Halloween Photos

Here are a couple of photos from Emmy and Rags getting ready for Halloween night!

A fabulous find

This blog was created to keep our friends and family informed of Emmy's progress when she was in the hospital, and we've kept it up to share with those near and far what a joy she is!

But, I interrupt this regularly scheduled blog to share about these wonderful light bulbs I have discovered. Yes, I said light bulbs.

We do our best to live as "green" as possible at this point in our lives. There's still a lot more we'd like to do but for now we recycle everything we can, compost, keep our thermostat set as high or low as possible (depending on the season), buy organic when we can, try to avoid using harmful chemicals, and other other little things I can't remember right now. We also use the compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs in most of the lamps in our home.

Nonetheless, I have never been a huge fan of the light put out by these curlique fluorescent bulbs. It's very yellow and just not very pretty light. Until now! I have discovered a glorious light bulb brand called Bright Effects. It is a fluorescent, and thus energy efficient, but it puts out a pretty, clean, white light! I love them! (I found them at Lowe's, by the way).

Using the compact fluorescent bulbs saves you money in energy costs, which is good for you and the environment! Plus, they last much longer than incandescent bulbs so there are less bulbs in the landfills. However, keep in mind that they do contain mercury, so you should not throw them in the regular garbage. Home Depots now collect them for recycling, and sites like lamprecycle.org can help you find out how to recycle them.

In case you can't tell, I'm really excited about these light bulbs. Thank you for indulging me. Perhaps next time I'll give you a diatribe on composting. Yay!

I now return you to Emmy updates. By the way, Emmy loves the wonderful light coming from the lamp by her changing table that now has one of these CFL blubs in it.

Happy Halloween!!

Last night we worked on carving our pumpkin. It's Emmy's first Halloween! We bought a BIG pumpkin to carve, in the hopes she would fit inside of it. Thankfully, it worked. Here's a few favorites from the photo shoot.


Then we put her in her costume for a few minutes, but she wasn't all that excited about having her photo taken. (She is Cindy-Lou Who from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas.") We'd planned to dress her up for the fall festival at church Wednesday night, but fell asleep and didn't wake up until a few minutes before it was over. Oh well! We'll try to dress her up and get some better photos tomorrow. Happy Halloween everyone!

Two little pumpkins and a wedding

This weekend we headed up to Mom and Dad's for our friends' wedding in Hendersonville. We were planning to just relax and enjoy not having a plan. Then we got up Saturday morning and the guys working on Mom and Dad's house were there replacing the back door and getting started on building the screened porch. This equaled lots of hammering which was driving Rags CRAZY. So, we took Lisa and Lucas up on the offer and we headed over to their house for lunch. We'd discovered that we had matching Halloween outfits for Emmy and Will so we dressed them up. Aren't they the cutest?? It was nice to let the dogs play, the babies play and the adults got to eat lunch in peace while the babies napped. Woohoo!

Saturday afternoon Mom and I did some shopping while Emmy napped with her Daddy. After dinner we visited with Grandmommie, cousin Jessica and her hubby Nick. Emmy fell asleep and slept with Grandmommie for a bit. So sweet!

Sunday we'd decided to skip church and head on up to Hendersonville and go to Sky Top orchard for apples and to take pictures. The wedding was at Camp Kanuga so we thought we'd make a day of it. When I told Lisa our plan, she got excited because they had wanted to go to an orchard this fall, so she talked Lucas into skipping church, too, so we all headed up for lunch in Hendersonville then went to Sky Top. I wish we'd had more time, but it was fun! Sadly, we did not have time to wait in the long line for apple cider donuts. We'll just have to try again next year! The drive up was wonderful, the trees must have been close to peak. I can't remember the last time I saw them so beautiful!

So, Charles, Emmy, and I headed over to Kanuga for the wedding. We did a quick change of clothes and I fed Emmy. She fell asleep right before the service started, and she mostly slept through the hour long ceremony, save for a bit of fussing when the music stopped after the processional. The child loves music, that's for sure! Here's Emmy with the groom, and then the bride and groom, Joe and Kathy. Congrats you two! It was a beautiful day, a beautiful setting and a wonderful ceremony.

After a quick chili supper, we gave Emmy a bath and headed home. It was a nice weekend! But, we look forward to being home this weekend and getting some yard work done. It's time to plant pansies!

I'll leave you with my favorite photo at Kanuga after the wedding. Have a good week!

Road Trip!

This weekend we headed to Charles' hometown for the weekend. Mary Louise and Richard, AKA DiDi and Granddaddy, were of course glad to see Emmy after a couple of months!
On the way we stopped in Alpharetta to have lunch with Jane and Jasper. (Jeremy was at work.) Jane is my "Little Sis" in my sorority so we have always had a special relationship and it was fun to finally introduce Emmy to Aunt Jane! Jasper is two and he was really more excited to see Rags than Emmy, but he was cute with her. He showed us around his new house and gave us a counting lesson on the stairs to the basement and then up to the 2nd floor. Fourteen is the magic number! We had a great time visiting with them!

We arrived in Rome and got settled in the hotel and then met Richard and ML for dinner. Emmy fell asleep in her Daddy's arms when we finished eating so it was obviously close to bed time. We went back to put her to bed and ML came to visit during bathtime, etc. while Richard went to the football game. He's the "color announcer" for the high school marching band. Here's a photo of Emmy and DiDi after bath time.

Saturday we took Emmy to Granddaddy's clinic (he's a veterinarian for our readers who didn't know this) to meet some of the staff. Here she is all dressed up and ready to go. Also, we got to see Rags after her little procedure that morning. She needed her teeth cleaned for the first time (at 7, that's pretty good!) and while she was under anesthesia Richard also fixed the umbilical hernia on her tummy. She did fine and was very glad to see us! She stayed at the clinic while we went to get some lunch, but Richard took back at their house later in the afternoon.

After a delicious lunch of BBQ (and fried pickles, yum!) we went downtown to take pictures at the new fountains at the Forum. It's representative of the fact that Rome is built where two rivers meet to form a third. Then we went to the visitor's center to take a few photos. ML's garden club (aptly named the Three Rivers garden club) takes care of the flower boxes around the center so we took some photos there. Then it was nap time! In the photos we are in front of one of the River monuments, and the other photo is Granddaddy, Daddy, and Emmy at the visitor's center. It was COLD outside!

Emmy got a little tired of being put in and out of her car seat, which she let me know by stiffening up so she was practically standing up when I put her in. I love the look on her face, as if to say "see, I told you I was tired of this!"

We had dinner at their house that evening and of course many more photos were taken. I will post more of Richard's photos in my Picasa album, too.


Sunday we went to church and Emmy stayed with us since she was a special part of the service. Each year the United Methodist Women at the church where Charles grew up give donations in honor of all the babies and grandbabies born in the last year. They made a special presentation at the end of the service and invited the babies and their parents and grandparents down to the front to present certificates. Overall, Emmy did SO well during the service. During most of the hymns, she "sang" along with us which was hilarious! However, during the final hymn she fell asleep (as you can see from the photo I posted here). Of course all of the Richard and ML's friends were glad to meet Emmy. She was so good; she did us proud. :)

After lunch we went back to change, and more photos ensued. (For those of you who don't know my father-in-law he's a photo fanatic and rarely without a camera!) Here Emmy is posing with Granddaddy after church. Then it was time to hit the road. We stopped again in the Atlanta area on the way home to visit with friends. David was Charles' brigade commander several years ago and we have stayed close to their family. Walking into Sharon's house is just like coming home and tt was so great to see them. They have always been such a huge source of support with us and I know their prayers helped get Emmy here safely! Unfortunately I didn't take any photos while I was there, but we'll take some next time! We stayed for a delicious homemade supper, then headed home.

Emmy fell asleep in the car and I was able to transfer her to her crib without waking her. Yahoo! Of course then she woke up at 2 a.m. That's been the routine lately. I'm not sure if it's the cold she's had, the fact that we're not swaddling her anymore, or something else, but she is now waking up between 2 and 4 am. (She goes to between 8 and 9 pm.) Sometimes she's ready to eat, sometimes she just needs help getting back to sleep. Needless to say the switch from waking around 6 or 7 to 2-4 has been hard on her Mama. I need to make myself go to sleep a little earlier. I was doing pretty good for a while, but I'm moving back into my night owl ways.

Many more photos from the weekend are posted on Picasa in both the October album and one containing all of Richard's photos from the weekend. Enjoy!

P.S. Sorry that the text is running into one of the photos. I am an inexperienced blogger and with html, so if anyone has a tip, let me know!

She's trying so hard...

Emmy is trying to roll over, she just can't quite get there. Actually, I should say she's trying hard to get off her tummy during tummy time. This often includes screaming and fussing, and lately it's involved more and more movement that looks like rolling. I was sure she was about to yesterday, but she just didn't quite make it all the way over. I was poised and ready with the camera, though! I'm quite certain this means that when she DOES finally roll over, the battery will be dead in both the camera and the video camera. Ha!
Happy weekend everyone!

Our little pumpkin

We went to pick out pumpkins today at the church where we have bought them the last several years. Emmy wore her "My First Halloween" outfit that her grandparents gave her. Too cute. The men working there joked that we should be careful not to loose her in the pumpkin patch! Here are a few photos.

P.S. One year ago today I found out I was pregnant. Now look at her!