This year, I got to spend Christmas with Daddy's side of the family. We had tons of fun and I got see lots of different relatives.
We started our festivities with a trip to Middleport, Ohio to visit my great grandma and great grandpa. While we were there we got to see Aunt Carol and Uncle Eric too. Here we are at the bed and breakfast on the morning we got ready to go back to Virginia.
When we got back home to Centreville, we spent some time relaxing and resting up for the big day. Grandma read to me a bunch. She was a lot happier about reading Busy Fingers to me than Daddy usually is. I guess that's why it's nice to have a Grandma, she'll say, "Yes" when Daddy says, "No". Thanks Grandma!
I also liked getting to play with two puppies, but there were a lot of "lickers" that I had to watch out for.
One night I helped Grandpa light the candles on the menorah.
Finally it was Christmas morning! I had been waiting and waiting to find out what we were going to do with all those presents. Every time I went over to look at them Mommy would say, "No, no, Emma. No touch."
Here I am, waiting at the top of the stairs to go down and start having some fun! It turns out there was something special waiting for me under the tree, did you see what it was? Watch this video to see what it was!
Pretty neat, huh? All I need now is a tip jar and some requests! Oh, and maybe some piano lessons...
Then it was time to start opening presents from my stocking.
Look at all this great stuff that was in there!
Santa also brought some books for me and Daddy to read together.
Uncle Ben was a big help when it came to opening some of my presents. I just sat back and let him do the work. It was like getting another gift.
Grandma liked the presents I gave her.
Grandpa made a nice place to relax and take a break. It was hard work opening all those presents. It ended up taking me a few days to get through everything. I didn't really like it when Mommy and Daddy tried to take away the stuff I had just opened before I had a chance to really play with it and check it out.
Later in the day all my Eiden cousins came over for dinner. Daddy made a standing rib roast that was delicious and Mommy made a really yummy chocolate raspberry torte for dessert... or so I hear. I didn't get to taste the dessert.
Richie and I played with some of my new toys. He liked the piano too.
I told him this was a pretty easy-going crowd, but he should ask for the tips up front before he starts taking their requests.
Later on, he showed off, doing some fancy tricks on the pony.
It was a great holiday and I really enjoyed getting see all my family! I hope I get to see everybody again soon!
Last weekend, Emma had her first visit with Santa. We went with her friend Alex and her parents to see him. We got there early and had to wait a little bit for Santa to arrive. There was plenty to look at though, and Emma was especially interested in this Christmas tree.
When it was finally our turn to take a picture withe Santa, Emma wasn't too sure about him. So Mommy and Daddy got into the sleigh too.
On second thought, she was sure. She was sure that she did not like him at all.
Afterwards, we went into the adjacent Christmas shop and took a few more pictures with the girls.
Emma showed Alex how much fun it is to play the piano.
The day after Thanksgiving, Emma decided she was ready to really walk on her own and took a couple of short trips that were five or six feet long. Then she decided that wasn't enough and started traveling the length of the whole room and then the house. It was also about that time that she decided it was lots of fun to climb on things. She's been a fan of climbing all over Mommy and Daddy for a while now, but now anything is fair game. She particularly likes climbing onto an ottoman and then up onto the couch, into her little rocking chair, up the stairs, and anything really. (She'd love to try going down the steps, if only Mommy would let her!) She has also attempted the heart stopping feat of standing up in her high chair when Mommy wasn't looking and is now required to wear safety harnesses at all times while seat more than a foot off the ground.
And without further ado, here she is speeding down the hallway at home...
And here she is climbing in and out of her little rocking chair. (This chair was a gift from her great-grandmother Hastings who received it as a Christmas present herself as a little girl in 1930.)
Here are a couple of quick videos of Emma having fun. If the video seems a little choppy, hit pause and wait a few moments for the little red and gray bar at the bottom of the video to fill up a little bit before hitting play again.
In this video, she is boogieing to the beat with her little radio. She's not a fan of the country music track and whenever it comes on , she keeps pushing the yellow button to try and get a better song to play. She got a little distracted in the middle of this video when one of the cats walked by, but this has become one of her favorite toys lately and she'll keep hitting that yellow button to listen to music for quite a while.
She's really started enjoying peekaboo lately and here she is all her cuteness.
This year, I decided to dress as a fairy. I think it works really well since I'm super cute and I look great in a tutu, wouldn't you agree?
Since we weren't expecting any trick or treaters to come to our house (it's too far from the road), we decided to go visit my friend Alex at her house for Halloween.
Here she is in her monkey suit! She likes to bang stuff together, so those cymbals were just perfect for her.
Here we are together in our costumes. And do you know what else was fun to bang together and play with? These glowing wands that Mommy got us!
It was tough work being a fairy, I had a lot of magical responsibilities to attend to. There was so much to do that I had to borrow Mommy's phone to keep track of it all.
All right everybody, I've gotta fly, but I'll see you all soon!
You can click here to see some more Halloween photos of Emma.
Last weekend we went to Cox Farms to see their fall festival. Mommy had heard about it from a few different people and we decided that we wanted to go see it for ourselves.
When we parked, the first thing I could see was King Kong climbing the tower.
Once we went inside we went to one of the play areas to meet up with my friend Alex. She was already there, hanging out with another buddy of hers.
This corn was a lot of fun to play in. I liked to pick up big handfuls and sprinkle it around.
The next thing we went to do was got get a snack.
Oh, hey! I know these things!
These are called apples!
I don't usually eat them like this though, I usually take mine in the sauce form...
Yeah, I think I'll stick to sauce for a while.
They have lots of slides at Cox Farms. We started out with this little one and Daddy helped me try it out.
That first one wasn't quite big enough, so Daddy took me on this one.
It was fun!
I liked it so much that I asked to go on this one.
This time Mommy took me for a ride.
Check me out on the tractor, wearing my overalls. I'm a regular farm girl!
We saw some cows while we were there too! I'm really good at mooing too, did you know that?
Then we got in line to wait for a tractor ride.
It was a really big one that would take us all for ride in some wagons with hay in them.
Here we are together!
I liked playing with the hay.
Me and Mommy, having a good time!
Before we left, I got to pick out a pumpkin.
And of course, Mommy made me pose for more pictures.
We had a good time and great fall adventure!
Click here if you want to see more pictures from my day at the farm.
