End of 2011 wrap up post! Finally!!!

Since I have neglected my blog and not kept everyone up to date on Emma Kate happenings, I am going to try to do one post to wrap up 2011.
 
In September, we visited the zoo, had our 2^nd haircut, had our 1^st ear infection and battled over a Halloween costume. Emma Kate is also talking so much more and seems to add words in to her vocabulary every day. She will now say Cooper (our dog’s name) but when she says it, it sounds like pooper. She can say TV, cookie and jacket (but she says “garcus”). When she sees something and does not know what it is, she will say “iz a whaz”. It is really cute!

War Eagle!

Being silly in the kitchen

 In October, Emma Kate fell 2 days in a row at mother’s day out and had a big boo boo on her nose, we went to a pumpkin patch for a day of fun with friends, we battled more over our Halloween costume and we went to the pumpkin patch at the mother’s day out church Emma goes to. The Halloween costume battle consisted of Emma refusing to put the fleece bumble bee costume I had for her. She was not afraid of it she just did not want to put it on. We did not pressure her but just kept giving her the opportunity. We ended up buying another costume (Snow White) and she would try that one on. Once Halloween came, it was cold and I wanted her to wear the bumble bee costume and she did. Emma Kate’s vocabulary continues to grow. She can now say happy, Sylvie (her friend from China) but she says CeCe, glasses, scratch, and tickle. She tries to jump and she is running much more.

Here is the "look" she gives me when she wants something.

2nd Halloween costume

Trying on glasses at Costco....see the boo boo on her nose? Ouch!

Hanging with the pumpkins.

Daddy love!

At the farm in the cow train with mommy

Hayride!

Finally in the bumble bee costume!

Shy little bee

In November, we went to Nashville for an early Thanksgiving celebration with family. Calvin has been traveling more so he went on two business trips this month. During the Thanksgiving holiday, the three of us went to Seaside Florida to relax and enjoy some quiet time. We had to stop at the doctor’s office before leaving town because Emma had another ear infection. While we were in Seaside, we hired a photographer to take some family photos to use for our Christmas cards this year. Emma Kate was not interested in smiling at all for the pictures. The photographer just followed us around with her camera but was not able to get too many good pictures. She ended up not even charging us because there were so few pictures. Emma Kate is now saying some 2 word sentences such as daddy car. She turned 2 on the 28^th. We celebrated quietly at our house with presents and cupcakes. Next year, I want to have a birthday party for her with her friends.

Birthday cupcake!

Card from granny

Opening presents

Playing in the sand.

A swing for Emma at the beach.

This is the play kitchen we gave Emma for her birthday... it took a lot of work to put this thing together but she absolutely loves it.

 In December, we went to see the pediatrician for Emma’s 2 year well care visit. At this visit, she weighs 24.7 pounds and is 33 inches tall. During this month, Emma had another haircut and had bangs cut, we visited Santa, we played more with Cooper, we went to visit our friends Brian, Stephanie and their little girl Sylvie who is also from China. We had a very nice quiet Christmas at home. Emma Kate enjoyed putting cookies and milk out for Santa.

Ready to see Santa

Not impressed with Santa at all!

Watching TV with Cooper

Waiting for daddy to come home.

New haircut with bangs.

Exploring her Christmas stocking that her granny made her!

Visiting with Sylvie.

The girls took a bath together. Emma was ready to get out when I took this pic.

Stephanie with Emma Kate.

Cal and Brian

That’s it for our 2011! It has been a year full of growing and learning for Emma Kate (and for us!) She is turning into a spunky child with a strong personality! For a while, her favorite word was “no!” as is the case with most toddlers. We have used the time out method when she becomes very difficult and are having great success with it. I believe time out is as much for the parents as the child because it gives us a moment to breathe and regroup! Hope everyone had a great year. Not sure I can promise to be great about blogging in 2012 but I hope that I can. I do enjoy it and I love that it keeps everyone up to date with Emma Kate! Love to each of you!

August 2011

August is a busy month for birthday’s so I thought I would give a shout out to everyone who had a birthday this month! I will go in order....Happy Birthday to my dear friend in Houston, Jennifer; Happy Birthday to Calvin’s sister Connie, Happy Birthday to Calvin, Happy Birthday to our puppy dog, Cooper; Happy Birthday to my brother Douglas; Happy Birthday to our niece Katie! Oh, and Happy Anniversary to Douglas and Erica on their wedding anniversary.

So I know I am way behind so I am going to do my best to catch up....one month at a time. For Calvin’s birthday, we went out to eat burger’s and then came home and enjoyed a chocolate peanut butter cake I made. It was pretty yummy! Calvin and Emma Kate seemed to love it.

Emma Kate was at her mother’s day out on day and got several mosquito bites on her face. One was right by her eye. She seemed fine but the next morning her eye was almost swollen shut. It did not seem to bother her but she looked like she had been in the fighting ring with Mike Tyson. It finally occurred to me to give her some allergy medicine and that really helped the redness and swelling.

Emma Kate and I have this ritual at bedtime each night. We do the usual read books, have some milk, snuggle, and then into the crib. Once in the crib, she wants all her animal friends with her in a certain way. If one item is missing or not in the right place she will let me know and she will fuss until it is made right by me! I took a couple of pictures one day at nap time so I could show her when she gets older. It is pretty cute until I forget one of her friends.

We took Emma Kate to her first baseball game this month. It was to see the Gwinnett Braves. We got lawn tickets and enjoyed the game in the sunshine.

Emma Kate’s vocabulary is really growing. She is now saying so many words. Here are some of them: no, this, ball, elbow, shhhhh (with this one, she puts her finger to her mouth as she says it), daddy, mama, and ice.

That is it for August. Here are some pictures from the month.

Calvin's birthday cake

Happy 40th Calvin!

Swollen eye thanks to a mosquito

Goofing around in the kitchen- notice the hat and rain boots.

Playing in the tent from Ikea

Pretty girl!

Bedtime animal routine.....before the blanket

With the blanket and a flower on top!

Baseball game cutie

Happy Birthday Uncle Doug!

Will try to post about September later today.

July 2011.... Finally!

Calvin’s business is going great! We are very thankful for this due to the economy. Last year after we returned from China with Emma Kate, he brought Jaynie on to work with him. She has done great with the business and loves what she is doing! We love Jaynie and it feels like she is a part of our family. She came to Atlanta (she lives in the Mobile area) and trained with Calvin last August. Calvin is always thinking about ways to improve his company and decided he was going to expand his business to reach other markets in the tradeshow industry. Calvin has recently also brought on Erica, our sister in law, as part of the company too. She was excited about getting started and being a part of the growth of his company. Due to the expansion of the business, Calvin decided to bring on one more person to join the team and his name is David. David has jumped right in to be a member of the team also. They all came to Atlanta this month to meet, have some photos taken for the new website in progress and just to spend some time together as a group. Calvin started his business in 1998 and has been a one man show for the majority of the time. He is so excited about his company’s growth. I am very proud of him and the way he has built his company to be something that is flourishing and that people respect. Here is a picture of the crew from their photoshoot.

Back: David, Erica

Front: Jaynie, Calvin

We had our first bout of illness go around the house. We have been very lucky that Emma Kate has only had colds since we have brought her home from China. That luck ended this month when we all took turns with a stomach bug. Thankfully it only hit Emma Kate once but it took Calvin and I on several rounds which was loads of fun. It may actually be my fault because just before that I had mentioned that Emma Kate had not been sick since we brought her home and then BAM (and yuck)! Throwing up did not seem to bother Emma Kate too much but I think she knew something was going to happen. She would come to me and snuggle in and then throw up....on me. Poor baby! We both went through lots of clothes that one day!

Cooper went to the vet to have her teeth cleaned and ended up having 4 teeth removed! She had to get lots of loving and special care until she healed. She eats hard crunchers but she loved having soft food while she recovered.

 Emma Kate and I went to play with my friend Heidi and her little boy Max this month. They have a salt water pool in their neighborhood so we went for a swim,  then ate lunch and then we came home for a nap. Emma Kate was not excited about me holding her in the pool. She only wanted to be in her little floating fish. We just need more opportunities to be in the water but it has been so incredibly hot here this summer.

 

Emma Kate is exerting more of her independence these days. I try to take her picture when she is doing something cute and she either stops doing the “cute thing”, turns away from me, or takes of in the other direction so I can’t get a good picture. I guess this is normal but it is so frustrating!

Emma Kate continued with Mother's Day Out over the summer. She really enjoys going there. One day, there was a little girl in her class wearing a bow in her hair. Emma Kate wanted that bow and wanted to wear it in her hair. The teachers told me about this when I picked her up that day. I have not put bows in her hair much because of the simple fact that she did not have much hair to put one in but ever since that day at Mother's Day Out, she asks for a bow in her hair everyday! And she gets it.

Emma Kate and I discovered this new place to go for some fun. It is called Kangazoom. It is a play place for children. It has different large blown up structures to play on. Some even have slides. There are lots of other toys to play with there too. It is a great place to go when it is hot outside and your toddler has lots of energy. She has a great time there! I will post a video of her below playing with one of the toys.

That’s if for July! Here are some pictures and videos from the month.

Emma Kate loves to put on daddy's shoes

Pretty girl!

Entertaining herself with a book.

 

The bucking bronco....sort of!

@ Kangazoom

Cooper Love

I am so excited that these videos have posted! I have not been able to post videos for a couple of months. I will do another post soon of just some videos.

Love to you all,
Kathy and the gang

June 2011

I don’t know what is going on with posting videos to the blog but I have had a lot of trouble with that. I never could get the videos I wanted to post for last month to upload. I will try those again and see what I have for this month.

Well, another month has passed so quickly! We were busy again in June. We met with our social worker for the last time regarding our adoption. We had to do a 6 month post placement report and another one a 1 year. She will write up our report and send it to me to send off with some pictures. I can’t believe that July will mark us as having Emma Kate as part of our family for a year! WOW! The year has gone by fast! We will talk more about that in the July 2011 post. Let’s get back to June.

 We went to a cousin’s wedding in Gainesville, Florida. We try to do family reunions every couple of years on my dad’s side of the family but that probably won’t happen until next year so we really wanted to go to the wedding and enjoy all the festivities! It was a great way to see everyone and introduce them to Emma Kate. Emma Kate really enjoyed being around everyone! She also danced a little bit at the wedding. She likes to dance and will usually start “dancing” by putting her arms up in the air and twisting her body and she will shake her butt or sway her body to the music. So cute to see!

While we were in Gainesville for the wedding, Calvin’s mom became ill and was put in ICU in Pensacola. She had a stroke and brain bleed. She was not doing well. He went to be with his family while Emma Kate and I stayed in Gainesville. Calvin’s mom seemed fairly stable so he came back home and by that time we were home too. Calvin got a call a few days later that his mother had passed away. We headed back to Alabama to tend to everything and have the funeral. Wow, as much as we prepare ourselves for those phone calls, they always catch us off guard and leave us feeling raw with emotion. We are so sad she is no longer here with us but we are also thankful that she is not suffering. A fear of hers was to be put in the nursing home. She will never have to worry about that! Nell was a wonderful, sweet, loving woman that loved her children and family! She will be truly missed! Here is a picture of her with Emma Kate.

November 11, 1933 - June 17, 2011

Nell, you are missed by us all!



 We had a family vacation planned this month and had a great time. We flew into Buffalo, New York. After we ate some lunch (local favorite- Beef on Weck) we drove to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. It was so pretty there. We spent one night there but really enjoyed the time there. The next day after touring around Niagara Falls, we drove to Toronto. We spent 2 nights there. We stayed in the hotel that is attached to the Toronto Blue Jays stadium. We opted to stay in one of the rooms that overlooked the baseball field (the Blue Jays were on the road at this time). It was really neat to have that view. They had a big event there the night before so they spent the time while we were there; tearing down the stage, etc and then putting the baseball field back together for the next game. It was fascinating to see all of that happen over 3 days. We did lots of walking around Toronto and we also went to the Toronto Zoo. From Toronto, we drove to Montreal. We spent 2 nights in Montreal. Most of you probably know that French is the preferred language in Montreal and we don’t know any French. We went to breakfast at Tim Horton’s (a favorite place of ours that is in Canada) our first full day. We had some difficulty ordering our food and asking for extra items like sweetner and cream for my coffee. We thought that we would have a difficult time there but the rest of the time we did fine not speaking the language. Most people also know English.  We mostly just got out, walked around the city and really enjoyed it. From Montreal, we drove to Syracuse, New York. We spent one night there. We went to see Syracuse University the next day and then headed back to Buffalo. On the way to Buffalo, we stopped in Rochester for lunch. We ate lunch at this place called Dinosaur BBQ. It was really good. The place was kind of a biker bar but family friendly plus the BBQ was wonderful! Once in Buffalo, we just had a nice dinner and got ready for our flight out the next day. Emma Kate is turning out to be a great little traveler! She did well taking her naps and going to bed at night. We just had to be aware of our timing and make sure that she had a nap each day….or else! The days where there were at least several hours of driving, we would set up our portable DVD player and she would watch Kai-Lan, a cartoon about a Chinese girl and her animal friends. Our flight to Buffalo went really well. Emma Kate was very well behaved and there were lots of other children near us. We did our best to keep her busy. The flight home was a bit more stressful. They kept the “fasten seatbelt” sign on for the majority of the flight which meant I was supposed to keep Emma Kate in my lap….yeah, right! She was a bit fussy and very wiggly and there were no other children near us. At one point, I took her to the bathroom with me just to get up and move around. When I looked at myself in the mirror, my face and neck was all red….I thought I was having an allergic reaction to something but then figured out I was just stressed out!  

Here are some pictures from our trip!

Niagara Falls- view from the Canadian side

Emma Kate and Calvin

In front of the falls

Around Niagara Falls- we rode in the skywheel

View from our hotel- Emma Kate hamming it up!

Another view from our hotel- the border- NY and Canada

Up in the skywheel

Toronto Blue Jays Stadium

View from our room- overlooking the baseball field

The field is almost put back together

Emma Kate wanting to take her nap in the big bed

Church in Montreal

Syracuse University

Dinosaur BBQ in Rochester, NY

Well, that is it for June! Sorry it took me so long. Hopefully I will be better about our July post. Hope everyone is doing great and staying cool this summer! It is incredibly hot here in Atlanta.

Signing off until next month!

Kathy