Mama loves this movie. So of course we had to go and see it as a family (missing the first several scary minutes). The girls enjoyed it, but had trouble sitting to watch it. Luckily there were just eight other people in the theater.

By far, “Mary Poppins” is the girls favorite movie right now. Emily asks for it by name and they both get excited when they hear the music. The movie is pretty long, but the amount of the movie that holds their attention is amazing.

Several things from the movie have been big influences on the girls. Emily has added “cheeky” to her vocabulary. I asked her where she heard that word and she informed me that, “Mary Poppins said it”. Emily likes to dance like a penguin and has been known to try to ‘adjust’ her pants so that she looks like Dick Van Dyke when he dances like a penguin. Julia runs to get shoes on so that she can dance properly with the chimney sweeps. Both girls dance during the movie, but mostly with the chimney sweeps and trying to imitate the kicks. Today, Emily’s favorite song was “Spoonful of Sugar”. Julia managed the whole word “movie” tonight. For Julia, that is a big deal.

I have to compromise the big fancy camera a lot more theses days and just make do with the camera phone, but this one was so sweet I will take a poor photo over no photo. We had a playdate at the free summer movie today with Elena, Maeve, and their cousin Lincoln. Before the movie started, Ashley took the big girls to the bathroom and the little girls came to hang out with me and the popcorn. We didn’t have the booster seats yet, so I thought that maybe Julia and Maeve would weight enough to hold the seat down together. They loved sitting together on the seat chowing down on their popcorn. It was really sweet.

Our big girl has turned two. Wow, the time has flown! Two years ago we wondered who this little baby would be and what she would look like as she grew. Last year for her birthday, she was learning the freedom of mobility in pulling up and beginning to take steps on her own. Now she is running, talking in gibberish/words, and playing with her sister. Who knows where she will be next year?

To celebrate this year we went to dinner with Grammy and Granddaddy and then had cake and gifts. I think Emily only ate one bite of her cake because she was more excited about opening her gifts. Unlike Christmas when she opened each gift and wanted to play with it, for her birthday she opened one and then grabbed for the next gift. It worked out because it was already her bedtime and by opening them up in a speedy manner she got to get down and play with all the gifts and get on to bed pretty quickly.

As an extension to her birthday celebration Emily and Elena had a play date and lunch together earlier this week. Elena is just two days different than Emily in age and they have gotten to spend the last two years together growing and playing. Elena introduced Emily to bounce equipment and the freedom of exuberant bouncing. Emily was apprehensive to enter the equipment, but Mommy made her enter each one and then make a judgement about her likes and dislikes of each one. She was exhausted when we left lunch and fell asleep in the car on the way home.

Then today she got to go to the Mommy & Me movie and eat popcorn. The movie didn’t hold her interest much today and when she was full of popcorn she asked to ‘play’. Most of the kids were playing today and she said “please,” so I let her go and play with the other kids. I was pleased to see that she was more interested in playing with the other kids and toys than exploring around the theater. At one point I hadn’t seen her head bouncing above the seats for a while so I stood up to look for her. She was sitting on the front row of seats with 3 other children. It was really cute.

I pray a blessing for Emily that God would grant in her life- the joy that makes dark days bright and sun-filled days overflow in gratefulness- a sweet heart for others including her sister- a willing spirit to listen to her heavenly father. I pray that God would grant us, her parents wisdom in how best to train and love her.

Today was our morning movie day for the girls. While it seemed to take us forever to get out of the house, we managed to make it to the movie theater on time. We had to bundle up extra because it was literally freezing outside. Emily was willing to wear her hat (thanks Granddaddy for giving her a love of hats!) and scarf, but unwilling to wear her gloves. Wearing them outside has not been interesting, while she loves to wear the gloves around the house to play.

Julia slept through most of the movie with the exception of waking up for a bottle. I noticed that if you go to an active movie that a baby’s cry isn’t going to be heard over the music and dialog of the movie. It worked out really well.

Emily was simply wonderful today. We tried popcorn last month and Emily was really disinterested in it. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning and decided that I would get a popcorn and a drink. I figured that Emily would try a few and then end up becoming disinterested like last month. I was wrong. She tried it and helped me eat half of the bag. Then she took the bag from me, sat it on her lap, and munched most of the movie. Emily sat for the whole movie either on her booster seat or on my lap and watched the movie. She was such a big girl! The whole event was quite relaxing for me. Imagine that – going out into public with two little ones and being relaxed! It has been a good day!

Emily and her Mommy went to see a movie (Nim’s Island) this morning. The movie was sponsored by our local theater and hospital and they provided toys and employees to help watch the children and the exits. It was an opportunity for Mommy to watch a movie and for Emily to watch as much as she wanted of a movie. Emily found the lighted steps most fascinating. She learned how to walk up the stairs and somewhat crawl down the steps. We only had one spill. Over all it was a wonderful activity and we will watch for more opportunities to catch some movies together.