getting so big

Recently Emma has seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds. We tried her hat selection on the other day and realized only one still fits. She has also acquired a new sock collection as it seemed we had to donate most of her socks to the "for the next child" box because they didn't feet her growing feet. Maybe it's because she's got strangely long toes. I wonder where she gets that bizarre feature from, Uncle Jake? Her hair has gotten longer and I refuse to have it cut again, so I resorted to buying some baby clips to keep it out of her eyes. To my surprise they work great, but they make her look so much older don't you think?

Having fun in the kitchen

Another new purchase are some leggings. With the weather as it is around here, it's not quite warm enough to have bare legs and Emma doesn't really like her tights because they're too slippery and she can't crawl well with them on. So leggings seem to work well. As a child of the 80s I never thought I would be dressing my own children in such ridiculous attire, but I have to admit she looks smashing. As long as they're not stirrups, right?!

Looking bored in the kitchen

Doesn't she look big, though, in these pictures?! I swear I'm going to be That Mom on the first day of school blurbing like an idiot. Why can't she stay this size forever?

Discovering Raleigh

Today we went on an adventure to downtown Raleigh. It's always nice to realize there are cool things to do in your town. Well, I can't say Raleigh is really our town, but there really is not a whole lot to do in Durham and it's kind of a scary place, so Chapel Hill and Raleigh are our adoptive homes. Today we walked down Fayetteville Street in Raleigh which is the main drag. It runs basically the length of downtown between the capital building and some other important political building. Whenever there's a fun event downtown, Fayetteville Street is often in the heart of it.

Fayetteville Street on 4th of July. You can barely see the capital building in the background.

Another area we went was the City Market area of Raleigh. This area is full of great restaurants, including Big Ed's which is one of our favorites. Definitely a greasy spoon, but it's "down home southern cookin" in a kitchy atmosphere. Comes complete with a Big Ed and his own chair. I don't think you can get hired there unless you have a southern accent. The meal is full of comments like, "hey sug", "y'all threw?" "more sweet tea or biscuits?"Gotta love the south. Have to admit though I love me some biscuits!

Big Ed himself

The inside of the restaurant. Notice all the things hanging from the ceiling. They keep Emma distracted through most of the meal

We also found two new art galleries that had lots of paintings I would love to buy if I had some (or a lot in some cases) extra money. We also found a small park where the downtowner gather for lunch or to relax. There is a massive acorn sculpture in the middle of the park (see below), but no real explanation of why it's there. Interesting.

Emma and the giant acorn

the zerbert queen

For those of you with small children, you may want them to leave the room. This is quite disgusting. Although this video is from a few weeks ago, this is still one of Emma's favorite past times. I guess I should probably teach her soon that this is not really appropriate lady-like behavior, but it's just so darn cute!

look mom no coat!

With the unseasonably warm weather here lately, we've decided to get outdoors more. We found a great lake in Raleigh, Lake Johnson, and a great park between Raleigh and Durham called William B. Umstead State Park. These first pictures are from Lake Johnson. It has paved loop trail around it that is about 2.5 miles long. The day we went (in February mind you) it was 78. That's why Emma doesn't have a jacket or long pants on. We really weren't trying to freeze her. I even broke a sweat a little bit!

Boathouse at Lake Johnson with Nate in the foreground

Notice Emma's pigtails. How cute!

Emma and Mommy at Lake Johnson Bridge

One of my favorite parts of the lake. They have rocking chairs to relax at the boathouse after a long walk

The other park we found is the Umstead State park which is strategically placed near the airport. At over 5,500 acres, there's lots of room to play! Although none of the trails are paved, there are lots of multi-use trails that are supposed to be for horses and bikes, but strollers luckily work too. Unfortunately, the map did not have any indication of miles, so our hike turned out to be a little long. We spent nearly four hours there! Oh well, next time we'll know.

Ready for a long walk

You can't tell very well by the picture, but by the end of the hike, I carried Emma back to the car because she was sleeping

(Somewhat) Spontaneous trip to Philly

So last week I didn't have clinicals because my preceptor had a conference she had to go to. Instead, my adviser at Duke was supposed to set up an observational opportunity for me at UPenn. They have a PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care of the Elderly) there and it's a program I'm really interested in. If you'd like to learn more about it, here's the website: http://www.npaonline.org/website/article.asp?id=4. Anyway, the opportunity fell through but we decided to go up to Philly anyway to see Nate's Mom. It was a nice week. We went to the Please Touch Museum and Reading Terminal Market in downtown Philly. I would highly recommend Reading Market if you are there. The Please Touch Museum was alright. Emma seemed to enjoy it, but there wasn't a whole lot there and seemed fairly overpriced. We also went to King of Prussia mall. I really like it for some inexplicable reason. It's no Mall of America, but it's pretty good as far as malls go. Emma seemed to really enjoy the trip and was quite the trooper for the 8+ hour car ride each way. I think her favorite part was playing with LaVonne's dogs, Callie and Jess. Callie is a yellow lab and Jess is a black lab. I think Emma might need a doggy friend. I know I would like one! Here's some pictures from our trip.

Emma's dressed for the road.

Tea with the Mad Hatter.

Playing well with others.

Emma likes mirrors

Little drummer girl

Driving the truck with daddy

Daddy barely fits in here

Playing in the water

Playing monkey in a barrel with Nana

Hat shopping

Emma and Mommy at the mall

Emma can pull up on just about anything to stand tall

This is Emma's favorite face to make