Christmas 2008

We celebrated the weekend before Christmas with my brother, Graham and his family. We had a very nice dinner (we used our china for the first time....we've only had it for 4 1/2 years!). Graham wasn't feeling well, so after the kids opened presents they left :(

The Feast

Opening presents

Payton opening his gifts

Playing with her refrigerator barn

Checking out Payton's toys with Aunt Kristy

Like usual, I had to work on Christmas day, but this year we spent the morning at home just the three of us. It was so nice not to have to worry about getting out of the house at a certain time and not have to take 2 cars to go somewhere. Emma got up at her normal time around 8am. We all went down to open presents and check out our stockings. Emma didn't get the whole Santa thing, but she was helpful with opening most of the presents.

Coming down the stairs for presents

Waiting to open presents

Checking out the stocking

Finally! Opening presents

Princess scooter from Aunt Sarah and her kitty from Santa

Emma's new camera

One of Emma's new babies

Chudzick/Brown Pics

My parents wanted an updated picture of our two families together, so we headed over to JC Penney's last weekend to get some taken. Payton did a very good job this year, he was all smiles! Everytime the photographer told him to say "monkeys" he'd yell "elephants", it was so cute! Emma on the other hand wasn't as cooperative. She was stone-faced the whole time. The poor photographer was pulling out every trick in her hat, but nothing would get Emma to smile. We also had pictures of just Emma and Payton. Again, Payton was the perfect little boy, and Emma didn't want to have anything to do with him or the pictures. Oh well, it all makes for a good story :)

Cousin kisses This was the best we could do with the two of them Payton all innocent and Emma crying, the story of the day :) All smiles.....except Emma

This is the closest thing to a smile you're gonna get!

Last year's pictures

Santa=Scary

Andrew took Emma to the holiday party at the Fire Department this past Sunday. I had to work so I couldn't go :( It sounds like they had a really good time though. Good food, presents for all the kids, and Santa. As you can see from the following pictures, I don't think Emma really liked Santa. Andrew held her the whole time and she was still deathly afraid of the man. However she did have a lot of fun playing with all the other kids and was beat when they finally left.

I don't even like how he looks from up here!

Look at that lip!

Emma with a death grip on Daddy

Don't touch me Old Man!

All tuckered out

Emma/Our Family pics

We went to JC Penney to get our annual family picture taken for Christmas cards. We also got individual pictures of Emma at 14 months (at 15 months Emma is 17.5 lbs and 30 inches long). Enjoy!

Last Year's Picture

"Reindeer" and Christmas Trees

The other day I was feeding Emma breakfast and she pointed out the back window and said "ditty" (kitty) and I looked out the window and I was like there's no kitty and then a second later 3 deer came walking into our yard. They hung out for a few minutes in our yard and then headed to the empty lot next to us. It was pretty cool to see 3 deer just waundering through your yard.

Our "rein"deer

The day after Thanksgiving we headed out to cut down our Christmas tree. The area that we usually go to was pretty picked over so we headed to another part of the lot to try to find the perfect tree. Usually it doesn't take us very long to find a tree but this year it took us about 30-45 min! In years past when we get our tree home Andrew always says we should have gotten a bigger tree, not this year. I don't know how big this guy is, but I would guess maybe 11 feet....BIG! We put the lights on the tree on Friday and decorated it on Saturday while Emma was napping. She doesn't seem to be too interested in the tree, which surprised both of us. She hasn't try to attack it or pull anything off, let's just hope this trend continues!

Getting the tree prepped

All decorated

Stockings hung by the chimney with care

Too Cute....

Every night before we head to bed we always check in on Emma and give her one last goodnight kiss. Last night when we went in there this is what we saw.....

Twins! and Potties!

Emma has TWINS!!!

Obviously they're fraternal twins. It's so cute when she carries both of them around. She likes to carry her babies all over the house and tries to put bibs on them. I can't get a really good picture of her because she LOVES playing with camera and gets mad when I won't give it to her :)

The 3 girls!

Emma's not quite ready to start potty training but we are getting her ready in anticipation of it. We bought a couple different potties to see which ones work best for her. We are working on sitting on the potty each day for at least five minutes (clothed), just so she gets familiar with the potty. Here are a couple of pics of Emma getting to "know" her new potty.

The new Throne

Testing things out

Is there anyone in here?

Flower Power

We had a great time taking Emma trick or treating this year. She still didn't get the whole idea of asking for candy or anything, but she did like eating the candy and riding around the neighborhood in the wagon. At first I was going to have her try to walk from house to house but when it took us 10 minutes and 3 falls just to get to our neighbors house, we changed the plan and put her in the wagon. All the neighbors loved her costume and we even got to meet some new people.

Our little Flower GirlStarting the night out with a BIG smile
Checking out the "goods" in the wagon on the way to the next house

Headed home at the end of the night
Oooo, chocolate!....

Tasty....
Man, this is REALLY good....
Oh yea, I'm happy!
One tired girl and her "loot"

Halloween Fest 2008

On Saturday we headed over to the Halloween Fest in Big Rock about 15 minutes from our house. Big Rock is a pretty small town, I think the population sign said 750. Although small they had a very nice Halloween event that they put on, and the best part is it was FREE. Emma is a little young to do most of the activities, but next year she should be a lot more into it. They had 2 haunted houses, lots of games to do and a build your own scarecrow area, plus lots more. Andrew and I had dinner there, just hot dogs and brats (but they were yummy) and we were going to go on a hay ride but the line was pretty long and it was quite cold, so we just headed home. We did get to dress Emma up in her Halloween costume and that was a lot of fun. She didn't seem to mind the head part so much. I did have to put on her winter coat under the costume and I was glad to see that everything still fit. We can't wait to go trick or treating this Friday!