Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and your family a very wonderful and blessed Christmas!

Christmas countdown

Look at that... Daniel is back home, and I am still blogging. Who would have thought?

We have really enjoyed having Daddy back in our lives. Emily pretty much was attached to his hip all day because I was doing my glucose screening (oh, pregnancy) and running the last bit of our errands. Between unpacking (Daniel got his bags - yea!), washing clothes, packing, returning library books, getting an oil change, and having friends over for dinner, we still managed to fit in some Christmas family fun. I have already mentioned how much Emily is enjoying arts and crafts, so I was really hoping she would be old enough to decorate a gingerbread house this year. Of course, I put it together ahead of time and spread icing all over the roof and let her go to town. She had a blast and covered every inch of the roof with candy. She was so proud of herself. It is so fun to finally start up family traditions!

We leave early tomorrow morning to head to Houston, and we cannot wait! Daniel was getting bothered by everything we have to carry in the airport, which is funny because I am usually carrying twice as much stuff. Then it hit me, he has no clue what I go through when he is not here. I usually have a stroller, a toddler, a dog (we always travel with Roxy), a HUGE diaper bag filled with every necessity, my camera bag, a lunch sack filled with goodies for the day, and our beloved blankie and teddy bear. When you go through security, everything has to go through the xray machine, so I end up carrying a puppy under one arm and a toddler under the other. And then we have to switch planes. Daniel refuses to fly anything but direct, so we only have one flight tomorrow and we are ditching the stroller because of it. I feel like tomorrow will be so easy. I guess you do what you have to do, right? It's something military wives know a lot about. It will be nice to have Daniel with us on this flight, especially since my belly will be taking up most of my personal space in the plane. Plus, we haven't flown with Daniel in over a year and a half, so it will be nice to take a family trip.

Next time I post, we will be in Texas!

Multitude Mondays - Week Four

Well, we got through the last week without Daniel. It has been nice that December flew by so fast, because before we knew it, Daniel was back safely in our home. After taking 4 flights in a little over 24 hours, I'm impressed that he was only 4 hours delayed. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Daniel's bags. They are either in Georgia (the country), Germany, DC, or Charlotte, but they definitely are not at our house. Taking into consideration that he flew three different airlines does not make matters any better. We will just continue to pray that they will get here before we leave Wednesday morning for Texas, as there are Christmas presents inside the bags, as well. If missing bags are the biggest of our problems, then we are doing pretty well. We really have a lot to be thankful for...

87. Fruit smoothies

88. The joy in making Emily laugh

89. Having a busy schedule that makes time fly by when Daniel is gone

90. Stickers -- hours of enjoyment

91. Doing our first of many Christmas art projects

92. Realizing how old Emily is getting while we cuddle on the couch watching the Sound of Music

93. Going to see a living nativity

94. That Daniel is safely back home from Georgia (the country)

95. That Emily knows how to pray now before meals and sometimes reminds me

96. Making new friends

97. Watching Emily be entranced by the Nutcracker

98. Participating in ornament exchanges

99. Becoming more involved and the satisfaction and growth that it brings

100. Getting to be a mommy

101. The feeling of a clean house

102. Going to dinner with good friends

103. Knowing God is always there

104. That Daniel managed to get on the last flight back to Jacksonville last night

105. Finding brilliant ideas on the internet that I would have never come up with

Vacuum pumps

Emily loves corn, so we have been eating a lot of it recently. Tonight, she got the brilliant idea to stick a piece up her nose. She just giggled as she did it, while I ran over to get it out. I had only sat down for 5 seconds until she had put another piece up her nose. This time, it made more sense to jam it way up there. I am now writing this post after sitting in the ER for 4 hours. I guess one ER visit a year isn't too bad, right?

To make matters worse, they wanted to take her rectal temperature. When I went to take off her diaper, I realized it was dirty... and I didn't bring any extras. It sort of reminded me of this situation when I was unprepared, as well. (If you haven't seen these videos, PLEASE go watch them. You will get a good laugh! The second one is my favorite.) They were out of spare baby diapers, but the nurse got me an adult diaper and cut it down to fit Emily. She then handed me a roll of tape to strap it on with. Stuffing was coming out everywhere. It was a disaster, but hey, it worked for the time being.

Apparently, a girl had been in right before us that had a pompom stuck up her nose, so I didn't feel too bad. Everyone on the staff was quite interested in what was going on and assisted in ideas of how to get it out. They started off having me close one nostril and blowing into her mouth like I was giving her CPR. Emily thought it was hilarious, but it didn't budge the corn at all. Then they tried tweezers. The problem was, since it was corn, it was too soft to grab with varying sizes of tweezers. They ended up using a vacuum pump that goes down the trachea of patients on a ventilator. It made the most awful sound, which didn't comfort Emily after they had already stuck 5 different things up her nose. Finally, after a couple of minutes of sucking, it finally came free. The corn kernel was HUGE! It was at least twice the size of her nostril, which was another reason it was so difficult to get out.

At least we are home now. Unfortunately, Emily is sick, and we have an actual doctor's appointment tomorrow morning. She is really going to hate doctors after all of this. Poor thing. I just hope she is old enough to remember this experience, though.

Hours of fun

Being 18 months, Emily's attention span is still very small. I love finding things that keep her preoccupied for quite a long time, and let me tell you, there aren't many things that fit the bill. I have recently discovered how much she enjoys playing with stickers in her high chair.

She pulls them off the side where I line them up.

And she puts them on her paper.

Then she pulls them off her paper and puts them on her tray.

And then puts them back on the paper.

And back on the tray.

And back on the paper.

This goes on until they don't stick anymore, which can be a pretty long time.

I will give you one guess as to what Emily is getting in her stocking this year...

Multitude Mondays - Week Three

Wow, is it really Monday again? I swear I was just doing this a couple of days ago. I guess our December has been really busy, which is good because that means Daniel will be back soon!

59. That this time without Daniel has really flown by!

60. Our friends -- the Boyle's

61. Being financially able to be a stay-at-home mom

62. The wonderful drop-off daycare on base

63. Being able to buy cheap books on Amazon.com since our library doesn't offer Christian books

64. That the Lord is providing for my Bible study group

65. How much fun Emily has at daycare

66. Living in a neighborhood where everyone is our age, going through the same things (military-wise)

67. That Daniel gets to spend this Christmas with us

68. All the new lives that are being created (I have 13 friends who are pregnant or had a baby within the past month)

69. Candy

70. Friends babysitting

71. Emily riding with Michael in his red wagon

72. How much Emily loves arts and crafts

73. Having the means to eat what I am craving

74. Reading with Emily every night after dinner

75. Daniel being able to call home for free

76. Feeling really needed when Emily doesn't feel well

77. Chocolate milk

78. Emily making her first Christmas ornament at daycare

79. The experience I am having my being a military wife

80. That parenting is a challenge that makes us grow

81. Used books at half price

82. That having a child has made Daniel and me mature faster than anything else

83. Not knowing where we will be living in a year

84. The church library

85. How crazy weird my chid is -- just like me

86. How thoughtful Emily's daddy is

Our daughter is so weird.

But we already knew that.

Last night, for the last 30 minutes before bed, she played with all her toys, like she always does, only she had a packet of Italian dressing hanging out of her mouth.

She wasn't doing this for attention or trying to be funny because I was in the kitchen doing the dishes and she was just wandering around minding her own business.

I wish I knew what was going on in that head of hers.

She also loves having pictures taken, but she doesn't understand that you don't have to stand right in front of the lens. But look at that little face!

I hate those bangs, though. Something needs to be done about them. Maybe we should start growing them out?