Catching up on April

Here are finally some photos from April! I added a bunch to the April Picasa album, so you can take a look there for more.

The zoo on the 17th was lots of fun! Emmy really enjoyed it. She did great, especially considering we had to fit it in between naps and lunch and traveling an hour each way. Mary Ann went with us and we had lunch with Libby and Tony before we went to the zoo.

Emmy was really excited to see the animals. She was particularly interested in things she could see moving (gorillas, elephants, giraffes, some birds) or hear (birds).

She fell asleep as we walked over to the botanical gardens and slept for a while, which was very good. We had a lovely afternoon and headed home to get ready for dinner out. We had a nice dinner at Cadwalladers with friends. It was a good day!

On Monday the 19th Charles changed out of Company Command. I cannot tell you how excited we both are! He had been in Command for over 3 years and 7 months. For those of you non-Military, that's a loooong time. The first company he commanded he gave up command, then got in his car and drove to the other side of post to meet the general and start this job. Crazy! It is a huge relief to be free from the responsibility and the cell phone and emails. Whew! It was a nice ceremony and a lovely day.

Now, he's getting ready for grad school! We are both looking forward to a little "break" from regular Army life.

The last weekend of the month we headed to Rome to visit with Charles' family and celebrate his Mom's birthday. We had a good time seeing Granddaddy and DeeDee and Aunt Beth and Uncle Griffin. I didn't take my camera out much during the weekend (it was very rainy!) but I did get a few pictures the evening of the big birthday celebration. Happy Birthday, Mary Louise/Mom/DeeDee!!

Emmy is one!

Today is Emmy's first birthday!! Can you believe it? My how time flies!

I know I have been very absent from blogging and uploading photos. I promise I will get you updated on all our goings on. Since the beginning of April (besides celebrating our anniversary and getting ready for Emmy's big day) we have been to Rome to celebrate DeeDee's 70th birthday, Charles and I went to the wedding of two of our best friends in Savannah, we've done massive amounts of yardwork to overhaul our backyard, plus Charles changed out of command and in 12 days he starts grad school so he has been finishing up everything he has to complete to be officially gone from post and his unit. Whew!

In the meantime, here are a couple of photos from today to keep you satisfied. Happy Birthday to our sweet baby girl!

Anniversary

Happy Anniversary Honey! Charles and I have been married six years today. It's been a great six (well, 10 total) years together.

I'll have to upload a wedding picture to add later. We took Emmy to the zoo today and so more photos of that adventure to come, too.

11 months old!

I can barely believe I'm typing these words: Emmy is 11 months old today! Charles was home to help with the photo shoot today, but man, is she wiggly! It's almost impossible to get her, the monkey, and the sign positioned at the same time, so oh well! I posted most of the pictures in Picasa but here are a couple of my favorites.

Happy Easter!!

Emmy at the church Easter Egg Hunt yesterday

Checking out her Easter Bunny loot

In her Easter Dress, another MaMay creation.


Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! We've had a great weekend. Meredith has been here visiting. We've been to the Easter Egg hunt for our church, dyed Easter Eggs, cooked a yummy dinner, decorated our Easter lunch table, and made mac and cheese, coconut cake, and strawberry pie for lunch today, which was shared with a few friends. We've had a delicious and fun weekend.

The pine pollen has been incredibly nasty here the last three days. I have no idea what magic the Lees did to make their yard and the air free from yellow dust yesterday for the Egg hunt, but amazingly everything was clean and lovely, at least for a few hours! Other than that, we have not spent much time outside, lest we be covered in pollen. Well, all of us except for Charles and Joel who spent much of yesterday constructing the raised vegetable bed. The construction is done and it looks amazing! Dirt, fertilizer, and soil conditioner need to be added and mixed and then we can plant!

We hope everyone had a splendid and blessed Easter Day and that you continue enjoy all the wonderful things that come with springtime. (Well, except for the pollen.) More photos of the weekend are posted in Picasa.

Emmy cuts a playmat

Titles I considered for this post:

Who knew she liked Amy Winehouse?
We don't know where she gets her moves
Embarrassing footage to show at her rehearsal dinner

Earlier today after Emmy's morning nap, she was sitting playing on her playmat while I was buying her Easter shoes, windshield wiper blades, and grass seed online. I had turned on the TV to one of the music channels so we could have some music in the background (there's only so much one can take of the Kindermusik CD on repeat). I had it on one of the "popular music" stations and Amy Winehouse's Rehab came on. I was absentmindedly singing along a bit when I looked up and saw this:



Thank goodness the video camera was sitting right beside me so I could capture it. Yes, I'm singing along in the background because she was dancing more when I was singing before I picked up the camera. Perhaps not the most appropriate song, but hysterical nonetheless. I'm surprised the camera isn't shaking more because I was dying laughing. Oh, she'll hate us one day for capturing this on video and showing it to everyone we know. We love you Emmy, and your cute dance moves!

Even when she's sick

Even when Emmy's not feeling well, she's such a happy girl! I snapped these a couple of weeks ago when she was in the middle of a bout of congestion. Stuffy noses for babies are no fun! It was adorably pitiful to hear her breathing at night...it often sounded like she was "fake" snoring. Fortunately she's doing much better.

I realize I have some catching up to do on here! We've been crazy busy the last few weeks preparing for two huge performances with our choir that has involved extra rehearsal time. Plus, I've been out of town for a bachelorette party, we went to two weddings (and sang in one of them), hosted a wedding shower out of town, had an FRG meeting, and I can't even remember what else. The rest of the spring will still be very busy with more trips, weddings, Charles' Change of Command, and birthdays (Emmy turns ONE in five weeks and five days, ack!!). Emmy has had a LOT of baby-sitters lately, as you can imagine, but she's done very well. She is such a good baby.

We're also putting in a raised vegetable garden in the back which we are both super excited about. And we have plans to do some additional work to the back yard this spring (sod!) so that we can enjoy it more, and have it looking better. There is additional work to do once the front grass greens up later this spring and early summer to fix the damage done by the sewer line repair. Constantly in the back of our minds is the knowledge that in about 18 months this house will be on the market. But we won't talk about that just yet...

Happy Spring everyone!