visit but also fun. It is hard to let your parents be there to help you even though that is all they want to do...they want to take all the hurt away. I know I will be the same when it comes to my own daughter!! We had a family get together at my house on Sat. which is always nice. I wish we were all closer. Even my brother is only an hour away and I still don't get to see him and his family as much as I'd like. As for Emma...she has been challenging lately. There have been many temper tantrums for no unforseen reason and toy throwing seems to be her new way of having fun. Minding? I'm sure she knows HOW to, just not sure why she doesn't want to. sigh. I know she is only 2 and I have to remind myself of that when I get frustrated.
We just finished our first round of swim lessons. She gets better every week, she definitely earned most improved out of her class. We have a two week break and then we will start a new round. I am determined to keep it up until she knows how to swim and as long as she is having fun with it which she is. Em's new interest and saying is "what's that sound" Everything she hears she asks me. It is too cute. She is getting ready to go on vacay with daddy for a few days and I am less than happy about that but only because I will miss her terribly and as a mommy will of course worry!! And I can't help but be a bit sad since last year at this time we were all getting ready to go on vacation as a family. :( So much can happen in a year .I just hope that next year at this time something good is happening for both Emma and myself.

Ms. Independence

Ha. Emma's Uncle Jason has taught her "shake your bootie" Too funny. Well in the last week Emma has become Ms. Independence. She wants to do everything herself and it is nice but frustrating as well knowing she still needs help with things. I think we are 100% potty trained and I am so excited about that but for example...tonight she wants to go potty and not only wants to go but wants to go ALL BY HERSELF. She even shut the bathroom door so I couldn't be a part of it. HA. So I of course open it anyhow after a minute and sure enough she is going potty but then insists that she takes her potty and dumps it in the big toilet without any help. I have to give her credit that her aim is "pretty good" but needless to say I clean up pee pee when all is said and done after these moments. Regardless, we start wearing real underwear tomorrow for school and not the training underwear/plus the liner on top. We had a big talk about what a big girl she was and how this was the next big step to wear real underwear. Hopefully it sunk in. As Emma would say "YAY EMMA"

D-Day

Well it is over. Yesterday was D day and I am happy to say that I got through it with very little tears and actually had a lot of fun. A friend of mine went to court with me and after we got through that went and ran some errands and had some lunch. We then had an hour long massage that was just perfect. I came home and chilled for a few hours and then met back up with some girlfriends for dinner and it was an absolute ball. Margaritas, tequila shots, and sombreros. Fun times. Seriously, it is probably the most I have laughed since this all began. It felt great!! Until six a.m. when my alarm went off, then...not so much. :) Ouch. headache. What was I thinking? :) I am so lucky to have an amazing network of family and friends that have been so wonderful to me through all of this. And even the support of my online friends, many that I haven't even met. Your constant thoughts have not gone unnoticed so thank you!!
Scott had Emma for the last 3 days so I couldn't drive the car fast enough to pick her up today. Unfortunately she was pretty fussy all night. This often happens on her first day back so I am used to it but I hate it. She finally stopped being a "fussy Francis" around dinner and my sweet girl came back. She has spaghetti for dinner and she kept saying "mmm, this smells delicious" of course she was butchering the word delicious which made it all the more cuter.
As for me, I am looking forward to continuing to watch my baby grow and to give her all the love that I can and hope that this is the beginning of a new and great chapter for us in our lives.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

I swear, Emma has the sweetest soul. I said this prayer growing up, except I said the one where I hoped to not die before I wake, so we altered a bit. I always thought that was sort of creepy. But what she is saying is "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep, guard me jesus through the night and wake me with the morning light" Anyhow...I started saying it to her last week at bed time and she already has it memorized. She struggles on parts of it but hey...she's only 2!! And still gifted if you ask me. :) I'm really not that religious of a person as in that we go to church regulary, ok, at all but it has a lot of sentiment for me and I do still say my prayers every night.
We had our best swim lesson yet tonight. Scott actually came to it and did the lesson with her. You can really tell that she is picking up on things. She is not close to swimming on her own yet but she is doing so much better with the skills they are teaching her. I am getting ready to sign her up for another class for after this one ends.
Our 4th of July weekend was a lot of fun. We spent it up at the lake all weekend with her Grandparents and Great Aunt and Uncle. Emma no likey the fireworks though. She screamed her little head off when the first one went off. Maybe next year she will enjoy them a little more.
I am in the countdown until my divorce is final. Not that it is a happy countdown but one that will hopefully close one door and open another. My hearing is on the 14th, next Monday and then that will be that. I know it will be a hard day but I am also looking forward to getting it over with and finding some closure.
And I'm losing count of the days but I'm still not smoking and still can't believe that. yay!

AWESOME

Emma's new favorite word is awesome. I have no idea where she picked it up from but it cracks me up. Everything is just "awesome" She is also so into her fish, Purple, these days which is cool. On Sunday she helped me clean his bowl and she loves to feed him. She cracked me up yesterday because we fed him and then she likes to watch him eat the pellets. Purple had one left and Emma goes "Go get it boy" AHAHAH. She is too funny!!

We are doing well considering we are still having issues with our A/C. sigh. Luckily with the cooler temperatures we have been able to stay at home and not with our wonderful friends that have been so kind to help us out. I have to give myself a pat on the back as I am on day 11 of not smoking. It was so easy to quit when I was pregnant with Emma because it just was but this time has been very challenging. Especially with all of the craziness in my life. But I just look at that sweet face of hers and know that I have to be around for her for as long as I possibly can. I already feel so much better and I am determined to see it through. So yay for me. I'm going to go give myself a high five in the mirror!

Road Trip

Last Saturday we embarked on a crazy road trip. We left here Saturday morning and drove to LA to visit my Grandma with my brother and his family. It was great to see her and she loved seeing all of her great grandkids. The next day we drove to my dads in Gulf Shores and spent two nights there before heading back to Atlanta. It was a total of about 20 hours in the car over 4 days but all the kids did so great. Emma didn't melt down until we got to my car and she screamed the entire 45 minutes home. I felt awful for her, at that point she was just done. So the trip was def. short and sweet but we did get to the beach and Emma had a blast. She was scared of the water at first but once we got over the hump she couldn't get enough of it. She loved the waves and loved playing in the sand as you can tell. My favorite new Emma story is this. We got home from our trip and we were playing and she again smacked me in the face so I sent her to time out. She came back around the corner with her head down, her lip poking out and walked up to me looked at me and smiled and said "Thanks for all you do mom" It was so freaking sweet. How can you stay mad after that?

The terribly fun twos

Well you have to start on a funny note and this video cracks me up. I love this stage with Emma. It is terrible and it is fun. The terrible twos are definitely here but at the same time she is so much fun and she is such a chatter box. I just love talking with her and having conversations. They mean the world to me. And she has the sweetest soul ever. Nothing is better than having your child walk up to you and ask for a hug and a kiss. Or to pick her up from school today to hear that she made her teacher cry. Why? Was she being mean? No, it was because she was so sweet it made her teacher tear up. It makes me so proud. On the other end of the spectrum is Emma's fun desire to throw hard objects after repeatedly being told NO and to hit mommy in the face. There have been frequent time outs lately. Last night she actually role played one of our time out situations with her "babies" about hitting and I couldn't help but laugh and hoped that it was all sinking in. Don't ever hope too much. Tonight she smacked at me 3 different times and lost her stories for the night. So hard to do because I cherish the time but at the same time she has to learn. This mama stuff is hard work!
I also think we are finally turning the corner on potty training. She has done excellent at school for a long time now but it has been a struggle at home. In the last week we have had very few accidents at home. Yay. I hope we are on to something.
We are getting ready for a mini vacay to go see my Grandma and to then go to my dad's who lives in Gulf Shores, a mile from the beach. I can't wait to get Emma to the beach and in the Ocean and Grandpa has a pool so we can practice our swim lesson skills. It will be a quick but hopefully very fun trip!

The Hungry Caterpillar

Emma loves her books. This is the Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. The caterpillar is very hungry but by Saturday he sure eats a whole lot. :) Emma has always loved his books and I just think this is so cute. We are doing well, A/C is working and it is almost the weekend. YAY! We are hoping to go to the pool tomorrow after I get her from school to practice our swim stuff. We have a birthday party on Saturday and then she will be with daddy the rest of the weekend for Father's day. Not sure what mama will do but she'll come up with something.

I'm a slacker

I knew I would be bad at keeping this thing up to date. Well we have been crazy busy and have lots of hurdles we have been dealing with. One was that our AC went out on Friday. So not pleasant when it is a 100 million degrees outside. With the help of some good friends we had a place to stay and a hook up with someone that could get us a new unit and get it installed for us. We were able to finally go back home last night and I think Emma and I both had the best nights sleep we had had in a while.
We had swim lesson number two on Monday which was sort of similar to swim lesson number one. I am hoping to start getting to the pool a couple days a week and on the weekends that I have her so we can practice what we are learning. She seems to enjoy it for the most part though so I am glad she is having fun. :)

Swim Lessons

Not so gifted. haha. So we started our swim lessons on Monday. Since Emma loves to swim with us I thought she would be a super star. While overall she did pretty well she did have one moment where the instructor scared her and she just started screaming "Car ride mama, CAR RIDE" which basically meant get me out of here right now. :) Within minutes she had bounced back though and she seemed to enjoy the rest of the lesson. I am sure the more comfortable she gets with the instructor the more progress she will make. I had fun doing it and hopefully her daddy is going to come and make a lesson or two as well. It made me excited for all the things that may come in the future, soccer, ballet, tee ball. Whatever it is she may want to do as she gets older. Although my mother has strictly forbid me enrolling her in gymnastics (sorry Britt) because it is "just a waste of money" Apparently she must know this from experience with me or something? I cannot help it if I did not turn into Mary Lou Retton!
In other news, Emma melted my heart this morning. On the way to school out of the blue she said "Hey mom, I love you" and it was just so sweet. It was a great way to start my day!

Take time to stop and smell the roses

Or in Emma's case a dandelion. She came up with all of this yellow stuff on her nose after planting her face in the flower. It was pretty cute. She had a nice weekend with her daddy and I tried to get some stuff done around the house so that we can get ready to put it on the market. Went and saw Sex in the City on Friday night. My god. That was like nothing I have ever seen before. Crazy freaking women everywhere that were willing to run you over in a New York minute. I'm not sure I would do that again but overall the movie was pretty good. There were some scenes that were tough to watch but oh well. Emma starts swim lesson's tonight. I'm so excited. I love the water and am so anxious for her to be able to swim. I will definitely report back as to how it went.

This is Emma trying to sing along with Rafi's Baby Beluga. It is her new favorite CD. Then getting her milk became more important before jumping back in.

Raising Emma. Not to be confused with Raising Arizona ,although that is a great movie. I finally decided to start a blog about Emma to keep family and friends updated and so I'll remember all the things that I "swear I will never forget." I have yet to finish her baby book (she's 2 now..oops), so hopefully this will serve as a much better avenue of remembering the things she does. I'm pretty much a single mother now that I am going through a divorce but I feel so lucky to have such a "gifted" little girl to spend my days with. You might see the word gifted a lot. It is an inside joke although I do think that Emma is a smart little girl. She soaks things up like a sponge and sometimes she acts just like a little adult. Then she craps herself instead of using the potty to remind me that she is still just a baby, my baby who I would be lost without. This is just sort of a test right now. I will try to figure out how to upload pictures and videos later tonight.