Fun Emmy quotes

I started this post right before Emmy's 4th birthday and I'm finally getting around to finishing it, and adding some more fun quotes and stories that have come up since then.

• "We're moving to HomaHoma Joe's!" (She told my mom this after we found out we were moving to Colorado. Oklahoma Joe's is our favorite BBQ restaurant back in Kansas City and Emmy does love to eat there. Since we moved, this has been one of her favorite pretend activities, we go on a road trip to Oklahoma Joe's, sometimes I have to be the waitress and serve her and Charles when they get there.)

• On the way to school one day this spring she said, "I didn't bring Mary (her baby) with me today because she was being a whiny hiney, so I made her stay at home."   I almost died laughing.  I asked who was baby-sitting Mary and she said, "my stuffed animals."  Later on when we got home, I asked her if we could leave her at home when SHE was being a whiny hiney, and she said, "No because then you would go to jail."  Fair enough. 

• She asks a LOT of questions. All. The. Time.  She asks me "why" about 400 times a day, and her recent most favorite question/phrase is "how about you tell me about it?"  She's so inquisitive, and I know it's a good thing, really, I do. But sometimes silence is golden.  We recently had to have our furnace replaced and the HVAC guys were here for 2 days working on it since we also had AC installed.  The 2nd day one of the guys (who has grandchildren about her age) had been working upstairs installing some vents above the bedroom doors, and she'd been particularly chatty all morning with me, talking, asking lots of questions.  He had been back downstairs in the basement working after awhile and came upstairs just after I'd put Emmy down for a nap. He paused as he started to head outside and looked around, noticing how quiet it was, and asked good naturedly "where is jabber jaws?"  That has become our new favorite nickname for her, jabber jaws! 

• She really likes rolling the windows down in the car, and the other day we told her we needed to roll them up because we were getting on the highway and the wind would blow too much. So she said "but we can roll them down on the low-way?" Who could argue with that?
  
• This past weekend she told me that she wants a cat.  She was very insistent that she wanted a cat and I told her that no, we are not getting a cat and a big reason is that Daddy is allergic. She asked me if I was allergic, and I told her no, so she said, "well you and I can have a cat." So I asked her did this mean we should send Daddy away and she said "yes." (Which is a total lie because she is a MAJOR Daddy's girl these days.)
  
• Emmy loves her "Aunt" Sarah, as you have probably gathered from other posts on this blog. During a recent visit, she told us that "Aunt Sarah always says yes". Oh my! Well, yes since Aunt Sarah only gets to see you a couple of times a year, but if we stayed a whole week, that would not be the case! Haha. 

Emmy, two years 9 months

Mmm...sweet tea from Pete's!

Emmy will be three years old three months from today. How did that happen? So here is a long overdue and overly informative update on The Pickle, since this IS the Pickle Jar, after all. I'll include a few photos, including a few of Emmy's new room in our house.


This age is hilarious. She is always saying something (or repeating something) that cracks us up. In a word, she's sassy. Here are a few highlights from the past few weeks (and a few from the fall that I failed to post):
To Charles after he'd shaved after having grown out his beard for a few days: "Daddy, where did your crust go?"

There was a new kid in the class named Storm. Miss Sherry said Emmy kept asking all day "what's his name again?" The kid left a little early and Emmy asked "Where's Thunder?"

Reading in her room. When she wakes up,
she turns on her light and reads for a while.

"Emmy, where does Aunt Sarah live?"
"At Aunt Sarah's house!" (Of course she does, why didn't I think of that?)

"Mommy, I'm serious."
"You're serious?"
"Yes."
"Well, what are you serious about?"
"Are you kidding me?!?"
(I figured out she will hear us say "Are you kidding me" and then "I'm serious." and she must have reversed the two. Hysterical)

When we ask her to do something (like pick up her toys) she'll sometimes reply, "Um, no thank you." (EXCUSE ME?)

Yes, it looks very much like her old room. I was going to redecorate,
but that involves a lot of furniture switching and purchasing we just
aren't ready for, so we have some things purchased for a new room
so that will happen eventually and we hope these pillows etc. will be
used for a new baby one day.

Anytime she's not ready to do something (like take a nap or get out of the bath) she'll either say "just a couple more minutes" or lately "just four more minutes", which she gets from one of her Veggie Tales videos. She'll also ask for, say, more milk and if we say no, she'll hold her fingers apart and squint her eye and whisper "just a tiny little bit of milk?" Clever, kid, but asking me in such a cute manner won't work. I'm (almost) immune to your charms. I do have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.

To the server at a restaurant as she stopped by to check on us: "I'm fine, thanks."

Lately whenever we give her something to eat she compliments the chef, "Good job, Mom/Dad, good job!"

She wants to do everything herself, so we hear a lot of "I want to do it by.my.self" or "Can I do it?" (which sounds like "Camma do it?")

We will ask he why on occasion when she tells us something or asks for something and she'll say "because" which sounds like "p-cause".

She still loves music and singing. She knows lots of her Kindermusik songs and Rafi songs. She does an excellent rendition of "I've Been Working on the Railroad." She loves the Glee soundtrack, particularly songs sung by the Warblers, she is into Adele. The other day we were running errands and she started singing "when your heart beats, next to mine," which is a line from Madonna's "Like a Virgin," which is on one of the Glee soundtracks. HA! At least she has pretty good taste in music, if you like Madonna, Adele, Rafi and the Wiggles.

She also makes up songs. All.The.Time. I have been trying to capture some of her tunes on camera, but true to toddler form, she tends to stop singing as soon as I pick up the camera. The other morning she was singing about Christmas morning. The primary lyrics were "Christmas morning, Christmas morning," but hey, I give her props for her creativity. It is highly entertaining.

The biggest news about Emmy is she is now potty trained during the day! Yahoo! We are thrilled and just like everyone said, she just decided she was ready and it took no effort on our part. Since around Christmas she had started telling us every so often that she needed to go but it was still unpredictable. Then, seriously, the day we arrived on post, we went straight to the housing office to sign in and she told me she needed to potty so I took her and she pooped on the potty for the first time! We had a major celebration and really since then, it was like going from zero to 60. She wears big girl undies all day, even during her nap, and she only wears a pullup at night. YAHOO! Of course this means we have become familiar with the restroom in every establishment we have patronized lately.

Also, let's talk about how self-flushing toilets are a potty training toddler (and parent's) worst nightmare. Especially for Emmy, who is easily startled by loud noises. We have to warn her if we are turning on something loud to keep her from practically jumping out of skin! She's just now able to handle the garage door, poor kid.

With her best pal Emma at the zoo in October.

She definitely misses the only home she has known. When she plays, she pretends to go to school and church a lot, so I know she misses both. She asks about her friends and teachers. She was very tired when she went to bed one night last week, and a little emotional (she's her Mama's girl). She asked me "Mama, when are our friends coming to our new house." She said she was sad and cried a little bit. Another night I told her to have sweet dreams about all the things she loves and she said "like playing with Emma!" Poor girl, I know how she feels. But she has LOVED playing with our new friends next door. She and Sophie and Clayton get along very well and she loves having an older girl to admire. I know kids are adaptable and she is fine, but it makes me sad for her.

Holding Henry for the first time.

The child loves babies. Seriously, she loved, loved holding Micah and Henry, and she's really good with them. She would pat them and say "it's okay, don't fuss, you're fine," and kiss them and love them.  She told me she wanted to hold baby Nora and rock her (Nora was born to our dear friends Eric and Erin right before we headed west).  I didn't tell her that Charles and I went to see Nora because Emmy was sick and we didn't want to spread her germs.  She told me a couple of times that she had baby Nora in her tummy (um, no, pretty sure she was in Aunt Erin's!) and just tonight she told me that when she gets big she will have a baby in her tummy. I made her promise me she'd get married first. She is a good mommy to her doll babies. She changes them, feeds them, and prefers to keep them naked. We might need to work on some of her parenting skills! 

Back in October the Paci Fairy came so she has been paci free since then. If I'd known it was so easy, we've have done it ages ago! Selfishly, we just weren't ready to deal with the potential sleepless nights that we feared would be a repercussion. However, it went better than we could have hoped. First, a couple of the pacis were "broken" suddenly when we got home from our weekend in Atlanta and Rome. After a few nights of only one whole paci available, it disappeared. Seriously, we had no idea where it went so that night, she had to use on of the broken ones (we had cut off the tip). She stuck it in her mouth, pulled it out, and fell asleep holding it instead. A few nights of just wanting to hold it, and I suggested that if she was ready, she could put them in a box and the Paci Fairy would come and bring her a special toy. So she did on her own, and the Paci Fairy brought her a diaper bag for her baby (full of diapers and other accessories). Yay! She asked for her paci for a couple of nights but no tears, no fussing. I've noticed in the moving craziness and when she was sick she has asked for it a handful of times, but probably not surprising.

Emerson Elizabeth is this whole little person who is increasingly independent and smart and funny. Her hair is getting so long, diapers and pacis are a thing of the past, she's gotten taller, she looks grown up. She is hysterical, delightful, frustrating, and exasperating all in one. We are so proud to be her parents and we love her so much!

Update - finally!

I'm finally biting the bullet and updating the blog. I'm so sorry we've been absent and I've heard lots of complaints. Okay, not true, I've heard probably 8 or 9 complaints, so at least there are 8 or 9 of you reading. Ha!  There's just so much to update that it's overwhelming to know where to start and so I just haven't sat down to get started.  Also, our computer was out of commission for a few weeks and Charles has been taking it with him to class many nights so in fairness, I have been unable to do much on the computer at all!  But here we are, back again!

So, since Easter/the end of April Charles and I sang with Mack Wilberg (director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir), Emmy turned two, Joanna got married, Will turned two, Emmy and Stella got to hang out in Spartanburg where we also saw Caitlin graduate from Wofford, Lucas, Lisa and Will came for Memorial Day, Aunt Sarah and her sister Bethany stopped by for supper, I taught crafts for Bible School, we went to Blackshear to the farm (where Charles' dad grew up), we've gone to the lake a few times (including for the 4th of July), Charles finished up his spring semester and started the summer semester with class 4 nights a week (yuck!), Emmy finished her first year of "school" and has had several weeks of CMO Camp, Charles has gutted the master bathroom to the studs and subfloor, Cathy and Rafal came to help start putting the bathroom back together, and oh, yeah, we've had two trees fall from the neighbors property onto ours (okay the 2nd one wasn't the whole tree, just a part of a tree, but it did damage to our house). Also, and I quit my job, effective Aug. 31st.  It's been a fun start to the summer, but busy!  The stuff with trees and house and neighbors has been very stressful and it still not resolved. I'm ready for the carnage to be removed, the holes to be fixed, the foundation to be repaired, etc. but for now, we wait.  Needless to say, we're not a fan of storms around here and since a 3rd tree is still leaning over our house, I get nervous each time one blows in.

Emmy spent last week with SuSu and Big Daddy and we missed her a lot! I think she grew while she was gone and she's talking even better it seems to us.  She got to see lots of friends and family during her week at "Camp SuSu-Big Daddy."  Charles had lots of class and we were getting ready for Cathy and Rafal's visit so we didn't do anything exciting while she was gone, but it was a quiet week at home.

Here are a few funny Emmyisms from the last few weeks. More to come soon!

- Watermelon sounds sort of like "money-money"
- Banana peels for a while were called banana covers
-Orange juice is called apple juice. Not sure why, but she asks for apple juice when she sees the orange juice in the fridge, and it must be drunk from one of our little juice cups, not a sippy. She's doing well drinking from a regular cup, we just can't let her tote it around the house.
- She has started singing a lot, which we love, love. Her repertoire includes: Rock-a-bye Baby, Row, Row, Row Your Boat (probably her favorite), ABCs, The Hokey Pokey, the Caterpillar Song (taught to her by SuSu's friend Mrs. Payne), and several Kindermusik songs.  She's really into her Kindermusik CD from the summer session she attended and she will do some of the motions.   She has an electric keyboard she received from our neighbors, Ms. Betty and Mr. Frank, for her birthday.  It plays several songs with words, and several songs without words. The other day she started singing/saying something and we finally realized she'd stopped on the tune of "The Hokey Pokey" and she was singing "you put your right foot in" while wagging her right foot around.  I didn't know she'd recognize just the tune!  It was hilarious.
- She loves her baby and the poor baby must have some sort of gastrointestinal disease because we change a LOT of diapers. Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle Joel kept her a couple of weeks ago while Mama was in Atlanta for work and Daddy had class. Aunt Mary Ann said she changed about 7,000 stinky diapers and suggested we get that baby checked out! Haha.  She will put on a "clean" diaper, then immediately say "ohh, shoo-whee, stinky diapey" and proceed to change her again. She prefers her babies naked and will hug, kiss, and rock them very sweetly.
- A hug/kiss to a baby, Rags, etc. is usually followed by her uttering "Aww, so sweet" so we must say that a lot when she gives hugs.
- Everyone must have a hug and a kiss, and often a pat on both shoulders.  When we left her in the church nursery last week, she cried until she could give us both a hug, kiss, pat, "other shoulder".  Then she was fine!
- Unfortuantely she is in a bit more clingy stage and hasn't been overly fond of baby-sitters or being left with anyone, even people she knows and even if we just walk to another room. I know that it is a phase that will pass, but ugh. Upset crying for Emmy often leads to puking, and I'm really tired of puke.
-We think that she's close to ready to transition to a big girl bed, but sleeping is way messed up from a week away last week. She refused to sleep in her pea pod so SuSu put her in the big bed and would stay with her to go to sleep since there were no side rails and she thought that was great, so she now does not want to go to bed easily like she has for months and months. We are not sure what to do...try to get back into the regular routine with her crib and then transition to the big bed at home, or go ahead and go to the big bed here. So frustrating!
-She's doing some better eating veggies. She likes roasted red peppers and sometimes she'll eat cooked onions, celery, or other things out of soups/casseroles. She loves mushrooms (I mean LOVES mushrooms) and her love of pickles, olives, yogurt, and most any fruit continues. She's really into humus these days so that's a good snack or protein at mealtime. She loves boiled peanuts and at Joanna and Justin's rehearsal dinner proceeded to hand anyone near her a peanut to open for her. If she liked the way you opened it, she'd hand you another one. She ate a lot of peanuts that night!  Overall for her age, we're pleased with her eating habits and we hope the more we expose her to things the more varied her palate will be!
 -She likes to spin around and hang upside down.  Daddy is a really fun playmate.
-She loves to swim and will ask to go to the lake or go swimming in Ms. Betty and Mr. Frank's pool. Fortunately Ms. Betty and Mr. Frank love Emmy and love us to come swimming, so that's win win for all of us!  Their grandkids live in NC and Emmy's grandparents of course are not in town, so it's nice for everyone that we have each other next door.
-We're spending the summer  wearing tons of bug spray so we can play outside, swing, slide (April/May activities also included a good pressure washing and sprucing up of the playset that's been here since long before we bought the house), pick tomatoes in the garden, water flowers, and pick flowers at least for a little while each day.  It has been so hot! 


More to come soon!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

I know, I know, it's January 9th and my handful of regular readers are anxiously awaiting Christmas photos, updates, and news from our corner of the world. I promise, I'm spending the evening uploading photos and editing them (which totally takes forever by the way) and I promise to try to spend more time updating the blog. Charles' cousin (hi Sue Nell!) sent word that she thinks I need to quit my job so I can go back to blogging and our friend Nancy thinks the same thing. I wish! But, one of my resolutions is to try and do better.

There is so much I have wanted to say, I'm certain I've forgotten most of it. Emmy is hilarious these days. She was 20 months yesterday, so only 4 more months and then we stop counting in months, right? Ha! She talks all the time. I'd say that mostly she is still speaking one word at a time, not a lot of sentences, but she does have some phrases she repeats, and she does put things together. Tonight Charles offered her a toy while she was in the tub and she said "no, thanks." This is even funnier because "thank you" is not a phrase she repeats. Still when we tell her to say "thank you" it's usually a wave of the hand that only slightly resembles the sign, but we know that's what she means. Probably because most of the time when we ask her to say thank you she's too busy eating or drinking whatever it is she'd just asked for.

One of our favorite Emmyisms is her "yes" response. When we ask a questions and the answer is yes, she says, with a big grin of excitement, "n-kay!"
Us: "Emmy, do you want go to get some milk?"
Emmy: "N-kay!"
Us: "Do you want to go to church?"
E: "N-kay!"
Us: "Are you ready for a bath?"
E: "N-kay!"

And on and on. She also tells us "I'm okay" sometimes. We think it's because if something happens like she falls or she gets upset when her milk does get to her fast enough we tell her "you're okay."

The last two days she has started saying "hold you" when she wants us to hold her instead of "hold me", and of course we love that.

It's amazing how fast the vocabulary keeps coming. By the time Christmas was over she could tell us that Santa says "Ho", which cracks us up. She's also at that perfect age where she repeats things, but doesn't always retain it, so my slip up with a 4 letter word when I dropped the computer one day and she repeated what I said hasn't seemed to cause any concern...meaning she hasn't repeated that word again. :) Time to be even more careful about what we say in front of her! Of course there are the appropriate words that come out inappropriately and because we are immature, it is hilarious. Glasses are "asses". That one still hasn't gotten old.

Emmy's favorite game right now is "Where'd it Go?" She will hide something in her hand, under a cup, wherever and say "where'd it go?" Sometimes it sounds just like that, other times it's more like "go go go?", but the inflection is always the same. When the object reappears, she'll say "here/there she is". That's right, "here she is". I think because when we play peak-a-boo with her and she's hiding herself we say "there" she is" and so it's mostly coming out that way. Sometimes it sounds more like it, but it's really adorable.

It's hard to believe that it's already 2011. Christmas was very busy. We had both sets of grandparents and Aunt Mer here. It was great to have everyone here, but it was hectic with our Christmas Eve service and everything going on, not to mention a ridiculous number of presents. We didn't have Emmy open her presents from Charles and I until the day after Christmas. They were first under the tree, so last out, and she was a bit overstimulated Christmas Day (not to mention a bit under the weather with a cold resurgence) so it was better that way. She was a lucky girl! Photos to come soon!

We spent New Year's at our annual getaway while Emmy enjoyed some time with her grandparents. After the busy holiday, it was super nice to have some time away, although of course we missed our girl and she THREW herself into Charles' arms when she ran in the door Sunday after church. It was one of those movie moments and I'm glad I caught a glimpse as she came around the corner. I managed to snag one of those big hugs next. :)

One thing about New Year's is we end and begin each year with the same people...very dear people. Because we don't always get to see each other very often, there's a lot of catching up, and thus in a sense reflection that goes on, whether we mean to or not.

The last few months have been hectic. I like working again, it does give me a sense of accomplishment, but the job is stressful. I like the people I work with, and that's what keeps me going. I've made a commitment through June and I intend to honor it, but there are many days when I wonder if I can make it that long!

One of my primary reasons for going back to work was so to help pay off some debt. We have accumulated more credit card debt than we should (well any at all is not good) in part due to my time out of work and in the hospital (not from bills...from other expenses). We both still have some student loans, Charles' car, etc. We've made a bit of a dent, but we've also made some home improvements this fall (new storm doors!) and had some unexpected repairs to do (our furnace broke). And, we've been on the go a lot. So, we've decided that if we want get close to our goal, we need to make some changes, so we have committed to staying home the next few months. We have one trip we'd already committed to, so we'll honor that commitment, but otherwise until April (when we have a wedding out of town to attend) we plan to stay home. We had hoped to take a trip over Charles' Spring Break, but unless we can find a way to do it super on the cheap, we may have to forgo that as well. We'll see.

So, if you want to see us the next few months, feel free to come visit! The guest room is open!

There are lots of other changes we need to make (or make again) but I think the travel one has been the most significant, and the hardest.

All of this is moving towards another goal...having another baby (and me staying home again for a while). We were very open about the fact after Emmy was born that we would try again when she turned a year. Unfortunately, as you can guess, that isn't going so well again this time and we have been working on fertility treatments for a few months. This is not going to become a infertility blog...I don't feel comfortable putting that out there publicly but suffice to say when we have good news, we will share. We are disappointed, but hopeful.

All of this is also moving towards a move. In all likelihood 2011 will be our last one in this house. We don't know anything for sure and we won't for a while now, but Charles will graduate in December 2011 from his Masters program and then it will be time for his next assignment. That may be the next "Army school" required for his rank, or it may be a new unit, but either way it's very unlikely that we will be staying here. It's time for him professionally to move on, as hard for us as this will be personally.

So, we enter this new year a bit bittersweet and trying not to get bogged down in "one last times". This will be the last Winter, our last Spring planting a garden, our last Easter here, etc. Plus, we have work to do on the house in preparation for putting it on the market in the fall, which is not the ideal time to sell a house, particularly in this market (although our area has fared far better than many others).

Bear with us this year. While we know it may be crazy, we know it will be a year full of great things a new memories! Happy New Year to you and yours.