Neigh!

My mom asked us if we wanted to come over this afternoon and do some laundry, save our quarters. So we took over a couple of loads. My brother ("Un-kow Mike!") was there helping my mom clean out some stuff, including the shed. Inside the shed, my mom found Star the Wonder Horse! Star is a plastic horse attached to a frame by springs, large enough for children to ride on. My mom got him at a garage sale for $25 back in the 70's, and he looks a little worse for the wear, but made 8 kids (my sisters, my cousins, two children of a friend of my mom's, and then my brother and me) happy for years. My brother helped get Star out and then helped my mom clean him off. KPC went and got two replacement springs (two of the four were missing) and then he and my mom wrested with some huge pliers to open the springs up enough to attach them. Finally, Star was ready! Emma was lifted on and bounced until dinner was ready, then bounced some more before dessert, then bounced again afterwards! She really, really loved it, and treated us to all kinds of horse noises and talk about the horse. I was amazed at what she knows about horse-riding! She wanted to hold the reins at first, not the handles, and gave the horse a gentle kick when she wanted to go faster! I honestly don't know where she learned this. (I did explain that this is a pretend horse and if she wants to go faster she can just rock or bounce faster.)

I made "whatever's around soup" for dinner while we were there, and my mom made biscuits to go with. My mom's kitchen wasn't very well-stocked because she just got back from her trip to Ireland with my sister (but the soup turned out yummy anyway. We got to bring the leftovers home for dinner tomorrow.) She brought Jeff an amusing candy bar that said, "It's not for girls" (we all got a laugh out of that) and I got to choose between earrings and one of several pillboxes. My mom and Jeff both made a guess as to which I would choose before I saw them; eventually I settled on a green pillbox with a harp on it, which is what Jeff had thought I would choose (my mom thought it would be a green pillbox with a claddaugh on it; green is my favorite color, and I have a little box addiction, and a thing for both claddaughs and harps. Eventually I settled on the one of which I liked the colors better. The earrings were also claddaughs.)

Here's a little game for everyone to play: see if you can decipher these "Emma-isms." Each has a definite word or words that it corresponds to, her pronunciation just cracks me up sometimes.

"dipah ouse eat"
"touwwied"
"mlowk"
"puwsd"
"sosoaw"
"tain-dwin"

Good luck, and have fun! I'll post the answers next time. :D