Happy Valentine's Day

(pre-haircut)

 Emmy says "won't you bee mine?"

Happy Valentine's Day! We hope everyone had a great day!

Frosting our strawberry cupcakes (post-haircut)

She is such a great helper in the kitchen!

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!

Kansas, Week Two

I promise, these posts will soon have titles that do not include the name of the state in which we currently reside, eventually.  Oh, and here's a picture of our house, by the way!  And a very cute Emmy pulling Rags in her wagon. Love it! 

So here we are, two weeks and two and a half days into this chapter of our lives. In week two we have:

• Successfully completed setting up the living room and dining room (and Emmy's room was finished last weekend). Curtains and pictures hung and everything!  Everything else is unpacked that is going to be unpacked, save a couple of boxes of files the office/guest room, but there is some rearranging we want to do and we haven't hung pictures yet.
• Purchased bar stools and a new ottoperson, our first purchases at the enormous Nebraska Furniture Mart.  
• Seen snow, real snow!  . 
• Celebrated Charles' 32nd birthday, which involved a failed attempt to eat BBQ for dinner. 
• I made an appointment at a salon for a new 'do and made an appointment with a groomer for Rags' new 'do. 
• Invited our neighbors over to watch the Super Bowl with us and in doing so found "new friends" (her words) for Emmy and "local contact" to write down on the emergency forms we had to fill out today.  

Finding new service providers, if you will, is definitely one of the worst things about moving. New preschool. New babysitters. New hairdresser. New dog groomer. New mechanic. And on and on and on. I'm glad to have crossed a few things off the list and hope we'll figure out a few more soon.  The biggest disappointment is finding a Mother's Morning Out/Preschool program for Emmy.  There just aren't any around here for 2 year olds.  Seriously.  I found one two year old program in Kansas City, a good 40 minute drive, but I was willing to check it out because that seemed like our best option. Except oh wait, they are full. No surprise since there is NOTHING else around!  Everything starts at 2 1/2 (child had to have been 2 1/2 by August 2011) or 3. Ugh!   So she and I will definitely be spending a lot of time together.  I did register her with Child and Youth Services so we can utilize the hourly care provided at the Child Development Center, but man, I was looking at the schedule (you sign up online) and already for the month of Feb. every day only has a random hour or two here and there available! It's crazy! I did find a Kindermusik class, which will also be a significant drive for us, but with nothing else to do we might as well!  There are dance, swimming, and gymnastics classes on post, so we will likely sign her up for at least one so we have another outlet for her.  She keeps asking to go to school, so I know she misses it and that makes me sad for her.

It is very nice to have the living and dining room settled since that is obviously where we spend most of our time.  This week we will get pictures hung in our bedroom and finish setting up the guest room/office.  We want to work on arranging the basement so there is a place for Emmy to play and a place for Charles to do schoolwork but that will be one of the last projects. The garage is also nice and organized, at least for now when it's cold and you don't really want to spend a whole lot of time out there!

Our next door neighbors with whom we share a wall (we live in a duplex) have 2 kids close to Emmy's age, a girl who is 4 and a little boy who is almost 2. We decided that the Super Bowl seemed like an event that should be shared with others, so we asked them to come make pizzas and watch with us, and I'm so glad we did! Emmy got along great with their kids and we got along well with the parents!  In fact, we baby-sat for their kids tonight while they went to his branch get together and they are watching Emmy tomorrow night while we are at the Signal branch dinner. Yay!

Most importantly, Charles had a birthday!  We started off the day letting him sleep in. Emmy and I made him sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast and ran some errands so he could have some quiet time at home. We gave him his presents in the afternoon, and then after Emmy's nap we headed to a BBQ restaurant in Kansas City for supper, except when we arrived,  we found it closed. They are only open for supper Thursday-Saturday. Whoops! Fortunately the same person had recommended a pizza place in the same are area so we went there instead.  We will try again for BBQ soon!  At least the peanut butter pie Emmy and I made turned out great!  Mary Ann and Joel gave me a cookbook from a restaurant in Augusta that has the most amazing peanut butter pie and so I tried the recipe and it was a huge success and really does taste like the real deal!

I seem to be having serious issues getting photos to post correctly in the text, so I'm going to put a few pictures here below of Charles' birthday celebration. enjoy!

Do you like the wrapping? I had not yet unpacked the gift wrap so Emmy decorated a bag and we used newspaper for tissue paper. :)

Helping unwrap presents.

Emmy helped Daddy blow out the candles on his birthday pie.

Sunset on the way to supper.

Kansas Week One

We've been here a week and 2 days!  A friend suggested I change the title of the blog to F#@! Kansas, and don't think I haven't thought about it in the last few days! :)  Things are going fine, don't get me wrong, but with this being our first move, and from a place we loved and lots of friends and a great church, not to mention family at most a half a day's drive away, this was, and is, going to be HARD.

We moved into our house last Tuesday. We are living on post and if you want our new address, please email me and I'll be glad to send it to you. I am, for obvious reasons, not posting it on the public internet. Our household goods arrived on Thursday, so we had a couple of days to clean and organize all the items we'd brought along with is...at least as well as you can organize without any furniture to put them away in/on!  It also gave us a chance to think through were we wanted the big items of furniture to go.

We did take the house with the laminate floors downstairs, which we agreed was a smart decision.  This meant we had to take the house "as is" or wait 10 days for it to be repainted. The previous tenants only occupied the space for 11 months and the house was brand new for them, so it is in good shape.  We took it "as is" so we did not have to wait, though of course once we "living" in it I saw more dings in the walls and cleaning that needed to be done, but so it goes. I assume the previous occupants had a big black dog! 

All of our household goods arrived, nothing was lost, thank goodness. A few items were damaged, which I suppose is also inevitable, though  nothing too major. The most upsetting is a large chip out of my china cabinet, but it's not too noticeable. The handful of other things that are broken or damaged are repairable or a minor loss, so all in all we are pleased, especially in light of some horror stories I have heard.  Charles' college roommate and his wife lost a huge amount of stuff in their last move.

Friday the moving company sent people to unpack, at our request. They were here for the morning and basically unpacked everything in the living room, dining room, and kitchen, as well as several boxes upstairs of the guest room/office/linen closet persuasion.  While the unpacking help is great, they do just unpack and leave the contents where ever there is counter or table or floor space, so it does create a big mess.  Ultimately we *think* it was good to get the boxes out of the way so we could really see the space better, though I do see why some people don't want them to help.  It is overwhelming! I think next time I will try to label the boxes myself on the front end with more specifics of what I see go in them, which will help with the unpacking later.

I promise I will post some pictures later this week, once we feel like things are a bit more camera ready. We have made a lot of progress, but there is still lots to do! We are waiting on some storage solutions to arrive which should also help get things shaped up.

Emmy is doing well.  We could definitely see an improvement in her attitude once we settled into the house, even before the furniture arrived.  I am sure we were also happier to be in the house, and she sensed that. She has slept better in her own room and only woke up the first night in the middle of the night. She is behaving more like her normal self, though I would say the "terrible twos" have definitely arrived and she likes to be a challenge sometimes!  She has handled the last few days quite well, though, and we have made a point to get her things unpacked and settled. Her room is done, including pictures hanging on the wall.  We have her toys organized in the great room and we have plans to set up many of her bigger toys and some books, etc. in the basement so we have a place to go for a change of pace. Our den sofa and kitchen table are set up down there so we can use that space as well, even though we were told it could flood. We decided it was worth the risk since it is more climate controlled than the garage, so it is a more pleasant place to work and play, especially this time of year! 

We visited a church yesterday and we were fairly happy with it.  We cannot compare every place to St. John because we were always be disappointed. No place is perfect (nor was St. John!) and this church had lots of kids, a DCE and Youth director who were recognized yesterday as they both approach their 5 year anniversaries at the church, and we liked the sermon.  The music left a bit to be desired, but we aren't planning to join the choir here so we can live with that. They hymns and organ music were good, so that was a positive. :)  But know this, St. John family, we miss you so, so much.  I fought back tears during the service, both out of sadness from being away from you, but also from relief from finding a place quickly that looks like it could be our temporary church home. We will go back next Sunday and see how it goes!

Well there is a quick update from week one! Stay tuned for more!

Kansas

Well hello internet. We're baaack! 

So much to say about the last few weeks and why I have been absent, but we'll get to that later. A big reason has been our move from GA to KS, and we're finally here in Kansas.

We got into Ft. Leavenworth a little before 4 pm Central today and went straight to the housing office, just in time to get keys to 2 different houses for us to check out. One is is ready for us to move in immediately, but has carpet in the living/dining. The other has laminate in the living/dining, which we surely prefer, but just had tenants move out, so we'd have to either take it as is or wait up to 10 days for it to be painted/cleaned.  We have the weekend to decide since the office closed at 4:30.

Emmy still has a bad cold, and of course she is sleep deprived and doesn't quite know which end is up. Several low key days of no traveling with regular naps and bed times are definitely in order so we can hopefully get our happy, well behaved little girl back.  She is doing well, considering all the illness, and total disruption to her schedule and life.  But, she's definitely not herself and that's stressful on us and of course I'm sure she is feeding off of our anxiety.

We are settled into the hotel on post for the weekend and just plan to relax and maybe check out the area. Charles and I never shopped for good winter coats before we left the Southeast so that needs to be a number one priority since the high today was like 28. My poor hands were already dry and now this cold dry air is zapping them even worse! Fortunately there's plenty of shopping in Kansas City, including a Cabella's, Dad. I know you're proud. :)

Our stuff is here in a warehouse so hopefully we'll have an address on Monday to give them and we can schedule delivery.  Some of our loyal readers have heard our tales from the move so far which included my very raw emotions being rubbed the wrong way by our packers, who made lots of comments about how much stuff we had. Well, when we got the word that our household goods had arrived to the storage facility here, it included the weight total. Guess what it was? 11,800 lbs, over 5,000 lbs UNDER our limit. So there, packers, take that!

We are tired and anxious and emotional about it all, a little too tired to be excited at this particular moment, but we'll get there. It's an adventure for sure!

October travels

More catching up! The middle weekend in October we crossed a couple of things off our "to do" list: the GA Aquarium and the World of Coke!  We left home on Thursday and spent the night at "Aunt" Sarah's in Atlanta. She cooked a yummy supper for us and we arrived just in time for supper and some quality time with Sarah and her Mom, now known as "Gav" (Great-Aunt Vicki).   That way, we were able to get a good night's sleep and be ready to hit the aquarium right when it opened Friday morning.  Going on a Friday was a great plan. There were no lines and no hoards of people, like I hear often happens on the weekends, so I'm so glad we worked it out to visit on a weekday.  Sarah went with us and Emmy had a great time checking out all the fish, penguins, sea horses, jellyfish, and on and on.

We spent a solid couple of hours exploring the exhibits, then decided it was time to move onto other activities. I'd packed snacks, so we stopped outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather for a few minutes and refreshed before we headed across the plaza to the Coke Museum.  If you know me, I love some Coca-Cola so it is a wonder I'd never been before, but indeed, this was my first trip.  The first few minutes of the tour you are in a room filled with memorabilia and a nice lady was telling us all about it. Interesting, perhaps, but not when you have a toddler on your hands who could care less and decides now is the time to throw a temper tantrum AND you are locked in a room full of paying customers/strangers with no where to go. I started to get twitchy, but as soon as the crying started, it stopped.  A few long minutes, we were ushered into the theater to watch the 6 minute movie, which Emmy is still talk about a month later. This was her first "movie" and she was fascinated.  There is a character in the movie named Wendy and Emmy continues to mention seeing Wendy.   Someone dressed as Wendy was in the museum for photo ops, but Emmy did not want to go see her or have her photo taken with her, or even wave to her, no no.  She just wanted to talk about her, and still does talk Wendy frequently.  More and more I see Aunt Mer in that kid...she won't have anything to do with adults in costumes.

We pushed Emmy to her limit by hitting both places, but she did so great. We rounded out our afternoon with lunch at the Varsity. Emmy's first trip!  Of course we had a frosted orange for dessert and she thought it was fabulous.  She was asleep before we even hit 85 and took a good nap when we got back to Aunt Sarah's. 

That evening we had a yummy meal at The Hil restaurant in Serenbe. If you are ever in the area, you should check it out.   Emmy and I shared a pizza and when Sarah asked her if she liked it she said "Um, yeah, it's kinda different". Hahaha. (In her defense, it was kinda different as there was no tomato sauce).   She uses that phrase whenever something is not like what she's used to and in this context it was just so appropriate and hilarious.

Saturday morning after breakfast we packed up and headed to see Granddaddy and DeeDee! Aunt Beth and Uncle Griffin drove up as well so we had a good visit with the family.  Rags got her teeth cleaned and we dropped her off at the clinic as soon as we got into town. Parenting note: one shouldn't let their child see the family pet being anesthetized in preparation for her teeth cleaning.  When Missy went to put the tube in Rags' throat (which in my defense I didn't realize this all was taking place where we were hanging out) Emmy said in a shaky voice "where's Ragsie's tongue?"  Oops. We moved to the waiting area to hang out until we went to lunch.  Rest assured Rags' was up and happy a little while later, tongue right where it belongs.

After some yummy BBQ we headed to check into the hotel and let Miss Emmy take her nap.  She was quite jazzed up and didn't want to settle down, but she finally did sleep in the big bed.  Ahh, I love nap time.  We had supper with the family at a cool place downtown that has a kids play area upstairs so Emmy got to play before we ate.  Some goodies from the HoneyMoon Bakery rounded out the evening. Delish!

Sunday we went to church and Emmy sat with us and enjoyed seeing the bells play and listening to music for a few minutes before she went to the nursery. I was really worried because she gets quite nervous/shy around people she doesn't know and I feared tears when Charles took her to the nursery, but we'd gone by to meet the girls in the nursery for her age before the service and she saw there were babies. Plus, when she got back they were on the swings on the playground, so Charles said that she was happy to play. Yay!  I'm not-so-secretly anxious about church hunting when we move and if we visit a few places having to go through this week after week until we find a new church home.  She's been to Granddaddy and DeeDee's church of course before, but it had still been awhile so I'm glad she happily stayed in the nursery. 

We ate lunch at a place we frequently go after church with Richard and Mary Louise that is located at the fairgrounds.  The fair had just wrapped up and some of the animals that a trainer/animal resuce guy had brought for the fair were still there, so we walked over to see the camels, donkeys, primates (of some sort, not sure what), kangaroo, and I can't even remember what else!  Here she is with Aunt Beth and Uncle Griff.

On the way home we stopped to see Uncle Robert and Jenny.  Uncle Robert just had a valve replacement so we were glad to hug his neck and see that he is doing so well. Emmy kicked back on the porch and sat on the swing and ate cookies with Uncle Robert.  This photo isn't great, but I was only able to grab my phone to catch it. It was too cute not to share.

More photos in Picasa! I don't have Grandaddy's photos from Rome yet so I will add those later.

Checking out one of the many tanks of sea creatures you could touch. This was the closest she came to actually touching one: one finger in the water.

First sip of coke ever. She didn't like it.

Matching TOMS!

See, camels! Pretty cool

DeeDee said she thinks this monkey is Wilson (not sure what type of primate he actually is) and he was just hanging out while the workers cleaned up around the camels and donkey.

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!