This is my dog, Bolt!

I haven't featured the furriest member of our family yet: our dog, Dioji (although most of this post is really about Emily and how she plays with him). He has a funny name, or at least one that looks funny in print. His name is the word "dog" spelled out, so it sounds like Dee-oh-gee. Emmy has had a bit of a hard time with that, and she mostly calls him "Yoshi" or "Buddy" (which she gets from me, since I call him that sometimes). Sometimes she shortens "Yoshi" to "Yoj." I'm not really sure what nationality our dog is but it sounds pretty exotic.

Lately Emily has started calling Dioji "Bolt." She LOVES the Disney film, so she has decided to become Penny and our dog, therefore, becomes Bolt. She gets him to play Bolt by tempting him with one of his toys. Basically she either dangles it in his face or bops him with it until he grabs it. Once he's got it, she starts running around the house with him in tow. Our dog cannot be accused of being smart, so if you're thinking, "Why doesn't he just let go?" the answer is: because he is too dumb to think of that. So off he goes! All the while, Emily is yelling things like, "Come on, Bolt!" and "Let's go, Bolt!" When she sees me, she says, "Mommy, this is my dog, Bolt."

We assigned Emily the chore of feeding the dog, which we felt was an age-appropriate chore and also one to teach some responsibility. Well, more often than not, when I tell her to feed the dog, she runs into the room where his food and dish are, yelling, "Come on, Bolt!" Once she gets him in there, she says to him, "Are you hungry, boy? Here you go, Bolt." And then she gives him his food, one pellet at a time into his bowl (until I tell her to just dump it in there already!!). The poor dog. He's probably like, "I don't know who Bolt is but I'll eat his food if that kid would just put it in the dish already!" HAH!

As for Bailey, she just calls him "dog" which is actually a pretty close approximation of his name! She loves him and she especially loves watching him run around with her big sister.

more Disney visits

Last week I took Emmy and Bailey to Animal Kingdom by myself. We stayed about 3 hours and had fun but it was SO hot that I left before 2:00. Actually it was really good timing, or maybe God watching over us, because when I decreed that it was time to leave, we got right onto a tram, and by the time we got to our car, it had started raining. Now I don't know if this happens in other places, but sometimes in Florida, you can see the rain coming. It looks like a wall that is quickly moving towards you. Well I saw this wall headed for us when we were 4 or 5 cars away from ours, so I started running. I have automatic doors on the van so I opened them (while pushing the stroller and holding Emmy's hand!!) and as soon as we were there I tossed the kids in, ran around to the back, folded the stroller, and jumped in. Just then it started to DOWNPOUR and I mean it was torrential! But we didn't get wet!! This is just one of the MANY times so far that I am so glad we got that van! I can climb in with them and easily do their seatbelts and then climb into my seat without getting out. Plus it comes in handy for a place to sit down and eat, too!

Anyway, I told Emily I'd take her to Animal Kingdom (Daddy's not too crazy about that park) and she was really excited about it. We all rode the Triceratops Spin which is basically the Dumbo ride. The girls loved it. Then we walked around a lot. We missed Nemo--we'll have to go back to see that sometime--so we headed into the different jungle trails to see the animals. We missed the hippos somehow. I am not sure how one misses a hippo, but we did. We took the train out to the petting zoo but maybe because it was so hot all of the animals were resting in the shade, so not too much petting went on. Emily did get to pet and brush a goat and she thought that was great. Bailey just liked being able to walk around since I had to leave her stroller at the train station.

Sunday night we went to MGM with Daddy and it was fun. It wasn't too crowded but disappointingly, a lot of the attractions were closed by the time we got there. Even though the park was open until 10, some things had closed at 5 or 6:00. We tried to see the Voyage of the Little Mermaid but it broke halfway through. It was so funny, because when it stopped working, Bailey yelled, "UH-OH" but Emily said, "Mommy, that was a GOOD show!" Emily and Daddy rode the Star Wars simulator ride and she LOVED that--she said, "We went up, up, up, and then we bumped and bumped!" We also rode a Toy Story ride that I honestly never knew was even there--it is called Toy Story Midway Mania and I always thought it was just an arcade or something! But it's a fun ride with 3D effects and you control a "gun" that launches balls at the different games. The kids loved that and we enjoyed it, too. We'll go again and hope to catch everything we missed.

Emily's first haircut

Today Emily (and Mommy, too) got her hair cut. She'd never had her hair cut before. I'm proud to say she did very well. I had only the split ends trimmed off, so she still has her beautiful, long hair.

China

We just had an adorable, hilarious moment and I wanted to write it down before I forget!

Emmy just picked up the map of the US, pointed to Florida, and said, "Mommy, want to know where we live? We live here."
So I said, "Yes, we do. Do you remember what that is called?"
She thinks for a second and replies: "China."

HAH!

I wish I...

Many conversations with Emily lately begin with, "I wish I...." Some of my recent favorites:

"I wish I had a scooter like Penny. Then I could ride with Bolt!"

"I wish I had a fishing pole!"

"I wish I was in the snow and I could make some footprints!"

"I wish I could go there (somewhere she sees on TV, a movie, or in a book or magazine)!"

"I wish I could have that Ariel dress."

"I wish I could do that (she says 'dat,' meaning anything Mommy is doing)."

And the best of all... I was watching something on Food Network while folding laundry and she came out to watch, too. There happened to be a commercial for something called the Neckline Slimmer (http://www.asseenontvguys.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=111) which is used to tone up the neck and chin (and looks absolutely hilarious while it's being used, I might add). Anyway, Emily saw that, and declared, "Mommy, I wish YOU had one of those! Then YOU could go like this (moves head up and down in imitation of the model on the screen)!" LOL!!