Age 2

at 25 months she is already pedaling her tricycle.... steering it and going up and down the sidewalk. She says her ABC's and can count to 20 now... at 27 months. She has been dressing herself since age 1 1/2 and she has been putting on her shoes herself for longer than that. She is catching on to most all things way early. I hope it is a sign that she will do well in school. She has been day time potty trained for 5 months now, and can sleep through a 3 hour nap without going. Over night... longer than 3 hours she doesnt do so well... but not expected to. We have been having a hard time getting her to go to sleep at night, so we put a third nightlight in her room and are now leaving the hall light on. Tonight I set her up with her lantern and some books and she is back there pretending to read outloud to herself. I hope this works as it has been taking two hours for her to fall asleep. So we are stopping the rocking and letting her read and hopefully fall asleep on her own. fingers crossed because I am exhausted! She is sweeter than ever. Hugging and kissing us all the time. Telling us she misses us and loves us : I love u Daddy"! I walked in from work tonight and she hugged me and said " I missed you Mommy"! Priceless! Okay... going to stop typing. But trying to log her achievements more!

Emmy Lu!

As always... I get frustrated I am not blogging more often as she does so many new things all of the time! So I best start remembering some of them and get them documented. She really has grown up since becoming 2 yrs old. She went from not talking well.... enough for me to worry a tad. To now talking really well. I think in no time, she will be holding full conversations with us. It's amazing how much she has learned in the last two months. The past two months she has started saying 3 to 4 word sentences... fully dressing herself. She is now fully potty trained during the day, and as of the past month, she can sing her ABC's, and count to 12! That is amazing at this age. She is like a dry sponge soaking up everything in its path! She is sooo eager to learn and normally learns it once and never forgets! She is doing things 3 and 4 yr olds are just learning! She loves her Mommy n Daddy and is always hugging and kissing us all of the time. She is sweet... and very caring. She rocks her babydoll, sings to her, reads her books and puts her to bed. She will come out of the bedroom and say "shhh!" to us over and over so we do not wake up baby! Daddy taught her to ride her tricycle in the past 2-3 weeks and she picked up pedaling and steering quite fast. She is a smart little girl, and I hope that continues through her life of being in school. Hope she is always eager to learn and be the best that she can be! We have changed our way of parenting with her so that it best fits with her strong-willed personality. Daddy went and got books and we have been reading up on it so that we can learn how to parent her better. And using some of the tools in the past two weeks there is less crying, whining and pure meanness! We have learned spanking, yelling is not how to parent a strong willed child. We have learned respect and lots n lots of patience. Afterall, no parent is perfect either, but we can all research and do what is necessarily best for our children. And I am so glad we both do that for her.

Some of her words that I enjoy hearing:
meow: "me mau"
seven: "seben"
"w": "dubadoo"
Lake: "yayck"
Uncle B: "um B" or sometimes "BB"
Braden: "bayden"
Hunter: "unner"
Charlotte: "sarlet"

Sayings:
"NO Daddy" Pointing her finger
"MY Daddy" My Mommy"
NO NO MOMMY!
"1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10"
Favorite song is "row row row ur boat".
Favorite book for Halloween is " shake dem bones now hip hop halloween BAAALLLLLL" scoobedooowah....yeah!"
Barney is her favorite TV show.
She sings, row row row ur boat, u r my sunshine, wheels on the bus, twinkle little star, rocka by baby,moon moon moon, humptydumpty.
She has also really gotten into coloring lately and is doing well in school with that. She is very social. She loves playing with other kids and always has. Seems to be happy ALL of the time. Always smiling! Loves posing for the camera.

As I always say... I will try to blog things as they come.. but I know I have really missed out on blogging a lot of things she has done or said. :o( always happens outta the blue. Another thing I want to get on tape is her singing. She LOVES to sing songs. Everynight we read three books, pray and sing songs while rocking. She is growing up too fast!

Tummy Mommy

Well, for prob. the 4th time, Katherine and Moe have broken up. As she told me, due to DWI and other charges she didnt tell me about. Because of this she got evicted from their apartment and again had to move the kiddos back in with her Mom. Along with documenting Emmy, I am also every now in then documenting her Tummy Mommy because I know she will be curious in knowing about her life as well and not just hers. Katherine still just doesnt have her feet on the ground, how could she... she is 22 with a 7 yr old and a 5 yr old. Too young to have to deal with growing up that fast. But she has made due with it and I believe is a good Mom. But of course I am not there to really know for sure. I can only imagine all the things that she doesnt tell me. For that I almost do not want to know. I am just happy she is away from Moe. He will never change. He has proven that time and time again. Abusive, verbally and physically is NOT a good environment for those kids. And I am so glad Emmy isnt around that. We pray she pulls herself together and becomes the outstanding young women that we know she can be. Sometimes when people do not even know better, they just don't know what strive for. All we can do is tell her how smart and how much potential she really has. She told me she is now dating a 43 yr old.! UGH! WAYYYY tooo old for her. But I have no control over that. She is such a sweet person, but that is the side I know. I think there is more personality in her,, and a wild side she never shows us. And that is fine. I have been there done that. Maybe even there is a dark side to her. But I do not want to know that. I like knowing the sweet Katherine that I wish was my daughter as well. I love her unconditionally and only wish the very best for her! We love you Katherine! ALL OF US!