Christmas with Granddaddy and Honey

We went to Granddaddy and Honey's house for Breakfast and gifts on Christmas morning. Jessica and Brett had stayed at their house so they were already up (acutally Grace was already taking her first nap). Emma had fallen asleep in the car as well so we took the oppurtunity to enjoy our breakfast. It just happened to work out that after breakfast when we were ready to open presents the girls were ready to get up! I didn't really get too many pictures of our presents but we got some great things. The best part was watching Emma and Grace climb all over everything. They didn't get into unwrapping gifts as much as crawling all over the boxes! Emma got a new car seat, clothes and lots of great toys. Bradley and I got a Wii, which we are very excited about! Taylor (or Tay Tay, as the girls will call her) picked out a special Disney DVD for both of the girls-Special Edition Dumbo. I know we will enjoy watching that for many years!

Christmas at our house and Santa

We had a very fun filled and busy Christmas. Christmas Eve we had a party at the office and went to Bradley's aunts. Emma lasted until about 8:30 there and then it was time to go home. Christmas day we started the day around 7:30 with Santa and our presents, then we went to Bradley's mom's house for breakfast and some more gifts. Afterwards we headed to my parent's house for more gifts and late lunch. We are so blessed to have such wonderful family all around us to help and suport us! They love and spoil Emma to death and I get such a joy seeing her smile at them! She is such a lucky girl.
I figured that doing some slideshows would be the best way to share our pictures. You know I took alot of them, haha! I don't think I will get them all done tonight, so stay tuned for more.
Here are our pictures from our visit from Santa and Christmas with just me, Bradley and Emma on Christmas morning.
If anyone is interested, I posted my presents that I made on my "crafty Saturday". They are displayed on the Emma's Closet blog to the left!

Target Diapers

So yesterday I braved Target-the one on Colonial-like the busiest one in Memphis. Unlike everyone else at Target, I was not there to Christmas shop. I needed baby wipes and to pick up a prescription. I do my small amount of shopping and then go to the pharmacy. When I pull up there is a lady discussing something about Target brand diapers with the pharmacist. Usually, I would not butt into someone's conversation but I felt like I owed it to this lady to tell her about Target brand diapers. Now, I am not usually a name brand snob-in fact there are some really good Target brand baby products that I like (wipes, gas medicine, even formula), but Target diapers just didn't cut it for us. Emma sleeps through the night and the Target diapers didn't make it through the night.
So, back to the girl at the counter. She is asking the pharmacist if they have the newborn size, they only have size one out on the shelves. Pharmacist doesn't know...I am just about to butt in with my two cents that Target diapers don't work when she says "my little dog needs the newborn size not size 1". Well after I discovered that the diapers are not for her baby but for her DOG I decide to keep my opinions to myself. I guess Target diapers probably work for dogs!

Ready for Christmas

Well it is Sunday night and I am ready for Christmas. I stopped by my last store today after church and all the presents are wrapped. I worked all day yesterday on my "crafty" gifts and wrapping and everything is under the tree. The house is decorated and I thought I might give a small Christmas tour.

Our mantel and fake fireplace. It took me until this past Friday, but I finally found Emma a "Baby's First Christmas" stocking. What do you put in baby's stockings? I was wondering that...I would appreciate any ideas.

Our tree with our ornaments. When I was growing up my mom had this tradition that every year we would get to go to Hallmark and pick out an ornament. We could pick out whatever we wanted-just as long as it had the year on it. When I moved into my own house my mom gave me the box of ornaments and now they hang on our tree. We have continued this tradition and here are our ornaments from this year:

Bradley got the leg lamp (from the Christmas Story). There is a button on the back and it says three different quotes from the movie

Emma's ornament. It is a bottle with Christmas tree inside and says "Baby's First Christmas"

I picked a Lady and the Tramp ornament. This is actually my second Lady ornament. Lady makes me think of Delilah (when she has her haircut)

My favorite part about Christmas is Christmas Cards!!! I love sending them and love receiving them. I love coming home from work and opening all the cards and hanging them on my garland. If you have sent us a card it is up on this garland.

Please excuse my messy counter top. Like I said, it was crafty Saturday and I was working on some gifts. I will post some pics of my crafts after the holidays-don't want to ruin any surprises!

Here are the decorations in Emma's room. Her mini tree contains sparkly ornaments I bought a few years ago. I think I made that angel on top of her tree in like 2nd grade. My mom was so good about saving things! We used to have mini trees in our rooms growing up and this angel always topped my tree. Emma has two special ornaments that we were given this year that are on her tree.



This ornament came from the Granthams. Mary K is so thoughtful and sent this to Emma. She has a little boy, James, who was born about 2 months before Emma. I have no idea how she found the time to get these done, but we really love it!

This ornament came from Stephanie and Mike. They really gave it to me but I wanted to share it with Emma and put it on her tree-I don't think they will mind!

This is my (now Emma's) American Girl doll. She is all dressed up for winter. I don't think it will ever get cold enough in Memphis to actually dress like this.

Last but not least are the Dickens/Alpine Village. I used to set up my mom's collection at my house but now I have enough to set up my own. I didn't do the whole set up with the lights and snow this year, but I set it up enough to enjoy my buildings. I couldn't really find a good spot this year, so I cleared some shelves on a bookcase and put them there.

This is the building Bradley got my last year. It was my first year to display this building and I think it is really pretty. I think it is like a town hall or something. It is from the Alpine Village collection and the name is like German so I am not totally sure!

Hope you enjoyed our Christmas 2008 tour. My goal for this week is try to blog every day-yeah right-but I can hope! So stay tuned to see if I actually do it.

Two announcements on blogs to check out-their links are on the left

1. The Bethells-Jen and Pickney welcomed their new baby girl on Thursday. Lilly Ann finally made her appearance and we are all so happy she is here. Jen said she will be updating her blog with pics soon. They came home from the hospital on Saturday so we will cut her some slack.

2. Gleatie and Deaner-Gleatie is one of my best friends from Ole Miss. She and and Deaner are getting married in April and then moving to Germany. She is a great writer so I am sure you will enjoy reading about her adventures! She is new to the blogging world so welcome her.

CB's Birthday and Some Good Restuarants!

We have been lucky enough to go eat at some very good places the past couple weeks and I feel that I would not be doing my blog readers justice if I didn't tell you about them! haha

1. Elfo's-in Germantown where Three Oaks used to be. I had a filet and asparagus that were great. I would have to say the highlight of my meal was the wedge salad with homemade Thousand Island Dressing! This was probably the best dressing I have ever had.

2. Ruth Chris-great steaks-once again I had filet and asparagus, guess I am a creature of habit. I had a tomato and fresh mozzarella salad and it was good. I know that they have my fav dessert at Ruth Chris-bread pudding-but we didn't get dessert b/c it was CB's birthday so we went back to my parent's house for some birthday cake (from Muddy's-YUM!). More on Courtney's birthday in a minute.

3. Flemings-this was my first time to eat at Flemings for dinner. We ate there last year for Easter Brunch and it really wasn't that good(there was a set brunch menu). Dinner at Flemings was much better. We had the crab cakes for an appetizer-YUM! I would definitely suggest these, they would make a great dinner teamed with a salad. Speaking of salad-tomato and fresh mozzarella salad-this was the 2nd best tomato/mozzarella salad I had ever had! The best one is at Pascal Manales in New Orlenas-you just can't beat Cajun tomatoes! I went for the Ribeye at Flemings and it was great. Asparagus at Flemings again-probably the best out of the three. Dessert was the flour-less chocolate cake-wonderful but really rich-and you have to tell them 15 minutes before you want it served.

Now that I have given my reviews of some of Memphis' fine dining, I will move onto Courtney's birthday. Like I said before, we went to Ruth Chris for CB's birthday. I tried to keep Emma awake alot of Saturday because I wanted her to sleep during dinner. It worked pretty well, she slept until the very end of the meal. After dinner we went back to my parent's house for cake and presents so it was fine that Emma was awake there.

The birthday girl

Capote Cake from Muddy's!!!

Emma and Gaines

Seven Months

Emma turned 7 months old on Monday. Time is flying! Some days I catch myself already thinking about what I am going to plan for her 1st birthday party! I combined Emma's 7 month pics with a Happy Birthday sign for my friend Julie-hey these days I have had to become a multi-tasker. I couldn't pick just one picture, so I decided to post them all.
We don't go to the doctor for 7 months so I don't have any height or weight stats. However, here are some milestones we have accomplished (most you have probably already read about)
*crawling-now fast
*pulling up in our bed and on some furniture
*eating most any stage 2 foods
*babbling all the time-I am convinced her first word will be dada.
*we are getting alittle more hair-still wearing our bows with a headband!
*first big bruise
*still sleeping like a champ-most days 7:30 pm to 7:30 am

I love this picture. It looks like she is in the middle of explaining something very important.

Sassy Seat

Bradley really wanted to get Emma this doorway jumper. He had some fond memories of his cousin Morgan jumping in her seat at his aunt's house and he was convinced Emma could not live without this equipment! I have to admit she really likes it. She can see us when we are working in the kitchen and she especially likes it when her dad used this like a swing!
Cassidy, however has different feelings about this new toy. She does not like it at all because she doesn't feel like she can slip through the doorway safely!

Emma's first Battle wound

Can you see that shiner above Emma's eye? Yes, it is our first real battle wound. She did battle with the shelves in our living room and lost. I guess that is just the consequences of starting to crawl and stand up. I guess that happened last Wednesday so it is about gone by now, just in time for lots of pictures at Christmas.

Grace comes to Visit

Emma's cousin, Grace, came to visit us at the office (aka DayCare) last week. Bradley and Jessica had to travel to a funeral so we kept the girls at the office for the day. I really think Emma enjoyed having Grace around to play with and watch. Grace is 11 months old and can move much faster than Emma, but Emma caught on quick. I feel like she has been moving so much quicker since Grace has been here! Grace is also pulling up on everything and later that night Bradley snapped the bottom picture of Emma-pulling up!



Grace is such a ham for the camera!

Racing up and down the hall-Grace will win every race.

Later that night at home!

Paint a Piece...Take 2

So, I kinda love Paint a Piece. It totally appeals to my creative side and I get to make things with Emma with her little hands and feet to remember her when she was little. Paint a Piece had a day where you could come in and visit with Santa, have punch and cookies and make a cookie plate to take home. As you can imagine about all we did was sit with Santa and get our hand print done. Lots of other kids sat on Santa's lap and told him what they wanted and got to eat cookies with him. We were doing good to sit there without crying. So, after we saw Santa and made our plate, I just went and got another piece to paint while Emma sat there and watched me. Isn't our Santa plate so cute? I wonder what kind of cookies we should make for Santa?

Growing Up

Well our little girl is growing up. Yesterday I packed away all of her little baby clothes. It was so sad because as I was packing them up I realized I had alot of outfits that Emma only got to wear once. I filled this whole tupper ware box with 0-6 month clothes. I got motivated to do this little project because I was in need of hangers and refused to buy more. As you can see, I didn't need more hangers, just to organize the closet!

All of Emmy's little dresses before being taken off the hangers!

And what was Emma doing while I was cleaning out the closet? Practicing standing up in our crib. She loves to do this and it is super funny to watch her dance away when I put her IPod on.

Oh, and she also got hungry while I was finishing up so I gave her a bottle and hoped she would figure out how to feed herself. And she did!!! Yeah!!!

First, resting on a book.

Now she got it...using the handles!!!

Emma Pulling Up

Well Bradley lowered Emma's bed tonight...we have also removed her mobile!

Also, my Christmas cards were waiting for me when I got home today! So excited...be on the lookout!

Thanksgiving

So I actually didn't get any pictures on Thanksgiving day. Everything was so busy I didn't even have time to grab my camera. Between eating and cheering on my fantasy football players there was just no time for pictures! We spent the day with Bradley's family and had a great time. We were suppose to go to Arkansas to see my grandmother but she got sick so she really wasn't up for visitors. So, instead of going to Arkansas we spent Friday with my mom doing what millions of other people did on Friday-shopping. I have never been shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, but it actually wasn't that bad! We got some pretty good deals (all toys at Kohls 50% off) and even got our picture with Santa.

Someone's peeking out of her crib...ready to go shopping

We decided to wear our new Christmas dress to do our Christmas shopping

Lunch at Newk's

Taking some time out from shopping to hang with some reindeer