Happy Thanksgiving 2009!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We hope everyone had a relaxing holiday! We all went to PA for the long weekend. Mom made dinner (as always) and it was wonderful (as always)! Emilia thoroughly enjoyed a holiday centered around eating!! She also had a ton of fun playing with her cousins, grandparents, and great grandparents!

Here is Nanny occupying Emilia while we were trying to get dinner on the table. She is beginning a separation anxiety phase and had a fit whenever she wasn't physically connected to me (yikes!). Thankfully she is still pretty easily distractible.


Here she is ready for dinner. We had to strip her to her onsie and tights because she means business at mealtime!

The ladies relaxing after dinner and clean-up. Yes, that is Emilia eating again!


Here is the guys' idea of relaxing after dinner and clean-up (you would think they participated in anything but the eating).

Playing in nature

Brian blew all the leaves into a big pile for Emilia. We played in them the other evening, but Emi wasn't too crazy about touching "nature" with her hands. She doesn't really like her hands in grass or leaves...

...so she poked it with this stick.


Then she decided to taste "nature"...not so good!



I also wanted to share that Emilia has started eating with a fork (thanks AJ and UK for the great toddler flatware). She doesn't always make it to her mouth with the food still speared, but she's getting better and she loves to practice.

Emilia's haircut

I did this about a week ago but I didn't get a chance to post it. Emilia got her first haircut!! Well, she had her bangs trimmed. She probably won't get a real haircut for a while because it's growing so nicely. I used the only sure distraction tool I have...food. Here are a couple of pictures.

This baby was made for walking...

Yup...that's right!! She's a walker. She'll still crawl when she needs to get somewhere in a hurry, but she is really enjoy practicing her new skill!!

Happy Halloween!!

Emilia's first Halloween has come and gone. She really enjoyed herself!! We went to the CTC Halloween party on Thursday. She was all dressed in her costume and had a great time playing with the other kids.



Then we invited Levi over on Friday to join us for some pumpkin carving. Emilia LOVED it!! She played in the pumpkin guts and then decided that they were pretty delicious.



Levi did not enjoy it so much. He wouldn't touch anything except the clean scooper, and he was very happy when we were cleaning up.




On Saturday we went to the town Halloween parade. Emilia thought it was pretty awesome. She danced to the marching bands and waved and giggled as all the people and floats went by.




LJ, on the other hand, wedged himself between Brian and me and shook like a leaf the entire time. It probably didn't help that we dressed him like a bumblebee...I think he was embarrassed.


After the parade we went trick-or-treating all the way home. For a little girl who can't have candy she certainly made out like a bandit! Daddy will be set with candy for a while!


We hope everyone is having a great fall, and we can't wait to see everyone over the holidays!!

Happy Fall!!

Happy fall everyone! We've been busy as usual for the past couple of weeks. Brian took a week of vacation to just stay at home with us!! It was great! Even though we didn't get a chance to go camping, because of the weather, we did get to go to My Gym for a trial class together. Lately, we've been busy getting ready for Halloween.

Emilia's costume is nearly done and she's very excited to go the Halloween party at CTC and to the parade in town!

We went to the pumpkin patch this past weekend. It was beautiful day and we all had a lot of fun! Emilia was fascinated with all of the pumpkins and the cornstalks but more fascinated with the other kids!!


This was just before she ate the dirt off the pumpkin. Won't be the last time I'm sure!



We each picked out a pumpkin for the front of the house. This was Emilia's choice.

Big Steps!!

Emilia took her first two steps at the Little Gym last Friday!! Many of the other kids were walking around, and Emilia felt left out. She promptly turned from the piece of equipment that she was standing against and took two full step to me. Such a big girl!!!

We went to the Penn State game this past weekend. It was such a great trip and we got to use our camper for the first time! Emilia did so well with the disruption in her routine. Mammaw stayed at the campground with her while Pappaw, Lauren, Brian and I went to the game. They later met us in State College and we walked around and went shopping.

We also got delicious ice cream from the Creamery...it's not a PSU trip without it! Emilia thought it was pretty delicious, too. She had a little taste of just about everyone's, but her favorite was daddy's cone which she managed to chomp with her two little biters!!

The two days of activity definitely took their toll on our little one. She kept a smile on her face the whole time, but she sooooooooo sleepy. She slept almost the entire way home!


On Monday evening we went to the Caps game. We invited Megan, Paul, and Levi to come along. The babies were so well behaved that we got a couple of compliments from the people sitting around us! They had a great time and Emilia was "rockin' the red" for the home team. Despite the cutest cheerleader of all time, they lost in a shoot out to the Devils.