The Pool

We went for our second trip of the Christmas vacation to the indoor pool at the YMCA.  Emily loves the water, and even though she gets purplish-blue lips and shivers from head to toe, you have to drag her out of the water when it's time to go...

Her Dad even took her on the water slide, which she thought was the best thing ever, 4 times...

(I apologize for the blurry action shots!)

Happy New Year!

Christmas 2011

"Santa is scary.  But he's nice.  He brought me toys."  That's Emily's conclusion about Santa Claus.

A couple Christmases ago, Aaron spent the entire day assembling toys.  He made a rule after that, no assembly required.  I think after yesterday, there will be a new Hughston toy rule.  Nothing over 10 pieces. (As a note, it was us that were major violators!)  We thought the deluxe run marble set and the domino set were fabulous ideas, but the two combined have over 100 new pieces we need to manage to put back after play.

But Emily had a fabulous day.  She woke early, not in the excitement of toys, but just because that is what she does these days.  However, once we got rolling in opening presents, it wasn't long before she caught on that there was really fun stuff inside, and that it was mostly hers.  She would run to the tree to get presents, come back and say "Help me" as she tore through ribbons and paper... then not-so-patiently wait as we cut through tapes and plastic ties and other random packaging to get to the good stuff, but by that point she was off to the tree again.  Somehow in between, we even managed to open a few presents of our own (but Emily opened most of those too.)

Hope everyone had a great day!

watching The Polar Express Christmas Eve

two and a half

Your day usually starts around 6:30, you hardly ever sleep in past 7.  And this week you've been up at 5.

You love oatmeal with brown sugar or cereal for breakfast.  

You really like to go to Pat's for daycare.  Somedays as I am getting ready to leave for work, you are already wanting to put on your coat and shoes to go too, even though Dad doesn't take you for another 2 hours.  You like Pat, but you don't like Seneca.  Seneca bit you.  Twice.  And you tell us everyday "Seneca bite me.  No, Seneca!  Go to time out RIGHT NOW." 

Most mornings you start with stickers or your pink foam building set.  

You aren't always ready to change out of your jam-jams.  If we're in a hurry you get bribed with a vitamin, you love your gummy vitamins. You also like to do it yourself, and most of the time you manage to get everything on backward.  Eventually we get everything straightened out.  In fact, you like to do a lot of things by yourself - getting in and out of a seat or the car, buckling yourself into your carseat, opening things...

You nap for about 2 hours in the afternoon.  You love Rainey, the cat at daycare, and your dog Faryn at home.  You always want to make sure Rainey has her toys, and to Faryn you say, "Doodle want to pet me?"  You give her a kiss every night at bedtime. 

You don't like TV, cartoons, or movies.  You could care less that the TV is on, unless there is a catchy jingle that causes you to pause.  You do like the Mother Goose Club nursery rhyme videos that you'll watch on the computer.  You love the nursery rhymes and sing them many times a day, but I would say your favorites are Wheels on the Bus, Ring Around the Rosie, and Muffin Man.  You also like Farmer in the Dell and are starting to sing some Christmas Carols.  You get parts of the Iowa Fight Song.  This morning you blended the Fight Song with Hush Little Baby.

At lunch you'll choose Mac n Cheese or chicken nuggets and eat lots and lots of fruit cups and applesauce.  You love chocolate, especially Hershey Bars and think that you deserve one with every trip to the grocery store.  Just like you expect a muffin or a cookie with every visit to the coffee shop!

You love your Baby Stella and Minnie Mouse.

  

You carry them around, and have about 5 blankets and 3 loveys that you have suddenly become very attached to.  

You like your tea set and serve us tea at night with salt and pepper and a cupcake.  

When the phone rings, you say "It's Daddy!"  and at dinnertime you race against Faryn to get to the door when he comes home from work.  Right now, you are very much a Daddy's girl.  When you ask for things, and I say I'll do it, you say"No.  Daddy do it."  This morning you told me to move off the couch so that Daddy could sit next to you.  

At dinner, you'll ask Daddy, "How was your night?"  You sound very grown up these days. 

You don't like being stuck in a sunny place.  You say, "Oooh. Sunny!" and are learning to put on your sunglasses.  You like to make a mess, but don't like messy hands.  On the other hand, you hate having your face wiped.  

You're a fan of books.  You like to read Miss Spiders ABC a lot at the moment.  You have memorized a lot of parts from several books.  You like it when I read one out loud and you have your own book to "read", but you actually can recite most of the pages on your own now.

You're wearing 2 T clothes and size 6.5 shoes and size 5 diapers.  You've shown a lot of interest lately in your potty and are starting to hate wet and dirty diapers, but you're a long ways from being potty trained.  But, that's okay.  You're doing great in your toddler bed, well, except for that waking at 5 AM part.  

You really don't like meeting new people.  You're pretty shy.  But then once they're gone, you'll ask for the rest of the day, "Where did ___ go?"  You say the same thing about your favorite people, too.

I would say that blue and purple are your favorite colors at the moment, not that you say you like them, but because whenever we talk about colors, that is your answer.  

You don't like loud.  "It's loud!"  And you cover your ears.  "Scary!"  you say.  But Dad and I also think you like to be scared.  Like how Santa is scary, but you say you want to see him.  Or the Christmas train around the tree is loud, but you always ask for "Choo-choo."
Bedtime is 7:30  It's pretty easy to put you to bed, except that you are always wanting another story.  When I turn out the night, you say "I love you.  See you tomorrow.  Later gator!"

"Get a Haircut, Get a Treat?"

That was our deal this morning - get a haircut, get a treat.  

Here are the before shots:

She's needed a haircut for a very long time... but since she didn't have hair for so long, I was really trying to hold onto what she had for as long as I could, despite the fact that it was a true rat's nest in the morning and always looked like it needed to be brushed.  And that was hair she was born with being cut off.

But here are the after shots -

 Much better.  As for the treat?  She chose a blueberry muffin from the coffee shop.

Then we came home and made playdough animals.

As for the first night in the toddler bed?  Not bad at all.  She woke up crabby from her nap, which is unusual, so it's easy to blame the bed.  Bedtime went fairly smoothly, she sang Emily's greatest hits for awhile before drifting off, but that's normal.  She woke up at 4 AM and needed help locating her bunny lovey, which she has never done before, but in a sea of animals and blankets and dolls, it's easy to see how something could get lost.  Once the lovey was recovered, she went back to sleep and then woke up at 6 AM.  That's normal.  Emily doesn't understand weekends and vacations, yet.

A little less of baby

I ordered a toddler bed months ago and it sat in the box for a long time.  Emily was starting to bounce and climb in her crib, and I was sure she was ready to topple out.  But the bed came, and Emily never did fall out of the crib, and I thought, "What's the rush?"  

Aaron assembled the toddler bed weeks ago.  Emily saw it in the garage and loved it.  She knew it was hers and didn't like the fact that it was stored in the garage.  But she also loved her crib.  Every night she would make sure that it was packed full of blankets and stuffed critters and loveys, and sometimes you wondered how she could sleep crowded with all that stuff.

But, because I have two weeks off for Christmas vacation, it seemed like a good time to sacrifice sleep and make the transition.  The crib that Aaron crafted by hand was taken apart (temporarily stored in pieces in the guest room until we figure out what to do with it) and the toddler bed was moved upstairs.  

Overall, she seemed happy with the change.

She shed a few tears, but I think it came more from me telling her to try it out and her thinking that she had to nap at 10 in the morning.  

I didn't know what to expect at naptime.  But she was sleepy, and it was time.  She read a book

as I quietly listened.  And the next thing I knew...

she was out.

Rocking with Rick

Rick works with Aaron.  Rick and his wife, Cindy, spoil Emily like crazy.  Cindy likes to give Emily bears when we visit them, but the last bear Emily got from them was a bear in a Santa's hat.  Every morning and every night Emily will tell me, "I don't like Cindy's bear."  The bear is hiding out of sight, but Emily still knows it's around somewhere.

But since Cindy is out of town, we had Rick over for dinner.  My parents sent us a very large smoked turkey from Texas, so it was nice to have someone help us eat it.  After dinner, Emily and Rick rocked side by side, reading stories, and watching the Polar Express train circle the Christmas tree.

A Daddy's pride on display above Tamarack Sports' door:

But the best thing about the store is the bubble wrap:

Emily brought home this 12 foot strip yesterday, and running back and forth on it was a source of great entertainment (for Emily, definitely not Faryn's)!

Still trying to get that Christmas card photo!

Yummy

Emily isn't like most kids when it comes to food.  Sure, she likes macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets.  But, she also loves her vegetables. When I asked her what she wanted for breakfast this morning, she was very convinced she needed artichokes.  She got them in a bowl and ate them with a grape fruit leather.  Just for the record, she did have a bowl of cereal about an hour later.

This year's...

ornaments - 

and hand print -

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It's that time of year, and we had a pretty busy day yesterday. 

We had a lot of errands to run in Boise, but our real reason for going was the NICU graduate Christmas party.  We really wanted to see this lil guy, Kean, and his family.  Kean was our neighbor back in the day.

Santa was there, but you won't see Emily sitting on his lap in our Christmas card photo.  Emi thought he was scary, and really didn't like being in the same room with him, let alone even close to him!

Kean's big sisters tried to help make her smile and convince her that Santa wasn't scary, but without success.  Thanks Holland, Greer, and Reese for trying to get Emily to take a picture, for bringing her cookies, and helping us make the craft projects!

Then it was off to run more errands, grab lunch, and wait until dark so that we could go to the light show at the botanical gardens...

Santa was there, again, but she still didn't want any part of it.  She was, however, very excited about the reindeer.

And the model trains that went around -