CHRISTMAS IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER

As soon as we returned back home after the Thanksgiving holiday, Emma and I started getting the apartment ready for Christmas. We put a tree in her room last year, so this year she wanted her own tree. We are fluffing it and getting it ready here, but she wanted to put the ornaments on it herself.
Once we got Emma's tree decorated, I fixed it so that you could see it from the window, but she didn't like that idea. She wanted it to stay in the middle of the room where we had decorated it.
Even though we didn't put it back where I had it, I did at least convince her to move it from right in the middle of the room.
Now that the apartment is decorated, I am beginning to get in the Christmas spirit. We have begun to watch Christmas programs on TV, and I love listening to the Christmas songs on the radio!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a great trip back to Alabama. It was very busy trip, but we were able to visit with most everyone that we wanted to see while we were in town. I want to briefly tell you about our trip, and I have posted pictures below from most of the outings that we had.
**We arrived in town on Wednesday Evening. We spent the night at Mimi and Papa's while in town, so Papa and Mimi had supper waiting on us when we got there.
**On Thanksgiving Day, we had lunch with Nonna and the Thrashers, and then we went to Aunt Barbara's house for supper with Mima and the Trammells.
**We used Friday as a day to visit with friends. Of course, Jason spent the morning and much of the afternoon at Gold Kist. Emma and I visited with everyone at Mitchell Grocery on Friday morning. That afternoon, Mrs. Christina brought Macey and McKinley over to Mimi's and the girls played for a couple of hours. They had a such a great time!!! Then on Friday night, Jason and I went out for some good Mexican food with Jason, Sunny and Jillian Spann.
**Saturday morning we visited with Jason's parents and Chris at the cabin in South Sauty.
**Saturday night we had Thanksgiving Dinner with my mom's family at Tanya's house. Then all of the out of town guests went to Mimi's house for a slumber party.
**On Sunday we headed out before lunch to try to miss all of the traffic. We had a good trip home, and started making preparations for Christmas!!

THANKSGIVING FUN

On Thanksgiving day we had lunch with Nonna and and all of Joann's family. It gets quite noisy inside with the kids playing so we spent a pretty good bit of time outside.

Emma Claire, Josh, and Emma hunting deer in Uncle Phillips backyard!
Uncle Phillip has a new boat and the kids had a blast playing on it. Emma is pretending to catch a fish here, and Pop is of course playing along as the flopping fish that she is trying to catch.

SATURDAY AT THE CABIN

On Saturday morning we went down to the cabin to visit with Jason's parents one last time. It was such a pleasant day and we enjoyed being outside, plus spending time with family.

Me, Emma and Nanna took a hike through the woods. We walked down a very steep hill, not thinking about how difficult it was going to be to climb back up holding a 35 lb. child. Me and Nanna took turns carrying Emma up the hill and we were worn out by the time we made it back to the top.
Jason, Chris and Johnny

Emma is handing her Daddy some corn that she had picked up from a deer feeder. She had the pocket on the front of her overalls full of corn by the time we left that afternoon. She loves the outdoors. We were hoping to see a deer, but no such luck!

GOD'S BEAUTIFUL CREATION

"GREAT IS THE LORD AND MOST WORTHY OF PRAISE; HIS GREATNESS NO ONE CAN FATHOM." Psalms 145:3
This is the view from Jason's parents cabin at South Sauty. The cabin is such a peaceful place and has such a breathtaking view. From the top of this hill, you can see God's beautiful creation from so many different aspects. It is absolutely amazing!!! Our God indeed is an awesome God!!

DINNER AT AUNT TANYA'S HOUSE

We had Thanksgiving dinner with my family on Saturday night at Tanya's house. Thankfully it was fairly warm so the kids were able to spend time playing together outside. Everyone loves Hunter's trampoline, but it is an accident waiting to happen. We were afraid someone would get hurt, so we didn't let them all jump at the same time. Aunt Kathy and Mimi timed them and let each one jump for 2 minutes each time it was their turn. This worked out pretty good, and of course noone was injured and that's all that matters. Emma and Bethany took a break from freeze tag and football to play in the landscape rocks. We ended up coming home with a ziplock back of rocks from Aunt Tanya's flower bed!
We had an enjoyable evening spending time with family! These kids don't all get to see each other often, but they have a good time when they are together.

SLUMBER PARTY AT MIMI'S

After Thanksgiving dinner at Tanya's house on Saturday night, all of the out of town family members went back over to Mimi's house to spend the night. The kids all piled up in the living room and watched "Over the Hedge", while the men sat around watching football and us ladies looked at old pictures! Emma and Seth had played hard all together all day on Saturday, so it didn't take them long to fall asleep once they got still!

WAR EAGLE!!!!

We were very disappointed last week after Auburn's upsetting loss to Georgia. The people at Gold Kist gave daddy a really hard time. We didn't wear our Auburn colors out any last week, BUT. . . . We wear them proudly today, as the Tigers have once again defeated Alabama. When I dressed Emma in this today, she thought that she was getting to be a cheerleader at a ballgame. She was very upset when she learned that we were just taking pictures and watching the ballgame at home.
WAR EAGLE and we hope you all have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! We look forward to seeing many of you this next week.

INTRODUCING PRINCESS EMMA

Emma already rules the roost at our house, but now she has the proper attire. She took an interest in her Cinderella dress up clothes this week, and has wanted to play princess since then. She will always be a princess in our family!
Isn't she beautiful!!!! Watch out Miss America, here comes Emma!!!

ROLLER SKATING!!!

Emma now wants to try her luck with a new activity, roller skating!!!! This should be interesting! Here she is with her first "solo flight"in the kitchen. We have had some practice outside, but only holding mommy's hands, and wearing all of the pads that we could possibly put on her body.
I'm not real sure where her clothes are, but like my mom tells me, sometimes its best to not sweat the small stuff!! She was having fun, and doing a great job by herself. Clothing may be a hindrance for a beginning roller skater!!

CUTIE PIE

The shirt says it all, "LOVABLE". Even in the midst of her 3 year old attitude, Emma is still such a lovable child. It is such a blessing to me to be able to have this time at home with her.

PATIENTLY WAITING

Last night we went over to the mall to watch a parade that brought Santa to the mall. It was really cute. They had a band playing Christmas songs and several other Christmas displays!
This is a little girl named Shea that we sat with waiting for the parade to begin. I could tell that her mom was trying to keep her sitting down and away from the road which is what I was trying to do with Emma, so we sat down with them and they acted like they had known each other forever. The girls had the best time together and behaved wonderfully while waiting for Santa to show up. He was a little late, so they got a little antsy! It's good that Emma doesn't have a hard time making friends!
Emma is inching over to the road to see if she can see the beginning of the parade. She is looking forward to seeing Santa come. She really enjoyed all of the flashing lights of the fire trucks and police cars that were in the parade.

SANTA'S HERE

After a long wait, and a short parade, Santa finally made it to his spot at the North Pole here in our local mall. Emma likes to look at him and the display they have set up around him, but she says she is not going to sit in his lap. She says me and daddy can tell him what she wants. I told her we would write a letter. We may end up with another family picture with Santa.
The mall has a really cute display set up around Santa. There were way too many people there last night for me to get a picture of it all. This is at least of glimpse of it.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER

Emma is really enjoying playing with play-doh right now. I caught her and daddy not only playing with play-doh, but being silly too! How can you not capture the moments like this! Jason is enjoying having more time at home in the evenings to play with his little girl!!

OUR BIG GIRL

I don't have pictures to go along with this post, but I did want to tell you some exciting news.
Due to a severe rash on Emma's bottom, we have had to go ahead and try to get her to quit sleeping in pullups at night. We started this 1 week ago, and she has done very well. She has only been waking up 1 time each night with wet panties. Last night though, she slept ALL NIGHT LONG without wetting the bed. And when I say all night long, I mean from 9:00 p.m. until around 9:00 a.m., right around 12 hours. This is so great for her!!!!

LOT'S OF FUN WITH FAMILY

This past weekend, we had several visitors at our place. Mimi, Papa and Chester, along with Tanya, Jason and Hunter all came to visit. It was a quick weekend visit, but it did us all some good to be with our family!
Mimi and Papa with their grandchildren
Of course, we always have to take everyone to the playground. On Saturday, we went to the big playground with Tanya and Hunter, but then on Sunday, everyone took time out for some fresh air at the playground here at the apartment.

FASHION STATEMENT

This is for those who wonder why I am so concerned about how Emma looks when she leaves the house. If it were left up to her, this is how she would dress. Yes, it may be cute, but it's not how mommy wants her meeting the world daily!! When she goes into her closet, you better watch out because there is no telling what she will look like when she comes out!!