many, many events

A lot has happened since I last posted! I had a fantastic birthday this year, with a visit from friends and German chocolate cake to boot. We celebrated a friend's second birthday last weekend, and had a good time playing with two 2-year-olds and a 1-year-old. Emily is just as tall as the 2-year-olds, so it's weird to see people her size who are speaking so much more and clearly, although she's doing an amazing job of adding to her vocabulary. She's even choosing to use her words now over whining, which I am SO excited about!! yay!!

We went to a friend's wedding last weekend in Ames, and we were able to get a visit to Mommo and Poppo's house. Emily is quite fond of her great grandparents, and it's definitely mutual. The wedding dance was fun, too, and yielded my favorite picture of Emily with Travis, dancing on his toes. Then, this week, we drove up to Rockford for a few days to visit my parents and hang out while Travis traveled to California for work. Again, many more cute pictures! Emily was so excited to see the cows - lots of spontaneous falsetto moo moo moo-ing, even though they were out in the pasture and pretty quiet. My dad took her down to meet his most friendly cow, Norman, who has always been strangely personable. She let Emily pet her on the nose, and let me tell you, Emily was one thrilled little girl!! My mom's singing group came to rehearse, and Emily really enjoyed that. She also enjoyed the piano lessons that my mom gave; one little girl let Emily play the top note on the piano to top off her arpeggio exercises. She's had her first piano lesson!!

The thing Emily liked least about visiting Rockford was sleeping. She couldn't settle down at night and was up at the crack of dawn every morning, despite heavy blankets on the windows and a soothing windstorm that roared for nearly our entire visit (30mph sustained winds! insane!). She took pretty good naps, but I had trouble using those to keep up with my own sleep, so I am now sick this weekend. It's a beautiful day, and Trav is out biking, but I stayed home and slept for an hour and a half. I have tried so hard to stay rested and keep ahead of things that it's really frustrating to get sick anyway. I guess it's better if I get sick than Emily, although I can't remember if she's ever been sick without passing it to me, so it's better just me than both of us. Last night, we drove up to Ames to hear my mom's singing group perform, and it was a really good time. We saw some friends who have kids a little older than Emily, and we had a fun visit. I am really impressed with my mom's group, which consists of 3 other local ladies that I've known my entire life, almost. What was neatest about it was seeing my mom be so confident and successful. She would tell you that it's just a show, but when you do well at something and smile while you're doing it, it can't help but sink in a little. It felt good to see her shine!