So what was the graduation gift?

A new bicycle was EmmaLi's reward for working so hard and getting through preschool.

We have been out testing bicycles every chance we get. Every time we go to Toys R Us EmmaLi wants to try out the bikes. We go to Wal-Mart same thing. She wants to try out every bike in her size.

Tonight we went to a place called Bike To Nature to have her fitted for a bike and make sure she truly needs a 16 inch bike and not an 18 inch bike. A very nice man (whom we later found to be the owner) helped us out. He spent a great deal of time with Emmie making sure she tested every bike. He got the book out and showed her every color that every bike came in. In the end she picked out a bike I would not have guessed to be the one she liked best. She called it the 101 Dalmation bike even though it wasn't. It is a black and white bike. The black parts are puppy prints and it has a puppy on the padded wrap around the handle bars.

I will admit I tried to get EmmaLi to decide on the Princess bike or the Starfish bike or the Dora bike we saw at Walmart and Toys R Us but she liked and wanted the Dalmation. The department store bikes were under way less than the one she got, like 2.25 to 3 times as much. The nice thing is that when she outgrows this new bike, we will get a discount on her next bike equal to one third the original cost of the bike we bought. So we will get about a $50.00 trade in on the next bike. I will say this bike is sturdier and definately better made than the department store bikes. The training wheels are much more stable than the ones on the other bikes as well.

Here are some pictures of her new bike.