November... and some of Emery's new likes, dislikes, attitudes and gratitudes!

So Emery surprises us sometimes (a lot actually).  And last night was no exception.  It was going to be a freezing 24 deg during the night.  So I put her in a fleece footsie onsie for the first time this fall.  She wasn't sure she liked it just yet since now she has such a big opinion on things than she did a year ago! lol  But she wore it to bed.  We always check on her before we go to bed and thank God we did!  Sean waved me to come in there.  And there she was, all snuggly under her blanket with one naked arm hanging out and propped up by her head..... with the onsie in a heap on the floor beside her!! haha   She was going to be one frozen kitten by morning had we not checked on her!!!  Silly girl!!

She is also getting wittier and quicker with every passing day.  The other morning Sean passed a little gas (I'm sure I'm being kind), and Emery says "what was that dad?!"  And he says "that was a duck!"  Later that day, it was Emery's turn.  Sean says "did you toot?!"  And Emery says "no dad, that was a duck!"   We both laughed so hard that she had remembered and then used it back on him!!!!  She still says that to us!!  She cracks us up constantly!  One day we were at my friends house and she was precariously perched on a low window sill, holding on to the table. She says "look mom!"  I said "Be Careful" and she quickly responds "mom dont say that. I am!!"  eesh!  lol

Then there's the mouthy side!  haha   Of course she is getting good at working us both.  We were out at a restaurant and she kept asking for something.  I told her No then Sean told her No, but she persisted.  Finally after Sean told her no again, she looked at me and asked me again.  Sean immediately stopped her and said "Emery I told you no!" and she looked straight at him and said "Daddy, I talking to mommy."   Whaaaaaaat!!???????  We couldn't believe she just said that!  Another night, we were at home and the same scenario was happening.  Except she kept asking Sean and he kept saying no.  Finally she responds by saying "FINE, I'll ask mommy!".   We both looked at each other and mouthed the word "FINE" in awe!   Where does she get this stuff!!!  It's crazy to us!  Just goes to show how much they pick up from us and kids they are around and they put it all together. We are in awe everyday how she is coming up with new big words and using them appropriately.  It amazes me!

So a few of her favorite things lately......

*  She LOVES and is obsessed with wearing dresses lately!  And since it is winter and all she has is summer dresses, I put them on right over her clothes (don't worry I don't let her go out like this. lol)   Some are simple summer dresses and some are big super frilly special dresses.  She loved her Christmas dress this year!   She even made my neighbor, who watched her one night while we went out on a date, put on a dress.  lol
*  Along with the dresses, comes the obsession with her new dress shoes.  I didn't think I had any for her for Christmas and God Bless whoever handed her down these beautiful, near new, black dress shoes.  And they fit!!!  What a blessing!!  But now she wants to wear them ALL the time!
*  SHE decides what shoes she is going to wear.  Sometimes I have to put my foot down when it's 29 degrees outside with a wind chill of 20 and she wants to wear her pink mary jane "slippers", as she calls them, with no socks.  But usually I'm ok with her choices.  She still loves her cowgirl boots!!  But maybe I'll buy her brown ones next time as pink doesn't always go with her outfits!  lol
*  Her favorite movies are Monsters, Inc, Cars, Bubble Guppies (still and probably forever!) and Sophia the First.  Actually the most recent and definitely most watched in a 4 day period is Enchanted!  Which I am really excited about since I can enjoy it too!!

November in Pictures!

 Emery was invited to her friend Ari's princess dress up birthday party.  It was so cute!!  They painted their nails, dressed them up, did there hair and makeup and then had a full tea!  She had so much fun!

 

Just another  cold winter day in Texas!!  But style for this one is not out!!

 My good friend Meagen had her baby, Grayson, and Emery got to hold and love on him.  She was in heaven!! She kept saying "Aw, he's so cute!" and rubbing and kissing his head.  Get practice girl!!!

One little picture of Thanksgiving dinner with our Friemily!!

We took Emery to Carvel Ice Cream (as on TV! lol) She loved it!!  She is an ice cream lover to say the least, just like her mommy! 

A day in the park  

An another one of mommy's cold runs in the park!!  She is such a trooper!!

October Fun Times!

October 2-9, 2013

While the cat is away the mice will play!!  And so we did!  Sean was off to Fresno for a week to turn over our house.  I decided it was time to go visit my long time friend, Jennifer, in Houston.  This would be my first trip in Texas, and by myself no less AND my first trip ever out of town with Emery by myself.  I was so excited!  But first things first.... I needed to tire Miss Emery out for the drive.  So my friend Meagen and I took the kids to the trampoline park!

Emery had sooooo much fun!!  I couldn't keep up with her!

yes I did!!  And I was so sore the next day!! lol

Well we left for Houston after an hour at the park.  I had lunch packed for us both and we ate in the car.  After about an hour, Emery was fast asleep!  My planned worked!!!  She slept for about 3 1/2 hours with only about 45 min to spare in our long journey.

Emery taking pictures of me from the back while I was driving!

On Saturday we drove with Jennifer to the Woodlands Mall.  The Woodlands is a very nice, upscale town.  We had a great time at the mall.  And of course Emery had fun posing for the camera!

Me and Jenn!  Friends for 25 years!  It was SO great meeting her new family and spending time with her kids.  They are such an amazing bunch!!!

Along the river at the mall

Our last morning, after Jenn went to work and tried to tire Emery out again on their trampoline.  While not quite as successful it still helped. :)

Emery and Sophia sharing breakfast on our last day.  We had such a wonderful time with them.  And it was a tremendous blessing for me to take a trip and get out of dodge for awhile.  Very rejuvenating!

I finally took Emery to a pumpkin patch (yes, this is still October although I'm writing this in dec!)  We took a few cute pics and then she was daring enough to go on her first ever blow up slide!  Of course I had to go with her the first couple of times.  And of course I didn't mind... its the whole reason I had a kid was so I could still act like a kid without people looking at me weird!  hahahaha   Then she was off on her own!!  There were two other kids there too and they all played together.  It was so much fun!

My little daredevil!

I took Emery to Bahama Bucks.  Not just a stand on the side of the road, but a whole shop that is all sno cones!!  So yummy!

She even got her own!  Happy girl!!!

Gettin my dirty Run on!!!

I have the opportunity to participate in a just a few fun things in the last few months.  In May, I ran the Urban Dash 5k in Dallas.  And it was pretty fun.  But in September I ran my third half marathon (my first in Texas!) with some very fun new friends!  I met a few of them at the last aerobics class (and only one I did last year) at the NRH campus in May.  So in September when they started up again, I was excited to get going!  I met some really great friends.  I found out they were running the Plano Balloon Festival Half and I wanted in!!  Except I only had three weeks to train for it.  But that's never stopped me before!  haha   In fact I think I'm becoming known for short train times.  I had been running, so it wasn't from the couch to 13.1 miles.  Overall I ran a faster time than my last half.  Or at least I would have had my knee not about exploded on me at mile 9.  The exciting thing though is that I actually RAN the first 9 miles!!!  Without stopping!  I could barely walk the last 4 but, darn it, I finished!  I plan to train for my next half the right way so as to not hurt anything and run the entire 13.1! 

Jill, Kendra, Tana, Jocelyn, Dian and me!

At the finish line! (ran for the picture...lol!)

So I rested my knee for the next two weeks, icing it, stretching and strengthening.  After only a few days with it taped, I had no more pain (and none since!).  At my workout class, I finally met someone who was willing to get dirty with me!!  So on October 19th, Jill and I along with her friend, Amber and husband, ran the Halloween Hustle Mud Run 5k!  I have been wanting to do one for a very long time.  And I'm telling you it was the most fun thing I have EVER done!!!  This company does 4 mud runs a year and I want to do them all!!!  We had the best time!!  It was fuh-reezing that morning, so swimming in the cold creeks and ponds was not exciting me, but it actually wasn't that bad.  I warmed up fast. 

Before the start... I was freezing!  I have a towel wrapped around my head!  brrr (that's Jill!)

The Start Line!!

 
These "spools" were pretty tricky to climb over and under.  I was proud of myself!!  hehe

 

This was the second to the last obstacle and I was VERY nervous!  It was the only thing that scared me!  We had to climb up the back of that structure (no ladder and no safety ropes!) 25 feet or so!  And then fly through the air on the zipline and drop off before an abrupt stop in the middle of the pond.  It was a 20 foot drop!!  Let me tell you, I don't like high dives!!!!  I had so much water in my sinuses!!!  And yet, still, SO fun!!

This is where you actually, finally, got really dirty!  The last mud crawl!

Amber, Jill and me!

 The toughest girls around!!!!

Catching up with Emery...

Ok... I'm SO bad at this blog thing!  I just haven't been motivated at all lately.  So much is happening and I'm not getting any of it down.  Emery is changing so much every day and yet... this post has sat started, but empty, for 2 months (yep I actually attempted to start a new post and left it a blank page!!).  So here we go, with a little kick in the butt from my dear friend, and expert blogger, Lisa!  ;-)
What have we been doing all summer since my birthday??  Well, not much.  But I have been keeping up on yard work... lots of hedges to keep in shape and I'm mowing the backyard to help my hardworking husband out.  Its actually really fun and only takes me 15 min.  I have the easy job vs doing the front yard.  But HEY, its something!  And keeping our fish alive which we both would say is more of a nuisance than a joy given that there are so many mosquitos that we can't even sit out there and enjoy our pond!  But hoping with the cooling of the weather that the end of them is near!
Emery is changing so much every day!  Its crazy!  Even just today, as I gave in and let her watch some Cars before taking a nap, we were snuggling on the couch and I looked down at her and started to cry.  It still hits me every now and again how far we have come and how extraordinary she is to our lives!!!  She is the most amazing little person I've ever known!  Don't get me wrong, she can be feisty for sure and definitely tests my limits, but its all part of her growing and learning and experimenting and building her character.  I just hope and pray I do, at least most, things right so she becomes the person God has created her to be.  It is my daily prayer!
So this summer she's been swimming... a lot!!  I've taken her swimming every summer since she was 6 months old.  And in the winter, I continued to splash her and pour water over her in the bath tub.  LOL  But it was all for the good because she has never been afraid of the water or getting her face wet.  And now, with almost weekly swim times, I have personally had the honor of teaching her to swim.  She is on the very brink of swimming on her own!  I'm sad that summer is coming to a close.  I hope to get in one or two more at the very least.  This girl is a fish!!!!  Just like her mama, I might add!  She is now, jumping off the step or the side of the pool all by herself and swimming to me under water until she finds my arms and pulls herself up.  I usually stand about 3 or 4 feet away from her!  She will swim under water for as long as 8 seconds so far.  Its crazy!!  Last swim we did, she would swim to me, come up and take a breath, I would count to 3 and let her go and she would swim to me again.  We would do this all the way across the pool!  She just can't get enough power to kick her way above the surface.  So we have been working on just kicking as well as swimming out and turning around back to the steps.  Her least favorite exercise is when I roll her on her back to 'float'.  She will cry and cry!  But she finally started letting me do it without fighting me, but will still cry.  hahaha   But she is an amazing swimmer so far!!  She's gonna go crazy next year!

Two months ago I had to bring her with me to my 4 hour hair appointment (little did I know it would actually take that long!).  But she did awesome!  Luckily its a very low key salon and all the girls loved Emery.  She just hung out with us the whole time and played on "her rug" with her toys.  Then at the end, she finally got to climb up into the big girl chair and got her first, official, professional haircut!!  My stylist said it would help her hair grow out by cutting a bob (eek!), getting the unhealthy stuff off, and would prevent it from continuing to break.  I'm happy to say I think it really has helped!  Her hair is finally growing longer and starting to look more like a kid rather than baby hair.   Again, she did awesome as she sat there quietly letting Amber do what ever she wanted! :)

My friend Tyranie watches Emery on the days I'm at work.  I'm always begging to take her kid(s) to help her out in return and also give Emery play time.  So finally she asked me to watch her youngest, Meagen for the day, who happens to be Emery's little best friend and "sister".  We had a super fun time picnicing at the park, playing, eating ice cream and then naptime (yeah for mommy!).  It was so fun watching them play!!  They crack me up!

Meagan and "mini-me"

I scored BIG TIME on this one!!!  A coworker told me about this classic car showroom not far from where we live.  So one Saturday morning I took Sean there.  I'm not sure who was more excited.  Probably him... but I was pretty darn ecstatic and also so proud of myself!!!  This place was crazy cool!!  Over a hundred classic cars!  Sean was in RPM heaven!

We had a family date night one night and went to Las Pinatas.  Its a restaurant just down the street from our house and up on a hill.  Really cool location and really yummy mexican food!  We were not disappointed!!  Tonight... Emery had her first full plate dinner ordered for her... aaaaaaallllllll for her!!!  Just another small show of how she is growing up!

Just had to share this because she is just sooooooo cool even when 

she is going potty in a public restroom!!!  hahahahaha

.....And at Target...... and..... 

I'm gonna stop for now or this will never get published (still took me a week to complete!)  But I will share more pics very soon!  Tomorrow Sean leaves me for California to go get our house ready to list and sell!  I will be on my own for a week!  But not alone.... I'm leaving on Friday and making my first road trip in Texas (and first road trip alone with Emery and only my second road trip by myself ever! ha!).  I'm driving to the other side of Houston to Baytown to visit a long time friend from high school.  We are so excited to see each other as its been 5 years maybe (?) since we saw each other last!  I can't wait to meet her whole family and for her to finally meet little Emery!  Gonna be a blast!!