Happy Firetruck

You know how I mentioned Emerson has just decided to learn words like crazy? He learned "happy!" the other day. It makes me laugh every time he says it. It always sounds like it has an exclamation point too. Then I asked him to do his firetruck siren because he does that every time he sees/hears an emergency vehicle.

Christmas in Columbus

That Santa is a clever guy. He knew we'd be making a trip out to Utah over Christmas and that it's hard to cart everything back in a reasonable amount of suitcases, so he so graciously came early to our house. And he brought some good stuff.

E looking a little nervous/intrigued by the presents, and Ben looking a little mischievous

?

Little E's stocking

They have the same cute tired eyes in this picture. Can you see how they're both a little puffy?

Santa brought E a choo choo! Best present ever. I don't even know how many hours he's already spent driving it around and around.

Mommy made Daddy a cornhole set (with a little help from a friend). Now we finally feel like true Ohioans.

Here is E contentedly playing after church with most of his presents. I think Christmas has been a success so far. :) I also know of some grandparents that may have a few things waiting for this little guy. Can't wait to see you!

Christmas-y Week

I don't know why it cracks me up that Emerson was invited to a friend Christmas party, but it does. Every time I look at this picture with these tiny people peering over the table at their dumb little plates of food I can barely stifle a giggle.


Emerson's best pal Tucker had a Christmas party and invited us over to play. They made the cutest little Christmas cards and had a great time playing in the same area. I would say "together" but I don't think there was much contact between any of them except when they wanted to play with the same toy. Britni (Tucker's mom) made some great food and the moms had a good time chatting. Thanks for having us over!

Making Christmas cards

My child was not compliant and refused to sit sweetly in front of the tree. He started bawling and flinging himself around right before the picture was taken. See how the other kids look kind of embarrassed for him? That's why.

On Friday our ward had their Christmas party and the theme was "A Night in Bethlehem". Ben and I both hate dressing up in costumes, but we were able to scrounge something together for this event because we wanted to be good sports. Emerson was laughing and laughing as we got dressed and even cooperated when we dressed him up in his pack n' play sheet and dish towel because he could see it was obviously the cool thing to do. He got lots of comments at the party and kept his hat on for well over an hour.

The party was very well done. Each family was given a small bag of gold coins and you had to go to each vendor to get a family's portion of food. There were dried fruits, olives, cheese cubes, baklava, hummus, pitas, and nuts. Then there was a short Nativity scene and we sang some Christmas songs to go along with it.

On Saturday night Ben and I headed to The Nutcracker at the Ohio Theatre. It was lots of fun and very well done. Ben didn't even hate it one bit. It was really fun to sit through an event like that and not have to worry about entertaining Emerson. It's so nice to know he's in good hands at our babysitting group. :)

Hat!

Emerson has had an explosion of words lately. He's been picking them up so fast and will surprise us by saying something that we had no clue he could say. He's like a little sponge and absorbs everything we talk about. (Yikes...we'd better be careful.) One morning Ben rescued him from his bed and we were pointing to the firetrucks on Daddy's jammies (yes you read that right--on DADDY'S jammies) and then E pointed to the fireman hats and said "hat!" and patted the top of his head.

The rest of the day he was obsessed with hats and got very creative at breakfast. He had a little bit of bagel with cream cheese left over and put it on top of his sippy cup and then proudly told me "hat!" What an imagination. It makes me smile. Speaking of creative meals, he also has lately enjoyed stacking the crusts from his sandwiches on top of each other and pulling them across his tray while saying "choo choo!" I'm glad I can get a little glimpse into his imagination.

Phew!

Don't you worry, we went back to the zoo with some friends and got a picture with lights in the background! I'm so relieved.

I just love this boy in his little hat with those rosy cheeks

He had a good time chasing the ducks the second time around.

Wildlights at the Zoo

This is probably the lamest post EVER in the history of the world of the Wildlights at the Zoo ever made by a young, LDS, student wife living in Columbus. I don't have any pictures of the dang thing. Not even the obligatory picture in front of the lake with the lights reflecting off the water. The one that people take every year to measure how much their kids have grown? Yeah that one.

But I guess I should attempt to document it anyway.

Emerson was really excited to go bye-bye and meet Daddy at the zoo. I'm not sure how much he understood about where we were going, but he was happy to get out of the house. We braved the rush hour traffic and arrived at the zoo just after 6:00. We called Ben and waited for him to meet us from school...and he was just leaving. So we waited in the car for him, and 45 minutes later he finally arrived and we were excited to go see the lights we'd heard so much about. I'm not sure how many times I sang "The Wheels on the Bus" to Emerson, but it was many. And it's officially his new favorite song.

We bundled him up and went inside, thankful that we have zoo passes (best money spent ever, seriously) and started walking around. I was pretty impressed. The lights weren't as good as Temple Square, but they were pretty dang cool. The little lake was surrounded by lit up trees and they had them flashing on and off to music every 1/2 hour. Emerson thought it was cool and really liked moving his head to the music. We didn't see too many animals, although we did look. We were lucky enough to see Santa's reindeer though.

We were torn about taking E to see Santa at the zoo, and decided to go for it since the line wasn't long. I think we both knew in our hearts that he would hate it, but we got him excited anyway and taught him to say "Santa" in line and "ho ho ho" although he says it "ho uh-oh!". The moment arrived, and we handed him to Santa and he promptly started screaming and crying and saying "Mamamama!" and reaching for me. We just kind of laughed and told him he was ok while they took his picture. Then when it was all over he said "Bye-bye" in his really sad voice while waving like he couldn't wait to get out of there. Of course I forgot my camera and we didn't feel like spending $13 on a picture, so we have no documentation of the traumatic event. Only Emerson's emotional scars will live on to tell the tale.

So we had a good time, and it got us all in a Christmasy mood.

Thankful for Sca and Shash

This year we were again lucky enough to have Scott and Ashley drive out from Hershey, PA to visit us for Thanksgiving. I think they were most excited to see Little E. He is a fun little guy. Plus he really liked them--especially Ashley or "Shash" as he calls her. I think sometimes he gets tired of us, so it's always nice to have a fresh face around who will talk cars with him.

Our lovely Thanksgiving guests

Our little Indian brave.
We made this little headband and a drum at our ward midweek activity. I loved watching him run around (while keeping the headband on, mind you) screaming while patting his hand on his mouth.

After dinner, we were all so full and tired that we just relaxed until we could make enough room for pie. I was quite satisfied with my homemade apple and banana cream pies. Then Ashley and I took a drive over to Best Buy to scope out all the psychos who camp out overnight. And yep, there were people in line in tents at 7:30 pm Thanksgiving evening. We decided we would venture out at 3:30 a.m. the next morning to snag some new dishes for me from JC Penney and then swing by Best Buy just to see if we could grab a computer for Ashley. We got the dishes fine, but after a bitterly un-Christmaslike shaft, we were cheated out of the computer at Best Buy by a Scrooge-like, smug, whiny man. Luckily we did not let this ruin our weekend.

After coming home around 5:30 a.m. we both went to our respective beds and had a heck of a time getting warm again. Poor Scott and Ben didn't know what to do with us. Scott likened Ashley to a turkey before it is cooked. I couldn't stop shivering and poor Ben had to endure ice-feet as I tried again and again to burrow them beneath him. The boys went out at a more reasonable hour and did their little shopping trip, and then we drove to Dayton to go to the Air Force Museum. Emerson liked it a lot this time, and couldn't stop pointing and saying "Dat! Dat! Cars! Cars!" We really liked the Imax movie there as well. As soon as we were done there, we went to Schmidt's to have some good German food.

The nice waitress brought Emerson a pickle and was surprised he'd never had one before. It never occurred to me to give him one...

But after a few shudders, he kept at it...

And loved it.

Scott and Ashley

Sca and Shash

On Saturday the boys went golfing in the morning, and the girls went to New Moon in the afternoon. Then it was the big BYU-Utah game. Benny was outnumbered by Ute fans, especially after Scott and Ashley sent E an adorable little U of U hoodie. There is not too much I can say about the game or Max Hall because I am walking a fine line anyway by even mentioning it. But we had a good time despite the outcome of the game because of this lovely fondue spread and Ashley's yummy jalapeno poppers.

Me and Ash

Thanks Scott and Ashley for making the drive out! We miss you already. Especially E with his E-I-O and "hop! hop! hop!". He just has boring old Mom to play with, and she doesn't talk cars with him as well as Shash does. :)