From one giraffe to another

So Emma has this cute little Halloween outfit that has black and orange giraffe print pants.  I've been making sure that she wears the heck out of it because I refuse to waste money on a Halloween outfit that she will only wear a couple times.

That led to a somewhat tacky moment of motherhood.

The world has been watching Autumn, the pregnant Masai giraffe at the Greenville Zoo, for some time now.  When she finally gave birth to Kiko, her baby boy, everybody wanted to go see him.  Including me and my mom.  So off we went.  I met Mom, Dad, and Emma at the zoo and got to see sweet Kiko about 20 minutes before they put him up for the evening.

Guess what Emma was wearing?  Her giraffe print pants.  How embarrassing.  I took my child to see a new baby giraffe wearing giraffe print.  That's like buying an I (heart) NYC t-shirt when you show up at the airport in LaGuardia, put it on in the airport bathroom, and wear it around the city for a week.  Oh, well.  Maybe everyone was so focused on Kiko that they didn't notice our mini-Kiko in her stroller.

It's not even here yet...

...but we've celebrated Halloween on several occasions already.  Emma now knows what to say when you knock on someone's door, and she knows what they give you in return.  She knows how to answer when you ask her what she is for Halloween: "Doroffey."

Here are some sweet shots of Doroffey at a carnival at a friend's house and at a Susan Brewer Photography Halloween session. 

I swear I didn't curl her hair.  This is all natural.

Bowling...where's it gonna go....

It knocked down pins!!!  (I have no idea how many - who cares when you see an ecstatic face like this?)

The stink eye.

 

 

Our goddaughter, Elsie: the cutest racoon on the planet.  Not to mention one of the cutest babies I've ever seen, period.  For reals.

 

 

 

 

Arts and crafts time!

 

More Halloween fun to follow...

Parent-teacher conference

Although I was out of town for the last half of last week for a conference, several things still happened:

(1)  Emma survived.

(2)  Russell survived.

(3)  The house was still in one piece...however, the ability of our house to remain standing is questionable whether I'm in town or not.

(4)  I attended Emma's parent-teacher conference (via speakerphone).

I won't bore you with the details of the conversation, but here are some of the phrases we heard: "We have no concerns about Emma."  "She's so smart!"  "She's so curious!"  "She's so sweet!"

I'm so glad we're not starting out the parent-teacher conferences at the age of 2 hearing, "Well, we have some concerns about Emma's ability to blahblahblah."

On another subject, I've been having that nervous, fluttery, excited feeling in my stomach lately (and it is NOT a baby).  It's because my current week looks like this:

Soooo much to do and almost all of it very, very fun!

I've been buying Christmas presents.  The wheels have been turning as to where I want to shop on Thanksgiving night/Black Friday.  Emma is celebrating Halloween this week first and next week again.  She's been painting pumpkins.  The leaves are falling.  And WE'RE SELLING OUR TOWNHOME!!!  What does that mean?

CASH FOR A RENOVATION!

We are FINALLY going to start adding on to our house - adding on a laundry room, a master bath, a walk-in closet, and a master bedroom.  Ok, so we haven't even called the builder we have in mind yet.  But that's ok, because I have that nervous, fluttery, excited feeling to get me through to the actual renovation event.  I'm sure that after that point, it will be nothing but stress, anxiety, and amazement at how many decisions have to be made.  I will be so happy with the addition for many reasons, one of them being that the sooner we are done with that major undertaking, the sooner that the smaller renovations can take place.

Yet ANOTHER reason to be excited??  I'm holding out hope that XM Radio will begin playing Christmas music on November 1 again, just like they did last year.  Before anyone comments and tells me I can listen to Christmas music year-round on all sorts of internet radio stations, that spoils the anticipatory excitement I get from finally hearing it on XM (I'm essentially paying for that excitement, so I'm not going to ruin it with free Christmas music year-round...then what would happen if I...dare I say it...got tired of Christmas music??!!)  I'm even excited about the first time I hear the Christmas Shoes song and practically break my neck trying to get to the radio to change the station to ANYTHING but that song.

What a blessed life I live.  Yes, we have our struggles and rough days, but we have to try to rise above them and see the blessings that are showered upon us.  I guess sometimes those blessings come in the form of nervous, fluttery, excited feelings.

Let me introduce...

42" tall (from bow to toe) Minnie Mouse.

From a distance, it looked like we had thrown a dead body in our shopping cart. 

 

 

Anyone who has seen Minnie Mouse at our house with their own two eyes can testify:  she is bigger in real life than she looks in these pictures.  And Emma's love for her is bigger than it appears in these pictures.

Another cell phone roundup

It's that time again: time to peruse the cameraphone shots of our precious one:


Ok, so maybe this one isn't so precious...of any of the participants.  Elsie was crying because she wanted her daddy...which made Emma cry for no apparent reason....which made Russell WANT to cry.

This random wreath arrangment is a little class project in Emma's classroom.  All the kids made a little wire decoration that characterized them.  When I say, "all the kids," I mean their moms.  As for me, this means my sister made it.  Emma's is the cutest (obviously).  It's right there in front, with Minnie Mouse at the top.  Her piece of wire is wrapped in pink ribbon and pearls with pink and white strips of sheer ribbon.  There's also a pink hair bow and a tea cup and saucer, plus a cupcake.  Yep.  That's our little girl, in a nut shell.  Or on a wire.

I was trying to catch a good picture of Emma in her Halloween dress when she suddenly burped....no, it was actually a BELCH...and she made this shocked face.  But our mannerly Southern lady followed it up with, "Escoos me!"

 

 

Mommy!  Mommy!  Minn Mouse pwate!

 

 

 

I have a few more pictures to share, but they deserve a blog post of their own.  I will introduce the newest member of our family!

Pumpkin Painting Party!

So the dreaded play date I was talking about a few posts ago...it wasn't terrible!  Thankfully, Emma didn't quite realize she couldn't play on the 2-story jungle gym, drive the Barbie car, or stand up at the painting table.  Instead, another little girl drove Emma in the Barbie car and the sweet mom who hosted us brought Emma a little chair to sit in and paint.

I would love to post some of the pictures of all the kids painting, but I don't want to do that without their moms' permission.  So I'll just show you what I can.

Mrs. Dalhouse (sounds like DOW-house), whose name Emma can pronounce, thank you very much.  (PS - Today she said that she's had a kid call her Mrs. Barbie House.)

Mrs. Miros (pronounced MY-ros) - Emma calls her Mrs. Myhouse, since her other teacher's name is Mrs. Dalhouse.  Hilarious.

 



Emma's masterpiece:

 

 

Now there are two crazy pumpkins at our house!

 

 

 

 

Emma LOVED this piano:

Wheel, Salwee, and Wose

We have some friends at church named Will, Sally, and Rose.  To Emma, they are "Wheel, Salwee, and Wose."  We attended a church picnic together a couple weeks ago, and I snagged a few good pics of our little ones.

 

 

 

Will's first time on a slide.