Christmas Morning

We spent Christmas morning with my family this year. It was a lot of fun and one of my favorite things was watching Emery walk around in the cute night gown her grandparents got her for Christmas. Maybe it's because I loved getting pjs from my grandparents when I was little, or maybe I loved it because her little bowlegs make anything look cute, but I couldn't help but smile and laugh at her waddling around. 

There was so much for Emery to get into and tear apart, she was in heaven.

I don't know who started it, but we put all our used bows on Emery's back. She looked like a Christmas stegosaurus!

First time sledding

Emery had her first sledding experience this past year. Gavin's parents have a perfect sledding hill right across the street from their house. There was plenty of snow and we had so much fun. Well, Gavin and I had fun, and Emery didn't cry so we assume she had fun too. It was tough to tell though, first we took her down the little hill and she just laid there on my lap with absolutely no reaction. No crying, no laughing, just limp. So then we took her down the big hill and same thing. No reaction. I think part of it was because she was having a bit of trouble moving in her snowsuit, living in Houston she isn't used to lots of layers. This was her initial reaction to being all suited up:

Here's Gavin's brother and mom cruising down the hill:

Here's Emery after we took her down the little hill. See what I mean by not happy or sad? Totally passive about it.

I think I might see a hint of a smile in this one.

As much as I hate the cold, I will admit that I do enjoy snow. I like getting out when it's cold and sledding or tromping around in the snow and I used to love snowboarding. Snow is fun. But it was even better this year knowing that I could have all the fun of it and introduce Emery to the joy of snow playing, and then go home to shorts and flip flops.

Christmas Eve Bowling

My family has a tradition to go bowling together on Christmas Eve. This year we tried out the new place in Meridian: Big Al's. It was definitely fancier than anywhere we've bowled before and we had a really good time and ate some great food. And everyone was there! That will probably be the last time for a long time that we are all together as my sister and her husband just moved back east. Here they are with Spencer, enjoying the game. Joey was the only one who successfully avoided my picture taking. Next time Joey, next time!

This is Matt and Kim, Emery loves her uncle Matt!

 Emery with Matt and my dad.

My mom, sister Natalie, and my two beautiful nieces.

 My mom bought the little girls matching outfits and this was the best picture we got. Way to stick your hand over your face for that precise second, Emery.

Love this picture of Spencer. Coolest bowler of all.

Look at this mischievous grin on her face! I love it!

Michelle, showing off her snack, and Kim.

Me and Gavin. Both of us bowled terribly this time around. I'm such a hot and cold bowler. It drives me crazy that sometimes I can easily break 120 (still not that great of a score, I know) and other times I struggle to break 50! How can I be that inconsistent?! Pretty sure this time it was a conspiracy and that the lanes were tilted in favor of everyone else but me. 

Photo bomb!

This picture cracks me up. This is my niece, Olivia, and every time she would bowl she would turn around and watch between her legs as it rolled down the lane. HILARIOUS!

 Kim and her daughter Kylee. Pretty sure Kylee got a better score than me.

Here's my dad...I didn't inherit his bowling skills unfortunately.

A bit late

I'm a little late on posting some Christmas festivities, but these pictures are too cute to pass by. Gavin's firm puts on a great Santa party and we had so much fun at it this year. Emery was quite the site in her little Christmas tutu and leg warmers my mom sent her. And the Santa and Mrs. Claus were AMAZING. They did magic tricks, talked to all the kids about kindness and being good, and gave them little stockings full of candy and toys. It was a great party. 

Here's Emery with Mrs. Claus, just trying to take it all in:

 Here she is on Santa's lap. She didn't scream or cry, which I was glad about, but she wasn't exactly happy either. She just sat there trying to figure out if she should scream or laugh or just get away.

I wanted a few better shots of her outfit. She looked so cute! 

If you notice behind Santa and Mrs. Claus is a big glass wall. Some people were in that conference room eating and others were out sitting on Santa's lap. Emery was inside the room and decides to stick her face on the glass and starting blowing out her cheeks on the glass to the people on the other side. It was HILARIOUS and I wish I had a picture of it. A few people tried to take some with their phones but I never found out if they turned out or not. She's such a little ham!

Christmas craft

For Christmas this year I decided to make a ruffle tote I found online for my nieces.  It's a simple canvas bag with no-sew ruffles, which is perfect for me since I don't own a sewing machine yet. They were really easy to make and I'm excited how well they turned out. 

You can find the tutorial for it here: ruffle tote

Scary Night

On Monday night I had a nightmare. You know the ones that don't go away even after you've been awake for hours? I had one of those.

In my dream we were asleep and woke up to our security system going off because someone was in the house. He was upstairs in Emery's room (don't know how I knew that in the dream but I did) and Gavin went to go find him while I sit there freaking out, trying to call 911. Then I see him go out the back door and we rush out there and he's hopped the fence and is running across the empty lot behind our house. I start screaming at him to GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW, and he turns around and says, "Are you serious?" but he listens and comes back (what? who does that? dream robber that's who). I then proceed to throw him to the ground and put him in this choke hold while yelling, "What did you to do my daughter?! Why were you in there?! What did you do?!" Then the cops come and take him away. As they are walking him to the car I start feeling all sad and run after him, give him a hug, and say, "Merry Christmas. I'm sad it all turned out this way" and I feel all bad for beating him up for breaking into MY HOUSE (don't get your hopes up would-be robbers, that's NOT happening in real life). He makes some threat about how this is just the beginning but I ignore it and just think how nice he is (blech, also not happening). Then I end up at school and I'm super scared because I never checked on Emery during all of that and I don't know if she's ok. It's a stupid dream, but I woke up TERRIFIED with the "nightmare goosebumps" that won't let you relax and the heebie-jeebies that stuck around all morning long.

Since then I have been turning on the security system at night. I usually don't worry about activating it but the dream freaked me out enough that I thought, why not? Last night the I re-lived the Monday nightmare, some of it anyway. Around 2:00 am I hear a siren going off, it's loud and I can't quite place it in my sleepiness. Gavin and I are stirring when I'm jolted awake as I realize, IT'S THE HOUSE ALARM. FOR REAL. "Gavin, it's the house!" We both jump out of bed and he rushes to the box to see where the breach is while the siren's screams fill the house. I run to the stairs, looking frantically around when Gavin shuts off the alarm and I hear wind blowing fiercely outside. The wind was blowing so strong it blew open a door that wasn't shut all the way, setting off the alarm. No robber for me to wish a Merry Christmas to this time, thank goodness.

Needless to say we were quite shaken up. It did make me think about our "game plan" though and what we would do in the event of a break-in. As terrifying as it was I think I'm actually grateful it happened as a "practice run" so if it ever happens for real (pray that it never does) I won't make the mistakes I made this time.

Kind of a downer-post...but Merry Christmas!...and have a game-plan. :)

Helloooooooo

I could talk for hours about things I love about Emery and all the cute things she does, but I try not to go on too long because no one cares as much as Gavin and I do. :) I will mention one thing she is awesome at and that is playing by herself. Some days she wants to just follow me around all day and be super sad if I am not constantly paying attention to her, but those days are few. As soon as she learned to climb up the stairs she would climb up there and play in the toy room for 30-45 minutes, sometimes an hour, all by herself. It's AMAZING! I can cook dinner, blog, read, or do whatever I want, completely uninterrupted. If things get eerily quiet I'll poke my head up there to check on her, and if she sees me she'll just smile, say a few jibberish words and keep on playing. 

It really makes my life easier. I love it. 

As fearless as she is in climbing up the stairs, she is scared to come down them by herself. This is good and bad. Good because she tends to play longer up there because she thinks she's stuck, and bad because when she is done playing she will just sit up there and yell until I come help her down. She used to just come to the railing and stare me down like this:

That's when she was patient about it, but now she just yells. It's funny though, because she knows how to climb down the stairs, I've taught her to turn around and go down on her belly and once I get her first leg going she will go down the whole way by herself. It's just that first initial step that makes her nervous. But we keep practicing and she's getting better at it. Maybe she can make that her New Year's Resolution: go down the stairs without mom's help.