Thanksgiving and Stuff

Tony and I with the oven bird (and mac and cheese to the right)

The whole gang after the meal
From l to r (back row): me, Embry, Tony, Stefan, Allison, Donny
(front row): Dorothea, my mom (JoAnn), my dad (Don)

We had a very good Thanksgiving this year! Tony's family came down and it was nice to see Stefan since I haven't seen him in quite a while. He also brought along a combined bday present for Tony and me...'Star Trek'! We watched that on Thanksgiving, I was the only one who hadn't seen it yet, it was quite good. :) Tony's family got here around 11:30 on Thanksgiving and helped us get some side dishes ready. Then my parents and brother got here around 1:30 and we ate at 2:15ish. Tony's smoked turkey turned out great and the one in the oven was delicious too. We made bacon green beans (thanks for that recipe Sarah, everyone loves it), fall to your knees mac and cheese (another big hit at about 5000 calories a bite), stuffing with hot sausage, stuffing without sausage, marshmallow sweet potatoes, rosemary roasted butternut squash (another popular dish), and my mom brought over mashed potatoes, for dessert I made apple pie, and cheesecake with an array of toppings. Let's just say we pretty much gorged ourselves on delicious food. It was fantastic!

Tony's mom, sister, brother, and Tony all went to see Vince (Tony's dad). Apparently they only allow 4 visitors for one person at one time, so I stayed home with Embry since she was taking a nap anyhow. They stayed for a long time, like 2.5 hours. It was the first time Stefan had seen his dad since he was incarcerated like 7 years ago. I only got bits and pieces of what they talked about, but turns out that Vince started smoking again. He knows he can't smoke when he moves in here and he said it wouldn't be a problem to stop again when he has to move in with us. He told Tony's mom that he thinks having an occasional drink would be fine. I asked Tony if he said anything to him about that and he said that he didn't say anything because his mom was already yelling at his dad about it. I think it might mean a lot more coming from his child than his ex-wife. They also found out that Vince is eligible for an early home release, meaning he would move in here before his release date in march and wear an ankle monitor to be on house arrest. We tried to go visit him on Saturday night to find out more about this, but apparently when he first got to the halfway house they had him do a urine drug test but only let him have 1 cup of water and a time limit of 2 hours to complete the test. Needless to say he could not complete it under those circumstances, so they put him on a 'restriction' which means he can't have visitors for 2 weeks. He said he'd call us if he found out anything else. The only thing we'd need to do is get a landline phone so they can call anytime and make sure he's at the house.

So then Friday morning Allison and I got up at 4am to hit to stores for black Friday shopping! It was lots of fun and luckily most people were very pleasant. I am totally bummed that they were out of the $35 office chair at Walmart because I need an office chair very badly. We went to Target first where I got a new set of pots and pans, a new coffee pot, a mini crock pot, Wii Sports Resort, and Allison bought some Christmas presents. Then we went to Walmart and I got Christmas/birthday presents and for us 'The Dark Knight' on bluray, 'He's Just not that Into You', 'Hellboy 2', 'The Princess Bride', a cordless drill, and a wratchet set thingy. Then to Toys R Us which pretty much sucked. I only got baby food and my parents bought Embry this pink rocking pony for Christmas which she LOVES! Then we stopped at Best buy where we got a few more presents and 'Wolverine' on bluray. Allison and I got home around 10am. We opened up some of our new stuff and tried out the new Wii game...pretty fun. Some ppl took naps etc and then we watched 'Wolverine' and we waited till Embry went to sleep to use our new fire pit. It was awesome! We roasted hot dogs and then made smores, it was so fun, I'm really glad we got it.

Saturday morning Tony and I made Crepes and Eggs for breakfast, which was delic. Then Tony's family packed up while Tony, Allison, and I played Skip-bo and they left after getting some goodbye kisses from little Embry. She's getting very good at giving out kisses and sometimes she'll even close her mouth!

Embry's vocabulary has really expanded recently. Here are the words that she has said or says regularly:

-duck
-hi
-bye
-die
-poopy
-diapie
-sit
-mouth
-cat
-mama
-dada
-baaa
-meow
-doggie
-is it (meaning 'what is it')
-grandma
-elephant
-mmmm
-aww
-baby
-piggy
-dirty
-uhoh

After Tony's family left on Saturday, I watched Christmas movies with Embry and cleaned up while Tony strung the Christmas lights outside. I have to say it looks pretty good besides the fact that the 3 packs of walkway candle markers I got last year only go halfway down our driveway when they should go all the way to the sidewalk. Last year I thought we had too many multicolored lights going on all over, so this year the tree trunk is still in white lights, then the two big branches are in red lights, and the pillars in front of the front door are in green lights. Then we have the issue of the Christmas tree. I love real trees...being the Christmas Nazi that I am, it would only make sense that I get a real tree. So I had decided that this year I was going to splurge and buy the tallest real tree I could find. Besides the fact that getting it home would be impossible with 2 compact cars I then went to Lowes to look at trees. The tallest they have is 9-10 ft (not very tall in my opinion) and it's $100. Holy freaking cow, that's expensive. I just can't bring myself to waste that much money on a stupid tree. So the options are now either a) buy a $15 park pass and drive a million miles to go chop down our own tree (we also don't know how to use a chainsaw and still have the problem of fitting it on the top of our car) or b) use our same fake tree this year with the promise that after Christmas I can buy the largest fake tree I can find to use for the years to come. Option b would obviously be easier, but I will forever be disappointed that we don't have a real tree. Who knew this could be so complicated?

We weaned Embry from her bottle to her sippy cup. It was way easier than I thought. Now we put her milk in regular sippy cups and water in the straw sippy cups. She's also eating a lot more baby food and regular people food (or as we call it 'human food').

Embry can now point to her nose and ears and your nose and ears. She can also sit down on command. She's a cutie!

In other news I'm hosting a friend's baby shower this weekend and I'm getting excited. I got a bunch of the supplies yesterday and I think it will be lots of fun. In store for this week: prepping and cleaning!

Birthday Par-tay

So it's taken me so long to get this post done because #1 my sister was in town from MT and #2 I was trying to edit some good pictures from the party to post, but I pretty much don't have any good ones. I'm kind of upset about this lack of good pictures from my baby's first birthday party. Basically, I felt really rushed during the party because I didn't want it to take 12 hours and make everyone stand around in the cold because they felt obligated to stay. Soo, that left the picture taking to take a back seat to everything else. Anyhow, I'd say the party was mainly a success besides the picture thing and it being oddly cold that day (like 65, which is darn cold for here). I got everything ready in time, with the help of Tony, his mom, his sis, and my friend Jamie and her bf Matt. Tony got up at midnight the night before to start smoking the 3 pork butts on the grill and let me tell you, it was freaking delicious! We also made german potato salad, deviled eggs, pasta salad, 2 cakes, chip dip, cottage cheese jello salad (aka pink stuff), carameled apples, and my mom brought over her delicious baked beans.

So we ate, then let Embry play with her smash cake. Basically she petted it for a while and wasn't really interested in smashing it so I helped her out and stood her up in it. Then we cleaned her up and put her clothes on and everyone had cake and icecream. Then Embry opened her presents. She got lots of neat stuff, mostly toys, and a few clothing items. She didn't care to actually partake in opening the presents, but I had a good time opening them. :) That was pretty much it! I took her over to the swings afterwards while other people cleaned up (thanks to whoever did that!) and she had a good time swinging. I didn't get any pictures of her in her princess outfit, which makes me very sad. :(

Embry had her 1 year check up on Friday (11/20), here are her stats:
Weight: 20 lbs 1 oz, 50th Percentile
Height: 29.5", about 60th Percentile
Head: 45 cm, 50th Percentile

Luckily while at the dr's office he told us that they happen to have some H1N1 shots in, so Embry got her first dose of that and I got one as well. This was the first time she's gotten shots in her arms so I was supposed to bear hug her while she was facing me and try to keep her arms down. Haha, yeh that didn't work. I ended up just grabbing whichever arm they were poking with both of my hands to hold it still while she screamed and wriggled. She was very upset.

On Saturday Tony was sitting on the couch with her and she accidentally flipped off forward and hit her forehead on the coffee table. Now she's got a purple bruise above her right eye. Then we took her to the nursery at church on Sunday night and they paged me saying that she had fallen down and hit the back of her head but she has like a rug burn above and below her left eye and on the eyelid. It doesn't seem to be bothering her at all, but it looks pretty bad.

Thanksgiving is coming up and we're hosting. Tony's mom, sis, and bro are coming down from Phx and my parents and bro are coming over too. Tony's smoking a turkey on the grill and we're also making one in the oven. Of course we're making a bagillion sides and a couple of desserts too. Somehow I think we're going to have a ton of leftovers. Good thing I LOVE turkey!

1 Year Old!

I don't even know what to say. This year has flown by so quickly! My little baby girl was just entering the world at this time one year ago. Boy, we had no clue what we were in for! Sure there were lots of hard times, I won't lie, but it has been so very worth every moment. I'm sitting here trying to think of words to describe how I feel about my little girly, but it's really impossible to put it into words at all. I love her. I guess that's all that needs to be said.

Embry is going to get a very good birthday present today... she'll be seeing all 4 of her grandparents in the same day! We're going over to my parent's house to eat because my sister is visiting from Montana. Tony's dad was transferred to a halfway house in Tucson yesterday, so we'll be going to visit him at 6:30pm. Then Tony's mom and sister are coming down from Phoenix to spend the night before Embry's party on Sunday.

There's still lots to do for the party. Mainly making the food and finishing the cakes. I got the fondant on the castle cake so it still needs the candy accents and then I need to make Embry's smash cake tomorrow. I guess that means I'll be getting up early, so I should get to bed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMBRY!

Week 51

So I was kinda hoping in the back of my mind to get Embry's scrapbook done in time to display it at her first birthday party, but that's not going to happen seeing as I haven't even started it yet. The farthest I've gotten is making a pile of the pictures I want to put in it and setting it next to my computer so I can go through all my picture files and date the photos so they can be put in chronological order. I haven't even finished my pregnancy scrapbook yet. I think I'm on week 34 of that one. Bleh. It's hard to keep Embry entertained in the office and the bonus is that she opens every single cabinet and drawer and ends up playing with a bunch of pens, markers, notecards, pictures, etc...anything she can get her hands on. I've been super tired lately too, so when she naps I either lounge or take a nap too. Tony seems to think that I'm so tired because I've been getting too much sleep but I keep telling him that I don't think it's possible for someone with lupus to get too much sleep. I've been trying to get to bed shortly after Embry goes to bed (so this means 8pm, I know, I'm a loser) and sleeping till she wakes up around 8:30am. Seeing as before I was pregnant I was sleeping between 14-16 hours a day, this still doesn't qualify as enough sleep.

This brings me to my next point, I'm not sure if I really want another kid. I asked Tony about it, he definitely wants more, but he can't actually give me a reason why. Although I think it's hard to qualify why you want something like another child. Anyhow, if I am this tired with one then how will it be with 2? Bleh, I just don't know. I guess whatever God wants is what's going to happen so I might as well not analyze it to death. There's also the thought that I love Embry so terribly much I don't feel that same sort of longing for another child as I did to have her. Then I guess I'm also scared that the next kid could be a rotten egg, you know, a bad apple. Embry's such a good baby and so much fun, I guess we've been spoiled into thinking all kids are like her, but in reality they're not.

Halloween was pretty great. I had taken back the candy I had bought because I thought we were going to be in Phoenix for trick-or-treating, so I went and bought a bunch before the sun went down. Then we put Embry in her turkey outfit and took her to about 5 houses right around here. She walked the whole way and looked like such a big girl. Of course everyone thought she was a boy, but they don't make turkey outfits with big bows on the top. Then we came back and tried handing out candy from inside the house but everytime I would open the door Embry would quick go outside and then throw a fit when I took her back in. I decided it would be easier to sit outside and strap her into her swing while I handed out candy. I was quite disappointed that some parents and older teens were trick or treating without even bothering to put on costumes. That's just ridiculous! After I ran out of candy about halfway through I rummaged through our snack cabinet and found a big bag of blowpops, so I handed those out along with some individually wrapped mints. I also took a sucker for myself and realized that the gum in the middle was rock hard...woops! Luckily those kids will have no idea who gave them the stale lollipops. :)

Here's a pic of Embry in her turkey costume: