The 'Bestest', Hands Down

Each Monday evening the adults at the Emonsters house realize that, yet again, we have failed to PREPARE our Family Home Evening lesson. Ugh, again. Yes, I have to admit it, it feels a bit like work, one more thing on virtual to-do list that I didn't participate in making for myself. And I like to be the one in charge.

So, this evening over dinner I thought out an impromptu lessson, yet again. We always let them do artwork at FHE, it's become a tradition, when we've attempted to leave it out we've had to put out riots. So I based the lesson on the activity and figured 'why not let them do something different tonight?' Handprints would be a great way to tie in finger painting with a lesson Heavenly Father having a body like us.

So unfolds a lovely evening, well 20 minutes, of fun with electric blue paint, giggling, fun mess making, and learning. Cora explored the floor the entire lesson, happily learning her surroundings and becoming even more confident with pulling up and standing.

A few minutes after I sent Gillian off to get ready for bath she zipped back into the kitchen to put her arm and around me and say 'That was the bestest Family Home Evening EVER!'. Wow. Can't argue with that, can I?

Happy 10 Months Cora!

What a blessing you are to us!! To me.

Happy 10 Month Birthday Cora!! You've been a wonder to have around. Over this past month you've become so much more personable, like your personality is just bubbling over to everyone and everything you see and do.

Your Favorite Things:

• Using Mommy's Leg to Stand Up
• Begging While Doing the Above
• Crawling on ANY Bed (causing riotous giggles even if at 5am)
• Explore any Room Covered with Things
• Tasting ANY Random Items (preferably inedible)
• Crawling to get Hugs (especially to Mama and Papa)
• Giggling
• Be Tickled (eaten)
• Grabbing eyes, lips, noses (especially Liam's)
• Tasting new Foods (variety is a MUST)
• PEAS!!
• STANDING!
• Eating her socks on or off her feet
• CRAWLING!

I Finished!

I've finished my first quilt top!!! Yeah!! It also marks the completion of my 'Beginning Machine Piecing' class, which was lots of fun. I learned so much over the past four weeks. I'm excited to move on to other projects and a little weary of completing this one. However, there are people who pay others to quilt their quilt for them and only enjoy the cutting and piecing. I really enjoyed learning how to do the cutting and the piecing. And it turned out so much better than I thought that it would. Thanks Lisa, I had so much fun!! I'll miss you!

Look at What I can Do

Cora has been a huge ball of fun lately. She's everywhere and into everything. She's having so much fun that you can't help but have fun just watching her.

Talking on Mommy's Telephone
April 13, 2007

Standing in my Bed
April 17, 2007

Feasting on the Ensign ??
April 18, 2007

Our Alpha Wolf

Each week at Slaughter Elementary a student is chosen from each class to be the Alpha Wolf of the class. Gillian is so excited to be recognized that she's just been waiting since October for her next 'turn' at this special award. Today she was chosen Alpha Wolf and we didn't tell her that's why we were there, she was so thrilled.

My little baby has grown up so very much in the last year. I'm so proud of the girl that she is, she's so helpful, thoughtful, caring, considerate, and she's learning so well. She adores being in school and her teacher just loves having her. She seems to bring a lot of joy to others in her class as well. She makes me so proud and I am overwhelmed at how good she truly is, and I know that is not completely our doing, but that she is truly a divine daughter of Heavenly Father.

Way to go Gillian!!! We love you!!! We're so proud of you!!

Our First Field Trip

Wow! Kindergarten has flown by, and now we're down to the last six weeks of the year. Time for the five year olds to show us how they've grown by going to the Dallas Zoo. The field trip was tons of fun, with perfect, almost too bright, weather in the spring with everything green and all of the animals were actually out! Hah! First time for us. We even got to see a baby anteater riding around on it's mama. Sweet!

The field trip was a 'turn 'em lose' affair. We were each given two children and told to be back at the gate by 1:15pm. I had Gillian and Samantha, which was awesome, because both of them are such good listeners! I never had a problem getting them to move forward or to stay with me, etc. They were really good as gold!

We started out with lunch, as we got them right at 10:15, which was only a few minutes before their normal 10:30 lunch. We then moved on to seeing the Tamarins and monkeys on our way to the Tiger exhibit. We got to see two of the tigers before moving on to the Otter Outpost, they weren't swimming, but we could see them lounging under the trees. The girls all posed before we moved on.

We then headed up to the giraffes, elephants, anteater, and the cats. The ocelots were actually out and were very beautiful, as was the bobcat, who I'm not sure I've ever really seen.

Following those stops we were drug to the Children's Zoo by Samantha, who only had eyes for the learning house. We went inside and enjoyed some peace for at least half an hour before moving on to the rest of the children's area. By the time we finished that we'd completely lost Grace and Destiny and it was 25 minutes until we needed to be back and I was determined we'd see the penguins. They were great!!

The girls started getting hungry about now and I asked them if they wanted to stop and eat their snacks or to walk so that we could actually get all the way over to the gorillas, they chose the latter and we were on our way. By the time we had seen the penguins, gorillas, chimps, and the crocodile, they had eaten all of their snacks and all of the extras I had. They had also drunk almost all of the water I had on me.

Finally, the backpack wasn't too heavy! LOL.

The girls acted like wild monkeys all the way back to the gate, which was funny and I was glad there weren't smaller siblings to follow suit. The girls turned it back off almost immediately when it was time to return to the proper forms as kindergarteners.