Our sweet Emma Jane is now 15 months old.
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| helping decorate the tree |
We celebrated big sister turning 4 years old. We continued our tradition of going out for a special birthday dinner. Clara chose Giammarco's (again) since that is her favorite place to eat. Really, she likes the fried dough that they give out as a birthday dessert. We also had a canvas and cupcake party for her with some of her friends. While Emmalyn didn't get to actually paint, she did get to hang out with some of the younger siblings and enjoy a cupcake.
November means the month of giving thanks. We have been continuing the practice of our Thanksgiving Thankfulness tree. We didn't have Emma join this year, but hope she will be able to next year. We had our life group over for Thanksgiving where had our first round of turkey for the season. It was fun having all of the kids hang out since life has gotten busy and we haven't seen each other as much.
November also means gearing up for the Christmas season. Emmalyn has been running errands with mom, helping buy Christmas presents, putting up Christmas decorations, and getting Christmas cards ready. We also went to Clara's school where mom got to be the mystery reader. She read Over The River and Through the Woods since it was right before Thanksgiving.
We traveled to Indiana for the holidays to celebrate Christmas with the Grashorn side of the family. There was lots of cooking and plenty of delicious food to eat. Dad made the turkey and fixings and mom made the cranberry sauce and pies. Emmalyn slept well in the basement with mom, which made everything easier. Emmalyn enjoyed playing with her cousins and they thought she looked like a walking baby doll. We went with the Grashorns to get their family Christmas tree at Butler Tree Farm, and we ended up picking out our tree there as well! Emmalyn spent most of the time in the Ergo, although we did get her out to walk around a bit.
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| christmas kids |
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| our family |
Since Thanksgiving was particularly late this year, we ended up coming home on December 1 in full Christmas mode. It was mom's birthday, so we went out to eat at Marcella's. Everyone was tired and grumpy, but it was nice not to have to cook after getting home from the trip. We had Clara's Christmas program at preschool where Clara sang Behold The Star. Emmalyn sat still for most of it, but mom had to leave early to get Nathaniel from choir practice and took Emmalyn with her.
We are enjoying Emmalyn so much more this Christmas season, since last year we were just exhausted and surviving with a new baby. With our renewed energy, we got to do some more of our favorite Christmas traditions. We had St. Nicholas visit us and bring us art supplies. Emmalyn got some large crayons which we hope she will not eat. We visited Santa at the mall. We had Nathaniel's Christmas concert at church since he was in the children's choir. Emmalyn went to nursery so she didn't get to see him sing.
We also had Emmalyn's 15 month appointment. She is a big girl in the 99% for height and around the upper 80% for weight. She is still all big blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. Her hair can sometimes be seen flipping out on the sides, especially after nap.
Emmalyn is such a doll. Her personality is so charming. She loves to tilt her head to the side and try to hide when someone she doesn't know waves to her. She loves waving to other people, especially her siblings. She loves to kiss things, her baby dolls the most. She loves to climb on things. She uses pillows to get onto the couch and likes to stand on the play table in the toy room. She likes to move her shoulders and wiggle when she dances. She wrinkles her nose and show all of her teeth when she smiles, which looks sort of like she is scared.
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| kissing her doll jenna |
Looking forward to Christmas with our sweet Janey.
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| sweet girl |
-eric & anna
