5 on Friday!

Here are the top 5 reasons why I am loving Emily this week!

1)  I am working very hard to raise as much money as I can for the Alz Walk that the majority of my family will be participating in on September 7.  While I was giving Rob an update on how much money I raised over this past weekend, Emily offered to contribute $20 of her own money.  What a sweetie!  I hope that she will always have such a generous spirit and throughout her life find causes that resonate within her that she feels motivated to help.  Obviously, I declined her sweet gesture but as it gets closer to the deadline (and if any of the other walkers are getting close to me in terms of $ raised - right now I am the #1 contributor for the entire walk and #6 for the entire state of PA!!), I may have to revisit it with her!  If you would like to donate, please go to http://bit.ly/1bFiXxE.

Here is a little note that Em received from her Grandma after she joined our team:

2)  We had an extremely lazy weekend this past weekend much to Em's dismay so on Monday evening, she and I had a Mommy/Emmy date night at the movie theater and finally saw "Despicable Me 2".  Following our date, I was exhausted but like the little energizer bunny that she is, she just kept going and going.  As I sat upstairs listening to her talk to her Daddy about her day, I thought if one of those energy drink companies could figure out how to bottle 6-year-old energy rather than 5-hour energy, they would really be on to something!

3)  I saw this commentary on Yahoo! Sports and couldn't help to think that my daughter has been moonlighting as a sports commentator (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/pittsburgh-steelers-five-reasons-love-troy-polamalu-152100673.html). She, too, thinks that his hair is fabulous, that he is exciting to watch, she's a girl who wears his jersey and that he is an all-around good guy!  Are you ready for some football?  Emily is...pre-season starts in a little over a month!

4)  It's only taken me about 5 years to realize this but I can no longer say the word "maybe" to Emily pertaining to anything because she translates it into "YES".  For example, "Mommy, can we get ice cream tomorrow night?"  "Maybe, Emily" and then if the following night, we don;t get ice cream, she goes crazy because she heard "Yes" and in my mind, I said  "Probably not".  From here on out, I am not committing to anything, I think I am going to go with "No" and then surprise her from time to time because the child is wearing me out!

5)  This one relates to Item #1 (kind of) – my mom, aunt, Emily and I are having a yard sale on Saturday, July 27^th to benefit our Alz team.  On Wednesday, I decided to devote the evening to cleaning up and organizing the garage in order to determine what I have to sell and to make room for the items that mom and Tracey will be dropping off between now and then.  Emily was a big help and it looks awesome.  After a while though, she got tired of working and decided it was time to play.  She set up a sushi restaurant in the garage complete with a drive-thru (she used her walkie talkies to communicate with customers) and she would ring the bell on her bike to announce when an order was ready.  She was using grass and “flowers” (weeds) from the yard and rolling them up just like sushi rolls.  Such a clever and creative girl!