And then There were 5: Emery, Emery, Emery

Since I'm a little behind in writing on this thing, I need to catch up on my sweet children! Emery turned 3 on June 10 and we recently had her 3 year pictures taken. They just arrived in the mail, so it is time to post!

Emery fascinates me. She is such a unique combination of Drew and I, that I never know what's coming next. She is alternately very compliant and helpful, (like myself as a child) and then mischievous, rotten and crazy (like her daddy). She is super smart and is always thinking about what she sees and hears around her, and then verbalizing her thoughts.

We have several homeless people we see often since we typically follow the same routine each week. We've given them money from time to time, so now every time we arrive at the corner they typically inhabit, she wants to know if they've found their house yet and if she should help them look for it. She calls them the girl and boy who lost their house -- since that's the scenario I used to explain what being homeless means to a 3-year-old.

Calves like her daddy...knew about these since her ultrasound!

She has such a big heart and always wants to help others -- whether its someone waiting at the corner of our street at the bus stop who she thinks is lost to the animals outside the watches from our kitchen window.

Emery is very protective of Cohen now and thinks its her duty to make him laugh and smile. She loves to mimic word for word things that Drew and I say to him, and she gives Cohen, like me, a running monologue of what's going on around her or what we're doing for that day.

Cohen is recently mobile, as I'll explain in a post on him this week, which means that he wants to be in her business and doing what she is doing at all times. This usually frustrates her since she is very particular about how her toys are arranged. She also is discovering that she only likes to share when it works for her. If she has 8 princesses and Bubba wants one, she thinks she needs them all. And then on other occasions she'll have one princess and give it up to him to play -- her little mind never ceases to surprise me.

This picture so captures the mood of the day. She was cooperative until we arrived to take pictures and the nit was like pulling teeth to get her to smile! She gets shy around new people and wasn't used to the new photographer yet.... Bubba on the other hand...

Emery is obsessed with puzzles. She has always been good at puzzles and when we go to the library to get new books and movies each week, she sits at the little tables and completes wooden puzzle after puzzle. Recently, she's graduated to real puzzles with pieces out of a box. We got her two princess puzzles at the beginning of the summer and she can now do both of them by herself -- a 24 piece and a 48 piece puzzle! We now have to hit up Goodwill this week for more puzzles to do.....she's got the analytical side of both Drew and I, I think!

Two puzzles down...starting on #3 for the evening

Emery is also quite the rhythm, dance and move-and-shaker that Drew and I never could be. For that reason, she is starting dance classes in July to see how she likes them. It's a combo class for her age group that combines both gymnastics and ballet -- two things she loves doing. If all goes well, we'll try putting her in classes this fall.

If you haven't noticed in pictures and recent posts, everything that she does revolves around princesses. We go to Disney the first week of August and she couldn't be more ready to meet the princesses and go to the castle that appears at the beginning of all her Disney movies. She is excited to meet the Beast (I don't even know if he's there!) to see if he is mean or nice, now that Belle made him happy. Her favorite princesses alternate, but right now she loves Ariel and Tiana (Princess and the Frog). While we wanted to do a Princess Lunch at Disney, I didn't have the motivation to follow the strict timing and rules to try to get a reservation. We just plan on meeting them out and about and going to lunch with a second best, the Pooh characters.

I've been collecting Emery-isms for the past couple of weeks that didn't have a place to go on the blog anywhere. Here are some of our favorites:
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While swinging, Emery asked if Drew was my daddy. We explained that no, Poppy was my daddy. She thought about it for awhile and then asked who was Mimi's daddy. We explained that it was Grandpa and Mary, and asked if she remembered meeting them last summer at Mimi's house. She immediately shook her head and goes, "Oh yes. I remember Mary! It's Mary from Mary had a Little Lamb, mom!" as she begins to sing Mary had a Little Lamb at the top of her lungs.

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A couple of weeks ago, our friends from church watched the kids so we could go out to dinner and a movie for our anniversary. We were discussing how Miss Stephanie (her best friend Abby's mom) had watched her one time while me and Daddy went on a date.

"Where did you go on your date, Momma?"

"We went to dinner and a movie."

"Oh, what movie did you see?"

"We saw a movie about Snow White!"

"OK. Well Momma, one day, when Cohen and I go on a date, we're going to go see the Ariel movie! Does that sound like a good idea?"

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She has a song on the Laurie Berkner CD (if you have children, you'll surely know of her. If not, she's only the coolest children's song writer ever!) about Open Your Heart and loving others even though they aren't perfect. We must have listened the song at some point on our car ride to get errands done. While sitting at the gas station, she goes, Mom, if we open our heart, how do we close it together again?

It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. I then sat for a minute, thinking how to explain what it means to open your heart. Again, explaining to a 3-year-old is not always easy, especially with the hard questions she comes up with! I tried to explain that your heart doesn't actually open and that it means you love others no matter what.

She accepted the explanation and then said, "Well, I don't want to ever open my heart then."

"Why not? Opening your heart is a good thing. It means you love and care about others."

"Well, I just don't know how to do it. Do you think you could help me open my heart when we get home?"

"Yes, baby girl. I will definitely help you do this."

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Last night as we were finishing dinner, Emery came back into the dining room all dressed up in her princess attire.

"Momma, I want to marry you."

"You want to marry me or you want to marry me and Daddy?" (We had recently talked about Daddy and I getting married since he sent me a card in the mail with a picture of our wedding for our anniversary and she loved it)

"No, I want to marry you and have a wedding!"

"Ok. What do we do at a wedding?"

"Well, first mom, we need to make a cake, and then have a wedding, and then eat the cake!"

She made a pretend cake on the couch with her hair bows and let Cohen and Daddy stand in to watch us. For the wedding, she bounced on her pink ball for awhile during which I played her guitar. Then she dressed me up for the wedding and Daddy married us..... it was slightly odd to try to marry us -- especially with Drew using technical language confusing her like, take her to be your wife...needless to say, we aren't the progressive family we seem to be. :)