October

Emily wore a pumpkin dress today in preparation for Halloween! I can't wait to dress her up and take her trick or treating this year. It has rained the last two days so we've had a little bit of cabin fever. Today I opened up the garage door and Emily rode around in the car my sister gave us. I'll have to post a picture of that soon.

We had planned on selling our house and getting something a little bigger, but with the economy going in the tank we decided to make due with the house we have. So I've been on a cleaning kick lately. I cleaned out our hall closet, computer room closet, all my junk on my computer desk, and cleaned out Emily's toy box. I don't like clutter so I do this about once a year. It amazes me how much we accumulate. We are in preparation for rearranging furniture in our house to make our living situation more doable. I hope by the end of the month we'll have everything done . . . as I don't like things in limbo either. Our plan this Saturday is to clean out the garage . . . hoo hoo!!!! Joe is thrilled : )

Fun Trip

Wednesday afternoon I flew to Texas for our annual college roommate trip. This is our 5th year to do this and we had so much fun! We went to Angie's house this year in Temple, Texas. We enjoyed staying up late and talking and sleeping in each morning. We never left the house before 1:00 p.m. each day. We talked, laughed, shopped, ate great food, watched movies and enjoyed being together again. As always I get a little sad when I get home because we only get to see each other once a year. But the Lord is good to us in allowing our time together to be so blessed.

Me (Marietta, GA), Michelle (Columbia, TN), Danielle (Dallas, TX), Angie (Temple, TX)

Here's a picture I scanned of us at my wedding. 13 years and 11 children later we really are getting older!!!

While we were there we went shopping at IKEA. So I decided to buy Emily a place mat and plastic plates so she could start eating at the table with us. So bye-bye high chair! I bought a $10 booster seat today and Emily ate her first meal at our table tonight. She looked like such a big girl that I had to get pictures:
Since Emily stayed with my parents for part of the time I was gone, they went ahead and gave Emily one of her Christmas presents early. Here she is sitting at the table and chairs they gave her. She enjoyed coloring and playing with stickers yesterday at her new table:I went 4 days without seeing Emily and it was surreal today being around her. I felt like she added so many words to her vocabulary while I was gone. I just stared at her this morning listening to her talk. I was changing her diaper and she said "hold the wipes" . . . I said, "when did you learn how to use the word the!!!" It blows me away how fast they learn.

Cooler Weather

We finally have some cooler weather this morning so I put a sweater on Emily. We went to story time at the library this morning. That was hilarious! Out of about 12 children, only 2 stayed on the mat for story time. The rest of the kids either sat in their parent's lap or walked around and looked at each other. Emily stayed engaged for a little bit and then started turning around to see the other kids. One girl came up and took her bow out of her hair. This child was WAY active. I felt bad for her mother because her little girl kept wanting to come up and touch all the other kids and would talk really loud. She finally just picked her up and left . . . bless her. We had a good time. After singing and listening to a couple of books, we colored and then Emily got a stamp on her hand.

Emily is keeping us on our toes. Every time we pull up into the Wal-Mart parking lot (which is a lot) she starts saying, "sticker man" because of the Wal-Mart greeter that always gives her a sticker. She also immediately starts saying "more fries, more fries" when we go thru ANY type of drive thru : ( When she wants to play with something now she says the word and then nods her head and says "Yes". . . .like "stickers" . . . "Yes", "Busy Bible" . . . "Yes". Too cute! Her appetite has slowed down at meals now. After 3 bites she pulls off her bib and says "all done". So we have to put her bib back on and get her to eat some more . . . this is so different than before because I couldn't get food on her tray quick enough.

I'm heading to Texas today to see my college roommates. We get together once a year . . . so Emily is going to have a big time at PawPaw and Dee Dee's house.

Here we are this morning enjoying the cool breezes of Fall:

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.