19 months old - March 16

It doesn't seem possible, but I believe our little baby is officially a toddler. She is still as funny as ever, but has recently had a little more "tudes" as we call them if she doesn't get what she wants. Oh the fun of teaching you can't always have what you want. On the flip side she is communicating a lot better and it's fun to interpret her words.

She still loves to get in her special cabinet in the kitchen, but she's recently added a pen and paper to the space for even more fun.

Her favorite food is still pretzels, but apples and oranges follow very close behind.

Her favorite buddy from church is a little boy named Noah. She says his name periodically throughout the week and then even more so after we get to see him in person. It's so cute.

Egg Hunt

The Justice/Schmidjell Egg Hunt was a lot of fun this year despite the cold weather. There was face painting, crafts and our Pastor, Steve Cavanaugh, gave a sermonette about the true meaning of Easter. Emily had a great time picking up the eggs and was really excited to find there was something ymmy inside them.

(So sorry Bev, Jerry and Lisa that we had to miss your Egg Hunt this year.)

Huggin' Cousins

A couple of weeks ago Randa and I started swapping days with the kids and on one such day Jack accidentally bumped into Emily in our hallway and he quickly said "I'm sorry Emily". When she stood up he gave her a hug. He was so glad she was ok. We sure will miss those hugs.

More pictures from the Blizzard

Blizzard of '08

The blizzard of '08 dumped lots of snow which made for a perfect sledding experience especially once the snow was packed down.

Today Mark, Randa, Jack, Emily, Stephanie and I headed over to Mr. and Mrs. Wilcoxon's. As a youth I spent many hours on their hill. Strange how one's energy level changes as the years go by. Emily did not enjoy herself like I thought she would. The amount of snow made it difficult for her to walk around. I tried to put on her "new" black and red polka dotted ladybug boots given to us by Margaret Tornero, but for some reason she is scared to death of them. I even disguised them with a plastic bag before trying to put them on her, but she screamed all the more. Oh well, maybe more smiles will come next year.

If a tree falls in the woods...

For anyone what has ever been to my house you have seen that huge maple tree that was growing in the middle of the back desk. It was a nice tree that provided a lot of shade. The only problem with it was that it had out grown everything that was built around it. It was starting to destroy the deck and the supporting around it. So, a couple of weeks ago my parents came out to stay for a couple days. While they were here I decided to put my Dad to good use. I took a day off work and we cut down that big old tree. It was a huge undertaking, but with a lot of prayer, everything fell right where we wanted it.

Here is a picture of the tree the day that we bought our house. This was before we cut any of the branches back.


The next two pictures are right before we cut it.



In this picture you can see how the wood that was framed in around the tree was being pressed by the tree.


Finally, after a long stressful day the tree is down. This is only the second half. I was to worried till the last one was down to even think about taking pictures of the first half. It actually fell right where this one did, but we had already cut it up and pulled it away. Notice also how the snow has mostly melted. This made for some rather large ruts in the yard. I'm going to have fun this spring. Notice in the first picture below how close it fell to the deck. Also, the in last three pictures how the tops fell right between the play set and the bird feeder pole. We couldn't of done any better. I thank the Lord that everything went well.

18 months old

These 18 months have flown by and our little girl has grown into a full-fledged bundle of communication. My Mom says Emily is very much like me when I was her age in that I would babble some phrase, someone would say "what?" and I would repeat the exact same phrase.

These days she likes to "wash" her forks and spoons in a plastic bowl I give her on the floor and she still loves putting keys into anything pretending that she's unlocking it.

Trip to Texas 2.6.08 - 2.13.08

Emily and I had the opportunity to visit my Mom and Dad and our other Aunt's and Uncle's in Texas this past week. We had a great time visiting and was thankful for the nice weather which allowed us to enjoy the outdoors the majority of the trip. Emily found she could do a new expression as a result of the plane ride - a look of surprise.

Emily sitting on one of the many live oak trees on the property of the house where we stayed.
Emily's favorite thing to do was getting in and out of the cabinet in one of the bathrooms.


Emily had fun riding in a car just her size, but her most favorite part was pressing the "radio" button and dancing to the music.

Mommy even joined in the fun.

We would take walks in the mornings and on one of our walks we passed a house that had a horse. Emily was not too fond of him.

Lots of cactus bushes in Texas.

Emily enjoyed many things while on our trip.
She especially enjoyed the brownies we had for Aunt Clara's birthday.

Congratulations Kristen and Jose

My sister-in-law and her boyfriend Jose recently got engaged (2/2/08) and Charlie, Emily and I were able to be a part of the exciting evening. Kristen said she knew something was up when she walked in the door of her apartment and saw her friends and also Charlie holding a video camera. Here are her reactions in sequence and then a picture of the ring. Thanks Jose for allowing us to be a part of the evening.

Matthew 24:27

For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be(NASB).

17 months old - Jan. 16

Oh, if we could only bottle the energy that children have and take a sip now and then. Emily was not feeling 100% again during this month's picture, but she still had the energy to squirm in the rocking chair.

She is our little "nut" and brings a smile to our face many times throughout the day. She definitely has a new found freedom now that she can walk. One of her favorite things to do is walk from the back door to the front door pretending with keys in hand that she is unlocking the doors. Another fun thing for her to do is help Mommy unload the silverware from the dishwasher. She would stand there for hours if she could, but eventually we run out of forks and spoons to put away. Her favorite foods are Oreo cookies, ice (that was a craving of mine while I was pregnant with Emily), Crispex cereal and pretzels which you see being shoved in her mouth in one of the pictures below. She can now say "ba-ball", "keys", "ice", "out", "down", "baby", "fish", "ches-cheese" and "bobble" (which we think means bottle).

Cool PC

Here is a little something for all you computer geeks out there. It’s a PC that is cooled by being submerged in mineral oil. I think that it looks pretty cool when its finished.