HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

We had a lot of fun with Emma this Halloween. This is the first year she got to actually trick-or-treat. She was a riot to take around the neighborhood. At the houses that people weren't home she would turn to me and say,"oh, they're still working". She was so cute marching around the neighborhood in her Tinkerbell costume. She did get kind of timid when taking a piece of candy from people. Mike and I took her to Pack farm to go pick out a pumpkin, This picture was taken outside of the hay bale maze they had there for the kids to run through.

The pumpkin that Dad helped her pick out.

Emma sat down with Dad and drew different faces to pick from and they decided on a snake face.

Cleaning all of the guts out of the pumpkin (which is Emma's favorite part).

The end result!

Emma on the front porch with her pumpkin just before heading out to go trick-or-treating.

A very fun and busy day for us. It was a great Halloween, so fun seeing Emma see what it's all about. She did a great job. She told people thank you for the candy. She was very polite, even when saying trick-or treat

 smell my feet. (which was all taught by Mike)

Missing Mom

For me July 19 is a really hard day. (as I am sure it is for the rest of my family) It's the day the that my Mom passed away. I can't believe how fast 5 years has gone by. There are a lot of extremely hard, sad memories of those last few days, but there are also a lot of beautiful memories that I will never forget. I remember Corinne and I were in the room with her trying to keep her comfortable and Mom telling us about a cooking show that she had watched recently. Those who knew my Mom know that cooking shows were her favorite. I remember Mom being able to talk to Dan and Holly before they got on the plane to fly down. Just thinking about Mom still being able to somewhat carry on a little bit of a conversation with any of us is a total miracle when we were able to see the scans of the damage her stroke had done. Even towards the end of her life Mom was still teaching me. I remember being alone in her room with her just holding her hand, she was hurting pretty bad and the nurse came in to check on her give her some pain medicine and got a cool damp cloth and wiped her face down. Mom turned to the nurse and said "thank you very much, that feels great". I was amazed, Mom was in a lot of pain and she still took the time time thank the nurse for her help. I am so thankful for a Mom who loved me and always took the time to teach me. (even till the end of her life here) I am sad for not having Mom here when I need her, sad for the relationship my Emma would have loved to have with her, but so,so happy for the time I did get to have with her. I love you and miss you Mom!

Mother's Day

I was blessed with the opportunity of having the best Mother. My Mother was a caring, kind, soft-spoken, strong woman. I learned many things from her. I will be forever thankful to her for teaching me how to (and love) cooking, (I'm sure Mike is thankful also) I always told people when I was little I never had to ask for an easy bake oven because Mom helped me use the real one. It was always nice for me growing up that Mom was there when I needed her. I have lovely memories of Mom waiting for me to come home from kindergarten with a bowl of soup and homemade bread for lunch, or when I was supposed to be having a nap and Mom sneaking a just made chocolate she had made for Christmas, I just wanted to say to my Mom thank you, with all of my heart, for being my Mother. I love you and miss you more than words can even express.

I have also had the blessing of having a wonderful Mother-in Law also. Sharilyn is an amazing Mother to my amazing husband Mike. I love her very much. It is nice having her here especially now that my mom is gone. I am so grateful that Emma has such a kind Grandma here for her.

I have to admit Mother's Day is kind of hard for me.It's hard now because my Mother is gone. It was hard when Mike and I were waiting for Emma to be on her way. Those 7 years were pretty hard emotionally. But the first time I saw this:

every tear, every heartache, every injection, procedure,etc was worth it. Emma is truly a little miracle. I am so blessed to be  her Mother. I hope I make my Mother proud.

Happy Easter !!

Happy Easter everybody! Since Emma is growing up so fast (and being in AZ) we decided to start this blog so everyone can see some pictures of Emma growing up and our adventure here. Easter was great. We had lots of fun. Still trying to get used to the warmer weather here. It feels like August to us not April. Easter was fun this year with Emma because now she is at that fun stage where everything is so exciting. We bought Emma the Easter Bunny Is Coming To Town on DVD. She is obsessed with it. Mike and I catch her singing  songs from the show and saying rrrrrrrabbitt like Gadzooks the bear from the show.  I laughed my head off when she was watching it and she got all excited and ran up to me to tell me she saw a big buck. ( is she Mike's daughter or what?) There is a short little scene in the movie where they are in the woods and there is a short little glimpse of a deer with a rack and apparently she knows that must be pretty important.

Here is Emma posing in her new Easter Dress. You should have seen us trying to get her to hold still long enough to get a picture of her like this.

Emma loved all of the little toys that the Easter Bunny brought her. ( Mom and Dad had a blast playing with all of the toys too)

Finding all of the "camo" eggs hidden all over the house.

This was Emma's first time dying Easter eggs. As you can see we had to strip her clothes so we didn't get the dye all over everything. She did very well at being gentle when stirring the eggs around. Totally brought back memories of dying eggs as a kid and Gretel and I taking the leftover dye out to the creek to dye the rocks and make colored water.( I'm sure that was totally environmentally friendly)