A picture is worth a thousand words...and exponentially so!

It's been soooo long since I've blogged and for good reason - we've moved!  Pure disaster, I tell you.  I won't go through the details (most of you know them - gas leaks, rainy moving days, broken drawer tracks, etc.), so I've decided to capture my life in pictures for this blog post...plus some explanatory captions.

But first.  Emma, the whole reason for this blog in the first place.  She has a bladder infection.  Boo.  But we saw no signs of it at all; it just happened to be caught during some routine urological tests at Shriner's.  She also is paying for her unwillingness to wear her glasses.  Her eyes are turning more, and now her brain is attempting to figure out what correct vision is.  It's basically trying to use one eye at a time more than the other, which in the end will result in a lazy eye.  Her doctor told us she HAD to wear her glasses.  She also has to wear a patch over one eye for 30 minutes a day, alternating eyes and days.  It's like she understood exactly what the doctor was saying...Emma has miraculously been 110% better about wearing her glasses.

Oh, also, let me catch up on last year's blog posts:

September 8, 2010

September 13, 2010

September 16, 2010

September 20, 2010

Now let the fun begin!


Old house being packed up:

 

New house, two days after we moved in.  Yikes.

New house, 8 days after we moved in.  Can't tell much of a difference, can you?  We somehow continue to unpack and get settled, yet the to-do list grows...

How on earth will we ever get settled?  I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel.  But I DO see a happy little girl who is free to crawl wherever she wants in our single story house.  And she's the reason we do it all.

My blessed life

Life is chaotic right now.  I feel like I say that a lot, but I don't want you to think it's a complaint.  More of a statement of fact.  Fact: Emma, Lola, and I were all sick today.  Fact: I packed 6 boxes today.  Fact: I worked from home today.  Fact: I emailed, scanned, signed, received, dropped off, initialed, etc., etc. lease documents, insurance documents, and purchase documents.  Fact: life is chaotic.  And to that point, I just panicked a little because I couldn't find any of my pictures to upload to the blog on this computer.  That's because I'm on my work computer...I can't even remember what computer I'm using.

Here's the proof:  a naked baby talking on the phone, dialing who knows what number...just as long as it's not 911.  I swore I would never be that mom who leaves her child on the floor wearing nothing but a diaper, ESPECIALLY when her fat rolls cover the sides and end up making her look like a little boy with a white wee-wee....she's going to kill me one day for publishing this picture.  But in my defense, I had to derobe her while I vacuumed up the rice cereal that she sprinkled across herself and the carpet...imagine Tinkerbell's fairy dust...well that's what Emma did with 6 tablespoons of rice cereal.  Oh, wait, how could I forget to tell you that Lola thoroughly enjoyed licking up the cereal, which turned into a thick paste in her newly washed and cut (as of yesterday) beard.  Agh, a couple more things: Emma's left eye is turned in because she's not wearing her glasses and absolutely refuses to do so...and the wisk and pot are on the floor because they entertained her while I cleaned up the aforementioned dog and carpet messes.

More proof: this living room is a visual representation of our lives at the moment.  Notice the guilty party on the right trying to escape the scene of the crime.

(PS - Russell, if you read my blog like you say you do, this is what I want for Christmas: a camera strap like Allison has that has a little pocket in which to put the lens cap because I've lost it approximately 37 times today.  I have found it each time, but not easily.  Allison got hers on Etsy.  Get in touch with her or Holly or Magee or someone like that to find a cute pattern.  Thus endeth the does-Russell-read-the-blog test.)

And I love every minute of this chaos.  Ok, well, I could do without cleaning up after a sick dog and child and not feeling 100% myself.  But besides the gory aspects of cleaning up after a sick dog and child, I am so blessed.  You can tell by looking at the enormous number of doctors' appointments for Emma next week that our daughter is not well.  You can tell just by looking at my +20 lbs post-baby weight that things are not perfect...and you can CERTAINLY tell by looking at the pictures above that our house is not perfect.  You can tell by looking at the giant stack of Emma's medical files that these past 2 years have been anything but easy.  But today we are happy.  God loves us, and we love Him.  Our friends and family love us, and we love them.

Ok, I will leave you with a video of Emma doing some of her favorite things: playing with a wipe, pulling the wipe apart, putting things into a pile, dismantling said pile, and answering Mommy's questions in her own language.  This video is also the perfect example of the strange little wave Emma has developed in an effort to unstick things from her hands.  WARNING: this video is 5 minutes long and could be conceived as boring...but not to me (or grandparents, either, probably), as I rejoice in the blessing of every moment of Emma showing us her personality.

Pictures (finally, right?)

Go tigers!

Please, just a taste?  If I smile very sweetly and cut my eyes at you, pretty please?

When it's too hot to play outside, just use the indoor playground: stools and a high chair.

Check out Emma's first tailgate last year!  September 4, 2010

Do you know what I'm talking about?

I cannot cool down.  Ever.  Awake.  A.M.  P.M.  Air conditioning.  Sleeping.  I cannot cool down.  Do you know what I'm talking about?

This is sooooo not a big deal in the grand scheme of Emma's life, but I gotta be honest with you - having a child that must be held (as opposed to her walking on her own volition) makes a sweltering summer downright fiery hot.  Bless her heart, she's hot-natured, too.  She gets out of her carseat and wakes up from naps with damp hair and a sweaty neck.  But it's so darn cute because then her ringlets REALLY curl up.  It's amazing to see how long her hair is when we wash it, but when it dries, it doesn't look any longer than it was 4 months ago because those blonde curls just get tighter and tighter!

Tomorrow we're taking Emma to the Clemson game with us.  She's my excuse to not go into the game.  That's right.  I'm not going into the game.  It's too hot.  I'll be feeling those occasional, itchy sensations of the sweat running down my back enough as it is.  Gross, I know, but you know what I'm talking about.

The rule tomorrow is that whoever is holding Emma sits in front of the fan.  (My father-in-law has a generator that we use to run a fan and the tv/satellite dish; otherwise, I wouldn't subject Emma to this awful heat.)  As a result, I anticipate a more-intense-than-usual battle to hold the Doodlebug.  So if you're going to the Clemson/Troy game tomorrow and want to sit in front of a fan, watch the game on tv, and sit in the shade of a tent AND a shade tree, come visit us at Lot 10 and hold Emma!  We will have plenty of food and drinks, and of course we share.  We're from the South!  You know what I'm talking about.

I hope I get the chance to get some good pictures tomorrow.  Pause, let me go pack the camera...check.  We're bringing Nan and Granddad's Radio Flyer wagon for Emma, which she LOVES.  Some of you may remember that she thoroughly enjoyed her stroller while we were at the beach.  Well, the wagon is even better because she can hold on to the sides and twist her little head all around to take in all the sights, not just what's in front of her.

Ok, enough about the game.  Emma has had a great and mischevious week.  She is branching out in terms of what she's eating and how much adult food she's eating.  My mom had the revelation this week that we might have to start........




ORDERING EMMA HER OWN PLATE!!!!!




How exciting!  Depending on what it is she's eating, Emma (on a good day) is capable of eating a kid's plate. 

We are also getting closer and closer to moving.  The funny thing I just realized is that if you walk into the 2nd floor of our townhome, it looks like we're moving tomorrow.  The first and third floors look exactly the same as a year ago.  That's a product of us spending more time in the den and kitchen; therefore, we pack up what's around us.  I guess we'll have to start hanging out on the other two floors more in order to get packed.  Oh!  Maybe I'll cool down by hanging out on the bottom floor...it's always very cool (sometimes even chilly) down there.  I can't remember what it's like to not be hot.  I have always said that fall and winter are my favorite times of year...it's when you can snuggle up and pack on the clothes and blankets and get cozy.  Summer is the WORST - you constantly sweat.  And you can only take off so much.  I'm so hot that I swear, if anyone lays a hand on me, they will pull back a sweaty nub.  Except Russell of course.  Russell, I love you.  Please continue to love me at my sweatiest. 

Ok, time to catch up on last year's blog posts....here's what was going on with Emma this time last year.  Wow, how things have changed!

September 1, 2010