I Love It When Daddy Comes Home...

for a lot of reasons.  Not the least of which is because it means I get to watch him play with Emily (and I get some down time).  Lately there has been a lot of  "band" time where Emily drums, Daddy plays an instrument (usually chosen by Emily)...

and Daddy sings Old MacDonald Had a Farm. 
Then there was the night that Emily would put Daddy to "sleep"...
walk over and push Elmo's hat (making him sing a song)...
yell for Daddy to "wake-up"...
and proceed to dance...
and dance.
Each dance number was only complete when they did their "big finish."
This went on for a while... it made me tired.  ;)

*I have to include this picture because it was the first one (of MANY) that I took and I love it!  It is so blurry but I could never duplicate their perfect faces... Emily would always do something silly.

Hanging Around

I started to type that there hasn't been much going on around here lately.  I think the more accurate thing to say is that there hasn't been much blogging going on around here lately.  Let's get caught up!

While we were in San Diego Emily got to have Froot Loops for the first time.  She calls them "colors" and I mixed some in with her Cheerios for her "breakfast to go" on walk day.  Of course, she wanted them again the next morning and we made a cup for her to take along to Sea World... just something to have on hand.  Well, she never ate them that day so I saved them for one morning during our dreary weather week.  Emily was SO excited and definitely has a "way" of eating them.

Mainly, she picks out all of the colors...
lines them up until she has the "right number"...
and then eats them.  The Cheerios are always the last to be eaten.

Speaking of the dreary weather... we have had terribly ANNOYING rain in the last few weeks.  FOR the last few weeks even!  Ugh, this is California... drought land!  

Anyway, it has been pretty tiresome and Emily has been getting stir crazy so one day I set her up for some painting.  She did a lot of painting on her pumpkin and then moved on...



While Mimi was here visiting one night Emily got to show her a favorite movie, "Dreamer," after she was all ready for bed.  (We have about the last 45 minutes recorded and Emily LOVES it!)  It was a treat for both of them I think. 
Besides all of that, Emily has just been getting acquainted with the locals...
and also joined me at my last photography class.
Well, I guess I should say that she went along so I could tell my teacher why I wasn't going to be there (Daddy was out of town) and thank him.  He offered to let both of us stay but was probably happy I declined after Emily climbed on and off of every chair in the room.

Then, on the way out to the car Emily couldn't resist kicking these BIG balls...
and trying to roll them too.
So, that's all folks... just been hanging around.

A 90 Year Party!

On Saturday evening we drove up to my old stomping grounds to celebrate the 90th birthday of my childhood parish - Our Lady of Lourdes.  This is where I was baptized, received First Holy Communion, and was confirmed. 

The parish school was also my elementary and junior high school.  As we were parking in the lot, I spotted one of our old desks.  I sat in this type of desk every year...
we put all of our books in the bottom and I always liked to clean mine out.  Silly, but I remember those "whole class clean out sessions" like they were yesterday.
After those photo ops we made it over to the auditorium where Emily found my picture among all of the graduating class photos.
Then we wandered outside - these were my seventh and eighth grade classrooms and the "ice cream store" (among other things).  We didn't have the picnic tables or the gardens... I think they are nice additions.
Eventually we made it out to the tables and Emily couldn't let the band's warm up pass without some dancing!
We were too late for mass but joined Mimi for the tail end and then headed back down again for the party to get started.  We had a really great time seeing so many people from the past (some you will recognize as still a big part of our present too).  

I decided to do my own little "pop-up video" of sorts, giving a little background info. on some...






Emily will, I hope, enjoy knowing those tidbits down the line but that night she was only interested in DANCING!  Even if it meant dancing all by herself.
Luckily, she wasn't alone for too long and was soon joined by others...
including Daddy...
and Mama.
The Hokey Pokey was right up her alley...


and she even made a new friend.
This little 6 year old really wanted to dance with Emily and they would hold hands between songs...
before lighting the floor on fire again.
I wasn't the only one taking pictures... they drew a lot of attention.
By the end of the night Emily was wiped out and sweaty.  We thought for sure she would crash on the way home - with being snuggly in her jammies and all.
Nah - wide awake at 10:30 when we got home.  She did crash soon after though.

Happy Birthday, OLL!  It was SO fun to be able to join the party!

Surprise - Mimi's Here!

Emily had no idea that upon waking on Thursday (the 14th) morning she would find Mimi in the guest bed!  Needless to say, she was pretty excited!  They didn't get to have too much time to play though because we had a big day planned.  A big day of DRIVING!  First, out to see beautiful 9 day old, Cadence.

Between Mimi and myself, we did a pretty terrible job taking pictures - too much gabbing - so instead of seeing Cadence posing with her Mama (Heather, in green) and Daddy you can see her with Mimi.

Such a doll baby!  Congratulations to Heather and Steve!
Our visit was plenty long considering there is a newborn in the house and a tired Mama, but could never be long enough for all of the visiting we would like to do with Christy and fam!  Thanks for having us!
After our baby fix we were back in the car headed to Dele's house where Mimi was to stay the weekend.  Emily found Dele's bowl of buttons pretty quick and had a BLAST playing with all of them (check out the table in second pic) and Dele even put one on a string to show Emily a favorite childhood pastime of hers.
Emily listened to the hum a little too closely and the string ripped out several hairs.  Just a little wince by Emily though... she really liked those buttons!

After a bit of hanging around...
we bid farewell to Mimi and Dele and headed home.
What a day... out at 9:00ish and home at 6 (terrible traffic on the way home).  No nap for the weary, but a great fun day!