Emma's 5th Birthday!!

Emma turned 5 years old today, and it's pretty close to the time she was actually born 5 years ago. She came into the world at 10:54 pm 5 years ago. That is just crazy to me!! I feel like there is no way it was that long ago.

I absolutely love the age Emma is right now. She is just so fun to be around, and it's pretty easy to take her just about anywhere, and she finds a way to make it fun.

Emma loves all things outside. She is really into swimming right now. She loves just swimming in the backyard or going to city pool. She really doesn't care as long as there is water involved. She also really enjoys coming to watch John and I play softball. She like begs to come along, and she loves playing with the other kids and then running the bases when the games are over.

She is still really enjoying daycare and all of her friends there, but she is super excited for school and can't wait for it to start. Although, she tells me she will miss her daycare friends. So sweet.

Emma and I enjoy having "girl dates" where we go out and do fun things by ourselves and leave the boys at home. We sometimes go to a movie, or shopping, or a swimming adventure, or a park date. It's nice to have some one on one time sometimes, and Emma eats it up.

Overall, Emma is a pretty well behaved little girl. She tries really hard to listen to us and follow the rules, but she does have her meltdowns. Her and Elliott fight over toys quite often, and sometimes when we say no to something, she immediately starts fake crying and carrying on. It's a work in progress.

She is at an age where she hears everything and asks questions constantly. We have to be very careful what we say in front of her, because she will hear it, and repeat it. She does make us laugh constantly, and says the funniest things. She likes to be goofy and silly, and it's pretty cute.

Today, we celebrated Emma's birthday by going to the Omaha Zoo (Emma kept calling it the Hawaii Zoo, it was pretty cute). The kids had an absolute blast, and are so very worn out.

Jim and Barb met up with us at our house and we left at about 7:30 am. We made pretty good time, and only stopped once, and we got to the zoo at around 10:30. We spent the next 7 hours walking around the zoo looking at all kinds of animals.

The zoo also has a Splash Pad now, and both kids had such a good time playing in there. Also, it was hot. Like, really hot, so the splash pool felt really, really good. It was 98 degrees, and sunny, and humid. We were pretty hot and sweaty most of the day, but that didn't stop us from having a ton of fun.

We actually hit up most of the zoo, we missed the lion exhibit and the petting zoo, but pretty much did everything else. We also missed the Skyfari ride, it was closed before we could go on it. Emma was pretty sad about it, but we decided we will just have to go back sometime and ride it then.

The kids were really well behaved and did a great job at the zoo. We rented a double stroller, and both kids enjoyed switching back and forth from walking and riding. Elliott was so tired by the afternoon, but he made it until around 4:30pm, when he finally gave up and passed out in the stroller.

We finally made it home at about 9:00pm, and put two really tired kids straight to bed. We are all pretty wiped. I had a great day at the zoo, and really enjoyed the day, but now I am ready for some sleep! We have a whole weekend of camping ahead of us yet!!

Checking out the elephants 

The Splash Park 

Sibling Love 

At the Aquarium 

One tired kiddo