Thanksgiving 2008

This year we had the opportunity to spend a full week in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. Fun was had by all. We had many hours of laughter, lots of fun in the snow and lots of food.

While Pappy and Charlie were fishing on 20 Mile Creek, east of Erie, PA.... (this is Charlie's first steelhead) ....we were having fun playing with playdough.

Emily was introduced to a "big bed" while listening to Gimmy and Pappy read bedtime stories. Although she didn't consider this her real bed, it did give her a glimpse of what's to come.

Being goofy

Reading with Gimmy Preparing to go play in the snow

Emily enjoyed the snow and sledding a lot more this year than last year. After the first couple of times with Charlie or I in the sled, she wanted to go down by herself. While Charlie was building Emily an igloo, she decided to taste test some of the snow.

Then came the incident that brought laughter through the rest of the week. One particular sled ride with Emily and I was going well until we went out of control and ran smack dab into Gimmy's legs knocking her off her feet. She fell to the ground and ended up landing with her head in the igloo door. As we're all laughing we hear Emily start to cry and we think it's because she's concerned for Gimmy. As it turns out she's muttering amidst her crying "Gimmy broke my igloo". You can see Emily's not-so-happy face in this picture.

Family picture

In the loft with Cousin Sammy

Uncle Wally experiencing dress-up time

Elk at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort where Pappy works

Pappy showing Emily around Nemacolin

27 months old - Nov. 16

I am consistently amazed how such a pensive person could be wrapped up inside a little 2 year old's body. The things that come into Emily's mind and then out of her mouth sound very much like a child at times of course, but then can also sound so adult at times too. Emily and I were eating lunch one day and during a quiet moment I could tell she was thinking about something. She swallowed a bite of her peanut butter sandwich, folded her arms and said "how's yo day?" and waited until I responded. It didn't occur to me until later in the week that she picked that up from my daily question to Charlie as we sit around the dinner table.

Another humorous story....I recently started talking to Emily about having a "happy heart" during her grumpy or whiney moments since it worked so well with her cousin Jack. This past Sunday she was having a grumpy moment while getting ready for church. We proceeded downstairs for breakfast and I said we needed to find her "happy heart" and have a good attitude. I then bagged some Lucky Charms cereal for a little extra snack during the ride to church. Our ride was the normal Sunday drive listening to her favorite CD of Children's Hymns and chatting about who we were going to see at church. Then a pause in conversation.... Emily squeals with delight and says "Mommy, I found my happy heart" and proceeds to hold up one of the pink marshmellow hearts from her Lucky Charms cereal bag. Oh, what a great laugh we all had.

Since the weather is cold enough to freeze your nose hairs, we're back inside for picture time. I was told a certain blondy from Pennsylvania wore this nurse scrub outfit quite often as a child. Emily thanks you for passing it down.

Technology Savvy 2 year old

Strangly enough our 2 year old has mastered the skill of moving around the mouse in order to play her favorite computer game. Thank you Aunt Randa for the recommendation of this game.

Dress-up Time

Kristen and Jose invited us and the Schmidjell's to their Harvest Party/Trunk n Treat at Eastside Vineyard this past weekend. They had stories by the fire, butter churning, cookie decorating, balloon animals and toe-tapping music. Lots of fun was had by all.

What would we do without a pile of leaves in the Fall?

Not too sure what to think about the pile

Still a little unsure

Oh, I think I'll just go for it

This is actually a lot of fun

Even more fun to throw them

They make a nice headpiece...hmm

Kristen, you should consider leaves as your veil

Time to "clean" up my surroundings

Our Little Punkin'

Last week Mom took Emily and I on a Fall Leaf Viewing Adventure to Lancaster, OH. On our drive home we stopped by a little Pumpkin Farm. They had quite a bit to choose from and all purchases were on the honor system. We had a lot of fun and Emily really enjoyed walking in between the pumpkins.



I have a feeling Emily will surpass me in height.

Visit to Pigeon Roost Farm

We had a really great time with our Sunday School class last Saturday during our visit to Pigeon Roost Farm. This is a place where a kid can be a kid and even adults can be kids as you can tell from some of these pictures. Our friend Shelli captured some great shots too. Can anyone guess who Mr. Pumpkin Head is???

Fun with Friends

We had the opportunity to share in celebrating our friend's son, Jack's, birthday a couple of weeks ago. We had a great time. Emily most enjoyed birthday cake time.


Emily and I have enjoyed having our friends, Patty and Kara over a couple of times this Summer.
FROM BABIES...
...TO TODDLERS







WHERE DOES THE TIME GO?

26 months old - Oct. 16

I must say girls are so much fun to have around. Emily is becoming quite the communicator and it makes me laugh out loud sometimes at the things she says. She has a tendency as with most toddlers to get easily frustrated when something doesn't work for her immediately or even after two or three tries. I usually say what I fondly remember my Mother saying when I was little which was "it does no good to get frustrated". The other day after her third attempt to get one of her toys working she said "I fustrated". The other funny thing for the month was during one of our visits to Kroger. We were walking around the store and suddenly we heard a voice over the intercom. After the voice completed the sentence, Emily tilted her head back in the direction of the voice and said "yea" as if to answer. What a hoot!

Picture Update

Randa and the boys and my Aunt Clara and Aunt Neva were able to come for a visit at the end of September. We really enjoyed spending time with them.






Emily has somewhat sensitive ears and on the drive home from Mommaw and Poppaw's house we passed a firetruck and I heard her saying in the back seat "it's too loud". She proceeded to put the car pillow around her ears. I was able to stop long enough at a light to take a picture.



Emily and I had the opportunity to take care of our friend's little boy, Ryan, a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot of fun and very interesting to see Emily's reaction to having another baby around the house. I thought she would be somewhat jealous, but on the contrary, she was very excited to have Ryan around. Every morning when she woke up she would ask where Ryan was. She was quite the little helper.

Upside Down & Chocolate Face Emily

A couple of weeks ago our church had our 50th Anniversary and during that weekend Shelli caught this picture of Emily with Mommo. Also, here's a picture of Emily enjoying a cupcake during the Anniversary dinner taken by Vince.

25 months old - Sept. 16

Another month and even more changes in our little 2 year old. Emily is getting nuttier by the second. She is constantly making us laugh even with the little things she does. We've had an exciting beginning and middle of this month and the month's not over. We celebrated 3 birthdays this month and by the time we brought out the cake for the last one Emily said Happy Birthday. She now associates any candles she sees with birthdays. That leads us into our next exciting event for the month, probably for the year, when Hurricane Ike decided to visit us Northern folk. Thankfully we had no big house or roof damage, which probably would not have been the case had Charlie and his Dad not cut down the tree in the middle of our back deck back in February. Thank you Lord!!! We did however lose our electricity for 2 1/2 days and used what my husband would call the plethora of candles in our house. It was funny because when Emily saw the candles in use the first night she said "birthday cake". One more exciting event for Emily was her first gymnastics class. The Columbus Gymnastics Academy offers a Free Trial Class Coupon on their website and we thought it might be neat to see how she would do in that setting compared to her tumbling and climbing around the house. She thoroughly enjoyed it and actually did not want to leave. I'll try to post the video of her experience soon.

Emily's favorite past time these days is watching Baby Einstein videos and reading her Big Picture Story Bible that Aunt Randa and Uncle Mark got her for her birthday. She absolutely loves looking at the pictures and she stays interested. Right now she loves trying to find the pictures of Eve in the water, Baby Jesus, Pharaoh talking to Joseph and John baptising. I highly recommend this Bible for your little ones.

Emily is enjoying the teeth brushing ritual more these days and is especially fond of watching Aunt Kristen spit out the toothpaste. Of course Emily has to try to mimic that task with her toothpaste. One tactic I use to brush her front teeth is by asking her to give me a big smile. I thought I might say the same thing while posing her for her monthly picture and see what happened. Well, she responded appropriately. Meet the ham of our family.

(the stamps on her legs are spaceship stamps she received after her gymnastics class)

Check it Out

A good friend of ours from church (Jon Hanson) entered a You Tube contest, along with 15 or 20 others, to create the best video regarding our rising gas prices. Yes, that is yours truly, close to the beginning of the video. Please view by clicking on this link and feel free to pass along to your friends. Thank you!