Second Verse!

If you saw Chloe's end of year school program post, you know how much of a hit "You Are My Sunshine" is in this house. (If you didn't, click on the videos section to the left and watch Chloe belt it out!) Well, it seems this song is Emma's favorite as well. Generally, the only time she fusses in her car seat is when she's tired. We've discovered that if we sing this song she immediately stops crying and will turn her face into her car seat and try to go to sleep. It's pretty neat to watch-- and if you stop singing before she's asleep she quickly lets you know. Last week we went to dinner at a friends house about 20 minutes away. The ENTIRE ride home Chloe and I took turns singing-- and no other song would do, trust me! You may not know this but the second verse is better than the first! Now I could be biased because I made it up when Chloe was a baby and would sing it while rocking her to sleep every night. But I think I should get a copyright for this straightaway!
(to the tune of "You Are My Sunshine" , the second verse!)

The other night now while you were sleeping
I closed my eyes and I softly prayed
Oh please Lord watch over my dear sweet Chloe
Please don't take my sunshine away

Feel free to substitute your child's name and watch him smile with delight at having a song sang just for him!

Her Bodyguard

It took Emma and Clyde a few months before they paid any attention to each other, but now they are best buds! (I think at first Clyde was trying to pretend that it was all a dream, like, "Oh no, they didn't bring another one home to dress me up and ride on my back!") We thought we might have a little trouble when Emma started crawling-- her favorite place to play and crawl is also Clyde's favorite place to lay and sleep. But it has been no problem, he's actually been very accommodating and will move to another rug when she comes to play or he'll just lay there and let her poke and prod him (all under the close watchful eye of mom or dad!). And even though he likes to act like he doesn't care--he's not fooling me-- when we let him in from being outside for awhile he has to search the house to find her, and on more than one occasion I've caught him napping outside her bedroom door while she's in there napping! You gotta love that beast!!!


E: "You bend it this way to crawl like me Clyde"









Clyde: "Code Brown over here-- this could get ugly!"








Emma: "Clyde if you just put your back against mine we can sleep sitting up. Awesome!"

My, what big ears you have!

I promise to post more Disney pics as soon as I can, but I had to share these. I hope you can appreciate how hard it is to get a still shot of Emma now that she is crawling like an animal being chased! That kid is fast! Here are a few pics of her with her lovely mouse ears (click on pics to see larger)
I had to include a couple of her in some of her Gamecock gear! and the one at the bottom she's chewing on C-3PO and a Storm Trooper (we brought back Star Wars toys for Emma and Micky to share!) Chewbacca is her favorite!

"...a world of laughter a world of tears..."

It is indeed a small world after all! We got back from Disney yesterday around 6pm after what seemed to be the LONGEST RIDE home EVER!!!! :-)

Disney was awesome! The weather was great, the rides were great, the characters were great, and the company was great! I'm pretty sure Chloe and "my Nina" had a blast and will remember parts of this trip forever-- I know I will. They were so sweet! Now, there were moments when I thought that if my child whined one more time that I might just have to toss her on top of the huge golf ball at Epcot! But those moments were overshadowed by watching her and her bestest friend be so unbelievably adorable-- like watching their faces light up the first time they saw the Princesses on stage, or seeing them act shy when getting autographs from characters, or when they watched the 3-D shows (Muppet's and philharmagic!) and were so excited trying to reach for the objects jumping out at them, and my favorite-when they put their princess dresses on for our Princess Luncheon and just had to call each other Belle and Aurora! You can't put a price on seeing stuff like that, and it may sound corny but I'll say it anyway-- my heart skipped a little when I felt like I was seeing things through their eyes. It was so worth the ache my feet are feeling right now! And I can't help but laugh when I think how at such a young age they can be such good friends to each other. One minute they may be fussing over who gets to hold Tinkerbell or the DVD case-- and the next minute they're riding side by side in strollers leaning out so they can hold hands! And if one of them was upset they would comfort each other so tenderly! We could learn a lot from these princesses!
I'm a bit worn out right now, so I will post more Disney pics later-- I've got a ton and they are so cute!
(This first pic is one of them on their first day of 2 year old preschool-- yes Chloe may hate me for this one day-but it cracks me up to see how much they've changed! And the second is from our second morning in Disney!) click on image to see larger
If these don't make you smile, put your fingers to your inner wrist and check your pulse! :-)

Boyfriendssssssss!!

As you know, Chloe is very much a girly girl! She loves her princess gear, dancing, and telling fairytale stories. However, she does have a good bit of her daddy (and some of her tomboy mommy) in her. She loves to run outside and play golf, softball, soccer-- just about anything that keeps her moving. She has some boy friends at school, but she never talks of inviting them over to play like she does the girls. There are 2 boys that she is always asking me if they can come play-- Tradd and Jackson. She never calls them that of course, she simply refers to them as "the boys". Misty (their mom) and I talk a good bit on the phone and Micky will talk with Lee (their dad) about golf times or whatever and she never fails to ask to speak with the boys or if the boys are getting to come over. They generally come over for dinner about once every couple of months and the kids have a GREAT time playing! We will soon have to educate Chloe on polygamy (in about 20 years!). She insists that one day she will marry "the boys" (& Redding--my Nina's bro) and they will all live in a castle in the forest and have tons of horses. I find it extremely cute and love that she enjoys playing with them so much. They definitely bring a new perspective to all of her "girl" toys, and I love watching them ride on her princess tricycle! Last Thursday they came over to watch the Carolina game. Just before half time they all started getting tired so Chloe picked out a movie for them to watch in the living room. Yep, you guessed it Peter Pan. I got some cute pics of Chloe and her future husbands-- love the one where one of "the boys" looks mad about being odd man out! I'm hoping they all stay great friends as they get older. We'll have plenty of pics to embarrass them with :-)
(click on pic to see larger image)

Can You Hear Me Now?!?

We've been repeating this scene at our house over and over again for the past two weeks:
Emma will crawl a bit~ I'll get the camera to tape her~ Emma stops crawling to stare at all of us acting like fools~ Chloe tries to get Emma to crawl again using any type of persuasion she can.
For the past two days Chloe's persuasion techniques have included INCREASING the volume of her voice-- as if Emma was hard of hearing. I can only guess that Chloe must think that if she says it loud enough Emma will suddenly understand and start crawling, talking, and doing long division. So, while Emma is very cute to watch in this little clip, I can't stop laughing at her drill sergeant barking out orders! (At about 10 seconds in you'll hear Chloe say something about a spider being on my head-- she got this from my family using it on her to get her to look at the camera-- something that even as a 4 year-old she still hates to do.)
You won't actually see Emma crawl in this clip but I promise she can-- especially if Chloe drops a Cheez-It anywhere in a 1 mile radius. Emma and Clyde will race to get it! (don't worry I'm not letting her eat crackers yet... she's still getting use to steak!)