Emma, Nana and Poppy all went to the Houston Livestock Show on Tuesday of Spring Break. Emma had been last year to the Livestock Show and was all excited to be going to see the cows, horses, lambs, goats, chickens, well you get the picture. So we park in the parking lot, flag down a trolley and take the short ride to the entrance, where Nana comments to Poppy do your know which lot number we are in, and Poppy says not a problem we are near the front entrance we’ll find it. We buy our tickets and take another short trip on the tram to the Livestock Show. The tram travels through much of the carnival and Emma was checking out all of the rides and everything – you know NanaPoppy Yook Yook. We get to the Livestock Show and get everything set up in the stroller and off we go.

We had no sooner gotten into the Livestock Show when Nana spied a purple cowgirl hat and asked Emma if she wanted to go see if the man had one in her size – “Sureâ€?, Emma said. We went into the booth and the salesman started checking hat sizes and found a purple cowgirl hat in Emma’s size. Now for those of you that don’t know Emma and hats, she is not a big hat fan, and typically will only wear a hat for maybe 10 seconds if you’re lucky. The salesman put the hat on Emma’s head and we all started letting her know how pretty it looked and what a great looking cowgirl she was with her purple cowgirl hat. Emma just smiled and looked at everyone and Nana and Poppy were expecting the hat to come off within 30 seconds, but it didn’t. Emma was so proud of her purple cowgirl hat that it stayed on for the rest of the day.

Next we were off to check out the animals, and first up were the cows. They had an area with newborn animals with there mothers and we went over to check out a cow named Strawberry Shortcake and her newborn calf that was only 7 days old. As we got closer it became obvious that Emma does not want to get close to the cows, so then we walked over to see the newborn pigs (just a day old) and while we got close to look at the piglets suckling on the mother, Emma decided we were to close and needed to move on. Nana and Poppy were beginning to think that checking out the animals was going to be a wash out. Off next to the lambs and goats, and this seemed to be OK. Maybe it was because the lambs and goats were not as close, who knows, but we watched and talked about the lambs and goats for a long time.

We watched the baby chick’s hatch and all the little chicks that were just born, but did not really want to check out the full grown chickens. At first we weren’t sure about the rabbits but then we started talking about them looking like Peter Cottontail and Emma warmed up to the rabbits quickly, but we still did not want to pet the bunny rabbit. We looked at the bee’s but did not want to get to close to the cage that had them flying around inside, watched the bulls from a safe distance, and Emma and Poppy thought one goat was really funny because he had a bucket on his head.

Time to go check out what there was to eat, and on the way there, Emma grabbed her purple cowgirl hat and lifted it off her head and shouted “Yee-haw�. Nana and Poppy looked at each other and said did you teach her that? We learned later that Emma had seen Dora the Explorer do that in an episode where Dora was a cowgirl with a purple cowgirl hat. After eating our lunch we decided to check out the carnival rides to see if there was something that Emma could ride. Emma wanted to ride them all and most of them were too big for her to ride, but we eventually found a Merry-go-Round and that was perfect. Emma decided that she wanted to ride the zebra so we got on and at first there was some uncertainty, but once we got going she was OK and kept telling Poppy we were going “Super-fast�. Once the ride was over with, Emma wanted to ride again, but it was getting late and we needed to leave, so we enticed her away from the Merry-go-Round by offering her surprise. “What is it, What is it� is all we heard until Nana finally came back with some Funnel Cake. Emma wasn’t sure if this would be something she would like but after the first bite; she decided this was good stuff, especially the powdered sugar. She liked the powdered sugar so much that she was licking it off Nana’s fingers. We laughed and ate Funnel Cake and got powdered sugar everywhere.

Time to leave, but when we got back to the entrance gate the trolleys weren’t running anymore so we decided to put Emma in the stroller and walk back to where the car was. When we got back to where the car was supposed to be there was an empty slot in the parking lot. Nana and Poppy looked at each other and said this looks like the spot, since we both remembered we parked next to a light blue SUV and there was a light blue SUV in the slot next to the empty parking space. Nana told Poppy to stay with Emma and Nana took off looking for the car in the parking lot. While Nana was gone Poppy tried the emergency button on his key chain, but no cars started honking. It was not looking good. Then about 5 minutes later Nana came driving up in the car and told us that we were off by a whole section and she had found the car. Emma and Poppy both shouted “Hooray, Nana saved the day�.

On the drive back to Nana & Poppy’s house for Emma’s afternoon nap – Emma, still wearing her purple cowgirl hat, decides we all need to tell each other stories about our day at the rodeo. We all tell stories and laugh and laugh and laugh.

Last week Emma and I were able to spend 9 days together.  We had a pretty relaxed week.  We went to Chuck E. Cheese, ran errands, went to the park, saw my aunt, hung out with Lindsey and Dean and had a small short picnic at the park.   Emma also enjoyed a day at the Rodeo with Nana and Poppy.  Below are some pictures of the things we did.  You can also click here to see more.

On Saturday, we headed out to Emma’s spring carnival at school.  It was awesome.  They had 2 bounce houses, a big slide, obstical course, rock wall, bungy jumping, pony rides, dunking booth, carnival games, and food.  The part Emma enjoyed the most was just playing on the playground equiptment.  She doesn’t get to use this playground during the school day, since she is still in the Toddler class.
We jumped, got her face painted, got a balloon dog made, ate, played games and hung out.  It was the best way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday.  Click here for more carnival photos.

   

Today Nana went to pick Emma up from school.  When she arrived, one of the subs told her that she needed to go into the room to see what Emma did today.  Libby, her teacher, agreed.  (When Nana told me this, I was starting to get worried.) 

Libby said today Emma was doing letter work, then got up and walked away without picking up.  (I’m even more worried now!)  So then Libby went over to pick up the work and saw something…

When Nana went into the room, Libby asked Emma to go over to the letter work and show Nana what she had done today.  Nana, Emma and Libby all walked over to the letter station.  Sitting on top of the basket of letters was 4 letters- E-M-M-A.  She had spelled her name perfectly with 2 M’s.  They were all very shocked and left it as it was so Nana could see the awesome work Emma did today.

WAY TO GO EM!!!!!!  We are so proud of you.

Today we had family dinner at our house with Grandmother, Layne, Amanda, Morgan, and Logan.  The kids had fun playing in the play room and with the drums.  After the favorite meal of the family; Hot Dogs.  The kids took naps and the adults hung out.  Layne decided to take his shot at Pilates.  HA HA HA!  It was fun to spend the afternoon with the family.
Click here for pictures.  Go to the very bottom.

Yesterday we took Emma to Sherry’s Cut Co, to get her hair trimmed.  It was getting really long and shaggy, but we didn’t want to cut alot off.  We headed to Sherry’s.  This is where my sister and I have grown up getting our haircut.  We spent the whole week talking to Emma about it and trying to see what she wanted to do.  Her reply would be the same, ” I just want to cut a little and then I”ll be all done.”  That is exactly what she did.  We got a trim and then we were all done.
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