Emma's Birthday Invitation

Emma's 2nd birthday is just a month away, and we're planning her party for August 29th. If you're a friend or family member, we'd love for you to join us! In order to protect our privacy on the internet, I left off our address, but I'd be happy to give you directions if you give me a call sometime. We hope to see you soon to celebrate Emma's special day!

Emma's Birthday is on its way!

Make a Smilebox invite

Visitors!

Last week, we were treated to a visit from my cousin, Doug, and his twin boys, Evan and Alex from Denver, CO. We met them at CoCo Key Indoor Water Park here in town. Even though there's quite an age gap between Emma and the boys (who are nine), they seemed to enjoy meeting each other! Emma also enjoyed some "splash time" with Aunt Kristen. Since Aunt Linda was out of town on a mission trip, Grandma Coe came and stayed with us for a few nights so she could meet up with Doug and the boys when they arrived. In the meantime, she and Emma enjoyed some time together. She really made Grandma feel special when she wanted her, not me, to read her some bedtime stories! Grandma also treated Emma to a new pair of sunglasses!

Vacation Bible School

Emma had a great time at Vacation Bible School last week (7/7-7/11)! As one of the youngest members of the group, we weren't sure how she'd react to all of the excitement, but she fit right in! Each evening she and two other "preschoolers" went from station to station playing games (bottom photo), making crafts (top), and clowning around to music (middle). She even sat still to listen to the story of Moses and the Plagues of Egypt and threw hailstones (cotton balls) at Pharoah! It was also a great opportunity for all of us to get to know our church family a bit better. Mom helped with the music, and Dad even dressed up as Jesus for a skit one night! We all had a great time together!

First Visit to Lake Erie

Continuing my "reverse blog," Mom, Dad, Emma and I took a trip to Lake Erie a couple of weeks ago (6/17)...another Emma first! We visited childrens' illustrator Jodie McCallum in her studio; Mom and Dad bought Emma her book Jesus Loves Me on a previous visit, and Emma loves it! I'm not sure that she really understood that this was the same woman who drew the pictures for her book, but she enjoyed drawing a picture to leave in Jodie's art studio! We also went to Lakeside Resort, where I met my friend Kristen (not to be confused with sister Kristen) and Emma got to enjoy their small (but uncrowded) beach. The water was cold, but, as usual, our little fish didn't seem to care!

Trip to Tennessee (aka Emma's longest car trip)

Okay, call this the "backwards blog!" There were so many noteworthy events in the month of June that I wanted to go back and share a little bit about some of them. Last week (6/29-7/2), Mom, Dad, Kristen, Emma, and I went to Tennessee to visit our cousins and their triplets, who are just a few months younger than Emma. As you can see, she fit right in! After a 6 hour car ride, a group of playmates and a wonderful (babyproof!) playroom were all that she needed to unwind. That's Emma Claire in the foreground (we took to using the Emmas' middle names to avoid too much confusion), and Kendall and Clark on the other side. We also visited Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains on Tuesday, followed by a morning in Knoxville on Wednesday during which all four kids had a blast in the "interactive fountain"! This was Emma's longest car trip, and she did quite well adapting to her new environment. I wish we could've stayed longer, but we didn't want to leave poor Daddy home alone for too long!

4th of July

Welcome to Emma Grace's Place! Now that our little girl's almost two (and at 3 feet tall, not so little any more), I thought I'd finally get a blog started. Even though I entitled this "4th of July", our Independence Day fun actually began on the 3rd when we attended our local fireworks display. We took a picnic to the park and let Emma play on the playground rather than try to sit through the lawn concert since she'd have lasted about 5 minutes! We finally set up camp with our camping chairs (Emma's included) at about 9:30, not knowing exactly when the show would start. After Emma danced around a while, caught a lightning bug, and threw her doll about 50 times (her new favorite pastime), the fireworks finally began...and she was mesmerized! After it was over, she pointed at the smoke and said "more fireworks!"

On the actual 4th, we missed the parade. Emma slept until 10 AM, apparently making up for last night. We did, however, go to a street fair, where Emma thoroughly enjoyed her favorite sport, people watching!