Ho Ho came to our house

Santa Claus, a.k.a. Ho Ho, came to our house. Does he look familiar to anyone?

Christmas Eve

One of our family traditions is that we get to open one present from my mom on Christmas Eve. This has been going on since my sister and I were little and Grandma J is now keeping it going for the grandkids. So every year we get new pajamas so we look nice for pictures in the morning. I didn’t get any pics of the pj’s but Emmy got Minnie Mouse and I got Eeyore.

Emily also loves drinking out of Grandma J’s cup. As you can see it is almost as big as she is.

Day after the party

My poor girl was so tired the day after her birthday party that she could barely eat her lunch. Needless to say she didn’t fight her nap at all this day, she didn’t even want me to read her Miffy book to her.

Emmy's Birthday

Can you believe it…my baby girl is 2 years old? I sure don’t know where the time has gone. She brings such joy to our lives. God has truly blessed us.

We had lots of fun at her Sesame Street birthday party. Emmy really liked the cake and ice cream. She received LOTS of great toys and clothes. Thank you to everyone, you were all very generous.

Emmy sang Happy Birthday with us and she even added a "cha cha cha" at the end.

Emmy with Great Grandmother, Great Grandpa Duck and Uncle Rob.

Grandpa Willtrout, Grandma J, Great Grandma & Great Grandpa Anderson.

Cousin Katy.

Cousin Kevin in his "angry Elmo" hat.

Emily playing with her new toy from Clayton & Madison.

Watching her new Tickle Me Elmo. She really didn't like it when he fell on the floor laughing. We're pretty sure she thought he was hurt. Because she would pick him up and give him a hug and kiss. As you can see in the next picture.

After everyone went home she had lots of fun playing with her balloons.

Chips & Salsa

Okay, so how strange is my daughter??? One of her favorite things to eat is chips and salsa. I get a lot of strange looks from people when I tell them this. Yes my baby girl loves salsa and no it doesn’t seem to have any adverse effects on her. When she hears someone say the word chips her first word is "salsa?" So here are a couple of pictures of her and Daddy sharing some.

Check out this look

See this facial expression…. I seem to get it a lot now. This is how she looks when I tell her NO. You just have to love the scrunched eyebrows and pouty lip. I was trying to get a picture to put with our Christmas cards. I was really tempted to use this one but I decided against it. However, it did give me a really good laugh.

T is for TALL Tights

So do you think her tights are a little too long? I didn’t realize they were so big when I put them on her. I just kept pulling them higher and higher. When I tried to scrunch them down around her waist she wanted no part of that. She wanted to wear them like this. So of course I had to take a picture. This poor girl is going to be so embarrassed when she’s older.

Winter Storms....pretty but not fun!!

Yeah!!! After four days of being out of power our electricity is finally back on. It was a stressful time, but we are so blessed to have such a wonderful family to help us when we are in need. The first day it was out Emily, Grandma J and I spent the morning at Aunt Julie’s house. Emily had lots of fun playing with Katy and Kevin. It wasn’t too cold in our house yet so I took her home to take a nap. When she got up we all packed up and moved to Aunt Lisa and Uncle Jamie’s house. We weren’t the only ones staying there. Grandma and Grandpa came too. So that whole first day was just a big party for Emmy because she got to play with all of her cousins that day.

We were able to spend the last two nights at home because my brother in law bought a generator and was gracious enough to let us borrow it. The first night home Emily slept in till 10 am!! She was one tired girl.

I just don’t know what we would have done without all the help from our family. We really want to thank Jamie and Lisa for opening up their home and putting up with us for so long. Rob’s parents for making sure we didn’t go hungry. My mom for buying a deep freezer to store all of our frozen beef in. Julie and Rob for letting us use their new generator. And finally to Andrew Galloway, a friend from church, for helping Rob set up the generator. God has truly blessed us with wonderful friends and family.

Winter Storms...

Emily, Katy, Kevin & Grandma J dancing at Aunt Julie's house.

Robbie & Jamie playing one of their many games of chess.

Emmy & Maddie Moo playing with the babies.

The wonderful generator!

This is where the phone line usually connects to our house. It was ripped out during the storm. The phone company said it will be fixed by next week. :(

It's kinda hard to see in this picture but we have a giant tree branch pulling our power line to our house down. Hopefully the power company will fix it before it snaps.

An early birthday present

Grandma and Grandpa Monroe gave Emily her birthday present early because they wanted her to be able to play with it before Christmas. It is a really cute Little People nativity set. Emily loves it. We finally took it out of the box today and Emily has been caring Baby Jesus around all day. He is even taking a nap with her as I type this. I just couldn’t say no when she said, "Baby Jesus go nigh-night."

Messy Marvin

This is what Emmy looks like after eating a big bowl of spaghetti. Don’t you just love her ensemble that day? I think the ski cap looks lovely with her pajamas. And of course she had to have the puppy eat lunch with us too.

Peek A Boo

Emily loves playing "where’s Emmy" so much that she even plays it by herself. We can hear her at night after we put her to bed in there saying "Emmy….where are you Emmy." Here’s a picture of her playing peek a boo with me.

Great Aunt Judy

My mom’s sister Judy was in town from California for Thanksgiving. I forgot to get a picture of them together last time Aunt Judy was in town so I wanted to make sure I got one this time. However my little "Squirmy Wormy" didn’t want to cooperate. This was the best picture out of about 6 that I tried to take. She's not looking at the camera but at least she’s smiling in this one.