JeffKatieEmma.com

The snow just keeps falling around here.  We’ve easily gotten over 16″ of snow so far.  I’ve been shoveling the driveway and I’m running out of places to throw the snow.  It’s turned out to be a great winter exercise routine……

I’m off until the 5th of January so Emma and I have been hanging out and having fun.  We went over to Grandma Joan’s yesterday and shoveled her driveway so that she can get in and out.  We spent most of the day with her and had a great time.  We all went to Costco, which turned out to be a zoo.  I think everyone has been cooped up around here so they took the opportunity to all go to Costco at the same time.

It continues to snow today, Christmas eve.  While we love the idea of a white Christmas, it is proving to be more challenging logistically speaking.  Mom and Aunt Jean are at mom’s house and aren’t sure whether they are going to try to drive over or not.  Tomorrow we are going to Sarah’s house and then over to mom’s.  The plan was to then go to the cabin after that, although that is in question now due to the snow.  We’ll decide how adventurous we are going to be on Christmas morning.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Emma out in the snow, as well as a couple pictures so that you can see how much snow we have here.

The weather here has been a bit abnormal for the last week or so and that abnormality continued today as it started snowing in the morning and by the end of the day we had about 4 inches of snow.  School was canceled today for Emma so she spent part of the day at Patty’s (friend of ours that runs a daycare next to Emma’s school).  I quit work a little early today and after we got Katie home from work, I went over and got Emma.  After coming home for a bit, I took Emma over to the school where we spent a couple hours sledding down the big hills on the playground.  We had an absolute blast.  A few of Emma’s friends were there as well.

Earlier in the day the kids had made a jump at the bottom of the hill and because I haven’t quite come to terms with my age, I decided to try it out.  I got a good running start, picked up speed down the hill, and went flying off the jump.  The time in the air was really fun.  The landing: not so much.  Needless to say my back and other major parts of my body are in recovery.

Anyway, it was a really fun day today and I think tomorrow will probably be a repeat because the snow doesn’t appear to be going anywhere and I think they have already canceled school.

Ummmmm.  I got lots of good 3’s and 4’s on my report card and my dad is going to type about my very own recipe I made up.

Holiday spice punch:

cinammon

vanilla

nutmeg

cloves

apple juice

Sprite

We put it all in a pouring thing and then we dumped in the spices.  We stirred around a lot and then we added the Sprite at the end.  That’s how the recipe goes.

Okay now I’ll tell you about other stuff.  Movie nights are really fun.  Movie night means that we are going to the school and watching a movie and get some candy and stuff.  Oh, we also got to have popcorn and water.  We drove in the car all the way to my school.  We went in to my school gym and brought money.  I sat on the floor on a blanket and a pillow.  The movie was Wall-E on one night and Kung Fu Panda on the other night.  It was fun.

Nothing else to say now.  I’m going to go eat my bread that I made.  I like it.

I stumbled on to this picture of Emma and Jena after a hard night of Trick or Treating.  We could tell Emma was beat so we called it a night after this photo.

We haven’t been very good about updating the blog lately.  That doesn’t mean that nothing has been going on.  Where do we begin?

Last weekend Emma went to the zoo with Alex and Sydney.  Polly bought everyone an annual pass to the zoo and NW trek!  If you are dying to go to the zoo or NW Trek, let us know.  We can take up to three guests in with us each time for free.  Thanks Polly!

Emma had her friend Jena over last Friday night after the PTA sponsored “Family Fun Night”.  Jena spent the night and they both slept in Emma’s room.  They both really wanted to sleep on the floor next to each other but the “party pooper” parents made each of them sleep in their own spots.  (Emma had to sleep in her bed).  I think they both had a great time and enjoyed the pancakes the next morning for breakfast.

Last week, Emma had an action packed schedule at school.  On Tuesday both kindergarten classes hopped on a bus and headed to Remlinger farms for their first field trip.  I think the kids were much more excited to ride the bus than they were to go to the farm.  Needless to say, they had a great time doing both.

Unfortunately, as the week went on, Emma got sick.  She had a fever of over 103 degrees so we took her to the doctor.  She is now having to take a couple medicines for the next ten days to get over it.  She was very disappointed to miss school for two days, including the “Harvest Party” on Friday.  We had volunteered to help at the party so Katie went in and helped while Jeff stayed home with Emma.  (Katie brought some things home for Emma which helped.)  Last night, we let Emma do a little trick or treating around the neighborhood but kept it fairly short since she wasn’t feeling well.  She had a great time.  The picture below looks more like a “Heroes” episode than anything else.  Darth Vader and the Cheerleader are such an interesting pair.

My Darth Vader Halloween costume arrived:  I was very excited because yesterday something very exciting was delivered from the Fedex Truck. I opened the box, and I got surprised!  because I didn’t know that my costume was in there :) I was really excited, and took the costume out and I wore it!! 

Emma’s Book Choice:    One other exciting this is:  I like my book called If You Take A Mouse to School, but if you did that for reallife, you would get in trouble! 

Upcoming Activities: My mom and dad are taking me into the Pumpkin Patch.

My most recent activity:  Drawing and coloring in the lines.  Also, painting.

My typing:  dfwfcv

Mommy sneaked into my room and took this picture of me just going to sleep!

It’s been a little over a week now since elementary school became a part of our lives here.  Things have been going well and Emma continues to be excited about kindergarten.  Each day when I walk over to get her, one of the first things she says is, "We didn’t get to go in the big library today".  Yesterday, she was finally able to say that they did get to go in the big library but she was disappointed that they didn’t get to look at all the books.  Instead they just had to sit and listen to the teacher read them a story.  Emma’s reading skills have been advancing pretty rapidly and she’s now reading books that are not even categorized as "easy readers".  She has to take some time on a few of the bigger words but she’s doing well sounding them out and normally can figure out what the word is.  We are very happy that she loves books so much!

It has been nice to have such great weather over the last couple weeks.  It’s strange how the weather turns nice as soon as school starts.  We have been trying to take advantage of the weather by going out to the lake as much as possible.  We plan on going out there this weekend since it is supposed to be near 80 degrees.  We’ve been preparing both of the lake houses for winter by cleaning the gutters and putting away all the summer type equipment that we leave out each year.  I think we are just about ready for winter.

Polly and Vic made it back to New Orleans on Sunday evening.  They packed a lot of activities in to their visit.  They spent the night out at the lake with us, spent time at Sarah’s, went to Point Defiance park, hiked up near Mt Rainier, and also spent a couple days up in Canada visiting Bill and Renee.  We look forward to the day that they are up here all the time, although it sounds like that will be a couple more years.

The picture below is of Emma after school one day.  They have been wearing different colors to school each day and this particular day was "orange" day.

Today was Emma’s first day of kindergarten.  As soon as she woke up this morning she got dressed and put her backpack on.  She insisted on wearing her school backpack during breakfast and didn’t take it off until she got to the playground at the school.  Needless to say, she was very excited and didn’t show any signs of nervousness.  We started the countdown to this day last week.  Katie made a calendar that showed each day and Emma crossed the days off one at a time.  There wasn’t a day that went by that we didn’t know exactly when school started.

We decided to walk over to the school with Jena and her family.  The two girls held hands all the way there and I think they smiled the entire way!

On an unrelated note, all the Browns came over on Sunday afternoon and we had a bbq at the cabin.  Polly, Vic and Alex spent the night and I think they were all pretty comfortable.  Polly and Vic had the sleeper sofa and Alex slept on a mat on the floor.  Polly and Vic were anxious due to the approaching hurricane in New Orleans.  By coincidence, they ended up leaving New Orleans for their trip up here at just the right time.  It looks like the hurricane largely missed New Orleans and there wasn’t massive damage.  Phew.

On Monday, Katie and Emma went with all the Browns and they drove to Mt Rainier for a short hike around the Naches loop to see the mountain.  During the hike they even spotted a black bear feeding on berries.  It was quite exciting for them.  I was glad to hear that there was a ranger there too!

Here are a couple pictures of Emma’s first day of kindergarten and then there is a link below those pictures to the rest of them:

And here is a link to the rest of the photos:

http://www.jeffkatieemma.com/kindergarten

It’s been quite awhile since we’ve posted on the blog.  For the very few people that check the site, I apologize.  We’ve had quite a busy summer.  We have spent as much time as we could out at the lake, although that ended up being a little less than we thought.  There have been birthday parties for Emma to attend as well as other obligations that have kept us from making the trip a few times.  Between that and the somewhat pathetic summer we’ve had here, we just didn’t get as much "sun" time as we had hoped.

Lots of things have happened since our last post.  Emma had her 5th birthday party which was small but fun.  We had the party out at the lake and had cake and ice cream at the park.  Her friend’s Maddie and Jena both came out to the lake for the party and Maddie’s family spent the night in their tent trailer.  We had a GREAT time!

We’ve had a few milestones this summer as well.  Emma is now reading books with no help.  She is pretty much reading anything that she can get her hands on so we’ve made some trips to the library and have bought a few additional books as well.  It’s so exciting!.

Emma also learned how to ride a bike with no training wheels.  It was amazing to watch her learn.  She saw two kids at her daycare riding with no training wheels and that was all it took for her to focus her attention on learning how.  She came home and asked us to remove her training wheels.  After 45 minutes she had gotten the balancing down and by the next afternoon she was riding around with no help.  She didn’t even crash once while learning.  She continues to amaze us.

And the third milestone for Emma is that today is her last day in day care.  Last night we attended an open house at her new elementary school and she is very excited to start kindergarten next Tuesday.  She has seen where her desk is, and has already taken all of her supplies in to her classroom.  It’s hard to believe it’s already been 5 years!  Here are a few photos from the summer:

At a birthday party beauty shop

Emma’s birthday party at the lake

Emma reading a book

Who knew that kids graduate from preschool these days?  Well, they do.  They had a ceremony at Emma’s school to mark the completion of their program.  In September Emma will start kindergarten and she couldn’t be more excited about it.

As I was sitting in the audience at her graduation, I was struck with how quickly time goes by.  It seems like just yesterday that we were agonizing over putting Emma in daycare.  Hindsight, it’s the best thing we have done yet for her.  While we missed her during the day, she has excelled in the environment.  Her social skills have come so far and she has experienced so many different things while she’s been there.  She has climbed around fire trucks, raised caterpillars in to butterflies, done a TON of art work, celebrated many different cultural holidays, learned how to read and write letters and words, and the list goes on and on.

Katie and I could not have been more proud when the graduation ceremony started.  Emma was picked to give the welcome speech to the families.  I had wondered whether she’s be petrified with being in front of that many people because she does tend to get shy around people she doesn’t know well.  As soon as she spoke I realized that wouldn’t be an issue.  Emma used a very loud voice and read the entire speech (it wasn’t very long) without an ounce of fear.  When she finished, everyone clapped and were very impressed with her.  Katie and I were smiling ear to ear.  The highlights of the graduation ceremony were the songs that the kids performed.  They had been practicing for awhile and they all did a wonderful job.  After the graduation there was a reception with lunch and dessert.  The kids all enjoyed it.

Here is a link to the video of Emma giving her welcome speech:

http://www.jeffkatieemma.com/Emmaspeechf.wmv