Emily's Elmo Birthday Extravaganza!

Its been a long day and I am pretty pooped. Today was Emily's first birthday party and it went FABULOUSLY! I'm so thrilled, I could not have imagined it going better. I have heard horror storied about kid's first birthdays being terrible, full of melt downs and tantrums, and I'll admit I was concerned. We had invited about 30 people. My parents flew in from Jersey and some of his family drove for western North Carolina where they live. My friends Mandi, Rae, Steph, Stevie, and Megan all came, each with their kids ranging from 10 months to 11 years. Tons of people! But Emily was thrilled! She knew the party was for her and she was here to perform. She played with everyone! She sat patiently and opened presents! She didn't even mind that her schedule was a bit off! I just couldn't be happier with how today turned out! And I am so thankful to everyone that came out and celebrated with us (and everyone that wished they could be here. To everyone in Jersey, we miss you!). Here are some pics from today. There are so much more, tons of opening presents and random ones of people at the party. But I'm going to keep it short and sweet (party because I am exhaughsted) and give you most of what you want...Emily eating cake!
Some fun decorations!
The beautiful birthday girl wearing her birthday shirt again!
My parents bought her this bag, which was a huge hit! I love it! It was big enough to put Emily in it, so of course we did! And she had a blast in it. Go figure.
We bought Emily this vacuum. She got so many wonderful gift from so many people. I can't thank you all enough! I just thought this picture was super cute!
The cake! It came out SO GOOD! I was so impressed. We got it done on base. And let me tell you, it was really yummy too (I'm going to get my self another piece when I am done with this blog)!!!
Blowing out her candles!
Here we go, down to what you were all waiting for....
This was just the begining, it gets so much worse from here...
My dad thought it would be a bright idea to smash the cake in her face, but since she was doing such a good job on her own, he didn't do it. Silly Grandpa.
I would like to introduce you to my daughter, the smurf. She immediatley hosed down after this final picture was taken.

It was a great day! But I am tired out! Off to grab one last piece of cake and then I'm hitting the sack!

Happy 1st Birthday Emily Paige!

Yesterday was the big day! Emily turn ONE! When I went to get her out of her crib in the morning, I opened the door to her room singing "Happy Birthday" at the top of my lungs! She started jumping and screaming. She knew it was going to be a fun day all about her!Here she is in her Birthday Girl shirt! She will probably wear this again for her party, she looks so cute!
I love this picture of Antonio and I cooking. We had Hispanic Heritage night and made Tacos, Frijoles Negros, white rice, and platanos. Mmm, it was so good!
There are several reasons I am excited in this picture. The food was good. And my husband was cooking!
Hooray for Spanish food!!
Emily's Birthday cake! The before picture, of course!
We sang her happy birthday and she was all smiles. I had practiced the song with her a couple times that day, so she knew to get excited for it. She was all smiles during the song. She loved the candles too. But when Antonio went to help her blow out the candles she was PISSED. Look at her face, she was so angry that HE was blowing out HER candles. God forbid.
Now what you've all been waiting for. The first time Emily has ever had sugar, ever. Well, except for the time she accidentally got an oatmeal cookie off of the floor. She is worse than the dog I swear. Anyway, here she is testing it out.
So much sugar from just a little bite!!!!
Things quickly deteriorated. Let me tell you, she didn't miss a thing. The walls were covered, the floor was covered, even the dog's back had cake and frosting on it. Speaking of Amy, she didn't mind one bit! She licked up everything she could. Which I think is good thing, she hid a lot of the mess from me. My OCD would have been much worse. I knew we kept that dog around for something.
Here is Mandi and Maya! They stayed for all the festivities. Maya couldn't care less. She much more interested in the ceiling fans.
And after her first taste of sugar, she just couldn't get enough! She wanted MORE! I'm in serious trouble...

Toddlerhood, here we come!

Tomorrow, Emily turns 1! It's so hard for me to wrap my head around they fact that my baby girl is turning one. Emily is so much fun. Sure she is a little terror, but she is full of smiles and laughs, and she for sure keeps us on our toes! I can't wait to see what the next year brings us! Here are some highlights from over the past year. There has been so many!

Here she was! One year ago, tomorrow! Emily Paige was 7 pounds 11 ounces and 20.5 inches long.
After one of her first baths. This is one of my favorite picture of her.
Emily on her very first St Patrick's day. She was a ham for the camera even then!
She was a little rockstar in my friend's sun glasses!
Meeting her daddy for the first time! She wasn't all too thrilled that he woke her up from a dead sleep, but she's been a true daddy's girl ever since.
A picture from Emily's first trip to the beach!
She loves swimming in the pool! Here she is in a picture from this past summer, swimming away in a raft!
From our trip to the NC Aquarium. She loved looking at all the fishes! She didn't even mind missing a nap for the trip!


Pumpkin picking in October. Daddy found her a pumpkin just her size!


Here she is in Halloween costume. Even though she was sick, she was one pretty cute lady bug!

Finally, here she is all bundled up (and with Elmo of course) at the annual Holiday Parade they have here in Jacksonville. It was freezing, but she had a great time. She slept through most of it! This was one of the only pics we have of her awake.

So that take me to about when I started the blog. My big baby. I mean toddler. Yikes.

Welcome to the world, Kenny Jr!

Yesterday, Rae had her baby! She wound up having him by c-section around 3 PM yesterday afternoon. Kenny Jr. weighed in at 6lbs 3 ounces and was 21 inches long. Today, Mandi and I went over to the hospital to see her, big Kenny, and their new addition!
The beautiful baby boy, Kenny Jr!
Mommy with her little baby!
Big Kenny with little Kenny.


All of us mommies with our kiddos. Rae and Kenny Jr, Mandi and Maya, me and Emily!

This is North Carolina, isn't it?

Well, it snowed today! So far we've already gotten 3 inches of snow, which is just insane for North Carolina! They say it hasn't snowed here in almost 4 years, but it has been snowing on and off since this morning and is supposed to snow a bit more tomorrow. Let me tell you it is nothing to write home about. So why am I writing about it, you might ask? I'll explain.

Mandi and I took the kids to the mall this morning before the snow started so we could get Maya's ears pierced (they look so cute, by the way). Like I said, the snow hadn't even started, but panic had already set in. People were just freaking out. Sheer terror were in their eyes. The snow was coming. THE SNOW WAS COMING. And the snow did, in fact, come, because by the time we left the mall it was snowing. The usual 15 minute trip back my house took a half an hour. Apparently this strange white powder that falls from the sky makes you forget how to drive (foreshadowing). Finally we got back to my house, got Emily down for her nap and Maya settled for a bottle and realized me needed a couple things from the food store. So I decided to run real quick because it was just barely snowing and there was just a light dusting on the ground.

I ran real quick to the C-store on base. There was a big sign on the door. CLOSED DUE TO SNOW. Are you kidding me?! So I had leave base and go to the food store 2 miles down the road. Not a big deal. Or so I thought.


On my way to the Food Lion I counted 8 (eight, ocho) cars that had skid off of the road. And there were 3 car accidents! I also found out that last night, before it had even started snowing, North Carolina schools were closed for the day. And the base was closed to all non-necessary personnel. Base is still shut down until noon tomorrow!

Calm down, North Carolina, its just a little bit of SNOW!

Sleepy Baby

So the past few day's Emily's schedule has been way off. For those who know us, Emily has been on a routine that you could time with military precision. We would wake up at 8, take a bottle and eat breakfast, play and go down for a nap from 10 to eleven. Then we would get another bottle and eat lunch, play or run errands and take another nap from 2 to four. Then it was snack time and play time until dinner around six. Then bath time, more play time, story time, and around 8 bed time!

But like I said, for the past week or so her schedule has been way off, especially the past two days. She is starting to only want to nap once a day. Which I guess is normal for an almost one year old (yikes). Yesterday she only took her morning nap and REFUSED to go down for her afternoon nap. Well by 5, she was so sleepy! I caught her sitting on her sofa, fighting to stay awake! I ran, grabbed the camera and caught a quick video. Sorry, its sideways.



I thought she was going to crawl into my lap so I put my camera down. Nope. This is how she landed.

And that is just how she stayed.

Today was a little bit better. She woke up at 9 (hallelujah!) and didn't want to take her morning nap. We went to the park after lunch and by 1:30 she was ready to lay down. She didn't wake up until four. If I could keep that schedule I will be a happy camper! We will see what tomorrow brings.

Not one of my brightest ideas

I don't have any pictures of what occurred, so you all are going to have to use your imaginations. Today was a long and boring day, we stayed in for the most part because it was so cold outside (the high was only 36! Take that all you people up north in the -40s). Anyways, I was feeling crafty so I got out this kit to make impressions of Emily's hands in plaster. I had gotten it for a gift at the baby shower and always wanted to do it, but never did it when she was born and we were living at my parents, or when we moved in to temporary housing on Midway Park, or when we moved on TT. Before you know it, she is 1 year old! So I decided to take her hand impressions today, thinking it would be nice for Antonio when he gets home from Virginia. So I mix the plaster, set Emily in her high chair and pop in an Elmo's world to distract her. The directions said I had to keep her hand in it to set for 3-5 minutes (why in God's name did I ever think this would work?!) So I take her hand and put it in the plaster. She immediately turns from Elmo, looks at me, gives me what can only be described as an evil Grinchy grin, and mashes both hands in the plaster! Every thing from this point is a blur. Her one hand shot straight for her mouth, which I thankfully caught. Her other hand,however, got away and made it right into her hair, which I had taken the time to put into pig tails. The walls, the floor, the high chair, the dog, were all covered in plaster, which, by the way, was rapidly hardening! I threw the tin with the plaster in the sink, picked her up out of the chair, ran her to the bathroom, and threw her into the sink. I turned the water on and immediately started scrubbing all the (hardened) plaster off of her. She was not too happy with me. Finally, I got Emily cleaned up and settled to watch the rest of Elmo but by the time I went back to my kitchen, all the plaster was completely hardened to everything she had flung it to. I spent the next hour scrubbing the walls, the floor, the high chair, and oh yeah, the dog. Not one of my shinning mommy moments.

Big Kiss Goodbye!

Tomorrow my friend Sarah is moving back to Ohio. Her husband Paul is getting out of the Marine Corps after four (long) years and tomorrow is the big day they can finally move home. She has come to be a really great friend to me, and her son Hayden (who is about 9 months old) has become a little bit "more" than friends to Emily, so I'm definitely sad to see them go but I'm really happy for them. They've been looking forward to this for a long time. But man, I'm gonna miss her! Anyways, since tomorrow is their big drive home, Mandi and I took advantage of her babysitting services one last time so we could get somethings done on base. After she watched the girls for a couple hours we brought over some moving inspiration.... MONSTER PIZZA!!
Isn't that the BIGGEST pizza you've ever seen?!!! We had to put it in Mandi's trunk in order to get it over to Sarah's house and tilt it sideways to get it through the door! And it was pretty yummy too, for being North Carolina pizza anyways.
And just in case you don't believe it is the biggest pizza, ever, here it is in the comparison to a 3 month old baby.
Maya was making a poop face at Sarah, so she made one back lol!
Patrick finally called!!!
Emily getting a big whopper of a KISS from Hayden! They were doing this all afternoon and I finally caught it on camera. They were pretty much betrothed before they were even born!
Me, Sarah, and Mandi. Sarah, we are gonna miss you so much!!

Be careful, she spits

Most of you have heard this story I'm sure. It happened last Friday night and I am only posting about it now. Forgive me. I went out to eat with Patrick, Mandi and Maya at Cici's (its a Pizza buffet for those of you who dont know, they don't have them in Jersey). Emily finished her 2 slices of pizza like a champ and as she was about to dig in to her bowl of pasta I casually mentioned to Patrick that just before he left for Virginia my loving husband had taught Emily how to SPIT. If she sees you doing it, she will stick her tounge out and start spitting. Well, Patrick's eye lit up and he just HAD to try it. But he couldn't have picked a worse time because at that very moment, Emily had a mouth full of pasta. She didn't care though, she knew her cue, and she knew she was supposed to start spitting! Half eaten pasta was every, all over the three of us, and even up Emily's nose. Lovely.
Here she was spitting at Patrick.
She then turned to start spitting at me. She was really proud of herself.
And finally spitting at Mandi (who was taking the pictures) while digging for some more ammunition, I mean pasta.

Handy Mommy

Lets just say Handy Manny has nothing on me! I've been running around doing stuff around the house all day. My first project was to build this big toy for Emily we sort of put in the back of her closet and forgot about for a while. It was a boring, rainy day today so I said, why not?!Its a Zebra that rocks and bounces and spins. She was thrilled and pretty annoyed I was trying to pry her attention from it to take her picture (can't you tell by the pathetic smile?). As if we didn't have enough toys. Oh well.
Second project was to finish baby proofing! We already did the outlets a long long time ago, but Antonio never did get around to doing the cabinets. So I got out the power drill (after a long talk with Dad about how to USE the power drill) and installed them all by myself. I did 5 cabinets. So I built a toy and used a power tool. All things Antonio usually does. Pretty darn good if I do say so myself.