Happy New Year!

I know I haven't blogged in quite some time...for that I apologize. It's been pretty busy around here, what with Christmas and then Chris was sick and Emma caught a bug and her birthday is tomorrow and my parents are coming for her party next weekend and...... you get the idea.

Can you believe Emma turns 2 tomorrow?! I know I can't. These two years have flown by so quickly. Emma's getting so big now. She's getting very tall (not that it says much, but she's over half my height already), and she is saying so many words and phrases. So tomorrow's her birthday, and Emma is getting her picture taken at Sears in the afternoon. So, after those are in our possession, I will post them on here (OK, Jaime?).

Happy New Year, everyone! :)

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Time sure does fly when you're having fun.

Kid parties are fun

We went to the holiday party yesterday afternoon. We had a lot of fun, and Emma got a couple of great gifts from her secret Santa, who actually turned out to be her friend who shares a birthday with her (Emma's one year older than she is). Here are some photos of the party:

The kids painted ornaments and decorated cookies, which was nerve wracking, to say the least, but it was a lot of fun. Several people couldn't attend the party, but it was still a good time. Here are all the photos I took.

This afternoon Emma threw up her entire lunch in my new chair. I guess she's trying to help me break it in. Anyway, she hasn't been able to keep anything down all afternoon, but after her last bout of the pukes (which was just the milk I'd given her, since that was all she had in there) I've just let her have water. She seems to be feeling better, but I'm not taking any chances. So we're going to give her only water until the morning then see how it goes. Wish us luck.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: They may look small, but puking toddlers can make big messes.

Christmas photo blog

Now that all intended recipients have received their purchased-by-us Christmas photos, I feel I can share them with you all here. Didn't want to give away the surprise of how good they turned out, nor did I want people to download them and print them on their own before they got the ones we bought for them.

So, without further ado, here are some of my favorites from this year's batch of family Christmas photos:


Cute, right? Here is the link to all of them. We got them taken at Sears Photo Studio. They do a really nice job there.

Last night I boxed up most of our Christmas gifts to family/friends, and Emma and I took them to Postal Connections this morning. They are on their way to their destinations even as we speak, and I'm $90 lighter than I was this morning. Holy cow, it's expensive. It would have been more had I not boxed them up myself. We still have a few gifts left here, as I'm still waiting on one to arrive in the mail (should be here any day now), and I need one more small box for another gift. But having the majority of the gifts out of here is really nice.

This Saturday we are attending a holiday party with lots of Emma's friends from Gymboree. Doing a gift exchange with the kids. We drew names, so it'll be fun to see what people got the kids. Plus it's fun to see them all play together. I'll have pictures for you soon. :)

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Getting the right gift isn't the main thing; it's getting that right gift in the mail in time that's what is important. And expensive.

Date night

We dropped off Emma at Gymboree tonight for date night. They're going to start doing it once a month. The cost was $25 for 3 hours; and Emma got to play, eat pizza and run around like a crazy person. Chris and I had dinner at Buca di Beppo, which was wonderful. We had some great food, including tiramisu, of course. Then we went to Target and got some stocking stuffers for Emma and some other random things.

Emma apparently had such a great time while we were gone. I guess she ate a piece and a half of pizza, which is incredible. She never eats that much for us. Our little piglet. I was putting her shoes back on when I picked her up and asked her what all she did, she said "Pay...fwinds" (play...friends). One of the ladies who was working there said she was so happy and energetic and fun. I am so proud of her.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Date nights are fun!

Insert title here.

I don't have anything to talk about, really, but I felt like blogging. So here you go.

Picked up our Christmas photos from Sears today. Emma looked pasty and pale in a few of them - and even a little greenish - but not in all of them. I was a bit displeased, but maybe it was the light I was in that made the photos look that way. I'm hoping so, at least. They're still adorable photos, though.

I had my first sewing machine project tonight for the first time in a LONG time. I sewed a patch that says "EMMA" on Emma's Christmas stocking. I took the patch off a diaper I am no longer using (Remember, Amy, the first one I had that looked a lot like yours?). It's crooked, but it's on there. Maybe sometime in the future I can make some matching stockings for all of us, but it's good enough for now. If you don't look at it too closely.

I am completely addicted to diet soda right now. I can't get enough of it. I really shouldn't drink so much, but I can't help myself.

I booked Emma's birthday party for next month. She's turning 2 in less than a month (?!?!), so I figured I better get going on planning her party. We're doing a Build-A-Bear party, then we're going to a restaurant nearby for cake and appetizers. So now what I need to do is figure out what the invitations are going to look like and get the stuff to make them. Yes, I'm going to make them, because I'm crazy like that. Plus I like to be crafty. :)

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Caffeine makes the world go 'round.

Christmastime is here

It's official. December is here, it's getting cooler, and Gymboree had a holiday party last night with Santa in attendance. The kids got to run around and play, do crafts with glue and eat cookies with icing and sprinkles - all in their Christmas-y best. Good times.

Here are some photos of Emma and her friends at the party.

You can see all the photos on our online photo album here. Emma's friend, Augie, was wearing a tie. You can see him in the last picture above on the very right side of the photo. So cute. Another friend was wearing a little sweater and black suit coat. Adorable.

Emma wanted nothing to do with Santa. Last year she had no problem with him, but this year not so much. So there may be no photo of Emma with Santa this year, but what can you do? We're not going to force her to sit on his lap and scream just so we can have a photo.

We have lots of parties and get-togethers to go to this month. We're going to be partied out by the time Christmas rolls around; but at least we have friends this year. Last year at this time, we had just moved out here and didn't know anyone. We're so blessed that we've made such good friends in such a short amount of time.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: It is a little scary that he knows when you're sleeping and awake. Some people would call that a stalker.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to wish you all a very happy and safe Thanksgiving!

That is all for now. More later.

Always remember: There's no such thing as "too much" on Thanksgiving.

Emma's little boyfriend

She can't stop talking about Lah-dee (Logan). Half the time she's really talking about Logan, but the rest of the time she's talking about Logan's daddy, BJ, who pushes her on the swing at the park. BJ always has a camera with him - he takes more pictures of Logan than we take of Emma, I think, which is saying a lot - and he sent me several of the ones of Logan and Emma together. Look how cute they are...



Yes, he's trying to kiss her in the last one. So cute.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Kids kissing is cute when they're little. Then they become teenagers...

We went to Disneyland!

Emma and I went to Disneyland for the first time today! We went with Emma's friend, Ashlyn, and her mommy, Michelle. We got in for free because of our friend Ally - who was supposed to have gone with us today but was unfortunately sick. She gave us passes that got us in for free, and if we'd had time and energy, we would have been able to park hop over to California Adventure. But the girls were wiped ... and so were we.

So, there are tons of photos on our photo album site here, but I've had requests to include photos on here (I heard you, Jaime!), so here are a few of my faves from today's excitement...




We rode the Dumbo ride, the Teacups, It's a Small World, the Nemo Submarine and the carousel. We had a nice lunch at a little cafe right next to the Jedi training area, which was so fun to watch. We met up with Michelle's friend, Kellie, and her son for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which was really cool.

We didn't end up leaving until about 8:00 p.m., which is already half an hour past Emma's bedtime. She slept about 30 minutes on the way home, and then she was so excited to be here that she just got all upset. She was beside herself, but I think it was just from sheer exhaustion. She didn't nap at all today. My little trooper.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: It really is a small world, after all.

I know, I know ...

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I've been rather busy.

Let's see...what to talk about. Well, two friends of mine had baby boys this week. My friend Jenn - who is the mom of Emma's Gymboree friend, Emily - had Zachary on Tuesday, and my Indiana friend Jennelle had Jadon on Thursday. I am going over to see Zachary tomorrow, and I'm taking chili for them so Jenn doesn't have to cook.

Speaking of chili, I made a huge batch of it on Friday. I hadn't made it in a while. Well, the good old recipe I thought was good just, well, wasn't. We ended up scrapping the whole triple batch, and I searched online for a new recipe. I found one that looked good, and the new chili is simmering in the crock pot right now. It smells really good, and I'm pretty excited to taste it. I hope it's good, since some of it is going to Jenn and her family tomorrow.

I'm going to a hip-hop dance class with my friends Ally and Tiffni tomorrow. Ally's getting us in for free. It's a great deal, because while we're in the class, the kids can come too and are taken care of just outside the room. Emma will like having some friends there with her. If I enjoy this class, I may want to actually pay for it and go every week. I've missed dancing, and it's a great way to get in shape (since I really don't like working out). We'll see.

Got Emma's Christmas dress last night. It's really cute. I could link to it, but I want it to be a surprise. I'll just say it's REALLY cute. Chris picked it out.

We'll probably be getting our Christmas photo taken this week, which will be fun. I'd like to do it at Picture People, since you can get the photos immediately, but I don't know if they allow you to buy the rights to the photos like they do at Sears Portrait Studio. If they don't we'll be going back to Sears, where you have to wait for a week or two for the photos to come in. Whatever. No biggie.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Good things come to those who wait.

Emma's getting so big!

We went to Burger King after church today (as always), and Emma's church boyfriend, Joseph, and his family were there. We normally sit in the main eating area instead of in the kids area, since Emma's too small to play on the apparatus in there. We finished eating, and she wanted to say goodbye to Joseph (who she calls, "JO-shee"), so we went in the kids area to see them.

Joseph's sister, Kazlyn (who is 6), was there eating with them. She went to go play, and Joseph followed her. So Chris took off Emma's shoes and let her try it out. Long story short, Kazlyn ended up following Emma around, making sure she was OK, helping her up when the next level was too high for her. They went all over, and Emma even went down the really big slide a few times.

I just can't believe that she's getting so big. It's crazy how fast they grow up.

We're watching the Colts game right now. Addai just ran 73 yards for a touchdown. GO COLTS!

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Spend lots of time with your kids because they grow up so fast.

My new blog

Hey, kids!

I decided it was time to move away from blogging on MySpace, which I don't use much anymore except to read other people's blogs, so here we go. Maybe having my own personal blog will help me want to blog more... we'll have to wait and see there.

We tried a new restaurant last night. It was called Charo Chicken. It was really good! What a lovely treat to stumble upon a new (to us) restaurant and have a good experience. Then, afterward, we went to Dippin' Dots, which we'd never been to before, either. It was good, too. Love those little dots! Emma loved them, too.

Thanks for coming with me to my new little place on the Web. That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Trying something new doesn't have to be scary.