Rainy days

The weather here is...well, less than desirable so far. I mean it’s not super hot or anything, so I suppose that is good...but we had gotten kind of accustomed to super hot...and sunny. Lately it has been very cloudy, raining off and on. Our high today was 71...a little chilly considering the pools are open. But we will survive..although seasonally confused. I’m still hoping for some thunderstorms sometime. 

Anyway, we yesterday we went to the membership appreciation dinner at the club on base. Steven was working, so we went with some friends from PWOC whose husband is TDY.  It was fun to get out. We met another fire family who has a little girl close to Emma’s age. And we forgot our umbrellas. We took them with us every other time, but it had only been sprinkling, so we left them in the car. And of course that means that when we left there was a big downpour. Emma thought it was great fun to get wet. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures. However, this one popped up on the FSS page:

We are sitting with our friends, the fire family is at the table next to us. 

Daddy’s birthday 🎂

Sunday was Steven’s birthday, and he had the day off. On Saturday we decorated and wrapped presents. Emma wanted to make something for him, so we went to the arts and crafts and loaded up. We also were very busy cleaners this weekend! Emma is such a good little worker! We made her a chore chart and she did it all on Saturday! Then we did more cleaning (and baking) on Monday. We also went tot he library, watched a couple of movies, and painted nails in the hallway with the neighbor girl. We enjoyed her 3 day weekend, even if Daddy was only home for one of the days. 
We love to party! See her chore chart on his chair? She was so proud.

Painting for Daddy

Concentrating is hard 

Emma is getting bigger. I have these books for every age that tell you what to expect. When she starts getting difficult or I notice behavior changes, I usually start looking for my book. Lately she has been very difficult...but I think most of it is related to growing up. She wants to do more things herself. Here is what it says on the excerpt for six: (which is called Loving and Defiant)

“The six-year-old is a complex child, entirely  different from the five-year-old. Though many of the  changes are for the good -- Six is growing more  mature, more independent, more daring and  adventurous -- this is not necessarily an easy time for the  little girl or boy. Relationships with mothers are  troubled -- most of the time Six adores mother,  but whenever things go wrong, it's her fault. It  used to be, at Five, that she was the center of the  child's universe; now, the child is the center of  his own universe.”

Yep! She definitely says everything is my fault. (Part of this is exacerbated by having Daddy home...I am chopped liver.) And she is wanting to do more things by herself. I love knowing these things. I feel like I need the reminder that she is growing up, needs to be able to have more responsibilities, freedom...but needs clear boundaries and consequences. These are the times she infuriates me and surprises me. How many times will I tell her to not do something, which I don’t want her to do or don’t think she can or should do...but she does it anyway....and is successful. Lesson for both...I need to let her try more, she needs to listen/obey first and then ask if she can do it or at least try. 

In the picture above I was putting together a shoe rack thing. She grabbed a screw driver, and she actually screws ina couple screws (mostly) by herself. I didn’t think she could do it, and she did need to wait for instructions, but I was so surprised that she could do it!  Obviously she loved helping. 

We were baking and she wanted to bake all by herself, of course. So the compromise was that I would be her souls chef, and read the recipe and get her ingredients out and she could do the measuring and mixing. She did a good job. Still needs some work, but they were yummy and not bad for almost 6!

Fun days of school

Well the fun part of school has started, which means lots of field trips, parties and filed day (which is tomorrow). Yesterday Emma went on a field trip around base. They went to the fire station where they saw fire trucks, a helicopter and a plane. They also went to the gym, the post office, the commissary and had lunch at the bx. Daddy wasn’t working yesterday, but he apparently saw her when she was going to the commissary. :) Not quite sure why, but one of the chaplains that we know was on the trip, or at least part of it. He took pictures of all the kids he knew and his wife sent them out. So I got some pictures of Emma. 

My picture loaded funny, so here are the miscellaneous ones...and the field trip ones come after.
We think these are spider bites? She has 4 of them and they are not fun.

Daddy said not to worry about them.

Yay for a mini thunderstorm!! For once it went right over us!

Getting bigger

Daddy was off today, and he got his car! We both finally have cars now. This afternoon after what is becoming a daily tickle party with Emma, we went down to the playground. The 3 of us played hide and seek for a while, then a couple other little girls joined us. I took a break (moms are generally chopped liver) but they all kept playing. He has given Emma some boundaries, and let her go back down to play with her new friends. I think this was planned. 🤔 But it’s nice! She is enjoying the freedom, and it will probably be good for all of us. 

He is telling them rules for a new game. They were not very good... didn’t close their eyes, counted way too fast, told you where everyone else was hiding. But they had fun anyway. 

Don’t know if you can see, but there is a Daddy his in tip in this tree. 

Checking out Daddy’s new car!

Ice cream party....and curtains!

Yesterday Emma went to a party for a girl in her class. I also know her mom from PWOC. It was an ice cream themed party. The girls all had fun, lots of giggles, not any screaming! Seriously the quietest party I have ever been to. I was the only parent to stay, Emma is getting to the age where parents apparently don’t stay at parties, but they all did in CA still. Plus, we walked so I didn’t want to have to walk all they way back. But it was fun to watch the girls have fun. 

We also finally have our curtains hung in our room! Woohoo! Seriously the sun was blinding before 5AM. We also finished putting Emma’s decorations up in her room. 

One partner was on the floor with an ice cream cone, the other one tried to drop marshmallows in the cone. It was funny to watch them giggle as they tried to lay still with marshmallows dropping on their face.


They had all sorts of ice cream games.

Daddy sent Emma these removable stickers while he was in Korea. But I knew we were moving soon, so we saved them. We had fun putting them up today.

We finished putting her other stuff up, too. I just put it where she wanted it.

Our curtains

Yay!

We went to the shopette to check for butter, but I didn’t want to pay $5 for it, so we will just over whip our cream if we are desperate. But we did find this, which I couldn’t resist.

Tired day

Today we were tired. Steven and I stayed up and watched a movie last night, then Emma woke up early. She had a field trip to the zoo today and we went shopping when she got home. I didn’t get to go on the field trip because my background check hasn’t gone through yet. We are all tired, but good. I got a 20 minute nap this afternoon and she fell asleep on the way home. Today was Steven’s first Kelly day, and it was a nice break for all of us. It feels like he is still gone a lot with this schedule. But we will adjust. Here are some pictures from our week. 
This is what I found them doing yesterday. Emma did need to practice using a mouse for school, and who better to teach her. 😏 She threw a fit when I told her it was dinner time, she wanted to keep playing. So Daddy made a rule that she could play with him for 15 minutes a day when he was off. 

Before school today.

She wanted a picture of her shirt.

Today we took Daddy to the Seiyu, which is like a Japanese Walmart or department store. We had never been on all the floors, so we explored. The top floor was like Chuck E. Cheese...not pizza, just lots of arcade games.The bus ride/game was her favorite. 

She took each of us for a ride.
She’s not mad in this picture, I caught her just as she was opening her eyes. She fell asleep like this on the way home.

She was trying some hard candy. It was funny. She didn’t understand what to do with it.

She ended up spitting it out and getting something else.

Mother’s Day Weekend

Yesterday was our Mother’s Day. Emma had heard enough about Mother’s Day at school this year to be able to remember it all by herself this year. It was so much fun. When Daddy got home from work she got him to take her to the store and they got my grocery list and she picked out some flowers for me. Seriously, Mother’s Day can’t get any better than having a five year old. She is so sweet. We also got to Skype with our moms. 

We had a few things that we had sold on FB that got picked up, and we bought a desk the day before on the swap page on FB and we picked it up. Other than Emma’s sweetness, my favorite part of the day was that we all went somewhere together off base in our car. It has been a long time since we did that. It may be normal to some people, but I don’t take it for granted. With Steven gone for so long, and not having a car for over a month, it felt nice...AND I didn’t have to drive! We went to pick up the desk that we had bought off the swap page for Daddy’s office. It wasn’t very far away, and we only missed one turn! Then we stopped by the bx, because Emma had some money burning a hole in her pocket. (Actually she was sad that Daddy didn’t need her money to buy the desk.)

Saturday morning we made our healthy chocolate muffins. I need to get her a smaller softer,  this one was too heavy for her. 

Flying in Daddy’s hammock. 

So we noticed something going on outside our window. Apparently it was Pacific Islanders National Heritage Month. We came down during the drums. 

They also had a marionette show.

My flowers.

I took a quick picture of Emma in the back of the car. If you can believe it we got the desk and chair all in the car with all of us in it. 

Thank you Aunt Tory! She loves this and is taking it to show and tell tomorrow. 

Full Friday

Yesterday was a full day! The morning started off with a Mother’s Day Tea Party in Emma’s kindergarten class. The kids sang a song for us, brought us muffins and we had tea. They also made us a packet...all about mom. It was interesting...not sure Emma thought real hard about her answers, but she still had some good ones. It was a sweet time. She had been trying to keep the secret for days. She told me I had to wear a dress, which I did. 

After the the Mother’s Day surprise, we went to get a car. There are (at least) 4 ladies in my Bible study small group that are moving this summer. One of them offered us one of their cars for free. (It was given to them, too.) So yesterday we did the transfer of ownership. Yay for having a car! 

In the evening, I got to go to a PWOC event...all by myself! And it was five minutes walking distance from our tower! Emma stayed home with Daddy, and they sounded like they had a good time. It almost seemed too easy....no one was sick, I didn’t have to drive super far and be in a hurry, and everyone survived.

She said she was as cute as a hamster. 🤔







She came home and asked how old I was. Apparently we have lots of fun. She enjoys laying on a chair with me, I have a fun voice, I want to help to have fun? I don’t understand all of this, I think the bottom says “she is nice,” because I saw something similar on another girls paper.

 

🤣this one was my favorite. (We never eat donuts.)








Our car!