First Trip To The Library

We have several libraries in our town. But we had a brand new one open up right down the street from Emma's daycare and in the area we want to move to once our house sells. It was so nice!! We took Emma to it tonight for their Open House. This was her first trip to a library. She had a blast. She played with some games they had sitting around and then was off to find her some books. 

She got her some pumpkin books and she picked out two dog books. She loves dogs!!!

Today, her school had a trick-or-treat day. They went to school dressed up in their costume and then went around to each room to get some candy. She was seeing what all she got. Scott and I were seeing what all we could eat. :) Tomorrow afternoon they are having a party in her room. I am thankful I have a job that allows me to leave work and still make it to her party! I have the next best thing to being a stay at home mama!! I made goody bags for her classmates. I can't wait to see a group of nine 16-22 month olds party!! :) Tomorrow night we are taking her to Candy Fest at our church. I can't wait to see her get excited about everything there.

It Must Come Natural

She loves her babies and BoBo(the dog)!!! Tonight, she decided it was time for them to go to sleep. She laid them all out and made sure they were all warm by covering them up. I can promise you we never covered her face with blankets!! :) She kept saying "shhhh." Now that she has heard a few time during nap/bedtime. Ha!!!

Then she decided they were all covered up and it was time to take them to bed. I am loving how she is holding that one baby under her arm like a football. We have a lot to work on before we think about letting another baby in our house. :)

But, Scott and I did love watching her motherly instincts kick in. Even at 21 months old, being a mother comes natural. It was confirmed tonight to Scott that Emma is a girly girl! And I LOVE it!!!! :)

Sweet Girl

Emma is such a sweet, loving girl. Yes, she has her "moments," but for the most part, she is super sweet! Her and I decided to watch Toy Story last night. She has never watched a movie and really isn't into cartoons either. It might have to do with us never really putting her in front of the TV as an infant. But, she did watch about twenty minutes of it last night. At the beginning when Woody is broker, she kept saying "uh oh" "uh oh" "uh oh." It was so cute!!!!

She also loves Cali when she is not trying to steal her food. :) Today we went to eat with my mom and then to get some candy for her school trick-or-treat next week and some cookies and goody bag items for her class party next week too. She has a busy week coming up. Then we went to our Sunday School's fall festival. I was too busy eating, socializing, and chasing Emma to remember to take pictures. I think Scott got a few. Emma had a blast in the jumpy house made just for toddlers, eating, playing with the balls, painting her pumpkin, and riding on the hay ride. They even had a TV out there for the guys to watch the GA/FL game. :) Now we are home relaxing!!

Chips/Dip & Cookies

I mean........who doesn't like chips, dip & cookies??!!?? I know this little pumpkin does. We met my mom at Chili's tonight. Scott was off taking pictures of Upward sports. Emma loved eating their skillet queso with their yummy chips. She also loved eating her chicken and mashed potatoes too!! I am so happy this girl will eat just about anything put in front of her. 

She had just put a chip in her mouth. Her eyes look so tired!! She only took her morning nap at school. She is ready to go to only one nap a day. On the weekends, she goes down for a nap after lunch and sleeps for a couple hours. She was so tired at dinner because it had been 6 hours since her nap. She crashed early tonight. But not before some cookies. :)

After her bath time, I cookies some cookies for us. It was the first time I have used the cute candy corn plate. She loved eating her cookies & drinking her milk.

She was realizing that she was about to eat the last cookie and it was time to ask for "more." :)

Play dates & Dinner dates

Emma and I met two of my friends and their girls at the local park/zoo for a play date yesterday. We were just there in June for Father's Day and she was not sure about this playground. Yesterday, she did it all by herself. She even climbed to the top of the big one on her own. She is still not sure about the slide, so I had to climb up and get her. :) But other than that, she had a blast!!

She enjoyed crawling on this swaying bridge. She was not sure about walking over it but she was determined to get across it one way or the other.

 She LOVED this swing!! She sat in this swing while I swung her for probably 10-15 minutes.

Then we all went out to eat. That can be tricky with four girls aged 3 and under!! But we made sure to pick a place that had an outdoor patio area. Yes, I took the knife from her and told her to sit down. :) I promise it was not even sharp!!

 Tonight, Scott and I went on a date since my mom has Emma for the night. We have not been on a date in awhile. We normally go to the movies when my mom has her, but we wanted to do something different. We drove about 45 minutes to Jonah's fish & grits. We had heard awesome things about it and wanted to try it out.

It is such a cute restaurant!! It is Christian based & very family friendly. They are closed on Sundays and do not serve alcohol.

Scott got grilled grouper with mashed potatoes and white cheddar cheese grits. Next time he said he was going to get a double order of grits. They were AMAZING!!!

I got their signature dish, shrimp and grits. It would be an understatement to say it was awesome. It was one of the best meals I have ever tasted. 

Then we shared a slice of peanut butter pie. After we left, we walked around Thomasville's downtown which was so nice. Then we somehow ended up at Verizon (Scott knew what he was doing :)) so we could order him an i-phone 5. 

Mom sent me several pictures of Emma from the night. Here is one of this afternoon when they went to a friends house. She has been taking this doll and wolf everywhere she goes for the past several weeks. Now she has added in a dog that she spotted at my moms house the other day.

Here she is playing with my mom about 5 minutes before she crashed for the night.

We enjoyed our play date yesterday and our date tonight. We will be ready to see Emma bug tomorrow!!

Birthdays & Babies

We celebrated my brother's birthday on Sunday at the beach. My good friend, Kalynn, called me Monday to see if we would want to come over for hotdogs and such for her birthday on Tuesday. This is the second little Big Mama to join the family. I have been blessed with three good girlfriends who have known each other for 16 years. We have always called each other "Big Mama." Emma was the first one born into the group and now we have sweet Iris (Erica's baby). 

Me holding Iris! Yes, that is sweet baby spit-up on my shirt. :)

Here is Emma being silly and Kalynn, the birthday girl. If Emma only knew how much I dislike boogies. :)

Emma loves saying "baby" every time she sees one. She did not last long on the couch because she was too busy exploring Kalynn's house, but we did get a picture of the two soon to be good friends. ;)

Iris (3 months) and Emma (21 months)

 And what is cuter than a sleeping baby?!!!?? I was so glad that I got to love on Iris for a little while Monday night.

Beach Bum

There are a ton of pictures of one little girl on this post! You have been warned!! :) I had a teacher work day on last Thursday, so I was able to give Scott and take Emma to daycare myself. I bought her Chick-fil-A for breakfast. She loves it!! She sat right on down and started eating as soon as we got into her room.

I had Friday off for fall break, so Scott, Emma, my mom, and I left early Friday morning and headed to the beach. October is one of the best times to go to the beach. The water was clear and the weather was awesome. We got there around lunch time, checked into our room, and went out to the beach. Emma loved the beach! It has been a year since we were at the beach. We promised each other on the way down on Friday, that we would go way more often this next spring/summer!!

After she looked at the ocean from the towel, she got up and walked to the water on her own. 

We found a spot that had shallow water with very few small waves. 

She loved walking between the water and the sandy area.

 Scott and I both love the beach so we are excited that she does too!!!

Being silly as she played in the sand. :)

We went out to eat at a local restaurant and it was so good!! She was trying her first piece of laffy taffy in this picture. 

There were a few kids behind us that kept Emma's attention until the food came. I was thankful for those kids. We never know how Emma is going to act when we go out to eat. :)

Here is Scott's food. All fried but so so good! He was wanting a variety of seafood and he got it at this restaurant! We then went to get a few groceries and met up with Brandon and Krista who had just arrived for the weekend.

We slept in on Saturday. Then we went out on the balcony and had breakfast. Emma was eating a doughnut and loved eating the bacon my mom cooked that morning. 

Scott being silly with his powdered doughnut mouth. :)

She is a MESS!!! :) She sat in her chair for awhile Saturday morning on the beach.

She keeps us laughing! So glad we have a beach bum on our hands. :) We love this girl so much!!

Scott's dad, Susan, Ashleigh, Peyton, and Makayli came Saturday late morning to spend the day with us on the beach. We laid out, went into the ocean, ate at Pineapple Willy's for lunch, and went to several pools before they headed back home. Emma loved getting into the ocean with them. We put her into her little float and she was having the best time. My mom has the rest of the pics on her camera. I did not take anymore pictures of the weekend on my phone. :/

Saturday night, we ate at Margaritaville for Brandon's birthday. Then we went to Pier Park to walk around. Emma got to ride the merry-go-round a few times that night. Sunday, we went back to the beach before coming in to freshen up. We went back to Pier Park for lunch (Red Brick Pizza and Five Guys), chocolate (turtles), smoothies, more rides for Emma, and walking around before heading back to the condo to pack up. We headed home around mid-afternoon. We had an awesome time at the beach!!

Genesis 1:9-10- Then God said, "Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear." And that is what happened. God called the dry ground "land" and the waters "seas." And God saw that is was good. (NLT) I am SO glad that God created the seas and saw that it was good!!! :)

Fall Pictures

Back around September 15th, I mentioned we had a mini Fall photo shoot with an awesome girl who has become a friend of ours. Well, we recently got the CD of our pictures. I mentioned then that Emma refused to nap that day but she did AWESOME during the pictures. The day was special because it happened to fall on my birthday. Here are about half of the ones we picked for our CD. Enjoy!! :)

One of my favorites from that day!

She has such a fun personality!!

She gets excited every time she gets to
 ride on her daddy's shoulders!

She can be a daddy's girl one minute and then a mama's girl the next!!! :)

I love this man!!!
He is an awesome husband and daddy to Emma.

I wish I knew what she was thinking! I can imagine her saying, "I'm out of here!!!"

State Fair

We decided to go to the State Fair yesterday. We have not been in years and Scott and I have never gone together. We went with Brandon, Krista, Mom, Jeff, Lillie, and her friend. And of course Emma! :) 

Emma did such a great job yesterday. She loved looking at all of the attractions, rides, people, food, etc.  Her and I rode the slides and she loved them!! I can tell she is going to love riding roller coasters with Scott in the years to come! She finally gave out and napped for a good hour in her stroller. She would lay back and then something would catch her attention so she would sit up. I was just telling myself that she would eventually lap back and fall asleep if she got tired enough. I thought she was just looking around as we were strolling her trying to get her to sleep. I looked around the stroller and this is what I saw. Sweet girl did not want to miss a thing and finally fell asleep sitting up! :)

We had so much fun!! Next year, Emma will be able to ride a lot more. She was right under the minimum height requirements to ride the kiddie rides. We ate too much!!! Scott and I rode the avalanche(or the rainbow) and the super himalayas together. Those are my two favorite fair rides!!!