Taking Care of Ladybugs

"I took care of the ladybugs," said Emma.

"Oh," said her mom. "How did you take care of them?"

"Last night I found two ladybugs in my bedroom. So I squashed them and threw them in the garbage!"

Dave's Taxi & Entertainment Service

Day 2 of Beth's trip to Illinois and the day started early.

6:30am - Sunny woke David up to be let out.

6:45am - David drove Bayley to school for her speech meet.

7:50am - David drove Braxton to his friend John's house so he could go to baseball tryouts.

9:15 am - David & Emma drive to the hotel where Paul is having his birthday party and pick-up Gretchen.

10:00am - David plays games with the girls. First they play a round of speed-Life which Gretchen wins. Then David and Gretchen play a game of Battleship. Gretchen wins that game, too.

11:30am - David, Gretchen, and Emma take Sunny & Rufus to the dog park. Emma has a great time gathering up tennis balls and throwing them to the dogs. Gretchen was cold!

12:45pm - We left the dog park and stopped at McDonald's to pick up some lunch. Then we went home, met up with Zoe and Braxton, and whiled away the afternoon (during part of which time the girls drew faces on some of Emma's remaining party balloons).

3:30pm - David is back in the car again going to pick Bayley up from her speech meet.

4:00pm - David, Braxton, Zoe, Gretchen, and Emma drive back to the hotel where Paul is having his party and join the party for some cake and to watch Paul open presents.

6:00pm - David is posting pictures and drawings to the blog so Beth can see what we've been up to.

6:30pm - David uses all of his culinary expertise to prepare a meal of fish-sticks and tater-tots for the kids.

7:30pm - David writes this last blog entry for the day.

8:00pm - Time to put Emma to bed and start turning the clocks forward for tomorrow.


+ posted by David

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A Picture for Mommy!

Emma drew this picture for Beth so that she'll know that Emma loves her Mommy!

Pictured from left to right are Emma, David, Braxton, Beth, Zoe, and Bayley.

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Nice Hat, Emma!

Emma's Baby Balloon

Gretchen Surprised

Balloon Faces

Happy Birthday, Paul!

Paul's Birthday Party

Another Day with the Chatty Chatty Princess

Today is Day 3 of Emma's vacation from school, Day 2 of Bayley, Braxton & Zoe's vacation from school, and Day 1 of Beth's trip to Illinois. Bayley, Braxton & Zoe were at Brad's house last night, so David decided to take Emma to the office for half a day.

Emma is always greeted by smiling faces. She is known in these parts as the Chatty Chatty Princess and people in the office go out of their way to make sure they get to see her. She is one precocious and entertaining child!

Today Emma spent the first part of her visit opening up some of the toys she received at her kid birthday party: (i) a Thumbalina Fairy, (ii) a My Little Pony, and (iii) a couple of Littlest Pet Shop toys.

After playing with those toys and visiting a few friends, she worked on some drawings. She did a great job of entertaining herself while David was engaged in a one-hour conference call.

Great patience, Emma!!!

After the conference call, it was time for a meeting of the officers of the Toastmasters club that David is a part of - he is the VP of Education. Emma was excited to go to her "very first meeting." She brought her drawing pad and drew a picture of the event.

+ posted by David

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Car Repair & the Chatty Chatty Princess

Emma (a/k/a/ the Chatty Chatty Princess) had no school today because of parent-teacher conferences. So David stayed home from work to spend the day with her.

So what do a dad and a six-year old girl do when home alone for the day?

You guessed it - car maintenance!

David's car needed new tires, so he took Emma to the local Discount Tire to get replacements. The people were friendly and the service was great.

Here is a drawing from Emma showing the work that was done.



Beth's car also needed some maintenance today. Her car was due for an oil change. So after getting new tires on David's car we traded vehicles with Beth and took the mini-van to the local Insta-Lube.

Service there was performed with a smile.

See?



After the oil change, David took Emma to Super-Target to get some pizza and cheetos for lunch.

What a day!!!


+ posted by David

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Happy Birthday Again

Emma had her "kid party" this weekend and I am happy to say that we survived!

The Chatty Chatty Princess invited eight girls over for her party. They all arrived at about 12:30 on Saturday. After being greeted by Sunny & Rufus, the girls went to the dining room to decorate party bags. Then there was a game of "hot potato" and after that Beth served cake and ice cream.

Rich came over to help us transport the girls down the street to the family center where there is an indoor playground called "The Eagle's Nest."

The Eagle's Nest was total pandemonium! There were at least four other birthday parties happening at the same time and loud, screaming kids were everywhere. The girls had a great time climbing, crawling through tubes, playing in the ball pit, and going down slides. Zoe was there to help monitor things. Barb came and watched the chaos, too.

After letting the girls run wild for a little over an hour, we gathered them up to go back to the house.

Wait a minute!

We only have seven girls. We need two more!

After a little searching, we found the last two girls and got everyone home safely.

Once back at the house, Emma opened up her gifts. Then we finished the party with a pinata.

Birthday Party Girls

Painting Party Bags

Candles & Princesses

Make a Wish!

Party Moves to the Eagle's Nest

The Sky's the Limit

Kathryn, Emma, and Georgia on the Slide

Rufus Finds a Friend

Zoe's Science Fair Project

For this year's science fair, Zoe decided to study salt crystals. She made crystals out of table salt, rock salt, and epsom salt.

Below are pictures of some of the results.

Some Paintings by Emma

"Bayley's World"

"Zoe's World"

"Daddy Loves the Vikings"

"Emma Loves Mommy"

Emma Does a Dance

Heavenly Vision

Picture of the winter sun David took on his cell phone.

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