What an imagination

I love seeing Emily play make believe. She just blows me away with what she comes up with sometimes. It is so easy to underestimate what is going on in that head since she is not talking!

On our dining room table, we have some little pine cones that are scented cinnamon flavor. She loves smelling them, so I usually give her a couple to play with. Yesterday, she was pretending they were soap bottles. Pine cones, really?

She would turn them over and pretend she was pouring something out of them, while making a "shhhh" sound...

Then she would rub her hands together...

And wash her face...

So cute!

I'm glad to know the brain is working, even though the mouth is not.

In other news, she has done wonderful while I have been in my photography class. She spent Monday at daycare and was so excited when we got there. I was talking to another lady who was dropping off her daughter and Emily ran up to me to give me a hug -- that's all. Then she wanted back down to play. When I walked in to pick her up, everyone there was upset and she was busy coloring a Christmas tree. It's no surprise to me that she loves arts and crafts, and I love the daycare because they realize what the kids enjoy doing, and they allow them to continue even when that time is over. You should have seen all she made while she was there. I always get the best ideas from them! They said she didn't even cry of get upset once. That is such a change from a couple of months ago!

Today she went to hang out with her best friend, Michael, so she obviously had fun. Tomorrow it is back to daycare, though. I wonder what fun things they have planned...

Multitude Mondays - Week Two

I have so much to be thankful for, as always. I have a journal out on our kitchen counter so I can write down things as they come to mind. It will also be something nice to look back on when I am done with all of this. I will never be done thanking the Lord, but you get what I mean. I was only going to list blessings 21-40 on here because I am nervous that, although it is easy to come up with stuff right now, it will get more difficult when I am around, say, blessing 678. But, these are suppose to be my blessings for week 2, so I guess I will list them all. It will only make me search out more blessings in the future.

21. Cool weather that makes lugging around a little one when pregnant not so horrible.

22. Healthy pregnancies.

23. How happy Emily's pink boots make her.

24. Lazy days when you get to stay in your pajamas.

25. Our comfy new couch that I sink into when I dip into the Word.

26. The amount of sunlight that comes in our house when all the blinds are open.

27. My family's health.

28. Being able to skype with family across the country.

29. Our new laptop computer.

30. Christmas music and Christmas movies.

31. Getting to wear sweatshirts again, even if I am sweating by noon.

32. Pregnancy hormones that make this freezing house slightly more tolerable.

33. How much Emily loves going to the grocery store.

34. The ministry of motherhood.

35. Books that make Emily shake with excitement.

36. Chubby crayons for little hands.

37. Internet access in foreign countries.

38. Hot apple cider.

39. Watching Emily hang her first ornament.

40. Spiritual readings.

41. For the Lord convicting me in so many areas of my life lately.

42. Getting to chat online with Daniel.

43. Neighborhood coffees.

44. Playgrounds and how many there are in our area. (4 within a mile of us. 3 are within a 1/4 of a mile.)

45. A little one singing along to her songs from the backseat.

46. Sitting on the couch while Emily and I each read our own books.

47. Emily running and throwing her arms around me.

48. Watching Emily and Roxy playing and hearing deep belly laughs.

49. A warm, cozy house when it is cold outside. (I love my heater!)

50. Pictures drawn by the talented Emily Grace.

51. Emily moving to the big table to share meals with us.

52. How incredible Daniel is with Emily.

53. How much Sunday refreshes my soul.

54. That Emily can play at the daycare/nursery without any tears now.

55. Learning from women with older children.

56. That Emily is not a "runner..." yet.

57. Nap time when I need to get some things done.

58. Nap time when I need to sleep, as well.

Separation anxiety

Last year for my birthday I got a fancy new camera. I fell in love with this wonderful lady's pictures and aspired to be just like her. I can't figure out for the life of me how to take similar pictures of my family. I have read books, done online tutorials, and played around with every setting on my camera. I finally resolved to just take a class through our local community college. They offer a variety of photography classes through the continuing education program, but they are spaced out at the oddest times of the year and it has taken me a while to find one that I can attend. I am thankful to get this class in before the little one comes, but it will be quite intense. It is this upcoming week, Monday through Friday, from 9am to 1pm.

I have never been without Emily for such a long time before. I have utilized our on-base daycare before, but only for a maximum of three hours. She also has never been to daycare more than once a week, if you don't count me also going to the gym or to my Bible study, but those daycares are located where I am. You can only drop your kids off 3 times a week, if they aren't full-time, so Emily will be going Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 8:30am to 1:30pm. (The other days she is staying with a friend.)

Oh, geez. I am already nervous just thinking about it. Please keep us both in your prayers. I will let you all know how it is going.

I'm sure this will be more difficult for me, but isn't that the way it always goes?

Daddy lessons, part II

Portion Control

Daddies also teach us about portion control. This, for example, is too many goldfish for one little girl to eat.

But it is okay, as long as the Daddy declares your tray as the place where the appetizer for the whole family was placed.

A letter to Daniel

I bet yall are all shocked that I have been posting so much recently. There is a very simple explanation for this... Daniel is out of town.

Actually, he is more than out of town.

He is out of country.

He is on a top secret deployment, which is why I haven't mentioned it until now.

The military has apparently found it beneficial to send 1st Lieutenants with no real deployment experience (unless you count partying at various ports around the world) to do their dirty work.

Sort of.

Truth is, he currently IS deployed. Although I don't know if you would actually classify it as a "deployment" since it is only for around 3 weeks. He could be training out in the field, in-state, for longer than that. He got tasked out to do a really cool trip (or so I think) and I am super excited for him. I'm not giving more details right now because you never know with the military.

Example - My friend Sarah took her son to get his first haircut on-base, and they sat the little guy in a chair next to his father. She said it was so adorable because they were both sitting there with capes on getting their hair cut. She pulled out her camera and they freaked out. Apparently, taking a picture would violate some kind of military safety regulation and they would confiscate her camera if she took a picture. Seriously??? She was bummed, as you can imagine. Like I said... you never know with the military.

All I say right now is that he had a long layover in Germany, where they had a chance to get out in town and grab some food. The group he was with all ordered a beer because, apparently, everyone else was drinking one in the restaurant at 9:30am, as well.

I have really gotten to talk to him quite a bit, so far. We usually chat online (oh, technology, how I love thee) when I get up and before I go to bed, due to the time difference. Although, currently, our chatting program is not opening for me, so I am going to write him an email... on here. Sorry.


Dan,

So, I could access every website tonight except gmail, so looks like I won't get to talk to you before I hit the hay. Sorry about that one. Probably is for the best, though, because I am beat after today. Emily's 18 month appointment went well. I will tell you all about it later. My appointment is tomorrow, and I am eager to see how much I have gained. Surely not eating Mexican food like I did in Texas will help me some. I love you and hope to talk to you soon. Call me in the morning (my time) if you can. It has to be between 8 and 9, though, because my Ob appointment is at 9:20.

Liz

ps - Emily actually sorted those spider shapes tonight. I didn't even ask her to. I thought it was a fluke, at first, but she kept doing it. Aren't you way impressed???

Digital cameras are killing me

If someone wanted to do my family a favor, they would buy me a 35mm camera for Christmas. Otherwise, my children will grow up with no pictures of their childhood. Digital cameras are a great invention, and I love how much my camera holds, don't get me wrong. But that is exactly the problem. My camera holds too much. And, if it runs out of room, I just move pictures on to my computer. Where they sit. And sit. And sit. I even have a folder on my computer entitled "to print". Maybe I need to change the name to "the best of" so in 20 years, my children know where to look for all the good pictures.

I'm notorious for having empty picture frames in our house. The pictures are either outdated, or they house some other family. We moved into our new house in June, but it took me forever to decorate. I'm slightly (okay, a little more than slightly) OCD, so everything has to be perfect. Just the thought of hanging stuff on the wall gave me an anxiety attack. I finally decided to host the weekly neighborhood coffee at the end of September, in hopes that it would encourage me to finish decorating the house. I had picture frames that had been waiting to be put into a collage on the wall, and thanks to the coffee, they finally got there. Only problem, when people arrived, half of the frames still had the commercial family print inside from when you buy it. The other half had pretty backgrounds from a grouping I did in our old kitchen. HOW EMBARRASSING!!! A couple of weeks later, we hosted an Aggie game and I filled the frames with the commercial prints with maroon paper. Somehow, in my head, this made things better. There they have sat.

Well, I'm hosting the neighborhood coffee again tomorrow. Not only are the picture frames still without actual family pictures, but I just spent the last hour trying to find a picture to put in a new blank frame that sits on our entry table. I wanted a family picture, but all I could find was a picture of me and Daniel from before we got married (we look like babies) or a horrible picture of me and Emily. Either way, there is no good picture to put in the frame.

Maybe I will host the coffee again in January and finally get some recent pictures up. It's all about baby steps, right?

In the meantime, I leave you with a picture tour of the pictures that do grace our walls. Keep in mind, the only reason these pictures got selected is because they are some of the only ones I had actually printed off. And we actually have some more recent ones in our bedroom, but nobody sees those. The following is what people do see.

First, the wall collage...

This next picture of from our ski trip December of 2006. We had just gotten engaged... how young and naive we were! This picture actually looks good up right now, it being Christmas and all. Only problem... this picture stays up all year long.

Here is a family picture from the pre-wedding crawfish boil Lucas (Dan's best man) threw for us.

And here is another picture from the crawfish boil. I obviously was on top of things to print out two pictures from the same party. I'm impressed, aren't you? This one is of my group of friends. Sorry, no Dan in this one.

The following picture is the only picture we have up of Emily. She was only 2 weeks old. No older picture of her exists printed off. Sad, I know.

And that is it. Out of the 14 picture frames we have in our living room and kitchen, only 4 have actual pictures.

The first step is always admittance...

Child labor

Children amaze me. You don't think you are teaching them anything by your day-to-day activities, but they are picking up on so much. Last night, while I was cooking, Emily took it upon herself to set the table. She got the timing right, but the placement was a little off.

I'm glad to know that chores can start earlier than I first thought.