Favorite Coloring Board

We have a white board in our Sunday school class at church. Last night Emily and her friend Olivia entertained themselves writing on the board. Emily even attempted to color Olivia's shirt!

The gas lines are still really long in Atlanta. I found gas for my car Friday morning and the line wasn't too long since most people were at work. Joe needed gas Saturday afternoon before he drove back to work today, so we got online to see what gas stations had gas and then I went in search of it while Joe stayed at home with Emily. I waited in line an hour and a half to fill up Joe's car!!!! They are predicting another couple of weeks before the availability of gas is back to normal in Atlanta! So all you folks in other towns, enjoy the luxury of pulling up to a gas station and filling up : ) I wish I had my camera with me on Saturday to capture the long line I was in. It was so long that I couldn't even see the gas station for the first half hour in line. I was entertained by one car that thought he could cut in line (some goofball left a gap in the line). About 5 people got out of their cars and first stopped to yell at the truck that left the gap and then proceeded to yell at the person that THOUGHT he could cut in front of about 30 cars . . . I don't know what he was thinking. He stuck it out for about 5 minutes . . . and then I guess he finally realized that the people outside his window weren't going to give up yelling at him and banging on his window, so he finally pulled away. I had a good laugh. I went over my Children's worship lesson plan and read my People magazine while waiting in line . . . quality reading time well spent : )

Helping with car repairs

I tried to crank my car yesterday and nothing would happen . . . so Emily and I were confined to the house today until Joe could get a new battery and replace the battery cable (since the one I had broke off after being so corroded). It's so nice having a husband who knows how to make car repairs!!! We are back and running, but my gas light came on and all the gas stations are out of gas : ( We drove around a little tonight to try to find some. When we pulled up to the station, we got 1.5 gallons into the tank and then everything shut down. The owner came out to tell everyone he was officially out of gas. So looks like Emily and I will continue to stay close to the house until we know we can get gas again . . . all of the problems we are having with the economy and gas shortages gets me a little freaked out from time to time . . . but we are still such a blessed nation.

Here's some pics of Emily helping Joe out with the car. She had to have her own glove to help!

Auburn Game

We went to Auburn this weekend to see Joe's mom. Emily had a great time visiting with her grandmama and LOVED walking around Auburn's campus on Game Day. She kept pointing to her shirt and saying Auburn and loved to shake the Auburn shakers we had. Emily got some new Auburn bloomers, socks, 2 t-shirts, AU cups, and a football! Can you tell I haven't been around Auburn merchandise in a while : ). Thanks grandmama for all the nice Auburn attire!!! We also got to see Uncle John, and Uncle Vann and Aunt Leslie at their tailgate party. We also ran into several friends walking around campus and I even ran into a girl that I hadn't seen in 20 years!

Future Auburn grad:

Good ol' Samford Hall:

Trying to find Aunt Leslie's tailgating party:

Aunt Leslie:

I have no idea who this boy is but his parents are ingenious allowing him to catch a nap before the big game!!!

20 Months Old!

Emily is 20 Months Old Today!

It is becoming much more difficult to get pictures of Emily for her monthly updates because she is totally over me taking pictures of her . . . .gone are the days of me sitting her in the chair and asking her to smile and getting a sweet picture of her. Now I have to grab shots here and there of her playing . . . and if she notices that I have the camera out she either won't look at me or she wants to see her face in the display and gets mad if I try to get a picture of her before she gets to look . . . crazy nut!

Emily is talking A LOT now. She strings words together to make her little sentences. She speaks clearly for a 20 month old (I'm sure I'm biased a little on that one). She LOVES Elmo and talks about him all the time. We now have an Elmo toothbrush, Elmo sippy cups, and Elmo books to read (I see an Elmo themed Birthday party in the near future). She also talks about Big Bird, "Gouch" (Grouch), monster (cookie monster), Grover, and Bert and Ernie. She also loves to point out any motorcycle that she sees on the road when we are traveling in the car. She is really enjoying the Mother's Morning Out program that she is attending and talks about "Colin and Julia" all the time (2 kids in the class). She is obsessed with her 3 pacifiers and blanket that she must have with her during nap time and bed time . . . so I envision us breaking that habit one day to be a trying one. But . . . she is the BEST sleeper ever so let the girl have her pacifiers and her blanket . . .you go girl! Joe and I have so much fun listening to her talk and watching her at her activities.

Busy Bible

Emily has a book called the Busy Bible. You can order it on line. My sister had one for her children and they loved it . . . so I bought one for Emily a few months ago. This keeps her busy every Sunday during worship. Each page has a different Bible story with an activity to do. I keep this Bible in her "church" bag in the closet. Tonight, Emily kept running to the closet and saying "fish". I couldn't figure out what she wanted so I opened the door and she looked around in there saying "fish" and "Jesus". I finally realized that she was talking about the page in the Bible where you can pull the fish off the snaps on the page and put them in Peter's fish net. She remembered me putting her bag in the closet on Sunday. Smart girl!!!! So here we are checking out the Busy Bible tonight:

Apple Pickin'

Today we went to Mercier Orchards in North Georgia to go Apple Pickin' with some friends. Emily enjoyed sampling all of the apples off of the trees. I even made an apple crisp tonight from some of the apples that we picked!!

Sweet Neighbor

This afternoon when we got home from running some errands there was a tricycle on the front porch with a note taped to it. Emily and I went to check it out . . . the 4 year old boy that lives next door gave his tricycle to Emily . . . how sweet!!!! The note said "To: Emily From: Joe". We walked next door to thank him for it. Emily can't reach the pedals yet but I'm sure that will happen before we know it. Thanks Joe! You are a sweet little boy!!!

Tonight Emily grabbed her a couple of diapers and an extra wipes container and tried to put on a diaper. Luckily the wipes container that she found was empty:

Mess

How can one little girl manage to destroy a room in just a couple of hours . . . oh my goodness! I went thru Emily's clothes for this Fall and Winter and while I did that she managed to do this. She is now coloring on her notebook after she created the big tornado that threw the toys all over the place:

Soccer Game

Today Emily and I went to see Taylor's (my friend Tara's daughter) soccer game. Emily enjoyed watching the kids run around on the field and even tried to join them a couple of times.


Here is Taylor with her big smile right after winning a goal for her team!!! Go Taylor!!!

Cards

If I had known that playing with a deck of cards was all it took to entertain Emily for a while, I would have pulled them out a long time ago : ) One of her favorite things to do is to dump all the cards on the ground and then sit there and put each one back into the box until they are all in. Then she asks me to help her pull them out again so she can start all over!!! While doing this she periodically looks up at me and says, "cards" with her lips puckered out . . . it's so funny.



Yesterday she stumped her toe and I asked her if she wanted me to kiss it. She said, "No, Bud kiss it." She walked down the hall and sat next to him on his pallet and kept putting her foot up to this mouth and saying, "Kiss, kiss". I guess Bud offers a special kind of comfort for stumped toes. She also has learned how to nod and say Yes. I asked her if she had fun playing with Colin and Julia at school the other day and she thought for a minute and then nodded and said, "Yes." She's been saying it more lately. For so long I just spoke to her to tell her what we were doing without knowing if she really understood me or not. But now I can tell that she comprehends what I'm saying to her. It's hard for me to imagine sometimes that this little person who has been my "baby" is starting to have two sided conversations with me . . . very cool.

Sharing her milk

Emily has been talking so much over the last few days. It's been so fun talking to her and seeing how much she understands what we are saying to her.

She decided tonight to share her milk with all her "friends". Here she is feeding her babydoll:

And then she decided to share her milk with Bud:

And then decided to have some for herself. She then came over to me to let me have some too! Sweet girl : )