Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Today we celebrated Paul's 31st birthday!  Emily and I made our annual trip to Dollar Tree so she could find carefully thought-out gifts for him.  Here's pictures from the celebration!


Emily lining up his packages.  She picked them out, wrapped them herself (in those gift bags!) and set them out for him.  I was not allowed to assist AT ALL.

 Paul holds up the snowglobe she bought for him.  Sadly, the next night she broke it.

 Showing Paul the beautiful plastic gingerbread roll the die, race the gingerbread men, game that she picked out.

 Paul modeling his beautiful new lei.  She picked red, white, and blue because those were "Daddy colors", unlike the pastel and neon colored ones they had!

 Giving Daddy his large party hat and showing him the card she picked out.

 Paul reading the inside of the card.

 Emily's choice of card for this year: (It reads "For two special grandparents" on the front!  She picked it because "Daddy LOVES dogs and he LOVES hearts, too!")

 The inside of the card.  She is so sweet!  In addition to wishing him a Happy Valentine's Day (HAHAHA!) she wrote "I Love You"  ALL by herself!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY! LOVE YOU!!

Christmas 2011

So Christmas is over now and we can breathe again! The last week or so has been so full of activity that it took a few days to catch up.  Now that things are somewhat back to normal, here's a recap of the holiday:

We spent Christmas Eve with Paul's parents and grandma and had a lovely dinner.  Right toward the end of dinner Audrey started losing it- I mean, completely MELTING DOWN so we quickly decided that if we were going to have any peace at church at all that evening, she couldn't go with us.  I quickly drove her and Grandma home to our house and put her to bed, only to rush right back and head into church with Granny, Grandaddy, Paul, and Emily.  We enjoyed a lovely service, although I have very little knowledge of what was actually said during the service because Emily was LOUDLY WHISPERING the ENTIRE time.  It was ridiculous! She was so excited for Christmas and I truthfully have NO idea what she was whispering about so much, but oh my goodness....she hardly even took a breath!  I felt so guilty for the people who sat around us! 

When we got home from church we got changed into our matching Christmas jammies (I just love that tradition!) and got Santa's cookies and milk ready, along with carrots for the reindeer.  Then we read The Night Before Christmas and she went right to sleep.  Ok, she didn't go right to sleep until we said that Santa would have to skip our house if she wasn't sleeping...then she went right down! :)

The next morning she slept until just before her sun went on at about 7am.  It was great to sleep that long because we were worn out from all the hustle and bustle!  We got Audrey out of her bed and came into the living room to see all Santa had left- the girls were SO excited to see all their toys!  We had mass present-opening for over an hour...it was madness and completely wild.  Best. Morning. Ever!

Santa's been here!!!!

Emily opening the Disney World present- we are headed there on January 8!

The aftermath- stuff EVERYWHERE!

After that we cleaned up a bit and the grandparents headed back home (they had all come from their house early in the morning to watch the present- opening).  Paul and Audrey took morning naps and Emily watched a show while I cleaned up boxes and wrapping and vacuumed again. (Such a glamorous life I live, ha!)  Then we started getting ready for our house to be filled up with people-- we were serving dinner for 13 that day! 

In the early afternoon my parents and sister made it down and Paul's parents and grandma arrived with his Aunt Mary, Uncle Bobby, and Cousin Michael.  It was so nice having everyone together and I think everyone enjoyed the day.  We prepared and ate a MASSIVE amount of food (I'm not kidding when I tell you we made over 15 separate dishes, not counting desserts!)  It was crazy but so much fun.  I'm already looking forward to next year! :) Merry Christmas, everyone!

Emily is 4 Years and 2 Months Old!

It's time for the monthly update on my precious Emmy girl.  It's been a wild month for sure!

- She has had her first official asthma flare of the season, and BOY OH BOY, it was a doozy!  She began coughing on a Sunday and by Tuesday morning we had her in the clinic. She was prescribed orapred (prednisone) and let me just tell you....the next time someone prescribes this for her, I am sending her home to live with that person until the treatment is over!  She. Was. Insane!
    I know I say she is wild sometimes, but honestly, I have never seen her as she was this time.  She was rude. She was disrespectful. She was deliberately disobedient. She was overly emotional. She was defiant.  She was completely crazy and I am so glad my regular Emily is back now.  I hope we never see Roid Rage Emily again!!!

- She participated in her school's Christmas concert, which was incredibly cute.  She had both a solo singing part and a solo speaking part, and she did SUCH a great job with both!  I swear I had to wiggle through the doors when it was over, my head had swollen so much! I was so proud of her!

- She is in love with art. All day, every day, she wants to cut, trace, glue (oh the glue... must be CAREFULLY supervised with it, let's just say that), color, use play-doh, draw, etc.  Her mind is extremely creative and she does a great job with her artwork.  She is also very happy to show you exactly which area of the home you shall display said artwork, too. ;)

- She won a trophy at Cubbies for having the best decorated boat...and I did NOT help her with it at all! I was so proud of her for working so hard, and she is in looooove with that trophy!

- She confuses "anyone/anybody" with "no one/nobody"...it is pretty comical at times. Like when she's telling you about what someone shouldn't be doing and she says, "And anybody can not be doing that" or something similar.  So cute!

- She had a doctor appointment this month and weighed 36lbs and was 38in tall.

- She refuses most meals I cook and instead prefers to forage through the refrigerator and concoct some sort of "meal" consisting of (usually) something like: pickles, yogurt, some ham, cheese, a waffle, and a cup of milk.  Ridiculous, but at least she's eating!

- She is in LOVE with Tovey, our Elf on the Shelf.  Every morning she runs to find him.  The other day Tovey played a trick on her and put her underwear on our Christmas tree.... she could hardly stop laughing!  She also told EVERYONE we saw for several days about this.  She loves this tradition so much!

- She is super excited for Christmas, of course.  Me too. ;)

- We went on a train ride to "Santa's Workshop" with some friends and had a great time.  She loved every minute of it and enjoyed playing with the other kids and of course, seeing Santa.  We only cringed a little when she wished for an iPad for Christmas!!

- She LOVES to play with Audrey, and while she gets a little too rough sometimes, they mostly get along so well. Emily gets very proud of Audrey when Audrey does something new and it is so precious.  Makes me so glad to have Audrey so Emily gets the sister experience!