From the Desk of Emily B.

Another neat Christmas gift that Emily got was a little art desk. The desktop folds up to make an easel, and there's a markerboard on the other side. It's got buckets and cubbies for crayons & markers, and there's even a little stool that goes with it. Emily loves to sit at her desk and color.

 

Excuse me, I've got to go...it seems the purple crayon is broken, and it's Mama's job to "fixit" whenever any of the crayons gets broken (as they frequently do.) Plus, the coloring looks like fun...I better go see if Emily needs some help!

Christmas 2008

Possibly Emily's favorite present of all was this little piano. She plays with it all the time; some days, she gets as much fun from turning it on and off as she does from playing music on it!

She also got a kitchen set; it has Elmo and Grover and Cookie Monster and the Grouch, and Bert and Ernie all making lots of kitchen noises and silly sounds. It also has food to go with it, and a menu and cash till so that it can work as a restaurant. She likes "cooking dinner" and feeding pizza and milk to me, Ken, and all her babies.

This is MY favorite gift that Emily got - and it's certainly been the most useful. It's the "Color-it" (aka Magna-Doodle) We keep it in the car and it keeps Emily well entertained, and distracts her (sometimes) when she's upset because she wants a biscuit, or some milk, or something else that we don't have in the car at that moment.

   

Jackson and Emily played hard over Christmas weekend. Jackson had a new Mickey Mouse pillow, which came in very handy for taking brief rests between play sessions.

 

Jackson and Emily both got lots of books for Christmas, too. One of Emily's favorite things to do these days is to climb up into every chair she can find - so it was great fun for her to share a seat with Jackson and read her new book for Mamaw. 

Christmas Child

 

Emily's day care had a local photographer come to take pictures of the kids with Santa Claus. (Emily calls him "Samma Cause.") They were smart not to try to get the little kids to sit with a real Santa Claus - they just brought a little Santa.

We tried to get photos with the "real" Santa Claus on a couple other occasions, with tragic results.

 

Pop-art

First Haircut

Halloween 2008

Emily had a bad cold the whole week leading up to Halloween; she had to stay home from day care and everything. So we didn't really plan on doing anything for Halloween - but then Halloween turned out to be a lovely warm, Indian-summer day - so we went ahead and took Emily to the Fall Festival at our church. Our Life Group was in charge of running the bouncy-thing, and Emily loved it!

Our Life Group decided to dress up 80s-style for our costumes. I put Emily in a vintage t-shirt, jean jacket, and legwarmers. The blue-jean skirt I found for her turned out to be too big...and the whole thing didn't really translate as a costume - but she looked cute, just the same.

Ketchup is a vegetable, right?

Emily has learned my old trick - and without any help from me!

Mom used to tell me that  I would take a french fry, dip it in ketchup, then lick the ketchup off and re-use the same fry until it fell apart.

We went to Dixie Dog this afternoon, and she perfected that move. She had her choice of hamburger, zucchini strips, and fries - typically she would eat all of that. But today she figured out that she could stick the french fry in her dad's ketchup, lick, and repeat.

Laughing Sheep Farms

The weekend before Halloween, we went to New Mexico to visit Nana Jo & Grampa. They took us to see a real pumpkin patch in Lincoln, NM. It was so cool! I got to see the pumpkins growing, and there were some that were little enough for me to hold. Mama and Daddy picked some to take home with us. I'm so excited - I just love pumpkins!

Big Girl with Pigtails

No, Emily hasn't suddenly morphed into twins - I just had two really cute pictures and I couldn't decide which one to use, so I put them together.

We picked her up from daycare this afternoon, and I almost didn't recognize her - her teacher had put her hair in pigtails, and she looked like such a big girl! My Baby Emily is now Little Girl Emily...

So anyway, when she sat down in the front door to "color paper" (her all-time, favorite-ever thing to do these days) I had to get a picture, so everybody can see what a big big girl we've got now.

Enchilada Casserole

Masterpiece #1

Owie

We picked Emily up after church this morning, and found her with tears streaming down her face! She'd just done a faceplant on the Baby-Room carpet, bonked her head, and knocked all the skin off the end of her nose. Poor kid...

Next Sunday is Moving-Up Day, and Emily will go to Sunday School in the Toddler Room!

Random Cuteness

Mama has had a hard time finding time to put pictures up here. See, Mama used to just go to work in the middle of the day (between my morning and afternoon naps.) But now she's at work all day, just like Daddy - and when they come home everybody is always hungry so they have to fix dinner. And then they have to work on their school stuff. Mama keeps saying that one of these days she'll catch up, and then she'll be able to get more stuff done.

Anyway, here are some random pictures of me being cute, that she thought everyone would like to see.

This is Daddy giving me my first-ever typing lesson!

This is from our vacation. My chair had to go on the floor,
and I decided it was time to go, before I got unbuckled.

This is me and Daddy playing with the Hoop-ti-Doo...
which somehow ended up on my foot.

And the last picture is me playing outside with Mama and Daddy.
They were playing something called "Bocce" and I was playing with my Smiley Ball.
Mama says this is one of her favorite pictures of me.

Grocery Store

Mama and Daddy went to the grocery store yesterday afternoon, and they took me with them. I love riding in the cart. I twist myself around and look at everything, and Mama and Daddy keep putting more neat things in the back of the cart for me to play with. Today, they got these great big red and yellow peppers. Yellow is my favorite color, so of course that's the one I grabbed.

Daddy kept trying to get me to say "pepper" but all I would say was "yellow." I know that it's a pepper (there's a picture of a pepper in one of my books) but "yellow" is much more fun to say.

After a while though, the yellow pepper got boring, and I decided to see what else was in the bag. So I reached in, and fished out...a red pepper!

Well, if there's nothing in there but peppers, I guess that's ok. I know what to do with peppers - I saw it on Iron Chef!

Vacation

We went on a mini-vacation for July 4 weekend. We went and stayed in a pretty hotel with lots of things to look at, and nice people to talk to, and fishies!

I had lots of fun exploring. We were up on the third floor, and to get to our room, we had to go on an elevator, but it was made of glass, so even in there I could look around and see all the people! Here's a picture of me & my Daddy riding the glass elevator.

I also had fun just exploring the hallways. Mama let me run up and down to find out what there was to see - but she wouldn't let me knock on all the doors. I'm a big girl, and I know that when you find a door, you're meant to knock on it. I don't know why she wouldn't let me practice, but she kept telling me "that's not our room." It was ok though - there was always plenty more exploring to do.

 

Finally, after we went all the way around the whole third floor, we came back to a door that Mama said I could knock on - and when I did, Daddy was in there! It was a good thing too, cause after all that exploring I was pooped out and ready for a nap!

The next day, I went downstairs with Mama (Daddy was still sleeping - shhh!) We had a yummy breakfast, and then we went swimming!

I wasn't too sure about the whole swimming thing at first. It was a little scary, because there was so much water, and my feet couldn't find the bottom. But Mama held me up. And when I figured out that I could make splashes, just like I do in my bath at home, then I had all sorts of fun. Before we got out, I figured out how to kick and make splashes with my feet too. I made Mama laugh by saying "Quack, quack, quack" when I kicked my feet - just like a duck!

This morning, when it was time to go home, Mama went and got this big rolly-thing, and Daddy and I played on it. It was kinda scary, but also a lot of fun.

After a while though, we got off and Daddy loaded all our suitcases and things on it, and we rolled the whole thing downstairs and out to the car. By that time, I was ready for my morning nap, so I was glad to get home to my own bed!

Baby Foodie

It's just occurred to me
that all the pictures I've taken of Emily recently
have been of her in her high chair, eating.

Then I realized why...

Any picture I try to take
when she's not in her chair
ends up looking like this:

Apparently, I need a faster camera.
Anytime I get the camera out to take a picture,
she heads straight for it -
she wants to see the babies
(the displays of the photos I've just taken,
in the back of the camera.)
And when I put the babies away,
she cries and cries,
like her little heart is just broken!

So the camera has actually become
something of a dangerous thing.

Bananas!

A Proud Family Tradition Continues

No, our family does not have a tradition of wearing goatees...that's just Daddy. This is something even better - chocolate Malt-O-Meal!!

My mom - Emily's Nana Jo - used to make chocolate Malt-O-Meal for me when I was a kid, and I still make it for myself sometimes. Today, Emily wanted some bites, so I shared my breakfast with her, and she thought that was all right! It was so good that she got it all over her face. My mom & I used to make smiley-faces in it with marshmallows...but I didn't have any marshmallows this time. We'll have to do that another time.

Moo-goo!

That means "yoghurt."

During her vacation at Grampa & Nana Jo's house, Emily has been working on her spoon skills. She does pretty well with the moo-goo, because she can basically just stick the spoon in the container and wiggle it around, and still come out with a decent spoonful of food.

The mixed vegetables are a little more of a challenge....

First Steps

Flirtation at Fuddrucker's

We went to Fudd's for hamburgers last night (I got french fries - yummy!) and there were other babies just everywhere! There was a cute little boy at the next table over, and I spent some time practicing my flirting skills.

The reason we got to go eat at Fuddrucker's is because Daddy and Mama got a new car. They had to go somewhere and sign a lot of papers, and it took a very long time - so long that Mama didn't have time to make dinner. (I stayed home during that part though, so I got to have Gramma feed me my dinner.) By the time they got home with the new car, everybody was very hungry and very excited, so they decided to go celebrate.

I guess I like the new car; for me in my carseat, it's all pretty much the same. This car is much smaller than our van, and the doors don't slide - and it doesn't vibrate as much as the van did, so I don't know if I'll be able to go to sleep in it when I'm very tired after a long day. Daddy says it's a smoother ride because it's a hybrid, but I don't know what that means. It smells nice, though, and Mama and Daddy seem to think it's really cool, so I'm sure it is. They say it's going to save them a lot of money - so that's good.
Maybe I'll get some more cookies or something.

Emily's New Happy Place

While we were moving furniture, Emily got tired of sitting with Gramma all the time. She wanted to get down and play. So Ken found someplace for her to sit and play where she wouldn't be underfoot or in any danger.

She absolutely loved it! She cried when he took her out so she could eat dinner.

Giraffe

Emily got a little rocking-giraffe for her birthday, and she's just now getting big enough to play with it. She has a hard time getting on by herself, but when she wants to rock she'll say something that sounds like "Bapfff!" - which we've finally come to realize means "Giraffe". (But after we've eaten dinner, it also means "Bath".)

Easter!

It's Emily's second Easter, and this year we didn't get a lot of pictures.

We don't ever go to the mall, so we didn't think to get a picture made with the Easter Bunny until the day before Easter, and by then there was no way.

I wanted to get some pictures on Easter Sunday, when we were all dressed up, but of course the lovely Texas sky was dropping freezing rain on us...so Emily had to wear a jacket over her sleeveless dress, and by the time we got home it was time for a nap - we skipped her morning nap to go to the middle church service (usually there are only two, there was an extra service this time for Easter.)

I had also hoped to get some pictures at the church - the children's area is painted with trees and flowers, and would make a great backdrop for pictures - but it was packed. There were just too many people coming and going between services, so that was another no-go.

We all still have our Easter clothes, of course - so maybe we can dress up again and re-create Easter (on a sunnier Sunday) and get some pictures then. Meanwhile, the studio photos that we finally got taken will be ready this week, so I'll get those posted as soon as I have them.

New Baby

Our friends Lee & Dana just had a new baby, so we went to Plainview yesterday to see them. Emily was just fascinated! She really liked seeing someone even littler than she is - almost like her baby at home, only this was a really real baby, not a baby doll!

Payge was very little - 5/11, I think, when she was born on the 4th - so we had to make sure Emily was very gentle. She's learning how to be gentle with the puppy at home, so this was good practice.

Hat!

"Hat!" is one of Emmie's favorite new words. She knows the sign for it too, and she never says the word without the sign.

The other day on Sesame Street, the Letter of the Day was H, and there were lots of little girls on the TV, wearing silly hats and dancing, and Emily just went bananas!

When I was out a couple days ago, I saw a little pink Easter hat that I knew she would love.
So I brought it home for her...and I was right!

. .

Dictionary of Emily-ese

BUH-deh (button)
EM-uh-nee (Emily)
GOCK-eh (cracker)
NEH (nose)
BUCK (book)
NA-neh (banana, or Nana Jo)

Ask A Silly Question...

Who just woke up from a good long nap??

Birthday!

Emily had her first birthday party last weekend, and it was a lot of fun!

While I got everything ready for everyone to come over and finished making the refreshments, Ken got to put together the giraffe we got for her.

We had cake and ice cream and punch for everyone who came to the party, and Emily got her very own little cake. She wasn't too sure what to do with it at first - but once her Daddy told her it was food, she dug right in!

After she finished her cake (she ended up eating - or smearing - about half of it) Ken dumped her in the bathtub with all her clothes on! After we got her cleaned up, she got to put on one of the pretty new outfits that Aunt Meaghan sent her, and we partied on.

(Nana Jo is afraid Emily's going to pop the balloon!)

All in all, I think everybody had a good time - especially the kids. I know Emily had fun! She got lots and lots of pretty new clothes, and a bunch of toys, and even a big red toybox to put them all in (thanks, Jim & Ruby!)

It's a good thing we have a whole year before the next birthday party - I don't think we could stand to have so much fun any more often than that!!

Big Girl Chair

    

We're getting ready to go to church on Emily's birthday, and she's wearing one of her new birthday dresses. Check out that big toothy grin - Emily loves going aywhere with her Daddy!

She got to ride to church in her new big-girl carseat. Now she can see where we're going - not just where we've been. (Chewing on fingers is a big pastime, now that Emily has so many teeth coming in!)