Friends

Emily has had A LOT of friend time lately. On Saturday, our neighbor Katelyn came over while her mom had a yard sale. The girls made a huge mess in Emily's room, but had a good time. Emily threw a cloth over Katelyn's face when I told them to hug... Emily thought she was pretty funny. Katelyn's mom brought back our bassinet they borrowed for Aidan and the girls enjoyed sitting in there... too cute.

Then Saturday afternoon we went to Costco with the Boney's and back to their house for some yummy burgers on the grill. Emily and Simon are so good together and let us parents just totally hang out and not have to worry about them killing each other. Emily gives Simon an "over the shoulder eye batting" look and takes off running. He, of course, chases after her - which is the point. This goes on for awhile. I think this "look" worries Andy. Hopefully she will never turn around and start chasing the boys!

Today Kaitlyn from church came over while her mom and dad spent some quality time with her new baby sister in the hospital. It was so cute to hear Kaitlyn call after "Emmy." We got a table from the Boney's and the girls played there the whole time. Emily has been at this table since we got it on Saturday, however I never got a picture of the girls playing there today.

Shortly after Kaitlyn left, 2 other kids from church came over while their mom went to an appt. The little boy is 9 months and was not happy his mom left. I thought Emily would get jealous of me holding him but she was really good. She would walk by and tickle his feet. There was one rough moment where Emily got hurt, so both her and the baby were crying, but Emily was able to pull it together. I felt like I was really able to talk to her and reason with her and she understood I couldn't hold her right then.

Needles to say, Emily and I both took good naps today after everyone left. I don't get to do this very often so it was very nice. And I had already had dinner taken care of, so that made things much easier when we woke up. By the way Tine, the ribs turned out great. So yummy... Andy loved them.

What a week!

What did people do before phones, TVs and the Internet?? I had 2 days without (well, I did have my cell phone) and thought I was going to die. Tuesday afternoon we had a bad thunderstorm. It was pouring down rain, wind, thunder, lightning and hail. The thunder was so loud that Emily would not get off my lap. We did have a nice time just sitting on the couch talking and singing, but she would bury her head in my chest during the thunder. There was one loud crash/crackle of thunder and lightning at the same time. Emily and I both jumped, then a picture and vase fell off a shelf in the kitchen. I have since learned that lightning struck 2 trees in our neighbors yards and then fried all the lines. We never lost power just everything else. It took 2 days to get my internet up and that was after I called Bell South numerous times. Since the internet is vital to my job I was a little impatient. I was also a little impatient with my husband who didn't have his cell phone on that evening as he drove home for work. What if the lightening had hit our house.... what is the value of the cell phone that is always turned off. So frustrating!!!

The drama continued while I was making dinner during the storm. I had planned on hamburgers on the grill for dinner. But the storm forced me to cook them on the Foreman grill. So I had the plate of hamburgers sitting on the stove while the grill was warming up. Meanwhile I started to cook some peas. Since I was distracted by the storm and trying to hold scaredy cat Emily while cooking, I turned on the wrong burner for the peas. Emily and I were enjoying quality time on the couch, when we hear the second crash of the evening. The plate of hamburger patties was sitting on the red hot burner. The burgers were sizzling, the plate cracked into 4 pieces and was on fire. Luckily the flames went out when I moved the plate off the burner. Whew! Talk about a stressful evening.... and I still could not get a hold of my husband.

And then.... yes there is more. However this was the next day. It started to rain again while Emily were driving home from our errands. Unfortunately Emily fell asleep on the way home. So I tried to quickly get the sleeping girl into the house in the pouring rain. I must have missed a step or something and tripped on the front porch. Fortunately I caught myself on my elbows and knees and saved Emily from getting hurt. She just woke up and looked around and then went back to sleep on my shoulder. Unfortunately, I tore a hole in my capris and busted up my knees and elbows. Yes Mother, I was wearing flip flops.... but what else do you wear during the summer??! My next house will have a garage so I don't have to carry a sleeping child in the rain. Oh, but last summer I did slip in my dad's garage... during the rain... wearing flip flops... while I was pregnant. I think I see a trend here.

I am happy to say we are back to an Internet suring, phone chatting and TV watching family today.... and it didn't rain.

Our week at Nana's

We are back from our week at Nana's with all the grandkids. We had such a fun time being together. Nana has a perfect house and yard, so we never felt too cramped with all the people there. Here are some highlights of the week:

Before heading down to Nana's, we had a yummy lunch with Dad and Todd at The Cheesecake Factory. Emily loved that I let her eat all the whip cream off my cheesecake with her fingers.

Once we got to Nana's we learned we had 2 new family members - Fluffy and Lucky, guinea pigs. According to Leah, Nana told her she could get a guinea pig when she came to visit this summer. Leah began reminding Nana of this a few weeks ago and Nana is not one to say "No" to a grandchild. However she did have to tell Nick "No" when he looked up at her with sweet eyes and said, "Nana, can I have a monkey?"

We played dress up.

We played on the playground.

We went to the pool, which was very nice for me because Emily fell asleep in Andy's arms and I got to lay out. Woo Hoo!

We played on the slip and slide.

We went to Lowe's for the Build and Grow activity for kids.

We removed a huge amount of bats that had been living behind Nana's shutter. It was the window outside the bonus room where we were sleeping. Christine wakes me up at 5 am and says "I think there is a mouse in here." She heard a scratching noise. Amazingly even though I am terrified of mice, I figured it wasn't in our room just in the storage space next to the room and ignored it and rolled over and went back to sleep. The next morning Nana and Larry told her that it was probably bats because they have seen bat droppings underneath the window and all the neighbors have bat problems. So later that day Larry climbs out the window and begins to take the shutter off - and I am not kidding bats just start pouring out. Unfortunately no one got a picture because we were all screaming and had our heads down.

We went to the NC Estuariaum.

Went out for ice cream. During the middle of eating ice cream, Nick hands me his cone and says "Hold this Suzie, I need to do my move." He then starts breaking out these crazy dances moves in the middle of the ice cream shop. It was hilarious and supposedly he does this quite often. Emily joined in too, but I didn't get any pictures of them.

And we went through A LOT of milk. Emily is drinking out of a "jug" since all the sippy cups were in the middle of getting cleaned in the dishwasher.

And the sad part of the trip was that we had to take sweet Lucy to the ER. An iron was left on the floor in the dining room -- there is an ironing board in the laundry room, but why someone (cough, Christine) was ironing in the dining room is a mystery. It was unplugged, but still hot and Lucy crawled over to it and burned herself. She had first degree burns on her upper arm and second degree on her pointer finger and thumb. Obvisously she screamed when it happened but after that she was in pretty good spirits. Underneath the bandages there were some pretty nasty blisters that just need to be kept bandaged and clean so as to not get infected. You are a trooper, Lucy!

It was so great that the cousins got to really spend some quality time together and become good buddies. Today Afton and Leah came by with Nana (they are spending an extra week with her by themselves). Emily started shrieking when she saw them and went running with her arms outstretched to hug them. It was too cute. I also enjoyed staying up late with my sisters watching movies and playing games. And the very best part was that Nana was in heaven having us all there in her house. Can't wait for next summer!

Cousin Week

Cousins! Cousins! Cousins! We are down at my mom's house right now visiting with my 2 sisters and their kids. We have 7 kids here... we have an 8 yr old, 7 yr old, 2 3 yr olds, and 3 1 yr olds! It is pretty much a zoo here. But we are loving every minute of it. Emily was a little over dramatic the first few days and would cry when anyone came within 2 feet of her. However she is holding her own these days. The Benner boys have taught her how to wrestle and she is loving it.

Friday morning we made a spur of the moment decision and decided to go get professional pictures made. We had about 2 hours to get ready and go through everyone's clothes and pick out our wardrobe - every family wore a different color. The whole experience was actually very enjoyable. We got there on time, the kids cooperated and we picked out some fabulous pictures. Here is a slideshow of the best picture of each pose we did.

Backyard Neighbors

We have some new backyard neighbors --- geese! I am not very excited about this. We thought it was cute the 1st day when we saw them in the pond. We took Emily out there to feed them, but they didn't show any interest in us. But I guess they took it as a gesture that we liked them. Now they have moved from the pond into my yard. Let me just state here that I am terrifed that these things are going to attack me (or Emily)! For now, I just let Emily stand at the window and yell at them. Other than that we avoid them. Anyone know how to get rid of a flock of geese??!

Happy 4th of July!

Hope everyone has had a great 4th of July. Initally we didn't have much planned, but we were able to find plenty to do. On the 3rd, we met Andy at his branch and had dinner at our favorite BBQ restuarant. Let me just tell you, Emily was eating her fried okra like candy. I had actually made some earlier in the week, so it wasn't completely new to her. She kept asking for more. She also loved her hush puppies, so it looks like we definitely have a Southern girl! Then we rode over to Lake Benson for the NC State Symphony performance and fireworks. Emily had a good time running away from us the whole time. She was testing us out to see how far she could get before we came chasing after her. However the panic set in once the fireworks started. She never actually cried, just whined and said "No! No! No!" initally and buried her head in my chest. However I did catch her watching out of the corner of her eye towards the end.

Then today we went to the NC State Capitol grounds for a 4th of July celebration. They had music, historical demonstrations, crafts and tributes to our veterans and soldiers. It was a very nice way to salute all those that have given so much for our freedom. We are very blessed to be Americans! We also went inside the Capitol building for another muscial performance. This one was in the Senate Chambers and was a more intimate setting. Emily did very good sitting down next to us listening to the music. Then she decided to pull her cell phone from her purse and starting chatting away. This got a good laugh from those sitting around us. Andy just told them she was just like her mother.

Then we walked over to the Museum of Natural History. It was okay, but a little random. The biggest exhibit was about DUCKS. Emily was saying "duck" everytime she saw one, which was like over 500 times. They did have a cute sitting area with lots of books about ducks. And a duck shooting game. Andy had 90%, however I was around 15%, which got a lot of snickers from Andy. The other exhibits were NC sports hall of fame and NC in the military. Overall we have had a wonderful 4th of July celebrating our country's freedom and spending the day as a happy family. Emily was such a well behaved, sweet girl despite us keeping her up late last night and in the heat all day today.

Thanks Aunt Ashley

Yesterday we got a big box from my sister, Ashley. She sent Emily a bunch of clothes and books. The clothes are all hand me downs, which is about all Emily wears, so I am thankful for my generous sisters. And the books she got for just a quarter. What a good deal! The books are word books and Emily immediately loved as soon as she saw them. Thanks Ash! Here is a video of Emily expressing her appreciation and excitement!