Emmie is Clubber of the Month

Tonight Emmie had her AWANA class. On AWANA night, the AWANA team goes down stairs to the day care and picks her and the other AWANA clubbers up and takes them upstairs for dinner. They get to go outside for a about 20 minutes and run around and play before AWANA starts at 6:30. I get off work and stop by to see her before I go get dinner for myself.

Tonight her teacher suggested I stick around for a few minutes at the group gathering. Emmie earned her first patch for her Cubby vest and she received the Clubber of the Month Award for September. She earned Clubber of the month by learning her Bible verses before class, having perfect attendance, and having all of her supplies with her each week (vest, yellow folder, and book).

She was also called upon by Commander Dan to recite the Cubby Motto for the entire AWANA group. She very loudly announced the Cubby Motto "Jesus Loves Me!" She was so proud to know that and smiled so big when the entire auditorium applauded for her.

Fly Butterfliesfly! Emmie's 1st Soccer Game

My baby had her first soccer game last Saturday. Let me tell you she did GREAT! In the third quarter she got the ball and dribbled it straight down the field and kept complete control over it. She took it all the way to the goal post but stopped just short of shooting a goal as she realized she went the wrong way down the field. She then turned it around and headed back up the field and one of those Blueberry girls (the opposing team) took it away and scored on her. Below are a few pictures. As you can see we need to have a chat with the coaches regarding running in the path of the camera.

Below they are warming up before the game.

Remember what I said about the coaches? Below is the picture of Emmie running the ball down the field for the first time. The assistant coach Mr Chris stepped right in front of me as I took the picture. Actually, I when I clicked the picture he wasn't there but when the shutter opened he was. Maybe if he knows his butt will be posted to the internet he will be more mindful of photographing parents. LOL

Ah yes, below is a picture of Emmie kicking the ball in to her team mates. Yes, that is another coach (of the opposing team) who stepped in the way as I clicked. You can barely make out the edge of the 5 on her uniform.

Despite the male coaches best efforts, I did get a few good pictures of my baby's first soccer game. I supposed it is worth noting that her head coach is a woman (Coach Johanna) and she did not get her back side in any of our pictures.

In closing this post I have to say Emmie is truly enjoying playing soccer. Last Thursday as we were leaving she was skipping along and said "I told you I would love soccer Mommy! I told you I would love it and I do! I love playing soccer!"

She has now shifted gears and wants to be a professional soccer player when she grows up. So far she has gone from wanting to be a doctor, to a teacher, to a dentist, to a soccer player. It will be interesting to find out what this amazing little girl will be when it is all said and done. Whatever she becomes I am sure she will be amazing at it.

An Eddie Adventure

We got a call from our friends Chrissy, Gordy and Jackie who were going to be in town because Gordy had a meeting. Chrissy and Jackie had the day for themselves and had planned on spending it in Columbia. They asked if we wanted to do something fun and you know Emmie is always up for something fun.

It's never a dull day for Emmie when we head to Edventure for a day of fun so that is what we did. The girls had so much fun. They always have fun together and play together so well. They are two peas in a pod and have gotten along with one another since the day they met. You want proof? Check out this picture taken right after Jackie came home. We met them for lunch. Jackie was 11 months I think and Emmie was 17 months old. Yes, they are wearing matching outfits and it was not planned. I had found them and liked them. I bought one for Emmie and one for Jackie and it was quite by happenstance that we dressed the girls in those outfits.

What's a little kiss between friends?

Here are some pictures of them now at Edventure.

Future Fire Fighters of America!

Practiicing surgery on the worlds largest Operation game. Hmm... maybe this should be on her Christmas list.

Notice the twin boys in the picture above. They were adopted from China as well (GuangXi I think they said). They live about an hour away from us. We don't know them except for the short exchange we had with their parents. Those two boys were too CUTE for words. It makes me want a little boy again. If only China would allow singles to adopt again. It does not look like that will happen though (another topic for another day).

Riding a camel.

After Edventure, we went to lunch at Emmie's favorite restaurant Olive Garden. She loves to go and get the Minnie Stronie soup and bread sticks. Okay it's not Minnie Stronie soup but since Minnie Mouse makes Minnie Stronie soup for Goofy when he has a cold that is what she calls it instead of Minestrone soup. I really don't care what she calls it as long as she eats it. It is just about the only place we can go for lunch or dinner and she actually eats what she orders. LOL Praise the Lord for Minnie Stronie!

Computer troubles

For the past three weeks my computer has been having problems. The poor thing would not power up. It started to load Windows and then would shut down again. It would try again and then shut down again. I finally took it int to be looked at by a computer geek who has a small shop I pass on the way to work every morning. The guy was able to get it to boot up, run some diagnostics, correct a few errors but the sad news is that the hard drive is terminal.

Now I need to look into finding a new hard drive, backing up all the files I have on this one and hopefully not loose anything that cannot be replaced. My biggest concern was the photos I had not yet backed up. My computer geek backed up all photos for me so now I have them all backed up on one disk.

One thing I really want to remind everyone of is that you should back up your files as soon as possible.Most of mine were backed up by the year. I have a 1 gig memory card in my camera. Until recently (like the past three months) I never deleted pictures off that card. However, I started deleting them once I moved them onto my pc. Now I have a new personal policy, "Do not delete pictures off the memory card until you have copied the photos to a CD." I may attempt to keep them on shutterfly or some other host platform. If anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear the good the bad and the ugly regarding that type of host program.

I am very far behind on my posts. Apparently, I have been tagged by Lisa L. Unfortunately, I have not been able to answer the questions. We went to EdVenture last weekend with friends, and Emmie had her first soccer game yesterday.

I'll try to do my best to catch up provided my computer does not give up the ghost before I get a new hard drive.

First Soccer Practice

It took numerous phone calls and much pleading but I was able to get Ms Emmie on a soccer team. Here are pictures of her first practice! First they warmed up.

They they practiced dribbling. Emmie found it easiest to NOT pick up the ball by holding her hands behind her back.

Happy Birthday Callie!

We went to Atlanta this past weekend for our friend Callie's 5th birthday party. She chose to have her party at a Karate Dojo. EmmaLi got to put on her real Wendy Wu moves and they weren't directed at me for once.

She got to break a board by kicking it. See photo to the right.

She also got to see Callie play soccer. For about the past month Emmie keeps telling me she wanted to be a soccer player when she grows up. I have been seeing signs up promoting the local youth soccer league. Every time we pass one of those signs I ask her if she wants to play. She tells me no. Finally, the signs came down and I stopped asking her as the registration is over. Suddenly, she wants to play soccer now. I called around to see if I can get her on a team. As it turns out the coed teams are completely full. There are spaces on a girls team but because the practices are from 6:00 to 7:00pm on what ever night they practice, and the field is easily 30 minutes away from her day care. I do not get off work until 6:00pm so we could not make the practice. I got a call last night from a woman from the girls soccer league in town and she has found a spot on a field that is between Emmie's day care and my work. We could make that practice with a little modification of my schedule. I am supposed to call ehr tonight to confirm the date and time and whether she has the space for sure. Cross your fingers she can get on the team.

Here is a picture of Callie playing soccer!

Can you say Cheese?

Below are portraits we had done. I must say I was not impressed with them but since we haven't had a portrait done together since Emmie was 22 months old, I thought it was time. I didn't really plan on being in the portraits, I wanted professional photos of Emmie and thought we would just get one with the two of us. As it turned out, Emmie was more relaxed with me in the picture.