March comes in like a lion

Well, we started out March with a bang! Aunt Meredith came to visit and I got the flu. That's right, the real, honest to God flu, influenza A to be exact.  Just in time for Mer to arrive, lucky us!

Sadly, this means I have n'er one photo to show for the weekend, but we all loved having her here. Emmy dragged her around the house, making her play with all her toys.  I came out of my room after showering on Sunday morning and to check in on Emmy and Aunt Mer, who were playing with blocks in Emmy's room.  She said "no, Mommy, you go back in your room." Well, we know who was the favored one here!  When Emmy was sleeping we sat around (or laid around really) and talked and watched ridiculous amounts of TV. Charles and I are now enjoying the new show "Smash" and since the recent episodes are On Demand, we re-watched them with Mer and well, now we are delighted to say she is hooked too. Ha!

I am feeling much better, but let me tell you what Internet, I paid the price for forgetting to get my flu shot.  In December I meant to ask my doctor about it when I saw him one more time, and I forgot. Then I figured I'd just go get one at Walgreen's or something since our insurance would cover it, but with Christmas and moving, etc. I forgot. And so, when I woke up Thursday morning feeling achy and feverish and like I couldn't get out of bed, I thought "oh, crap."  Fortunately Mary Ann convinced me go to get a flu test and I went Friday morning, which was early enough for me to take Tamiflu, miracle invention that it is.  And guess what? Everything "they" say about the flu is the truth. It did not start with a runny nose or congestion.  In fact, I'm not really very congested at all. I had a cough that came about Wed. late and when I coughed it made my throat hurt a lot, so much I wondered if it could be strep.  But it only hurt when I coughed, so I blew it off. But then the aches and chills and fever came. And you just don't feel like you ever want to move again.

This is when it is really hard to be away from family. I can't tell you how much I wanted my Mama on Thursday and Friday (are you ever too old to miss your Mama?).  I know she would have come and helped out with Emmy.  Folks, if you are lucky enough to live near parents or family who help with your kids, consider yourself extremely lucky.  My Mama will always be at least a couple of hours away, at least for the forseeable future.    Plus, Charles is in school and not in control of his own schedule at all, which meant he couldn't, say, stay home Friday morning for a few more minutes to get Emmy to the sitter, or come home for half an hour at lunch to pick her up from the sitter and get her down for a nap.  Sigh.

Luckily, we have found a sitter, really it's someone who offers childcare in her home and has gone through all the steps to be approved by the installation's Child Development Center. And, she lives right down the street, score!  Emmy has been twice and I will probably settle on at least one, if not two, standing mornings a week to take her there for a couple of hours, just to give myself some time to run errands or clean in peace. I can be a lot more productive on my own sometimes!

We also tried out the hourly care offered at the Child Development Center and Emmy had great fun, it's just hard to get booked in there. Their offerings fill up super fast, alas.

The last few weeks have otherwise been relatively uneventful, I'm sorry to report. Hence, the lack of blogging. I know, I know, where are the house photos you say? I'm sure everyone is dying to see more, so I promise I'll work on that.  I just need to take the photos, and I'm not so good with the photography, you see, so I sort of dread it.  But I will, cross my heart.

We're nice and settled into our house, been enjoying some unusually warm weather, along with the rest of you I suspect.  But here, warm still means windy and boy, is it windy! 60 degrees can still be too cold to stay outside for long with the wind whipping. Of course the most beautiful day so far was Thursday, when I was laid up sorry on the sofa, but Emmy and Charles got to go out side and even had visit from the ice cream truck. Yay!

Oh, yes, and how could I forget, Rags wrapped up February with a hairline fracture in her back leg after jumping out of Charles' arms.  So, now that we're a 2 day drive from her grandfather the vet, we had to make a trip to a local vet and wow, sticker shock, 300 bucks.  He did not see any fractures on the x-rays but clearly she was hurting so he gave us a few days worth of pain pills and sent the films to the radiologist, who said he/she did see some green lines, indicating a fracture.  Fortunately, she is now using her foot again so hopefully we can avoid repeat x-rays tomorrow. He did check out her eyes again and put her on a new medicine since the one corneal abrasion wasn't fully healed.  Fingers crossed for a good report and cheap visit tomorrow!

So, hopefully March will go out like a lamb!  Here are a couple of random pictures from the end of the month for you.  We'll get to work on some March photos.

Emmy insisted on eating her chili with chopsticks the other night.  Still a bit of a learning curve...

I got out of the shower and found her like this. We were doing laundry and she took two clean dresses out and put them on over her pajamas...backwards. (And underneath she's also wearing a pair of madras shorts...pictured below.)

A little light reading...

Amazing multi-tasking Dad...he can iron and entertain the toddler at the same time!

Snow, snow, snow!

On Monday we had our first "big" snow.  It did snow a little bit the weekend before, but not quite an inch and was not enough to go play in. But this week, play we did!

Emmy made her first snow angels, built her first snow man, and went sledding thanks to our wonderful neighbors. (We've not bought a sled and this year she is a little big for the cookie sheet.) She had lots of fun, and so did Rags, Charles, and I.

Here are a few photos of our adventures, more in in Picasa.

We started the day with snowflake pancakes in honor of the snow.

Emmy and her new pal Sophie sledding in the driveway.

Emmy and Clayton

Building a snowman with Daddy. She was SO excited.
Of course she and Sophie knocked him down a few minutes later.

With a carrot nose and two black olive eyes...

She had to give him (yes, with a pink scarf) a kiss.
Per Joanna's advice, she named her snowman Justin.

Sledding!

Charles and Emmy and Clayton and his dad take on Clayton's mom in a snowball fight. I just took photos. :)

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!