The limits of amazing

She might be amazing, but Emmy Ruth has to get into her own bed. Now that she is old enough to push me over so that she can get more pillow room, it's time.

Last night

Last night when we got home from work and the sitter's, Emmy was exhausted and I thought we might nap, but she was not about to have anything to do with a nap, so I just took one for the both of us. However, a one hour nap pretty much does me in for the rest of the evening so absolutlely nothing got accomplished. When it was time for bed, around 8:30, Emmy was way too interested in pulling the chain to turn the light on and off. I could feel myself getting more and more frustrated as I was trying to read to her for the night and she insisted on standing on the bed, I just knew that she would tumble over the footboard. I turned all the lights out and tried to get her to lie down with me and was having little luck. When Emmy is really tired, she plays with her hair and she finally kind of settled down curling her hair for a few minutes. Still fidgeting (I am almost positive that Momma told me that I was very fidgety kid to get to sleep), she raised up and leaned over and kissed me on the cheek then went back to her sleepy position.
How could I have been so irritated with her?? She is just amazing. I love Emmy Ruth for all of the wonderful things she is showing me every day.

Lazy Days

Not a great picture at all but this is pretty much all we did yesterday. It was quite lovely. I was afraid to get up and get the good camera and wake the sleeping crew. Emmy asleep on a sleeping Dadoo and Rudy and Bill asleep on the floor. (Emmy has a lovely habit of getting in the drawers and pulling out everything--this time she got in the drawer where I keep her old bottles.)

BBQ and Fun Stuff

We had the Jacksons (both sets: Neall, Becca & Sol and Daddy & Linda) and the Salinases. It was really fun and of course the kids were the entertainment of the event.

They are all almost the same size!Kids...Is there anybody better than Uncle Neallio?Trying to give Sol kisses....

The little musicians....

She loves her Spiderman!

It never fails-as soon as Lucas walks in, he goes directly to the Care Bears scooter. It drives Tara S. crazy!
Lucas and Emmy were little beggers to Becca and Solomon eating at the table.Emmy and Sol really have so many little characteristics in common. It's adorable.

Happy Birthday, Neallio!

I can't believe Neall and his friends are turning 30 this year. Wow. Last weekend, they had a wonderful party to celebrate and Emmy Ruth and I attended for a while. Still getting used to the new camera so I didn't get many good pictures but here are a few from the event. So much fun!

Go, Speedracer, Go!

I can't find the words to accompany these pictures and truly say how much she loves her green VW bug or her daddy, not necessarily in that order.

MINE!!!!!!!!

If I heard that sweet girl say that one time, I heard her say it a thousand times last night. I could have screamed! I called Missy to ask if she had been saying it with her as well and she said no, but she had been taking toys. NO! I want my sweet little doll back--not a brut! I see visions of me being such a little snot as a kid and I don't want her to be like that. Be sweet, Emmy, be sweet! I see lots of time-outs in my future...


Yesterday, I got a new lens for my camera so lots of new pictures should be on the way. Very exciting!

Momma would have loved that

So often people mention that Momma would have loved seeing Emmy and Solomon. And so often, I tear up when they say it. I always hate that I do that because I know it makes people uncomfortable with me crying in front of them and I am afraid that they will stop saying those things. But, I so hope that they don't: when they say things, it means that they remember Momma and She Would Have Loved This.

Emmy has started potty training. I am not sure how well it's going to go, or how quickly, but it's a start. She has a potty in the bathroom and another in the living room because I heard that you should keep one out so that kids are comfortable with it. So this morning, I got up and was just picking up things here and there and saw what I thought was the insert to the potty seat. No little collection insert missing on either potty and it dawned on me that it was the bowl that goes to the orange juicer. Nice.

Other pictures from our fun weekend. We went to Incredible Pizza with my office and had a big time and then as always, the monsters had a great time playing Sunday after church.

We put both kids in the crib thinking that they MIGHT take a nap as they were both exhausted. And as we all know, they didn't. They are really much too smart for us.I love that Solomon has started crinkling up his little nose like that. Stinking adorable.

Seventeen months

And here we are again, already another month gone by with the sweetest girl. She does the funniest thing ever--when you ask her where her belly is, she tickles her tummy and in that tiny voice says "tickle, tickle, tickle". John and I crack up every time she does it.
Last week, John and I both got really sad for a minute when I mentioned that funny little laugh she had when she was a baby. I got so sad that we will never hear that again. But, then, she came and tickled me so I couldn't help but laugh at this latest thing.

Every day she seems to get taller and thinner and that hair gets a little longer and curlier. Emmy still takes every bow out of her hair moments after I put it in there!Everything is "ooohh" and "aaaah". No matter how many times she has seen it. And "oww". If it's hot, she says "oww", if she is hungry, she says "oww", I told her the story of the Little Boy that Cried Wolf but it hasn't really sunk in yet. My favorite thing Emmy does is when I pick her up at the baby sitter's. There is a sliding door as I go in to the playroom but it's tinted so she can see me coming but I can't see her. As I open the door, she comes running to me and screaming with delight. If only everyone was so happy to see me! I only hope that she keeps being this happy to see me for a long, long time!

The Zoo!

On Independence Day, Emmy and I went to the zoo with Neall, Becca and Sol, Mr. Stephen and Mrs. Debbie, Laura Ruth and a friend. It was really fun to spend time with them and Emmy always enjoys the zoo.

Of course, we had to get the picture of Emmy and the Buddha.

You can click here to see other pictures with the Buddha.

We caught the seal show...
Solomon slept through most of it...
And I had to have this one of Emmy eating grapes--check out the hair, sticking straight up on top! The Doctors Jackson are such the Renaissance family. Emmy is eating grapes that grew in their yard. At our house, we are thrilled the ivy weeds have finally grown over the trellis. And they have grapes to feed the little children.

A Coke and a Smile

Of all the wonderful things I can tell you about Momma, a cook she was not. She loved her sodas and we loved ours as kids. I can remember getting up in the mornings to a can of coke sitting on the kitchen table for us. Momma had to have her Diet Coke within moments of her eyelids popping open, or there was going to be hell to pay.

I say this only to say that after being an avid Coke drinking for thirty plus years, I have been caffeine free for approximately thirty hours.

I would just about cut off my right pinky toe for a Cherry Vanilla Coke from Sonic right now.

What can I get 'ya?

Always the hostess, Emmy entertained Lucas in her playhouse last night and then gave him a quick push around the back yard.

Here is a picture of the house in all it's glory. We are waiting until we mow the yard (this week, I promise!) before we stake it down and get it in it's permanent position.

A house she can call her own...

Emmy got a fabulous new playhouse a few weeks ago from her Papa Richie but we haven't quite had the time to put it together yet. I begged and bribed and finally got John's friend Victor to assemble it for us (he's a carpenter by trade). Emmy is such a lucky girl. I don't have pictures of her playing in the finsihed product yet, since it was dark by the time it was complete last night.

Here she is supervising the work...Peeking in on Uncle Vic to make sure he knows whose house this really is...

After the walls were up, I decided to take a picture of all the pieces that were left after John organized them...Apparently it is really exhausting to be the foregirl of such a massive construction project so Emmy took a dip in the pool while it was filling with water.

The End.

After the debacle with the moving truck on Saturday, I took off yesterday so that John and I could get the furniture. At one point, John looked at me and said, "really, Tara, can I just go back to work? This vacation sucks!" All in all, yesterday went well. My husband is an absolute saint (I will remind myself to reread this the next time he is getting on my nerves) for being so good to me. I also think he is quite the HeMan since he moved that piano practically by himself. He lifted the end and I would push but the bulk of the work was all him. Very impressive. I took Emmy to MiMi's this morning even though he was home so that he can stay in bed and recover today.

The recliner is perfect in it's new spot, the patio furniture is getting a new patio this weekend, and the piano is trying to find where it will live. We had planned to put it in Emmy's room but of course, it was just a hair too big to fit down the hallway. Now, it is in the dining room and the china cabinet is in the middle of the room. I will figure that out tonight.

But, this makes it so worthwhile. The picture is awful, I took it with my phone, but Emmy immediately starting playing the piano when she got home last night. It was pretty adorable.

Waste not, Want not

I am not sure why I kept these, of all the Home Interior items that we had at home, but for some reason I did. Before Emmy arrived, I painted this flower on the wall in her room with a 'ruler' on the stem to keep up with how tall she is getting. A few weeks ago, I took these bronzed butterflies that hung with pride at 309 Crabb Lane (I drew a box around them in the older picture so that they would be easy to recognize!) and spraypainted them silver and added them to Emmy's flower. It makes me giggle every time I see them.

The Day That Was Today

The plan for today was to get the furniture from Momma and Daddy's house that I was bringing back to Wynne. What a day that was going to be. I planned it all in advance, with the schedule to be John, his friend Victor, Emmy and I driving to Wynne to get the UHaul. Victor and John would drive it back to Memphis and Emmy and I would come back in our car. At 445 yesterday afternoon, UHaul called to tell me that there was no Uhaul available in Wynne and the closest was in Newport. I think that had I just said "okay" that would have been the end of it. I just kind of stayed on the phone, waiting for a better solution. Finally, we decided that I would pick up a vehicle here in Memphis and drive it roundtrip. Because I would have to pay for gas and mileage for a roundtrip instead of one way, I was going to get a $100 discount.

We have been participating in the Angel Food Ministries (which I highly recommend, by the way) and I neeeded to pick up our food at 11. Because of the change in scheduling, I asked my friend Theresa to keep Emmy for me for a couple of hours so that we could go to Wynne and back. I dropped Emmy off at her house and went to pick up the Angel Food. But, there was a delay with the truck and they said the pickup time was between 130 and 230 now. Still not deterred, I called my friend Natalie and asked her to pick it up for me; we dropped off the forms at her house, went to get Victor and headed to get the UHaul. I was a little testy at the UHaul place because of the mixups and the manager was very nice and we finally got out of there. The truck was empty so we stopped for gas and Taco Bell and headed on our way.

Approximatley 1.3 miles past West Memphis, the truck died. We knew it was the transmission since, well, we aren't stupid. I called the emergency number and they went through their steps but I was beyond livid. I apologized to the agent, telling her I knew it wasn't her fault, but for the LOVE OF GOD! John called our friends Aaron and Rebecca that live in West Memphis for the major need of the moment: beer. They arrived promptly with water for me and beer for the men. Good friends. After several calls back to the UHaul folks consisting of me saying "how in the {edited} are we getting home???" and them saying "you have to stay with the vehicle", the mechanic arrived an hour and a half later. He agreed that the transmission was shot and that we needed a towtruck: amazing. But, he said that the truck was our responsiblity until it was on the tow truck and that we had to wait. I left with Aaron and Rebecca to get our car in Memphis and John and Victor waited for the towtruck.

But wait... there is more... there was an awful wreck on I40. We left the scene of our issue to get stuck in traffic. It took us an hour and a half to get to an exit TO TURN AROUND to go back to Memphis. The interstate was completley closed and we got back on the service road and ran on to.... John and Victor! After three hours, we decided that we didn't care if the darn truck blew up on itself and they got in with us and came home.

Now, I still have to go get a UHaul (and this should be pretty cheap by now for me since I am getting lots of UHaul VIP points) and get our things. However, what was a pretty crummy day has turned into a pretty good one. I am so thankful for friends like Natalie and Theresa for being there when I needed them. I am thankful for Victor who was willing to help us and then was the comedy that kept us laughing during the entire scene of the side of the interstate today. I am thinking that maybe if our truck hadn't broken down, we might have been in that horrible wreck. I am so thankful for Aaron and Rebecca for refusing to leave us on the side of the interstate and then agreeing to come over for a thank you barbeque with their kids. All of the monsters had a great time in the back yard playing and I just saw them running and thought, "yep, this is where I am supposed to be".

Today might have sucked in the beginning but tonight was pretty darn fabulous.

The ABC's of It All

For a while, I have been really worried about Emmy's vocabulary skills. Everyone tells me I am nuts, but as a mom, you really worry a lot! I have no doubt that she is brilliant and I know that her phsyical skills are amazing for her age. But, she is not talking as much as I feel like she should be talking. Every day, we listen to KidsStuff on Sirius as we do our long drives and I make an effort to point things out to Emmy constantly... see the firestation? see the trees? let's walk to the car... From the day she was born, we have attempted to read at least one book a day. Of course, there are days that we miss, but we make an effort.

Last night, we were reading Dr. Suess's A, B, C's book and Emmy finally had enough. Not once, not twice, but three times, she stuck her fingers in her ears and started shaking her head. I think it was her way of saying "Get off my back Mama! I will talk when I am good and ready!"

The Erosion of the Man Cave

When we got our house, the agreement between me and John was that I could do whatever I wanted in the house but the basement was his and his alone. It was perfect for us, until recently. Now, John's basement is split in half with an adorable playroom on one side. This can't be conducive to the "man cave" feel that is desired when the "man cave" is in design.

I thought this was just something that John was suffering but last night, Emmy and I visited the Salinas family. They have a small building in the back yard that has been Jorge's "man cave" since they moved in their house. Last night, Tara and I watched as Emmy and Lucas played hoops in there, played on the Sit and Spin and kicked out some jams on the keyboard.

Amazingly, neither John nor Jorge seem too upset with the loss of the space to do whatever it is that men like to do without women, but I do feel a little sorry for them.

Finally, someone to help with the windows

Emmy has started the cutest thing to date. She takes any type of aerosal can or spray bottle and makes a "shh-shh" sound with it, like it is spraying. It's pretty adorable. Here she is cleaning the front door for Mama.