Snow Snow Snow

The last couple of days it has been snowing like crazy. Emily hadn't been out in the snow, well really ever. Last year she was too little and the first snow we had this year wasn't as pretty and it was super frigid. So the other day we got all bundled up like A Christmas Story and went outside.

Here we are all bundled up:

Checking out the snow:

And when we fell over Emily was pretty much done with the snow.

We were pretty much outside the same amount of time it took to get bundled up. Oh well, I'm sure there will be much more snow to come!

Christmas in a Nutshell

Yet again Christmas was a whirlwind. Here there everywhere and tons of presents for Emily. The sad part was that she still was not interested in opening presents. She is just a couple months shy of getting it. Her reaction to all of these gifts:

was get me out of here Daddy:

But, she throughly enjoyed playing with all of her new toys once they were opened. So thank you to everyone it was a great couple of days and Emily will totally get it next year!(And her Mommy & Daddy got some pretty cool things too!)

12 Hours with Emily

Today was a marathon day. 12 straight hours...no breaks...no naps....not more than 30 seconds away from Emily at any given time today.....and I survived :) Just kidding. Its not bad, but when you rely on naptime for a little time to yourself it turns into a really really long day. Thankfully we had a few adventures today!

First, Emily woke up and was unusually hyper(that should have been my first clue). She ran around back and forth zipping around etc. My favorite part was when she ran across the kitchen and slid and fell down, cried but still managed to hold on to a fistful of teddy grahams with a death grip.

Fast forward a few hours and we decided to take a trip with my Mom to Meijer. Its a foreign store to my parents and it was for a new Christmas tree so obviously I had to load the box for her too. First the reason we went is because my parents tree that they have had for awhile(pre the pre-lit tree phase) had lights going out & my father was sick of figuring it out. I don't blame him. Our tree is pre-lit all the way!!! We went to Meijer(while my Dad was sleeping so it was a surprise to him when he woke up) to find the same tree Ed & I had purchased a few weeks earlier.

We go over to their tree display and check out the slim pickings(it is like 5 days before xmas after all). We checked out spruces and pines and clear lights and colored lights, slim, normal, lifelike etc. Then, I saw it. The box I was looking for. It is pretty much the same tree we got a few weeks earlier just a 1/2 foot shorter. Done deal. It is now 50% off plus I had Meijer Santa Bucks(for the record when we bought our tree it was about 30% off or something so I wasn't too upset). So we ended up with a 7 foot, pre-lit, white lights, lakeside spruce lifelike tree.

After that fulfilling trip it was about lunchtime so we headed over to Doggie Diner. They of course had their usual hot dog special so Emily & I split it. She at her hot dog with a fork with a dabble of ketchup on each piece. My kid loves sauces of all sorts just like her Mommy.

Then we dropped Mom off & went home for naptime....or so I thought. I tried for a hour. a whole hour. She did lay down a few times and get quiet but then was up and raring to go a few minutes later. I gave up around 3pm and decided to ride it out until 6:30-7pm.

So for the next couple hours she raced around even though I tried to get her to cuddle with me & watch a xmas movie. Nope, it was like she had eaten a bowl of sugar behind my back. We ate dinner and then it was time to try out our new Wii games!

I got 2 games, Just Dance & Jenny McCarthy's new fitness game to try out for FREE from House Party. It was super exciting to get that Fed Ex package on Saturday. We tried out Just Dance first and it was actually really fun! I had never heard of it but it has awesome song choices, is fun to try and do the dance moves, and is a good workout at the same time. Emily loved the music and had some serious moves going on.

On to Jenny McCarthy, I didn't get to far into this one so I'll report back later for any Wii Fitness fanatics out there but Emily's favorite part about this one is that there is a web cam so you see yourself the whole time! Emily thought it was really cool that she could see herself dancing on tv.

Then it was time for one more glass of milk, brush our teeth, and then try for bed. I prayed silently as I walked her up the stairs, layed her down, and she quietly went to sleep.

The End of our 12 Hour Day Adventures--If you have made it this far congrats! That was a really really long rambling story!

Stupid Cribs & Pacifiers

Its only Wednesday. It has been the longest 3 days ever and its only gonna get worse. I made the decision about 2 months ago to start getting rid of :

Because those of you who personally know my child know that she pretty much was attached to it. Well, first I got rid of it during the day(i.e. if she wasn't napping/bedtime) it was no where to be found. This literally took less than a few hours for her to even care or notice. It was soooo easy. Oh what a sucker I am to think the rest of it would be easy.

Now, some of you might say I should have yanked it at a year, some might say why not just let her keep it to sleep with until 2. Well when she was 1 I valued sleep and knew she would never give it up. And why not let her keep it until 2? Because I really don't want to be that Mom with a 5 year old and a binky. And I am afraid the longer I wait the longer its gonna take me to get rid of it.

So this week I decided we would start tackling naptime and bedtime. I was unsure if I was going to do it at the same time or separately. Let's just say Emily made that decision really easy for me. She is quite the climber and up until now had only gotten out of her crib once, when she was SUPER mad and I think her anger catapulted her out of the crib.

So Monday naptime rolls around, after a couple of false alarms of her telling me she wanted a nap she finally meant it, took 10 minutes for her to settle down and then it was quiet. I felt so accomplished. I felt like I could do this! Then bedtime came around. Everytime I put her down she would hop over the side of the crib. So I made the decision at that time to tackle naptime first since the idea of switching to a toddler bed might be in the near future.

Day 3 of naptime....it is not getting easier.....isn't it supposed to get better as the days go on? Nope! Emily decided today that she just really was not interested in going down for a nap. She just kept trying to crawl out of her crib. Well 2pm rolled around and I seriously just thought she was not going to nap today because of her stubborness. About 2:05 she wised up and quietly layed down with no fuss and went to sleep. Lesson learned: when you think Emily is ready for a nap add at least 30 minutes possibly a hour before you even think about bringing her upstairs.

The joys of parenting, no manual on this one(at least not for my kid). So for those of you who frown upon pacifiers don't worry I am working on it so my kid isn't that 5 year old with the binky!

Santa Maybe?

Ummmm no.  So on Friday night we headed over to Drauden Middle School to check out my sister's band playing some Holiday music and to check out Santa Clause....again....maybe.......

So we headed over to check out Santa. This one was a kid dressed up so you would think slightly less scary than some old man right? Umm no.  Here is Emily checking out Santa from afar

And then here she is pleading with her Mommy not to make her go any closer to him.

So in the end, I was done torturing my child for this year with Santa and did not make her go any closer. But she did get a candy cane from an elf. On the other hand, this was Cousin Sean's first time with Santa so I pretty much forced Kevin into making him get a picture. I gave him awesome advice(Kevin was in the picture and they backed into it). He screamed of course, it was classic. Unfortunately I do not have a pic of that, it was on Kevin's camera.

BUT! Here is Sean eating his candy cane which was pretty gross :)

But he enjoyed it!!!!

18 Months Old!

YEA!!! Emily made it in one piece to 18 months old. Her actually anniversary was on December 4th but we visited the doctor today for her checkup. Here are the stats:

26 lb 10 oz (80%)
34 inches tall(97%) -->Daddy is super excited because this means we can finally flip her around!
She is right there in all of her skills and Doctor says she's great. We only had to get 2 shots today thankfully since Daddy was not at the appointment(shots are his thing not Mommy's) and we don't have to go back until 2 YEARS!!! I seriously hope we don't have to step foot back in the office until then. 

Oh Santa.....Maybe next year....

Oh Santa. I had high hopes for Emily with Santa Clause. She did ok with him last year but this year was another story. I think the picture speaks for itself.

This was attempt #1(yes I did do multiple attempts because I am that Mom). Sad thing is that before this picture just a few minutes earlier Emily had been singing & dancing with Santa & Mrs. Clause. Explain that one!

Well after the library we headed over to Walmart. I just wanted to see if it was the environment, or literally the idea of a guy in a big red suit with a white beard. As we approached the Walmart Santa Emily just started freaking out. That idea was out. I decided that I wasn't going to give up. I brought Emily back the next day at 10am. She had her snack, she definitely was no where near taking a nap so I figured she was at her best!

We hovered around the area where Santa was & kept going up and down and around waving and saying Hi to Santa for about 10 minutes. I started walking toward Santa with Emily's hands around me like a death grip, five feet away her poor legs were trembling. So, I tricked her by turning around and backing into the Santa and obviously I was in this picture too(I guess you are never to old for Santa). As you can see, we still are completely terrified of Santa. Her face is priceless.

Being the *nice* Mom that I am I of course let Emily partake in a Candy Cane after she endured the trauma of Santa. She took a few licks, calmed down and we were off to bigger and better things!

I think the most important lesson is that I did not have to spend one penny to figure out that Emily was not a fan of Santa yet. Thank god for free pictures with Santa!!!!

Olive Garden Muppet Man

Ok, Christen you will think this is absolutely funnier than anyone else, just file it under White Hen Stories.

So Ed, myself & Emily ventured out to Olive Garden last night. I was very apprehensive since it is a nicer restaurant and Emily is at that age where she is awesome or not so awesome.....As far as Emily goes, she was pretty good, no meltdowns, fairly quiet, and just ate off of our plates instead of the $6 kids menu(I wasn't sure if she would eat it and it seemed quite extravagent for her). On to the muppet man!

If you have been to the Olive Garden on Weber before you might of had this man as your waiter. I remembered having him before but Ed didn't(big surprise). As he approached our table I did one of those are you serious we have this guy, out of everyone. I wish I had pictures but that would of been really really tacky & rude :) Imagine a muppet(mushed up face, looks like had way too much botox), with black spiky hair, and talks like Frank from Father of the Bride(the planner). A picture would make this so much better.

Basically Ed could not understand the man and it took all of my patience and energy to make sure I listened intently. The only slip up was when he brought Ed the wrong soup(Ed ate if of course) but I think that's pretty darn good considering what could of happened. He also gave Emily a breadstick plate and a dinner plate. I thought that was cute but he obviously didn't foresee that she easily could have thrown them both across the room(which did not happen).

The End.

***UPDATE****  I found the receipt from the other night and his name is Aldo.

Ducks go Quack Quack

Ducky Ducky Ducky. One of Emily's go to words is Duck. She has a book she likes me to read to her that has ducks in it so it is a word she has picked up on. In addition, to my surprise she has somewhat correctly identified the wildlife in our backyard(or well close enough). Today there were just geese back there, but ducks frequent the yard too.

So everyday at some point Emily is checking out the ducks/geese in the backyard and learning that they go Quack Quack at the same time!

Playdate!

Well it had been a few weeks so it was time to hang out with Danielle & Chase again. Danielle decided it would be fun to bake Christmas cookies and I thought Emily + cookie = happy Emily so why not! Emily & Chase had much more fun playing with each other this time because Chase is starting to crawl and move around so Emily can "play" with him now instead of just staring at him. She of course had to pet him and at one point was "sweeping" him with her broom. I guess she could have done much worse things!

Here are the 2 of them hanging out, Emily is trying to feed Chase his bottle(er steal his bottle)

And here are the results of our afternoon...

And this was supposed to be a picture of Emily eating a cookie but she couldn't stand still she was so excited to eat one:

I am sure there will be many more Christmas treats in Emily's future!!!

My new Trick

Hey folks Emily here.

I have stolen Mommy's computer so I can tell you about my new awesome trick......

I now love to climb in my chair all day long, up down, up down, it is so much fun and drives my Mommy nuts. I am still working on getting the straps put together.

But I am very proud of myself! Talk to you later! Emily