Emily and her horse

Celebrating the birth of Jesus

We have had a great Christmas. We have seen a lot of family and friends and opened up too many presents. We enjoyed Christmas eve and Christmas day in Ames. It was the first time in our lives that neither one of us woke up in our parents homes, but rather in our own house. What a rite of passage. We went to the 6:00 pm Christmas eve service at our church it was a lovely way to celebrate the reason for the season. Emily has been running from toy to toy around the house making sure to play with everything in sight!

Movie Review

Amazing Grace, I can't say enough great things about this movie. I think everyone should be required to see it. The movie is based on the life of William Wilberforce an antislavery pioneer, he speaks truth to power, and stands up for what is right. Go rent it tonight!
http://www.amazinggracemovie.com/index.php

In all the business of this week I forgot to mention Emily's recent milestone. Emily had a play-date of sorts on Monday evening. While the two kiddos were digging through the toy box to see what to play with, Emily found her box of markers. She brought them over to me and said "ohhhpen marmar". I have heard her say open a thousand times as well as markers, markers sounds a lot like mama but her voice gets a little higher at the end of each syllable. This marks the first time I have ever heard her string two words together!

Diagnosis Emily

Emily has spent the last two days battling a fever. On our snow-day, Tuesday, she work up really cuddly which is unusual. She ate a good breakfast, but from then on out all she wanted was to rock with her "ba ba" (paci) and her blanket. I think we spent 6 hours in the recliner. Today she woke up and seemed back to her normal self. We had an ear re-check at the pediatrician at 9:00 am, we went to story time at the library and ran some errands. After lunch Emily went down for her nap, she only slept 40 minutes, which it atypical for her. The next five hours of the day were spent like Tuesday. Her temperature wavers from 101.3 to 103.2 F. Tylenol does not seem to be reducing the fever or making things more bearable for her. Besides the fever she seems to be symptom free. Any diagnosis for me?

Date Day!

Thanks to wonderful Aunt Jen, Robert and I had a long anticipated date -a 14 hour date!
We went to Des Moines to do some Christmas shopping, ate lunch, and squeezed in a movie too! I would highly recommend "Enchanted". It was everything a girl expected growing up on Disney fairy tales, a Prince Charming, rodents that talk, and spontaneous singing! We really want to see National Treasure II, but it doesn't come out until the 21st of December. Any volunteers to watch Emily?

The weather had turned bad while we were in the movie so it was a slow drive home. Robert is the best driver I know, so I was glad I was with him. We came home checked in with Jen and Emily, changed our clothes and headed out to my company's Holiday party, where we had lots of fun watching people sing karaoke.

cheese!

Mid-week update

We have had an eventful week so far. Emily and I were excited to host Sarah and Zane on Tuesday for dinner. It was a nice visit and a good way to spend the evening. Today we headed to Ankeny to get some errands out of the way. Emily napped on the way home (20 minutes) and considered that good enough for the day. Aunt Lynne joined us tonight for dinner, she gave her thumbs up for my new recipe for squash.
Emily is walking circles around the house, literally, I chased her around the stairs most of the afternoon. She giggles a lot, especially when Bo joins the chase. Emily knows all of her body parts in her Ears, Nose and Toes book. She can point out most things in her favorite books if you ask her to, we are still working on saying the words. She seems to be recovering nicely from her second round of ear infections. We still have to go for a re-check next week.

Snuggle time

Every member of our small family has been sick on and off for weeks now. Emily is suffering another ear infection, Robert and I had a little virus that set us back a couple of days this week. Even Bo the Dog has been moping around the house lately. Em's infection or new medication has made her more tired, she has been participating in a lot more cuddle time than usual. I snapped this picture earlier this week. I think they are both having a little rest!

Cookie Time

Emily is getting more interested in daily tasks, and less interested in her infant 0-12 mo. toys. I would say on a daily basis we now play the most with her blocks and read books. Perhaps that is because they bore me less than her other toys, I try not to influence her decision to much! On Saturday during our second snow/ice storm of the season, Dada had to zip off to meet a client so we decided to make some cookies to bid time. I wanted Chocolate Chip, but we didn't have any brown sugar, so we switched to cutout cookies. It was pretty fun baking with Emily. Perhaps we need to get her an apron. She had the most fun with the dry ingredients. She was pretty mad at me when I finally had to mix them into the cookies, I ended up giving her another scoop of flour to play with. My biggest concern was keeping Emily on the counter, but soon she will be able to help on a stool.