Christmas Time!

I have been doing a terrible job keeping up on blogging. Oops. We have been so busy with Christmas stuff! All of our Christmas shopping is done our tree is up and now we are just waiting for the 25th. I'm excited since Emma is old enough this year to understand presents. I was bad and let her open one today because she had already started ripping the paper off it when I walked into the room. It was this bunny that plays hide and seek. So you're supposed to take the magic carrot and hide somewhere and the bunny will come find you. Emma felt so bad that we took his carrot though that as soon as he started coming to find us she would run to the bunny and give him back his carrot. It was so cute! Emma is also starting to do some potty training. She will sometimes use the potty if I catch her before she really starts going so I am excited about that. She is growing like a little weed. At the doctor we found out she is in the 96th percentile for height. It is so exciting to see her get bigger and learn how to do things but it is definitely bittersweet. I have finals coming up this week so I will be studying like a mad woman for the next few days and probably sleeping very little unfortunately. But Craig should be getting home by Saturday so that will make for a good end of the week. Sara is also coming home this week so it will be even better :) Well I have to get back to studying so I am going to post some pictures and hopefully stay caught up better on blogging after finals are done.

Going Crazy!

I just wrote my whole blog and then accidentally deleted it! Emma and I have been busy lately. She has been sleeping a lot because she is growing again and we have mostly been playing inside because it's gotten so cold out lately. Over the weekend we hung out with my mom and did some shopping. Emma got a cute little dress that she wore for pictures which we got done on Tuesday. They are so cute! Emma is holding a stuffed animal in almost every pictures because otherwise she was getting grumpy and there was no way to get a happy pictures minus stuffed animal. I will put the link to the photo session down at the bottom of the blog. I have been studying hard for my finals and writing a research paper for my health care administration class. I registered for my spring semester today. I am taking Economics 202, Accounting 202, Business Statistics 217, Health Care Administration 215, Communications 101, and a yoga class. It should be an exciting semester!

Tonight when Emma and I got home she had a PB&J for dinner. They are her new favorite food. After dinner I was getting her dressed at her changing table and putting a new diaper on her. She was standing up and playing with a framed Bible verse that is above the table and she accidentally knocked it down. It didn't hit her at all but it hit me on the side of the face. When I stood back up all the way, touched my cheek, and said ouch, Emma burst into tears and started hugging me and rubbing my cheek. She was so upset that she wore herself out crying and ended up going to bed early. I am so lucky that I have such a loving and sweet little girl :D

http://www.searsphotos.com/Albums/Album.aspx?AlbumID=1434575

That is the link for our photo session. It has all the pictures that we took... well the ones that looked good where my eyes weren't closed and Emma hadn't run out of the frame.

She's so big!

Today was another daycare day. Emma woke up happy as a clam just talking away to herself in her crib. It was pretty warm out this morning and she only needed a sweater to get out to the car! I went to Pocatello to review a statistics test with my professor, who is a hoot. She is one of those people that is such a nerd and knows it and owns it. After that I went to my healthcare administration class. That is my major and so far I am really enjoying it. I went to walmart on my way home and got some more hangers (we have waaaaaaay too many clothes) and these little glass shelf things for the bathroom. Hopefully we can get more organized with that stuff. I also heard from Craig today about this weekend. They are having drill at a medical conference in Sun Valley. He is in Boise right now and they are making them ride a bus down tomorrow morning at 4:30 am and then on Saturday they will have to ride the bus back to Boise. Needless to say Craig was a little more than irritated. His plan was to drive to Sun Valley and then when the conference was over to just drive back to Idaho Falls. There was really no reason for him to go back to Boise, especially when he could be halfway home already if he just left from Sun Valley. Of course though, the national guard changed their mind after telling him earlier in the week that that would be just fine. At least he will still be home this weekend hooray! That is also a reason for extra hangers, most of his stuff is still folded up in boxes and it would be really nice to not have them scattered everywhere while he is staying with us temporarily. After talking to Craig for a while, I picked Emma up from daycare and we headed home. We played for a little bit before having dinner. Emma loves loves loves yogurt and I finally decided that I could get her regular adult yogurt instead of buying the toddler yogurt for her. The price difference is huge and the toddler yogurt goes bad really really fast, even though it says it has an expiration date like six months from when you buy it. She thought adult yogurt was delicious!

I did find it interesting that rather than using the spoon she is holding in her left hand, she just shoved her right hand into the yogurt contained. Then she slurped it off her hand. After dinner she was so messy I decided to just give her a shower. She has figured out her shower markers and drew a beautiful pink picture all over the inside of the shower. It mostly looked like just scribbles but I still thought she did a great job :D After a shower and getting into PJs, I took Emma over to my parent's house. Emma went to bed and my dad babysat for me while I went with my mom and Hailey to Garrett's viewing.

Although I didn't know Garrett well, my heart breaks for his family and especially for his parents who my family was very close with when I was little. The hardest part for me with his death is the realization that no matter what we do, we can't keep our kids safe 100% of the time. Shelley and Marc are great parents and a terrible thing still happened to their child. The are very loving parents. While Garrett may have died young, he had the fortune to be blessed with parents who were able to let him see the world. Shelley and Marc supported him fully in anything he chose to do. He was an active kid who was so full of life and loved every minute of his short time here. It is so unfair that such an incredible family had to suffer such an incredible tragedy. They are in my prayers. Tomorrow, I will plant the heart given to everyone attending his viewing that is filled with the seeds of wild flowers. When it blooms, every time I look at it I will remember the important lesson that the Thiel's have taught me : every minute with my child is a precious one, make the most of those precious moments. Live, laugh, love as much as you can because life is short.

My child is SPOILED!!

This morning Emma went to daycare and GUESS WHAT?!?! She is sitting in a big girl chair to eat her meals there! No booster chair, no straps to keep her in, just a chair! She is getting so big so fast. I spent the day doing homework for statistics and cleaning the apartment some more. It is so difficult to keep it clean with Emma around. She is such a destructive and busy kid that nothing stays put away for any period of time at all. I got some more cleaning solution and mop pads for my swiffer wet jet today and that helped a lot with the cleaning. When we got home from daycare, we made some dinner. Toy story mac n cheese with little sausages. Emma also had about a billion blueberries. She loves blueberries, but lately I haven't been able to find any good ones at the store. Then I discovered that del monte makes little fruit cups of blueberries. Hooray! So Emma had those for dinner.

After dinner we played inside since it was getting dark outside and it was a little bit chilly with the sun setting! Emma has one of those bounce and spin ponies. She absolutely loves it but she doesn't understand it when it's hooked up to the TV yet. When it's hooked up there are like animals and numbers and colors on the TV screen and when she bounces it counts or does the numbers or whatever learning activity it is. It is an awesome toy though. She loooooooves bouncing on it and it's going to make for a great indoor activity once it starts getting cold enough that we can't spend much time outside. On the left side of the pictures is the package for the new toy box that I bought for Emma.

Sorry that those pictures are a little blurry. She won't stop bouncing so I can take pictures! Emma was so tired after playing that she was laying on the ground rubbing her head and petting the rug. I put her in bed and she got super whiny about it. Eventually she fell asleep and I "got" to do some more studying and cleaning. While I was putting away all of her toys in the living room so I could vacuum (again!) I realized something. My child is so spoiled! She has so many toys it is completely ridiculous. I must love her a whole bunch. Good thing because who knows what she would do without having so many toys! I decided that it was necessary to set up the new toy box today instead of waiting till Christmas to give it to her. Chances are that I will buy getting another one of the little toy boxes to accommodate her new Christmas presents but that is OK. A kid can never have too many toys right?

See what I mean about having a whole bunch of toys?

On a side note from our life I would like to take a minute to talk about a family friend. Garrett Thiel was killed Monday night in an accident. He was 13 years old and was riding his dirt bike down the side of the road home from the family farm when he was hit by a car. Please pray for his family in this difficult time. Garrett was a great kid and he will be missed.

Half Day!

Emma went to daycare for half of the day today so I was able to get some things done around the house and do the grocery shopping. After I picked Emma up from daycare we went to see my mom at work. They have a whole bunch of people from their corporate office there that love seeing Emma when they are in town. Then we went to this little park across the street from the cemetery. Creepy, I know, but it was actually a pretty cool little park. Remember those things they used to have in playgrounds that had a big spring in the ground and then a little animal on top of it and then you could bounce up and down on it? They had them at that park! Emma had a blast on it and she wouldn't play with any other toys for like 20 minutes!
 

There is also a baseball field at the park and Emma ran around it a few times. Then I got freaked out by the creepy people that apparently live in the apartments behind the park. It was a whole bunch of men and they had attendants with them and had to walk in a straight line one behind the other and all got into a van. It is probably just a group home for people who are handicapped but it was still freaking me out because it seemed more like a halfway house or something! Either way we had been outside for quite a while and it was another one of those too warm for a coat but too cold to stay outside for a really long time without one type of days. After the park we went home to clean up Emma's room and pack up so that she could go over to my parent's house. I have an accounting class on Tuesday nights so my parents always babysit for me while I go to the class. Tonight we had a test (blech). I'm hoping it went OK but I guess I will find out next week at class! When I got back from my class around 7:30 (which is way earlier than we usually get out) Emma was just getting ready to go to bed. We went home and she went to sleep and I also had a package waiting for me! It was one of Emma's Christmas presents. Now I am sitting down to watch a little T.V. and do a little homework before I head to bed. Sorry for the lack of pictures from today! I will post a couple of ones from last week though and a video :D

There was a video of Emma trying to give me her binky so I could take a little nap with her but it wouldn't upload and play! She is such a sweet little girl. We were having so much fun playing in her room while we were cleaning. She loves jumping on my belly and pretending like I am a pony and bouncing up and down right on my bladder. Well I am off to study Economics. Have a good night everyone!

Busy Busy

This afternoon Emma and I went up to the elementary school to play on the toys. She absolutely loves going down the slides. At the school there are these twirly slides that just go around and around. Those ones were her absolute favorite! She went down the little slide by herself which she also loved. she is starting to get so independent that anything that she can do by herself is great. For her at least. I get a little heart attack every time she tries to do something by herself that she hasn't done before. It was one of those days that is too warm to wear a coat but it is almost too cold to be out in just a sweater so we only play outside for about 20 minutes so she wouldn't get too cold. She did get a windburn though :( We also watched a Disney classic this afternoon, Beauty and the Beast. We only watched for about ten minutes because Emma lost interest. She also had a yummy sucker while we were watching the movie (first picture). Emma was completely exhausted when we got home from the park. She kept laying down on the ground with her teddy bear and then popping up so she wouldn't fall asleep.

Later in the day we were over at my mom's house helping her out. For those who don't know my mom is an RN and this weekend she had to take call. She ended up working the majority of the weekend and didn't get much sleep because her phone just would not stop ringing. We helped her get her laundry done since she spent most of the weekend working.

Emma decided to help by putting the clothes on herself! She has lately become very interested in dressing herself as much as I will let her. She has one of NayNay's tank tops on as a dress and a pair of boxer short pajamas on as a hat. She was running around and kept bumping into things and falling down. It was so adorable! Now she's in bed and I am getting ready to study for an accounting test I have to take tomorrow. Goodnight everyone :)

Sunday Afternoon :)

Emma and I had a great day today! First we cleaned the kitchen. Emma was really helpful and even tried to sweep and mop. After that we got our coats and hats on and went outside to play. It was pretty windy out but not too cold. Emma ran around for a while and I chased her. We eventually made it over to the playground at our apartments. She loves to go down the slide and we went down the big slides a few times and then she figured out how to do the little slide by herself! Once she got the hang of it I tried to take a picture of her but of course that was when she got bored with it and tried to do monkey bars alone. Don't worry she didn't fall! We played outside for about 45 minutes before she started getting cold and so we headed back home. She threw a tantrum because she was having so much fun that she didn't want to go inside! Once we got back she had some apples for her snack and then I tried to lay her down for a nap. The nap was a no go and so now she is up having some more apples. We had a great day. I think I am going to try to get her signed up for some swimming lessons here in the next couples of weeks. She would have a lot of fun with those so hopefully I can get her into a class :D

Halloween

Emma was a lady bug for Halloween. She looked completely adorable, of course. We went over to my parents house to do pictures and then my mom and I took her to boo at the zoo. She absolutely loved it. She ran around and thought the other kids were so interesting. She couldn't have cared less about the candy tho. They had a big area where kids were dancing and they were playing music. Emma danced out in the grass. I don't know how she has rhythm because I have none at all! After we did boo at the zoo we went to get some chicken nuggets for Emma and then ran by her great grandma's house. Unfortunately by the time that we got there Emma had already fallen asleep. My grandma came out to the car to see her. After that we picked up my younger sister Kayla and then my mom dropped us back off at home. Emma hardly even woke up when I took her out of her costume and put her in PJs. It was a great Halloween!