Christmas 2006

We had a great first Christmas with Emily this year. We had a chance to have our own family time at our house before heading over to Mommaw and Poppaw Marshall's house. Here's Emily in a Christmas outfit from Grammy Gin.

Surrounded by love

It's getting scarier each day in today's society with regard to childcare. We, however, are abundantly blessed since my sister Randa watches Emily every day. We are so grateful she is surrounded by the love of her family and gets to grow up with her cousin Jack. Jack is so affectionate with Emily and loves to hug her every chance he gets. She looks scared in these pictures, but she really had no qualms about it.

4 months old

Emily is growing by leaps and bounds. She was 4 months old on Dec. 16. She's been cooing/talking for a while now and loves to look around at everything in sight. This was the first time I put jeans on Emily. Who knew they made jeans this small.





This Saturday Charlie, Emily and I went to Hickory Farms Tree Farm to begin the tradition of cutting down our own Christmas tree. We decided to go with a White Pine since the needles are softer. Charlie only took about 5 swipes with the saw and the tree was down. It was very strange to be chopping down a Christmas tree in 55 degree weather and no snow on the ground.

Emily's first babysitter

When Emily was a little over a month old and I went back to work we had the privilege of leaving her in the trusted hands of Patty Schmidjell. Patty was pregnant with her first child and graciously offered to watch Emily for a month. Emily got lots of attention and also had the chance to introduce herself to baby Schmidjell before she was even born. I don't know if it's the military child syndrome or mere good organizational skills, but every day when I arrived there after work Patty had Emily's "stats" all written down - what time she ate, how she ate, how many diapers she changed, etc. I loved it and it will definitely be something we put in Emily's baby book. Here's just a few pictures of Emily checking out her surroundings.










Here's a picture of Daddy and Tim Schmidjell changing Emily's diaper. The caption should read: How many men does it take to change a baby's diaper? They did such a good job.

New Job

For everyone that didn't know, today I started my new job with
Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) where I'm a computer technician. Its seems to be a really fun place. Everyone has a great personality and I'm working with computer again. I liked my old job, but the stress of working all the time and not seeing my Wife and baby girl was getting to me. Will fill you in on more later, for now I have to get some sleep.

Bath Time at Marshall/Clay home

Now that Emily has grown she seems to enjoy bath time a lot more. Randa and I were curious how Jack would respond if Emily was in his bathtub and just as expected he splashed around and wanted to get in it as well. This will be even more fun when we start including toys.

3 Months Old

We've all heard the saying time flies when you're having fun. Well, this past month just flew. It continues to be a lot of fun watching Emily grow and do new things. Along with adding to her baby language she recently found her LEFT hand and continues to prefer that hand in the mouth as opposed to the RIGHT. I don't know how Mom's get anything done....you could just sit and watch them all day long.

We are blessed

The Lord has blessed us with a very happy baby. She has found her voice and makes the cutest cooing sounds. She also has her somber moments where I could swear she's thinking why does my Mommy dress me in these blue clothes.

Photo Op

Randa recently started watching Emily during the day and has had lots of opportunities to take pictures with Grandma M and Cousin Jack. In the last picture we were trying to get an idea of what Emily would look like with hair and then it just turned into something hilarious.

That was then...this is now

When I was little I had a Sally doll as one of my many companions. Everywhere I went with my Sally doll people thought she was real and usually were bold enough to stop and ask. That was then and this is now and now I have a real doll baby.

More from Emily's first road trip to PA

As promised, here are the pictures of the mural in Emily's room at Grammy Gin's and Pappy Groff's house that Holly, Chris, Chuck and Ginny worked on along with some more pictures of Emily with friends and family.

Emily's 2 month professional pics.

2 Months Old

Yes, I know it's hard to believe, but Emily is now 2 months old as of Oct. 16 (same day as her Great Aunt Neva's birthday)

First Road Trip

Last weekend we took our first road trip to Pennsylvania to visit family and friends. We left around 5pm and arrived a little while later at the Cabela's intersection. No, we didn't get to take Emily for her first trip to Cabela's because we were running short on time. Maybe next trip. We made it to Groff Rd. around 9pm and Grammy and Pappy come running out to greet us - Emily of course. We arrived to a world of surprises. The biggest one of all was the baby's room that Ginny, Holly and Holly's boyfriend Chris worked on. It was all decked out with the baby necessities and the COOLEST Noah's Ark mural and animals painted on the walls. (pictures to come later) Emily seemed especially fond of the giraffe and once we figured out it was best to keep her snuggled in the car seat, she was out for the night.


The next day we headed to Johnstown, PA to visit the rest of the family. We had thoughts of taking the Pack-n-Play, but figured there would be so many people to hold her she probably wouldn't be put down long enough to need it. We were right. Emily loves to be cuddled so that worked out great.








Sunday was another day to visit with friends. Emily was a little tired towards the end of the visit and slept pretty much the whole way back to Columbus.

We had a great time and hope to see everyone again soon.

Pretty in Pink

These pictures were taken to go along with a scrapbooking sticker that reads the same as the title of this post. I struggled to find something pink in Emily's wardrobe - ha ha ha