Happy 2nd Bday!

:: From Emma's point of view ::

Saturday was my birthday party. I was so excited about it, I talked about it all week long. All my friends were going to be there and my Grandma and Grandpa and Oma and Opa!

First, my friend Addison and I pretended to take a nap. We did more giggling than napping.

Then the rest of my friends got there and we played and played and played. Right after we ate dinner, we thought we saw something run by on the other side of the fence so we all had to check it out.


After dinner we had ice cream cake! Yummy. Mommy got me an Abby Cadabby ice cream cake. I love her almost as much as I love Elmo.

They only let me blow out the candle four times. I wish they let me do it more. I didn't spit too much on the cake, I think. I really liked when everyone sang to me and clapped after I blew out the candels.


Ice cream is so good.

I had fun opening presents. Mostly I wanted to "drink" from the new cups I got with my name on them.



The rest of the day I played with my new toys. Boy, was that fun!

Thank you to everyone who came!

visiting oma and opa

The beginning of the month we took a trip to Green Valley, Arizona to visit Oma and Opa. Even though it wasn't sunny most of the time, it was warm and so nice to wear shorts and flip flops! While we were there we played bocci ball, went to the zoo, and celebrated Oma's birthday. Emma has kind of learned how to say Oma (mo-ma) and Opa (bo-pa).

Here she is sleeping in her own seat on the plane. You know, the entire 15 minutes she probably slept, while we taxied on the runway after landing. Emma is an excellent passenger. Her ears don't bother her and she enjoys watching Elmo on my computer, but she just won't sleep!

She got to go for a couple of rides in the golf cart. Or "little car" as she calls it.

She saw giraffes, a lion, monkeys, turtles, peacocks, elephants, and rhinos at the zoo.



Who knows what she is doing here. She gets silly when she is tired.

We went to Tubac, a cute artsy town near GV. Emma kept herself busy reading a brochure while we shopped.

Daddy and Opa thought it was so cute they would take a picture. As soon as she noticed the cameras where on her, she jumped up and said "CHEESE!". She has NEVER done this on command.

baby stroller

One of Emma's favorite past times is pushing her babies in her stroller. Seriously the best $10 I ever spent on her. She gets a kick out of pushing it in circles inside the house, outside, around the block. As you will notice, baby also has one of Emma's diapers per Emma's request. Sometimes this is the dialogue I hear when Emma wakes up (she is alone in her room in her crib): "5, 6, 7, 8 yay! ... baby? ... stroller? ... outside?"

Monterey Bay Aquarium

We had a fun weekend visit from our friends Sara and Joey and their daughter Addison. This year we joined the aquarium as members and have been trying to enjoy it once a month. As members, we are able to invite a couple of guests along with us for the day. The girls had fun checking out all the fish (Dory and Nemo included), birds, rays and otters.

sorry it's been so long!

Ooops. I didn't realize the last time I had posted was in October . . . last year! Here are a couple of photos from xmas, she has changed quite a bit from October.



As you can tell, Emma loooooves motorcycles. I'm not quite sure where her addiction came from (Jens), but she gets so excited to hear or see one on the street. Motorcycles were a gateway to "fast cars". When I accelerate on to the freeway, she says "fast car!" or "go, mommy, go!".

She is quite the chatterbox, sometimes using 2-3 words together. Her favorite things right now are Sesame Street, Abby Cadabby, Elmo, books, outside, and milk. I mean, this girl loves milk. So weird since she would only nurse the first 1 1/2 years of her life! She's weighs maybe 22 pounds after she has eaten and drank her milk. Still a small peanut, but growing taller, not wider.

I'm so happy she finally is showing interest in books being read to her. It's fun to see her enjoying the stories, but annoying that it's always the same 3-4 at least 3-4 times a day! I hope she loves reading as much as I did when I was younger.

I will try to keep more updated, I promise! She was sick for the entire month of January and beginning of February. First she was on an inhaler (non-steriod), then she had an ear infection in both ears (1st round of antibiotics), her cough never went away so it was a 2nd round of antibiotics and a different inhaler (non-steriod at my request) and she finally kicked the bad boy. Nothing worse than listening to your child cough all night long. She is very healthy right now, it's too bad we can't even go outside with all this rain!

apple hill

We went to Apple Hill earlier than usual this year since Jens has had to do a lot of travel to China. Emma got to ride her first pony and tractor. Ok, well the tractor wasn't moving, but the pony did!

santa cruz

We had a fun visit with Oma and Opa while they were in California. It was so neat to see Emma recognize them even though she doesn't get to see them often. We try to do a video chat with them every week and apparently it works! She was so excited to see them.

We spent a fun day at the Santa Cruz pier. Emma got to feed the seagulls and pigeons. It was also her first experience with sea lions.