Memorial Day

We had a lovely weekend, the weather turned out to be really nice most days. We spent almost every afternoon at the park. Emily won't tackle this big slide by herself but she loves to do it with daddy. She also really likes swinging in the big kid swings now.

Chevelle

The Chevelle is still quite under the weather, you can still contribute to the new transmission fund. Robert's current plan is to have it up and running by his birthday. He did however uncover it the other day to show the engine to Zane, Emily's friend. Then we all hopped in for a "ride".

Henry Doorly Zoo

On Sunday we spent the day at the zoo in Omaha. We had a great time. Emily was excited as soon as we got out of the car and she saw some crows eating popcorn in the parking lot. We have been talking about the zoo for a while now. We checked out a ton of books from the library about visiting the zoo and seeing animals. I think her favorite parts of the zoo was that aquarium and the rain forest. She kept talking about the "ee, ee's nite nite", the monkeys did look rather lazy so they were indeed taking a nap! The zoo has a bunch of peacocks that they let roam all over the park without fences. The first picture is of Emily and I peering into the touch tank, she didn't want to touch anything, so I gave it a try for her. The second picture is a self portrait of our family. We took that at the end of the day on the train ride around the zoo.

Ohh!

I don't want the Quiche "pie", but I enjoyed the blueberry muffin

Emily loves going on walks, pointing out the water valves and all the various tree seeds we see. She is still quite smitten with birds, we are always on the look out for Robins.
She is getting better at eating what we are having at the dinner table. I am trying to serve at least one thing I think she will eat, while we are strongly encouraging her to try everything else. Tonight she ate some sweet corn all by herself. Fruits are still one of her favorites. She loves cantaloupe and blueberries, any flavor of yogurt. She will eat noodles in all forms. Monday at Daycare, Amy asked Emily if she was done eating, as she had eaten all of her baked means and fruit, and Emily shouted out sandwich, and then proceeded to eat her ham sandwich too! What is intriguing with all this new eating she seems to be losing her pot belly at the same time.

She is talking all the time. Emily regularly uses three word phrases such as "mama sit here", "no, daddy read it", "milk, mama, milk... pretzels in hand."

Mothers Day

Emily showing me my card.

Emily and Robert treated me to a lovely Mothers Day. We woke up at Grandpa's house, and to my surprise I was treated with my favorite Toaster Strudel for breakfast, thanks Dallas!
After we arrived back to Ames, Emily and I both took naps. Robert made us dinner, and then treated us to Dairy Queen. This was Emily's first trip to DQ, she ate about half of Rob's blizzard then insisted on helping me. It was a perfect day.

Tulip Time

Emily and Robert posing on a John Deere B
Lynne, Emily and I and my favorite yellow tulips
I saw this yummy frosted wooden shoe at Jaarsma's, overflowing with Dutch treats

We went to Tulip Time in Pella on Thursday. We had a really nice day, Greg and Chelsey had the day off and joined us for the day. Lynne also was a total saint and let us use her apartment central command post. She even took a nap with Emily so we could keep cruising around the square. We saw alot of tulips and ate our way through Pella. We made two stops to both Jaarsma's and Ulrichs Meats. Yum! All of us paid to take the Pella Historic Village tour which included a trip to the top of the Vermeer Windmill, the tallest, working city mill in the United States. I wish I would have gotten a picture of all of us at the top of mill, the view of Pella was neat.

We tried several times to capture Emily in front of blooming tulips, but being a busy toddler seem to win out everytime.

Bye!

Emily doesn't use the word "no" much anymore. Her new means of communicating "no" or "I'm not going to do it", or "leave me alone or it alone" is by saying bye. She says it with a wave too, actually its more of an action. Remember when "talk to the hand" phrase was popular, picture that, her wave and bye has a lot of that attitude mixed in with it.