Joy, joy, joy – Blueberries!

Blueberries are little round blue wonders of so much joy. These four girls just ate and ate blueberries. They ate them from their buckets, from the bushes, and probably from the ground. They also picked a few blackberries. Emily had blackberry juice stains on her chin, shirt, fingers, and legs. The pig-tailed girls all enjoyed being out in the sun on a pleasant sunny afternoon and being together.

The girls and I visited Dollywood again. This time we tried to drive up during naptime and then visit the park in the afternoon and evening. The schedule worked great and we had a great time. The only problem with this schedule is that the park closes at the girls bedtime and by the time we get home it is rather late.

Again I set low expectations for what we would try to do, so that we could just be free to have a good time. This time the new things we did were ride the steam locomotive train, eat dinner, play in the splash pad, and explore the children’s rope course. We also did the things we did last time. If I was to guess, I would think Julia’s favorite thing was riding the carousel twice. She spotted it from the train car and pointed it out for our next activity. Emily started to learn this visit that she could ask to do things and to ask what a ride was. All rides fall into one of two categories, an Emily ride or a Mommy ride. She informed me that we needed to bring Daddy back with us so that I could ride some of the Mommy rides.

Both girls enjoyed playing at the splash pad. Julia was very unsure of the water that sometimes came out and then stopped. She watched for a while, but after she was willing to venture close and try to grab the water she had a blast. Emily was willing to run in right away, but got a little chilly as she got wet.

Emily loved reading the map as we would go around the park. I would show her where we were and where we were going. She followed our trip around the park and enjoyed looking at all of the symbols. She can recognize the restroom symbol and enjoyed looking to see where they were. I guess instead of ‘Where’s Waldo’ she was playing ‘Where’s the Potty’. I love to see this trait in her because both of her parents love looking at maps too.

I would have loved a photo with the girls looking at camera, but that never is a guarantee these days. They were very facinated with all the little clover flowers hidden in the grass. It was sweet to watch their discovery of the blooming treasures.

This is a classic and wonderful story, enjoy! On our way home from Cades Cove, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner. Our first stop inside was the restroom. On the way I gave Emily some verbal directions to the bathroom. I told her to find the flashing stoplight on the back wall and the bathroom door would be below it. Half way back to the bathroom, Emily stopped walking and I asked her why, after all, we were staring right at the entrance and she knew where she was going. She told me the stoplight was red and that meant we had to stop. Everyone standing around up had huge smiles! Because the light was never going to change to green, I gave her permission to continue on. I’m glad our first lesson on the rules of the road have taken so well.

The last day of Little Gym is a performance to show what each child has learned. This display is called the “Big Show”. For this class’s show Mommy, Daddy, and Julia came to watch. Daddy had brought Emily to most of the classes and it was a good opportunity for me to measure where Emily was at the beginning of the class to now. When she first started the class it was the first time she was on her own in a group setting with having to listen to instruction. Emily has grown a lot in this class. She has tried a lot of new moves, been on new equipment, and practiced the art of taking turns and listening to instruction from the teachers. I appreciate that this is a lot of new things to be introduced in just a couple month class. Despite all the changes in the class Emily loved it and was very pleased to be able to show off her new stuff for us all.

The kids did their warm-up and listening activities and then broke down into two groups to demonstrated on their skills at the different stations. Emily loves running in a circle at the warm-up activities. For the floor exercises she did her own variation on the moves and freely edited out the moves she didn’t want to do. I think her favorite move is the “Ta-Da” that completes each routine. Next her group went to the balance beam. On the beam she continued to exercise her freedom to edit the routine, but thoroughly enjoyed the beam. She was able to do her favorite move which is the Arabesque. At home she will arabesque on any elevated surface and announce herself. Lastly they performed their routine on the uneven bars. As usual she preformed her own version and really didn’t try much of this apparatus.

The biggest hit of the evening was the award presentation where each child got to take center stage and receive their medal. All the children seemed to love the applause and showing off. It was such a joy to watch Emily engage in an activity that was her own and receive such pleasure from it.

Two sweet girls sharing wild flowers and enjoying a sunny day! Happy Father’s Day!

Grandma rode with us to Orlando. It was nice to have a little extra company in the car as we traveled. The stay at Jolie’s was very short, but lots of fun. All of the family came by and enjoyed a dinner together. And before dinner we enjoyed some time out at the pool.

The girls got to play in their new bathing suits (thanks, Nichole) and enjoy the cool water on a warm afternoon. Emily had been looking forward to her visit with Natalie for quite a while and was so excited. The girls had a blast swimming together. They poured water, swam around, and jumped into the water a million times.

Dylan wasn’t left out and enjoyed running around the house with Emily, watching TV together, and driving push cars in the house. He enjoyed the pool, but couldn’t compete with Natalie in the pool.

Julia did her own thing for the day. She hung out in the pool until she got too cold then cuddled with a variety of people. Then shortly after dinner she was rocked to sleep by Grandma.