FELL OFF THE POST A DAY WAGON

WEll, I did almost half of the month!! I had good intentions. I thought I could fight the holiday blues by blogging, but they caught me anyway!! I am OK, just a little depressed. I knew I had to make the holiday season fun for Emily, and I knew she would be lots of fun this year and I really wanted to enjoy it.

We really did have a good Christmas. Emily was loads of fun. The comments that she made as she opened her presents were priceless. Her favorite gift from us was a soccer set. She also loved the scooter and the VT*C V M*tion that Uncle Jeff and Aunt Angie got her. Granny got her a dollhouse and that was a big hit as well. One of her favorite things from Grandma was a tent. Her wish list for Christmas was a blue camera, a flashlight and games and that's all. That is what she would say when you asked her what she wanted for Christmas. I will try to post pics from Christmas and her birthday before the New Year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR. MAY YOU BE BLESSED IN 2010

THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE

2nd ANNUAL COOKIES WITH GRANNY

Granny loves to make Christmas cookies and candies. She is thrilled to have a granddaughter to share that tradition with. Last year Emily was all about the flour. This year it was taste testing!! I forget what little ones will do and how unsanitary it can be to cook and bake with a toddler. But as Granny says what you don't know won't hurt you.

Tomorrow Granny is coming over and they are going to decorate a gingerbread house. This ought to be very intresting. STAY TUNED......

Funny girl

Ok, I am still struggling with birthday, getting ready for Christmas, and life in general. It is tougher than one might think to post everyday. Sometimes it is a time issue, other times it is material issue. Tonight is definately time. Right now it is 11:35 PM, so I have about 25 min!!

This will be a quick post on some of the funny things that she says. No pics - I have dial up and it would take over 300 min. to get them uploaded!!

She loves footed pajamas. She says they are snuggly. She calles them "foot ones."

Emily told me tonight that I felt feverish!! And she told daddy that he was smart!!

She wants her friends to come over, but says they can't because they don't drive!!

Daddy fixed her some chocolate milk this morning, and she didn't want it because it had chocolate in it. She calls milk chocolate milk.

She is always saying my friends are so silly.

Within the last week or so, she has been pretending alot that she is a baby. She will say Momma, hold your baby. Or Momma, you need to change your baby's diaper.

And my all-time favorite quote from Emily. If you ask her why, she says, "because I am Emmie."

One Tired Momma

Today was the big 3 birthday party. Emily had a blast and party was a big success!! Emily had several friends from church here and lots of family. There was of course lots of pizza, cake, icecream and tons of presents!!!

Now I am one tired momma. I will blog more about the party tomorrow and will include pictures.

Night, night, I am off to bed.

HOW TO HAVE A WHITE CHRISTMAS IN THE SOUTH

I saw this in a magazine hanging from the ceiling above the mantle. I thought it was so cute. I decided to put it on the wall behind the tree. Emily was so excited when she got up from her nap and saw it. She said, "Momma, who did that?" the other pics are of the snow that we had last Friday night. The chance of having a white Christmas in South Louisian is next to none, but we can WISH....

GETTING READY FOR BIRTHDAY

It is almost time for birthday. Emily is getting so excited for her birthday party which is this Sat. Last year we prepped her for several days and told her who was coming, but she was very overwhelmed that they were all there at the same time!! This year I think she really gets it. She talks to herself alot when she plays and I have heard her say that is is 2 now, but when birthday comes she will be 3.

Today I ordered her cake and ordered the pizza. The house is almost ready. It is so hard to keep things straighted and cleaned with a child!! She has tumble Sat. morning at 9. Daddy will take her and I'll get the last minute things done while they are gone.

She talks about her birthday all the time. Birthday is a person to her. She calls birthday everyday and tells him to bring her presents. She is also excited that her friends are going to be here. I invited a few children her age from church. Sat. is also the same day as our Christmas program at church and this close to Christmas I am not sure how many will come. But I know she will enjoy her special day.

HURRY UP BIRTHDAY....EMILY IS READY FOR HER PARTY!!

REINDEER GAMES

Here are the promised pics from the gymnastics recital. The pictures arent' the greatest, but she had lots of fun.

PRESCHOOL

Emily is getting ready for preschool. As I have mentioned, I am going to start homeschooling her in preschool beginning in Jan. I am not sure who is more excited, her or I. We have been working on a few things, and she loves it. Granny got her a subscription to H*lites magazine about a year ago, and she looks forward to getting her magazine every month. She sees me doing s*duko or crossword puzzles in the newspaper and she wants to to them too. I have made a game of letting her circle certain numbers or letters in the puzzles. She does very well with that, and begs to do it all the time. For the most part she recognizes almost all of her letters and numbers. We have also been working a little bit on sorting and counting things. I bought her several sets of flashcards for preschool a few months ago and she is enjoying them now, so much that she has them almost worn out!! I have also got out a deck of cards and let her seperate them by numbers and suits, and she likes that. She has some coloring books with activities in them and she has shown an intrest in them. She isn't quite ready to try to write her letters or numbers. I have tried to get her to let me hold her hand or I write it out and she trace it, but she gets agitated.

What we did today

Okay, it is day 7 into this post everyday, and I am already at a loss for words!!!

We got the tree up and decorated today. It was just her and I, so it was quite a chore!! She wanted to help me so bad. I still have some misc. decorating to do, but I should be able to finish that up tomorrow.

Didn't take any pics today....will take some when I get all my decorating done.

Emily enjoyed the Reindeer Games at tumble yesterday. I did take pics, I will post them sometime this month...you know, since I am blogging a day all month!! Her age group was second and she didn't want to stay and watch the rest. The first group was the Acro competition team. They were really good. She was all eyes and she kept saying, "I want to do that." And all day today I have caught her trying to do some of the "stunts."

I am also working on a post on the latest things that she is saying. I started it, then I couldn't think of anything that she is saying!!

Emily and Courtlyn

As you can see, Emily and Courtlyn love each other so much. They are both Hunan babies, just different parts of the "state." The first time we went to church at our church was Christmas morning in 2005. Our paperwork had been in China for 6 weeks. The sanctuary was packed out. We noticed the little Asian girl on the front row. At the time Courtlyn was 3 (the same age Emily is now!!) We knew at that moment that this was where God was calling us to worship. Tracey and Destry have been such a blessing to us, and of course Courtlyn too.

TODAY'S CHRISTMAS ACTIVITY: PARADE

Sorry, no pics.

Today was our town's Christmas parade. Emily's favorite part was the candy!! We still for the most part limit the amount of candy (next to none!!), so she was in heaven with all the candy. Her and I fought over several pieces. She would pick it up, and immediately eat it. I finally gave her a sucker. It was s bit of a challenge to make sure she didn't have a pice of candy in her mouth that she could choke on, and keep her out of the road!!

This evening when it got dark, I took her riding to see the lights. She wasn't interested, she wanted to go home. Oh well!! I'll try again before the end of the year.

Tomorrow is the Reindeer games. Kind of funny to say that the Reindeer games were cancelled Friday night because of snow!! She is really excited about it. I think we are going to try to video it. I have yet to take the video camera when she tumbles, but I really need to. Next semester she will tumble without me, and that will make it a little easier.

Tomorrow night is also the children's musical at church. I know Emily will enjoy that. Next year she will be old enough to be in the preschool choir. She loves to sing and loves music, so I know she will really enjoy it.

Tomorrow at church we are going to take pictures of Emily and another China girl. Our minister of music has an 8 year old from China. She and Emily LOVE one another, and it is so sweet to see them together. Last year after Christmas a lady at church gave each one of the girls a matching dress that she had bought for her granddaughters. It was too late for Emily and Courtlyn to wear them, so we are going to dress them in them tomorrow and take pictures by the Christmas tree.

Till tomorrow......Good Night.

Snow year 2!!

UPDATE:

We finally got more snow...10 minutes after Emily fell asleep!!! I kept her up till almost 10 pm. And she was so excited, she really wanted to see the snow and make a snowman!!! That's all right, there will always be next time!!

WE got snow again, 2nd year in a row. Very rare for South LA. It only snowed for about 10 mins. We are actually just a little south of the snow line. DARN. I do have pictures of Emily in the window looking for the snow. I also took pics of the several crafts that we did today. She loved it. I am going to post pics after I put her to bed. I also got the tree up today. It is put together we will decorate it tomorrow. I can tell already that we are going to have problems keeping miss E out of the tree!!! Reindeer Games at tumble were postponed until Sun. afternoon. Looks like we have a busy weekend already. Tomorrow is our town's Christmas parade. Cold shouldn't be a problem, it is supposed to get up in the 50's tomorrow, just concerned about wet.

PORTRAITS

This is just a small sampling of the photos that we took. Great pics and we had lots of fun. We did birthday (top photo), Gotcha (middle) and Christmas.

A young couple at our church have their own studio, and they really do wonderful. Even though this is their full time job, it is a ministry for them. And these photos if you can beleive it, are not the best ones from this shoot!! Okay, just a teaser, I may post more later.

Emily and Granny made cookies today. Granny keeps Emily every Thursday so that I can do what I need to do. I hung out with them while they made cookies and took pics. I forgot just what goes into cookies made by a child!! What you don't know won't hurt you right??

I am kind of enjoying this posting everyday. Next up will be the Reindeer Games. My little brother is coming in to watch her tumble recital, so I want to take pics of him with her. With my "free" time today, I went to the craft shop and got several Christmas crafts for Emily and I to do together....you guessed it more photos!!!

Check us out tomorrow!!

SANTA 2009

OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS CRAFT

It is December first, and we did our first Christmas craft. I bought a cheap paper ornament kit from WallyWorld, and that's what we did. She had fun. She loved doing the glue. The kit had glitter in it, and I did the glittering. Momma wasn't quite ready to turn that one over to her yet. I do have to admit that her and I did get into an arguement while doing the craft time. The kit had a set of sticker letters and I wanted her to write out her name. She does know how to spell her name. I was telling her what letters to get, and in the middle of her name, she decided it needed an O (O is her favorite letter...go figure). I kept trying to tell her her name didn't have an O and she kept trying to tell me it did. And yes, I felt foolish for arguing with her about it!!

Tomorrow (Dec. 2) we are going to go to the mall. Our mall usually decorates big for Christmas, and I know she will enjoy seeing that. It has been a while since we have gone to the mall. This summer a frozen yogurt shop opened up just outside of the mall. It has a mascot of a man dressed up in a giant icecream cone suit. She is terrified of it, which is funny because she isn't afraid of ANYTHING. Any mention of the mall, and she immediately says she is afraid of the "ipecream cone man." She asked me today if the icecream cone man was going to be dressed as santa.

I may try to blog everyday this month...just don't hold your breath!! We may or may not do a craft everyday, but I would like to do something Christmas-y with her....we shall see.......

END OF THE MONTH UPDATE

Is it really almost December?? Where has time gone. It seems like only yesterday that I received the call that my brother died, and man, it has been 2 MONTHS!!!!

Sorry, no pics with this post, I am going to do just a general update.

• Emily is almost 3....she will be three on Dec. 17. And she can't wait. She has been awaiting her next birthday since Dec. 18th of last year!!! I have never seen a child that young be so excited about their birthday.

• Emily is all about her family and friends. I thinks she is going to be a people magnet. For Thanksgiving I asked her what she was thankful for....you guessed it, my family and friends. I need to find her a play group with children her age....she really wants to play with kids her age.

• She is definately talking like a 3 year old. Here is a sampling of some of the things that she says: It's ok momma, don't worry about it. Just calm yourself down momma. Everything is Why. if you ask her why, her answer is because I am Emmy.

• She really misses my older brother. She called him "kuncle." She calls him in heaven everyday, and asks him when he is coming home. It is funny, but sad too. It is amazing what she understands. She also asks if she is going to go to heaven one day.

• Emily is also excited about Christmas. We weren't going to do the Santa thing, but she knows EVERYTHING about him!!! We have several books on the birth of Jesus, but I need to go get her a book on the of St. Nicholas. Santa is so commercialized, that you can't avoid him, we want to explain him, and let her know that Christmas is about Jesus, not santa.

UPCOMING IN DECEMBER

This coming Friday is "reindeer games" at gymnastics. This is their version of a dance recital. She is excited about it. She ought to do really well. They don't ask the 2 year olds to do much, but the more people that she has watching her, the better she does!!!! And there is going to be quite a bit of family that is coming to watch her.

I am sure we will try to hit a Christmas parade. She will also really enjoy riding around to see the Christmas lights. We are also going to do a few Christmas crafts. Her and Granny make Christmas cookies. We will also go caroling with the church.

Next post will be the pics that we took for Gotcha day, birthday, and Christmas.

Happy December

COOL TRICK

One of Emily's favorite shows is Y* G*bba Gabb*. They have a section on it of kids doing "cool tricks." Emily's favorite is a boy blancing a spoon on his nose. I catch miss E all the time getting into my silverware drawer and grabbing a spoon and saying "cool tricks." Tonight Daddy started snapping pics as she danced around the kitchen with the spoon on her nose!!

The other picture is where Emily wrote her name. I was going to write her name, but after I wrote the "E" she took it away from me and did the "mmy." No, we have not started teaching her to write. She brings her doodle boards to us all the time and wants us to write names. We always spell them out loud, which is where she has also learned to spell her name. I guess she has been watching us really close too!! I almost fell out.

Gotcha Day in pictures

Okay, so I have only posted this year's Gotcha Day pics. We are still really struggling with grief on the death of my brother, so just doing the necessities. Maybe next year I will do a comparison!!

On the lighter side, Emily enjoyed Gotcha Day. When we went to W*lm*rt to get the cake she was screaming Happy Birthday to Gotcha!! She had to have a candle on her cake in honor of Gotcha!! We went and took pictures on the 6th that included Gotcha, Birthday, and Christmas. Emily did really well, and they turned out great!! I will ask for permission to post on blog.

She really is beginning to understand adoption and China and all that goes with it. I started using the terms "in another lady's belly," and she wanted to know what her name was and who she is...maybe I should have waited a little for that one!!

I changed gears and got a little creative and aggressive on the potty training front. Today we bought a dry erase calendar and have titled it "Emily's Potty chart." I explained to her that when she potties she gets to put a mark on the chart and when she gets 4 marks, she gets a prize. That seems to be working...but we shall see, it has only been in commission for a couple of hours!! She was so excited when she "earned" (her words) her first prize!!

Emily is pretty much ready for preschool. I am going to home school her at least through preschool. We are going to start in Jan. I am really excited. I haven't decided on a particular curriculum, but been doing a lot on looking in the stores and online. I have got some good ideas from other bloggers. If you have any good tips, please pass them on.

HAPPY GOTCHA DAY #2

Wow, has it really, really been two years??!! I look at her and she is growing up so fast! I will publish pics in the next post in a day or two that will include Gotcha day, anniversary 1 and 2.

I was just thinking today about the "phases" that she has gone through, many of which I didn't think she would ever outgrow!!

• She used to throw lots of food on the floor. No matter what I said or did, she would throw food on the floor. So glad that "stage" is gone!!
• My baby only crawled for a few weeks!! I can hardly remember when she didn't walk.
• She sleeps really well. This was our biggest adjustment. It took well over a year for her to sleep through the night. For all of the first year home, I would either have to get in the daybed with her or move her to our bed because she would wake up and "need" her mommy. She had a lot of nightmares and night terrors in the first year too.
• She now calls the dog "my little puppy." When she first started calling him dog, she would curl her tongue when she said it. Then he became "gog." Then she would call him by his name "Oscar."
• Emily still does some of her sign language.
• As she began talking good she had a hard time saying her "f's" they would come out as "s's", but now she is saying her "f's" pretty good most of the time.
• Her current phase is to not listen when we tell her to do something. Momma has to keep reminding herself that this too will pass.

Emily you are such a blessing and a joy. Mommy and Daddy would go to China all over again for you!! We love you to China and back!! Happy Gotcha Day.

FALL FESTIVAL

MEET MR. EMOTICON

Yes, Daddy, this is what I want my pumpkin to look like!!

EWEEEEE, Yuck, GUTS!!!!
HELLLLOOOOOO

I am all about my Daddy!! I am a big girl, I can help!!

Mr. Emoticon

Pumpkin Patch

PUMPKIN FUN

We have officially began our fall season. Emily had so much fun painting her pumpkin. I painted the face on one side, and let her go to town on the other side. I asked her if she wanted slanted eyes like her or round eyes like Mommy and Daddy.....she wanted the slanted!!

Next up:

We are going to Boo at the Zoo. We are going with several of my friends from highschool and their children.

Pumpkin Patch. This was a favorite activity for miss Em. last year. Granny is going to come with us. I want to get atleast 3 more pumpkins. We are going to carve one, I have some "push0-in" faces for one or two more, and then I want to get some face stickers for another. She ought to really enjoy that!!

I think we will skip the corn maze this year. We have been getting tons of rain, I think it will be way too wet, and I am just not up to it.

I am also wanting to do a few more crafts with her as well. Any suggestions??

A SHORT TRIP

My cousin Mark playing with Emily's babydoll. The first time I grabbed the camera, he casually threw the doll. I guess he decided what the heck!!

This is Emily and Nean. Emily was so excited to be going to "Nean's house"

Our trip to my cousins was interupted by the death of my brother. We landed in IL at 2:15 on Sept. 29, and he passed away at 3:40. So needless to say, my planned week trip lasted less than 18 hours. My cousin Mark got the call that Curt died and he came to be with me when Donnie called. Donnie then made my flight arrangements to come home the next day. How was I to know that I needed to be at the teeny tiny airport atleast 30 minutes before my plane left. I had a 5:55 am flight out, and I got to the airport at 5:32.