Meeting Kaylin :)

On the evening of the 7th - the night that we returned to our vehicles from our trip, a friend of mine had her baby!

Kevin & Andrea welcomed a daughter: Kaylin. She sure made her mommy wait it out - before we left on our trip she was expected to come any day. Still, at just one day past the due date, it's not toooooo bad!

I think probably the most excited person in the family was Kaylin's big sister, Serena! Serry is nearly 5 and has been talking about having a sister for years. Although, her 2.5 year old self had an imaginary sister named DW.....

Anyways...pretty cool stuff. This past Monday I visited Andrea & Kaylin for the morning and got to hold the 'little' peanut (9 lbs isn't so newborn anymore, but she still seems tiny!)

Serena's Hair Salon

After the St. Jacob's trip, Ed & I packed up some boxes at my place, loaded the cars, and headed out for dinner. We were headed to Kevin and Andrea's for a bbq, cut short by the fact that I had a meeting to run off to that night :(

When we got there, I was greeted with hand-picked flowers and cries of "Aunt Emily! Hi!" from Serena. Ed got a much cooler reception. For about 3.2 seconds, before he was dragged into a game of "pass the 'soccer' ball."

After soccer was over and Ange and I had had some time to chat, Serena decided to do my hair. It got 'blow dried' 3 or 4 times - each time with a different dryer. Then flat-ironed twice, bushed a couple more, and finally: topped with a tiara.

And of course, such fabulous hairstyling must be captured forever in pictures, right?
And when you bring out the camera, a 4-going-on-5-year-old must have pictures of herself, and then must take some pictures herself.
So some of these specimens are blurry. But hey - she does a pretty good job! (And, my water-cam is all I have right now, and it's a bit trickier to take good photos with. Excuse my grammar, please.)

My hairdresser & I

This princess's turn!

Serena' view (excuse my blinding white arms. I promise, I do have some pigment!)

Another of Serry's takes :)

I love that little girl. And in just a bit, (maybe even by the time this post is published!?) she's gonna have a new baby brother or sister. So cool, right!?! Looking forward to meeting Baby H :)

She can have her cake!

Serena is at that age of wonderful imagination.

Oh, wait.

Nevermind. She's ALWAYS had a great imagination. I remember waking up very early in the morning to a two-year-old voice telling herself stories about her sister, DW.

So things haven't changed, but this group of pictures tells quite a funny story!

(By the way, this cake was strawberry, raspberry, cherry, something-or-other cake. Thought I'd give you the heads up!)

Presenting...cake!

...drop cake.

She does the cake recovery program...

Anyways....isn't that second picture priceless? I laugh every time I see it. (Is that mean? It is, right? Shoot.) Anyways, I was taking a picture of the 'cake' when it dropped down her front, and that was the picture I got instead. Although you can't tell by the picture, her front was pretty dusty! She made a quick recovery and I could take a picture of the 'cake' that remained in the baking pan (frisbee.)

Back in Time

We go back in time to view a few park pictures. Remember the last park pictures I posted with Serena? That was Friday night, this was Saturday.

We splurged on Wendy's for lunch, and brought it to a bench by the riverside to eat. We also fed some ducks & geese who were there, but were interrupted soon after by a strange lady. I'm still not convinced that she was all there... It was rather awkward. She chatted to us, tried to tell Serena's "mommy" how to take the best care of her (yes, she was referring to me), and wanted a hug from Serry. How do you deal with that? We finished up lunch as quick as we could and then removed ourselves to play at the playground.

I realised after that I probably could have just gently explained that Ser wasn't allowed to be so friendly with strangers (somehow.) Anyways, with that awkward moment of the day over, we had fun. Plenty of baby geese for Serry to 'ooh' & 'ahh' over, a slide, a swing, a bridge...

It was beautiful & fun.

Can you spot the butterfly?

Goose family in front of the bridge which Serry ran over a few times....

Swinging!

Episode 3..."Cake" coming up next...

Parking on a Friday Night

NO! Not THAT kind of parking.

The kind of parking that involves going to the park and enjoying the beautiful warm weather with your toes in the sand and an energetic little girl running around, excitedly trying EV-ER-Y-THING (with the attention span of a squirrel: "Was I going this way? Or that way? Or thi--? Or --?" *rushes off in a new direction altogether*)

I got lots of great shots. She is such a little poser for the camera!

Hairdressing at the park? Sure...why not?

If you noticed the frog I was holding in the last pic, Mommy Frog was for me to hold so I wouldn't be scared of getting my hair done...

Pretty sweet hairdressing if I say so myself!

Ham :)

Look at that tongue!

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I'm mean, but this was toooo funny!

She tried these too, but I had to hold her up.

In addition to this, she spoke/listened through the tunnel machines, tried all the other slides and steps, did the fireman pole twice, walked like a gorilla, went on a big-girl swing, did everything another time through....and conquered climbing up the big slide (another post coming for that one!)

So, basically, and awesome Friday night at the park :D

A Precious Child

Today after school I went to visit my friend Andrea at her new house. They just moved in, and I needed to come see it.

So I did. I walked in the door and Andrea's little girl greeted me with a question: "Do you want to play with me?"

So after the house tour, we sat at the dining room table and strung beads in patterns on shoelace-type string.
Then we played doctor.

Apparently, my heart is beeping (phew!) Also, my bones are red (a la Clifford) and my brain is brown. All this she could see by pressing a book down over my stomach.

So all those days when I'm not making sense? It's because my brains are in my stomach.

Later on, she stuck my finger in a medicine cup filled with imaginary soil to grow a thumb-ring. Um. Ok.

That girl is a doll. I love her to bits, and I don't see her nearly often enough. She tied herself to me with her bathrobe strings when I tried to leave after dinner, and it took a cuddle and some promises of visits to my house in order to get out of the house. Talk about making my heart feel guilty!

It was a fun couple of hours though, also seeing Andrea & Kevin's new place and spending some time chatting with them over dinner.

Life of a Little Person

4 years ago, Mandy's birthday party

This year, Mandy's birthday party.

They're blurry, cuz she's not as still as she was as a baby :P

A little person goes through a lot of changes in 4 short years!

A very Serry day

I know this wonderful, vivacious, gorgeous, spunky little girl named Serena. She's four. I call her Serry. She is pretty much one of the loves of my life.

This morning we had a conversation about that. It went something like this.

S: "Aunty Emily, I love you."
Me: "I love you too, Serry."
S: "Do you love me the most?"
Me: "No, I love God the most."
S: goes on a huge, cute tangent about how God lives in heaven and when people die then if they live they go to heaven.
Me: "But God lives in your heart too, right?"
S: "Yes, he lives right. in. side. But, you love me next most, right?"
Me: "Right, along with a bunch of other people."

And then she continued putting plastic clips in my hair as I lay there not wanting to wake up yet. (She was over for a sleepover.)

And then, Aunty Mandy came and we hung out in our pjs all day (ok, that was just Serry), doing our nails, watching Despicable Me and eating "squares" (Cinnamon Toast Crunch - a special treat only to be found at Aunty Emily's.)

I love that kid. She's my fave. (Ok, one of a few faves :) But definitely my fave 4-year-old, blonde daughter-of-a-friend.

But seriously, she is so much fun, and very well behaved (ok, mostly) and a great hairdresser :)

love

she did her own hair, and she's got pasta, squares & oj for supper = happy girl :)

Salon Chez Bunny-Serena