It's New Years' Eve!

Emily just asked the toilet paper at church if it was afraid of the dark. She listened to it and translated for me that it was indeed a little bit afraid... Thus ends 2009.

The Tree is Down

I didn't realize a 3-year old would act like her leg was getting cut off when the Christmas tree was put away... not that I REALLY know what it sounds like when she gets her leg cut off...

Christmas Time Part 5 of 5

For Christmas Eve this year, we mixed things up. We usually venture to Tom's side of the family and this year we decided to split up for Christmas Eve so he could visit with his family and Emily and I could visit with my side of the family that we don't get to see very often.

We all had a lot of fun with our respective families this year. Emily got to meet a few new canine friends (the highlight of her night!) as well as some cousins she hasn't seen before. Pictured below are Emily with my cousins Branya and Michele.

Here's Emily sharing the love with Zippy.

Tom came home from his family Christmas Eve party shortly after we came home from ours and he brought present with him! Emily was excited to open her gift from her cousins and can be seen sporting her tu-tu and dancing shoes below.

We hope everyone had a blessed Christmas!

Christmas Time Part 4 of 5

In preparation for Christmas parties, Emily helped me make our Pretzel Rings, Rolo Treats, Rolo Turtles, or whatever you want to call them. They are so easy to make that Emily did most of them herself!

STEP 1: Find an adorable 3-year old to help unwrap 2 bags of rolos.

STEP 2: Put parchment paper on microwaveable plate or tray and set a rolo inside a pretzel ring. (I've had good luck finding round pretzels at Wal-Mart each year.)

STEP 3: Take an ice cream and hot chocolate break while Mommy microwaves the treats just long enough for the rolos to soften (less than 1 minute).

STEP 4: As soon as treats come out of the microwave, press a pecan, walnut half, m&m or other tasty morsel into the rolo top to smoosh it into the pretzel. When treats have cooled, move them to an air tight container and share with friends!

Christmas Time Part 3 of 5

December 18 was the first snow at our house this year. I learned from last year that we shouldn't hesitate when it snows because we could potentially lose it in an hour!

We made footprints on the way to the post office, knocked snow off the trees, made snow balls to throw in the creek, made snow angels, went sledding, slid down the snow covered slide and ate CLEAN snow for a snack.

After playing in the snow, Em came in and took a nice, warm bath and then later in the afternoon we visited with Tom's extended family at their Christmas dinner. Here's Em with her cousin, Rachel!

Christmas Time Part 2 of 5

Papa's lodge had a Christmas party a few weeks ago and the guest of honor made an appearance. In true fashion, Em ran across the room to give him a big hug before he could even make it to the Santa chair.

A little later that week, we were scheduled to have some new carpet delivered for our living room. The previous carpet was a lovely shade of 1970's gold. To save a little money, we (Tom) tore up the old carpet ourselves. We discovered that our prediction was correction... hard wood covers the dining room and living room floors. We decided to refinish the dining room while I'm off for Christmas break and we ordered new living room carpet.

Christmas Time Part 1 of 5

I'm posting several updates today in an attempt to get caught up on picture posting!

A couple of weeks ago, my parents got a new puppy named Zoe. On a few occasions when Emily couldn't remember the puppy's name, she would refer to it as "Baby Jesus". See if you can pick out Zoe from the picture below.

Here's Emily and Zoe a.k.a. "Baby Jesus" on their first day together.

Merry Christmas!

Make a Smilebox greeting

Emily, the Librarian

Emily still loves to read.

As I'm writing this, I'm sitting in bed with my laptop and am listening to Emily over the baby monitor as she's reading stories. I have every reason to believe she's sitting in her rocking chair, reading her stories out loud to her pretend audience just like her favorite librarian, Miss Susie, does each week. She's telling her "audience" about the book, then reads it to "them" and when it's all done there's a big "Yeah" from the cheering section.

She's especially fond of reading "Snow White" this morning and I've heard a little bit of "The Fussy Princess" which is a Little Critter book. I think she might be reading a story about "Ice Cream Soup" right now which will probably lead to her calling my name and asking for breakfast. Guess I should go cut her off at the pass....

Potty Training Update

Happy to say (and hoping not to jinx anything) - Emily is soooo close to being officially potty-trained. Now we just need to re-train her to use a few squares of t.p. and not a few arm lengths. I'm not sure the plumbing in our house can handle the learning curve!

The Buttometer

A few days ago, Emily's buttometer told us it had been a long day.

As soon as we were out the door today I heard, "Mommy, my butt's cold!"

The buttometer rings true yet again.

To Have The Heart of a Child...

(Note: I've added several more blog entries this evening... simply catching up notes from the last couple of weeks.)

After I picked Em up from the babysitter's yesterday, we stopped by the grocery store on the way home. As she stepped out of the car in the parking lot, I found a dime on the ground and handed it to her. We put the dime in her pocket and I told her she could put it in her piggy bank when we got home. She was very excited about our find.

We walked hand-in-hand toward the store and she was eyeing which of the "fun carts" she wanted to ride in and was talking up a storm. We took one step inside the store and she spotted the Salvation Army bell-ringers and totally switched gears. She stopped dead in her tracks, opened up her pocket and pulled out her treasured dime. Surprisingly, she also found a penny in her pocket that neither of us knew was in there. I then watched in awe as my little girl took off at a full run to the friendly folks twenty feet away at the Salvation Army collection pot. She proudly handed them her 11 cents with a huge smile on her face and told them thanks. They were very sweet and seemed to have spotted the beauty of what had just happened. They handed her the bell and she ran over to show it to me and then went back over to ring it a few times before giving it back.

I met her with the "fun cart" of her choice, told her how proud I was of her and we continued on our adventure to find some chicken for supper.

If only we could all have the heart of a child.

Another day at Children's

Em received botox injections in both calves again yesterday to help counteract the high muscle tone... She screamed and cried so hard that she actually had little red spots on her skin around her eyes -- like freckles but most likely little broken blood vessels. Today, the "freckles" are light brown in color and she's in good spirits... I'd rather be hearing about her "butt hurting" than go through that again.

How Would You Respond?

How would you respond when your 3-year old hops up on the toilet and says, "Mom, my butt hurts."? Then, without missing a beat, she sighs deeply, plants her elbows on her knees and chin in her hands and says, "It's been a looong day."

What do you do with that? :-)