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.......