Catching up...September

Hi all!

So yes, I know, I continue to be behind. Here's a quick catch up from September.

Labor Day weekend we went to Greenville. There was lots to do this visit: Big Daddy's birthday, Aunt Mer came to town, AND Grandaddy and DeeDee drove up to visit and go with all of us to see the show at the Cafe, where Charles and I had our rehearsal dinner. Fun!  Joanna and Justin kept Emmy while we went to the Cafe, and for that we are much obliged. She had a great time with JoJo and Justin.  I took woefully few photos because, well, Granddaddy was around and we all know he's the photographer in the family!  Here is one photo of Emmy helping put candles in Big Daddy's cake. She used the whole box!  It was a fun weekend.

You've already seen photos of Baby Micah's shower and our apple picking excursion, but then the third weekend in September we went to Durham to see Aunt Mer! And "Uncle" Josh! And "Uncle" Chase!  Emmy loves them all.  We went up on Thursday so we had extra time so we could visit with Rev. and Mrs. Skinner, our Chaplain from Wofford and his wife. Rev. Skinner is one of the two ministers who married us, and they are very, very special people.  They had seen Emmy when she was a baby, but we hadn't seen them in a while, so it was great to catch up. They recently moved to Raleigh from Spartanburg to be near their daughter and her family, so we are so glad we got to have lunch with them. Emmy really took to Rev. Skinner and had fun playing with him.  We ate lots of good food at local Durham restaurants, spent lots of time with Mer, Josh, and Chase and many more of their fabulous friends, and even had a night out while sweet Erika baby-sat Emmy.  Erika came with Mer to visit when Emmy was newly home from the hospital and spent much of that weekend working on a paper for her Masters program with a tiny baby Emmy sleeping on her chest. She teaches pre-school, so she loves kiddos and within 2 minutes of arriving Emmy could have cared less that we were leaving. As Uncle Chase taught her to say, "Erika is AMAZING!" Emmy repeated this with gusto.

The only downside of the weekend: this was a week that Emmy was waking up at the crack of dawn every day.  Traveling did not make this any better, so she and I were up at 6 am basically every day.  Trying to keep a toddler quiet while the other adults are sleeping and you do not have your usual surroundings/toys to keep her entertained is not high on my list of fun things,  but so it goes with two year olds and travel. We had a great time with everyone and Emmy really did great, I can't complain. We love visiting Durham!

On Saturday we took Emmy to the Museum of Life and Science and it was fantastic!  Emmy loved it and she talked about it for days after. As a nice little surprise, we ran into Jennie, Brett, and Trey who were in town visiting family so Emmy played with Trey and his cute cousin Anne for a little while in the toddler play area. Fun!

My photos from the weekend were almost exclusively taken at the museum, so here are a few. More photos from September in the Picasa Album! 

Checking out the fish in the stream of the butterfly house

Whoa! Her reaction to one of the dinosaur models on the dinosaur trail at the Life and Science Museum.

Family photo

It was a long day at the museum!

Happy Halloween!!

Can you guess what Emmy is this Halloween? She is an Emmy Award! How did we do?  Charles came up with this idea when Emmy was a baby, but we decided it would be better to wait until she was older, so this was the year! I'm guessing next year she'll have an opinion about what she wants to be, since she already has an opinion about a LOT of things.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Baby Micah

Happy Birthday, Micah!

 Our friends Pam and Steph welcomed their new baby on Monday.  We have been anxiously awaiting his arrival and we are so glad that Micah is here safely!  Pam's blood pressure got a little scary all of the sudden, but everyone is safe and healthy and should be heading home tomorrow. Woohoo!

Doesn't she look great?

I got to meet him when he was just a few hours old, but we waited until Tuesday to take Emmy up to see him.  She was a little overwhelmed by all that was going on since Pam was being moved to a new room as we arrived, but once we got them settled back in and Micah got to eat, Emmy got to hold him. Unfortunately, he was still a little hungry and not too happy to be held by someone not that much bigger than him.   I'm sure they will get to be great friends soon!

Emmy holds Micah for the first time

Today Mary Ann and I took lunch up and ate with the happy family and I took Emmy back later in the afternoon for another visit and we got to see one of the nurses who took care of her in the Special Care Nursery! She was Micah's nurse for the day and she remembered us. How fun! She was one of our favorites. And, then we saw Buffy, one of the nurses who took care of me before Emmy was born, who is now works in Labor and Delivery.

It's all coming back to us...

One of the many events that have kept us (well, me) busy in the last few weeks was the baby shower for Micah in September.  It was lots of fun to plan and execute!  Mary Ann (one of my co-hosts) took some lovely photos of the event. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out (it was a BIG shower!) so if you will indulge me, I'm sharing some photos below and you can see more if you go here.

Congrats, Pam and Steph! Micah is amazing and we look forward to getting to know him. :)

Invitation and the "guest book"  (the mobile in his nursery is Hey diddle diddle and was Pam's when she was a baby, and this inspired our theme!

Amazing cake! No, I did not make it, but a friend does it on the side so she helped me out. Worth every penny... it was beautiful and delicious!

Food table - we had such fun coming up with food for our theme: Jack be Nimble Roasted Nuts, Old Woman in the Shoe Skins (stuffed potatoes), Three Blind Mice Cheese Straws, Peter Piper Pickled Prawns, Little Boy Blueberry Scones and Little Miss Muffet Lemon Curd, Mary Mary Quite Contrary Salad Cups, Cow Jumped over the Moon Pies, and Wee Willy Winkie Wieners.

Hosts and honorees

The invite said "Hey diddle ddidle/The cat and the fiddle/The cow jumped over the moon/Let's help Pam and Steph get ready/ For baby Micah is coming soon!" so we repeated this phrase on the banner and the favors.

Favors: Chocolate Brownie Cookies shaped like moons

Apple Picking 2011

 We went for our annual Apple Picking trip with Lucas, Lisa, and Will this past weekend. We had a great time! Apple picking was somewhat easier this year.  It was the first cool weekend we've had, which was wonderful! It was a little drizzly but not too bad.  The kids had a great time playing on the swings and slide. Sky Top has so much for them to do! We enjoyed apple cider donuts and apple cider slushies, picked some golden delicious apples, and took our annual photos before we headed into Hendersonville for lunch. We ate at a fabulous pizza place that uses local ingredients and breads/dough from the bakery owned by the same folks. It was yummy! Best part: they had a KIDS area with toys, books, etc. for Will and Emmy to enjoy and sat us right next to it. Bonus!  Even a poopy diaper from each kid (necessitating a trip to the car) couldn't bring us down. Ha!  More photos in the September album!

Workin' Hard for the Money

Well, no, not really.  Last week was my last week of work for a while and to say that I'm excited is an understatement. Yes, we miss the money, especially with so much going on with our house, but for a few blissful weeks I'm enjoying being a full time stay-at-home mom. Gainfully unemployed, if you will.  I shouldn't complain...I am darn lucky I even had a job to leave. And, I'm even luckier because I have a new part time that that I will likely start in another month or so.  

Before I packed up my computer and sent it back to my company, I took these photos of Emmy sitting at my desk. (I usually work in the guest room since the office doesn't have a door and well, when Emmy's home, it is imperative for there to be a door, lest you get nothing accomplished.) Emmy loves to get on the computer and "work". One conversation with Charles went like this:

(Imagine Emmy sitting on the sofa, my work computer in her lap "typing"  while Charles is sitting at the other end of the sofa with our computer in his lap)

E: Emmy working, Daddy.
C: You're working? That's great, what are you doing?
E: Typing
C: Typing? What are you typing, emails?
E: Yes
C: Who are you writing emails to?
E: SuSu
C: And what are you telling SuSu?
E: Secrets.

So while I enjoy a few weeks of unemployment, I get to spent lots of time with my amazing Emmy,  plan baby showers for friends, cook, organize, clean out closets, work in the yard, go out to lunch, run errands with Charles (which we love to do together), pick Emmy up from school, and so many things I've been wishing for more time to do.  I am a lucky girl indeed.

Beach Trip 2011

We are home from our summer vacation at the beach! We convened at Topsail Beach with SuSu, Big Daddy, Aunt Mer, and Aunt Mer's roommate, "Uncle" Josh.  A good time was had by all. Emmy loved the ocean and building sand castles. And of course she loved getting extra attention.

The best part: she slept great. Because I know you're all dying to know, we're finally back into a good sleeping rhythm.  It finally took going back to crying it out (and more vomit). It stunk, but we knew in our hearts it's what she needed, and within 24 hours she was crying less than 10 minutes, and by the next day less than 3 min or not at all. By the fourth night, no tears, and she went to bed perfectly for the baby-sitter (we'd gone out to see Harry Potter and celebrate Mary Ann's birthday).  This continued at the beach.  We have a slightly extended nighttime routine that involves us setting a timer for 5 minutes of rocking/snuggling and then 3-5 minutes of her alone in her bed settling down while we sit in the chair.  (Thank you Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child for the suggestion).  She also has music playing softly and a fancy new nightlight that projects fish onto the ceiling.  No tears, she sleeps through the night, and we're all better rested. Our happy, rested girl has returned.  And, she loves her big girl bed. I think that if we'd just moved to a big girl bed, that would have been fairly smooth, it was the whole anxiety/falling asleep alone thing we had to work through again. Woohoo!

So, back to the beach where we all slept well, it was a lovely week! Hot, humid, relaxing. We walked,  picked up sharks teeth, shells, and rocks, built sand castles, read, slept, and ate. A lot. That's about it. Oh, we did visit the Sea Turtle Hospital which was very cool.

Here are a few pictures. Many more posted in Picasa.

Sleeping issues...resolved?

Here's how you get a child to sleep who won't go to sleep suddenly after months (well over a year) of going to sleep just fine each night after a story, prayers, and a couple minutes of rocking:

1. Spend several days and nights trying everything you can think of: bargaining, arguing, listening to her cry, cleaning up puke, and more until you know she is finally exhausted.

2. Decide maybe it's time to switch to a big girl bed! Spend the afternoon talking about it as if it is the most amazing event EVER! Offer to buy a special new toy for getting a big girl bed! Let her pick out new sheets and help you buy rails for the bed!

3. Clean up more puke as soon as you turn the light out. (Turns out that isn't from crying/gagging...it's either on purpose or some serious anxiety)

4. Finally tell her that you'll be right back, leave the door open, and let her dog sleep with her. When you return, she'll be asleep. 

In all seriousness, the last week has been rough.  She's always gone to bed so well. There were many weeks last summer when she would tell us she was ready for bed at 6:30 and not even let us read a story, just to straight to sleep! I don't say that to brag, just to say that this huge shift has left us dumbfounded.  We can only assume it is some sort of fear/anxiety that came up in her travels last week and it something that will pass. Tomorrow night bedtime will be bumped up significantly. I think part of the problem may be that as the days have grown longer we've let bedtime shift more towards 8 or 8:30 and away from 7:30, 8 at the latest and we need to get back to our roots, if you will.  I think the open door may be the key so we will see what happens tomorrow night. I'd really prefer there to be no puke. She had nice new yellow sheets she picked out (as you can see from the pillowcase she is sleeping on) but those are in the wash, along with her beloved rainbow blanket that she has not slept with in probably 4 days because every time she gets it back, it winds up with barf on it.  Poor rainbow blanket.  Fortunately, we have 2 bunnies so we can swap out, although she's definitely catching on since on bunny looks significantly more loved than the other. She'll say "other bunny" whenever she notices the switch, but it never seems to bother her. 

Her new toy, Larry the Cucumber (of famed Veggie Tales videos) escaped from being vomited on his first day in the house.  He was also removed from her possesion for the rest of the night because he was for being a big girl and going to sleep on her own in her new bed.  If she stays in bed all night, she gets to have him back in the morning.  It is a little sad - I was hoping getting to sleep in her big girl bed for the first time would be so exciting and not part of a rather dramatic/traumatizing week.  But it is a significant milestone all the same. I don't think transitioning in the middle of all of this was good or bad, it just was so at least when she gets back on track, it will be in the new bed.

And yes, as you can see from the photo, she still sleeps with a pacifier.  She is only allowed to have it at night and occasionally on long car trips when it should be nap time.  We don't think she'll go to college with it so we're not overly worried since our pediatrician isn't overly worried. Yes, it's causing a bit of an overbite;I sucked my thumb til I was 10 so I'm very familiar with those.  I'm more concerned with the sleeping issues at this point and potty training, so the paci can stay...for now. But I hear the Paci Fairy is planning a visit later on this year. Who knows what fun toy he/she will bring if Emmy can give up those pacis! :)