Such a Ham

Our precious little peanut has been lots of fun, as usual. Above is a picture of her exploring the fountains when she accompanied us to campus one day. Of course, it is still almost impossible to get her to look at the camera or to smile. She hung out on campus with me while Daddy helped some of his students. In the middle of Daddy's meetings, Emily decided that she wanted to help too and she kept saying, "Me help kids." She wanted me to bring her to Daddy's office so that she could get in on the whole business of helping. She couldn't quite figure out why we never seemed to make it to Daddy's office. Hmmm.

One of our outings on Easter Sunday was to take a nice drive to see the bluebonnets, which are apparently really impressive this year. There are towns where huge fields of them seem to stretch out forever. It is pretty impressive. The rumor that is instilled in the children here from their earliest days in school is that it is illegal to pick a bluebonnet. However, being the contrarian role model that he is, Chad made sure to look this up, confirm that it is NOT illegal, and then proceed to tell every native that he meets that they are mistaken about this alleged law. That being said, they are very pretty, and are worth preserving, so we were careful to make sure that the girls did not pick any bluebonnets.

Emily really is such a ham when she is feeling good (teething is still an issue for her). She really likes to flirt and tease. She speaks in sentences more and more frequently lately and is doing a good job of putting words together. I don't always understand what she is talking about. Her ideas and stories are getting more and more complex and her memory is getting really good, so she sometimes will start talking about something out of the blue and I won't have any context to help me decipher it. However, most of the time she does a great job at getting her point across. 

She has taken an interest in cutting, utensils in general, and in cooking. She likes to help stir and gets excited about helping to make pancakes, eggs, PB&J sandwiches, etc. This is something that we regularly did with Abbie when she was this age, but now that Abbie is firmly established as sous chef (coat and all) it doesn't leave much room for Emily. Many times Emily will just make due with the play kitchen and will make me sandwiches, etc. Funny to think of a chef that doesn't eat even half of the ingredients that she cooks with. I'm hopeful that encouraging her interest in cooking will encourage her interest in trying new foods.

Last, but not least, our little ham felt the need to catch up on the news yesterday. So funny. Do you think the WSJ would pay us for the photo? Perhaps if they start marketing their paper to the under 10 crowd! :)