Some more pics of the girls

Well, My Mom was here last week, and everyone who knows her knows that LOTS of pictures are involved in every visit! So, I thought I'd share some with you all, because I have some cute kids and feel the need to share (not that I'm biased or anything!)

This was taken of all of us after Tim's big Army band concert on the 7th. It's at the biggest Baptist church in town and they have one of the local TV news guys, Richard Rogers, MC it. The last song is "The Night Before Christmas" and he gets down on the floor with all the kids to read the story while the band plays. Emilia went right up this year, she was the first kid there, and tried to help Mr Rogers by holding the book for him. So he tells her, "That's OK, it's my book". When Tim came down and I told him that was Emilia, he had to go around and let the whole band know, "That was my kid trying to take his book!"

Here are the girls fighting over who was going to give Daddy kisses next. Emilia had just given him one.

Here is Miss Shelby doing what she does best, sticking her tongue out! That's her way of showing you how much she likes you!

Another one of Emilia, she looks VERY happy here !

I'm not sure what kind of face this was, but all THREE girls make the same face from time to time, it comes from Tim, obviously!

Shelby thinks that she's quite the big girl now that she's crawling everywhere. She's started standing with help and pulling up on furniture, but I think she's still a few months away from walking yet.

Here's me and my girls at the Christmas Concert. Their dresses were a big hit, and guess what? Only $2 each at Toys R' Us (I LOVE Clearance racks!!)

Another shot of Miss Emilia

Our sleepy Shelby, but not too tired to laugh just one more time!

Emilia told NaNa that this was her "sad" face.

And finally, here's Shelby giving Daddy kisses. They've evolved from the full open mouth with tongue kisses she used to give. They're still open mouth, but not so much tongue anymore, so they aren't nearly so messy!

Some other recent pictures just for fun

Emilia rolling around on the floor with her puppy dog while Shelby sucks on an ice cube in her babysafe feeder. Our fashion plate girl is wearing a zebra print skirt over top of black footless tights with her pumpkin T-shirt and blue flip flops!! Shelby is just hanging out in her super cute baby jeans. They were hanging out in the kitchen with me while the handy man was putting in our new screen door on the back door that leads on to our porch, that's why the baby gate is up, to keep the cats and dog from bothering him too much.

In case you missed the email update, Daddy finally convinced me to let Emilia get her ears pierced (he's been working on her to get her to ask me EVERY DAY). So on Monday night we went to the mall to get it done. She was kind of scared after we got there, so she sat on Daddy's lap and Mommy held her head straight. The girls that did the piercing were very good (she had one on each side so she wouldn't have just one ear done), but our little girl was a bit smarter than they thought...She knew that they were trying to hide something behind her head, so she figured out pretty quickly that they were going to poke her. As soon as it was done (and she let out about 5 huge OOW, OOW, OOW's) and she saw herself, she couldn't quit giggling all the way out of the mall, and we had to stop and tell pretty much every person that we saw that she now had her ears pierced! She got the pretty sparkly ones and has to keep them in for 6 weeks before she can change them out.

Let me start this story with, we live in the south, no matter what you do or how clean your house is, you are going to get Palmetto bugs (2 inch long roaches in my opinion) and big brown crickets (especially in the shower) in your house all year long, but especially in the fall. So, Davidson (the little boy kitty) is our best bug hunter, all you have to do is yell out "BUG!" and he's right there to catch it and eat it (yes I know, that's gross, that is why we call him bug eater, oh, and he's not allowed to lick faces anymore). Emilia found one and called Davidson over, but he didn't eat the whole bug, so Daddy doubled up some toilet paper for her to pick up the rest to throw out (this story just gets grosser and grosser!). She does this all the time and usually thinks it's fun because that's one less bug to come into her house, but for some reason, the paper came unfolded and she started to see bug juice. As many of you know, Emilia is a GIRLY GIRL all the way and because of this doesn't like gross things (at times, other times she'll watch the cats eat a mouse, but that's for another story time hour), so she promptly sat down and started screaming 1) because the was bug juice that she could see and 2) because the dead bug and toilet paper had fallen right into her lap and she couldn't move, or she'd touch SOMETHING! Now, being the mean parents that we are, we told her she needed to pick it up and please stop scream-crying. It took about 5 minutes (and lots of pictures to show her what she looked like), but she did finally get up and throw the bug away. She was very proud of herself then and since it was all over, wanted to share the pictures with everyone. Tim says that his Grandma's would probably swat him for doing that to his little girl, but I figured it was worth the risk...at the worst we'd have a visitor and at the best, just make everyone laugh! So, here are two of the pictures of little Emilia and her teeny tiny bug in toilet paper.....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

Hello everyone! The girls, Tim and I wanted to say a big Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Our neighbor Jerry offered to fry our turkey for us, and did just that yesterday, so we had turkey last night, and we'll have it today too! I thought I'd share some pictures of the girls eating up last night....

Our model baby, Emilia was cutting up her cheese with the spoon, very smart for a girl who's too little to use a real knife yet! Yes, she did dress herself yesterday.
Well, there are a few more of Shelby, because let's face it, 7 1/2 month olds are a bit more fun to watch eat, they tend to drop and spread more! This was towards the end of her meal, when she finally quit focusing on the turkey and realized that the mashed potatoes were pretty good too! She then started eating by the fist full!
Those are chunks of turkey, and no, she still doesn't have any teeth. This girl can munch down on pretty much anything you put in her mouth. She ate ALL of that turkey, and she was half way through when I took this picture.
She's actually a pretty neat eater when mushy foods aren't involved. She did really well with her first turkey.

Have a great day everyone, and we hope to hear from you all soon!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Halloween Party!

Emilia's pre-school had a Halloween party on Tuesday so I thought I'd share some pictures!

Here she is in her classroom with four of the other kids. There are 9 kids total in her class, 5 boys and 4 girls! By this time most of them had their costumes off, but not our princess!!!


Daddy got to stop by too, and here he is holding our baby Shelby calf. Doesn't she look SOO excited to be in that?

Our Princess sitting at the lunch table. She ate the WHOLE cupcake, as well as her pumpkin shaped sandwich, celery, cheetoes and bananas!! When she's hungry, she'll eat.

OUR SLEEPING BEAUTIES

Why is it that kids who never want to sleep in their own beds, will fall asleep on their own pretty much anywhere else??

Emilia sleeping on our "new -- read as from freecycle" living room chair.
Look at those legs! Man, I hope she makes a ton of money modeling, or reaching high things for people!!
Shelby at her favorite place, her high chair, but without food!
Poor sleeping baby, no bed for her!!

Some Random Pictures of Emilia

I don't know why, but for some reason, Emilia likes to come up with a new "look" every week or so, and this was her look a couple of weeks ago, she really wanted me to get a picture of it so everyone could see, so.....here it is!
She also really likes to dress herself and come up with, shall we say "interesting" outfits. This tank top is knotted in the back (yup, just like they were in the 80's) and is layered over a white T-shirt. The shorts are normal shorts just pulled REALLY high up (can you say wedgie?), but she paired them with polka dotted tights that don't have any feet, so since there aren't any feet in the tights, she had to wear socks so that she could wear the BRIGHT pink cowboy boots that she thinks go with EVERY outfit she has!!

Maybe she'll make tons of money designing clothes....right??? Do they have a what not to wear show for the pre-school age?

UPDATE ON SHELBY ANNE

Well, since Shelby just had her 6 month check up on Tuesday, I thought I'd add in an update all bout her!! She was 13 pounds 11 ounces (that's right, she's almost exactly 1/2 of Emilia's weight!!) and they said 25 1/4", but they said she was 26" at 4 months, so someone is off somewhere. She is eating, eating, eating like crazy (as you can see from the pictures). She eats cereal (and sometimes veggies) twice a day now, and at times eats seconds and has been know to eat THIRDS!! She hasn't had too many veggies yet, since you need to wait about a week between new foods just to make sure there are no allergies, and after Emilia, we're watching Shelby like crazy so we can catch it early if it happens with her too. So far she HATES green beans, tolerates carrots and LOVES squash. She will eat a bowl of cereal at lunch, and another bowl (usually two) for dinner as well as 2 ounces of squash, plus she's still nursing about 5 or 6 times a day too. She has decided that the kittens are hers and grabs for them any time they come close, which is quite often, and for some reason tries to eat them. I don't think that she really wants to eat them, but she sure puts whatever body part she can into her mouth - I'm glad that a little dirt never killed a kid! They do know that she's a baby though because they've never so much as meowed at her (and they let Emilia know VERY loudly when she's pushed them too far), and they keep coming back for more! She's not crawling....yet, but she does wiggle like a snake across the room, and she's a very quick roller, she can move across the living room lightening fast! Because she's so tall, she's already been in 6 month size clothes for a little over a month when she needs pants or a one piece outfit. She's already starting to outgrow some of her 6-9 mth PJ's, I told Tim that we night just need to go buy out Old Navy of their PJ's (they have the two piece style). She will probably never get to wear a one piece swimsuit if this continues, she definitely takes after grandpa (as Emilia calls him, my really TALL grandpa!), and NOT Mommy!! The hair is no longer red and curly, and she's lost quite a bit of what she had. What is coming in, is straighter and more blond. I think she may keep a tinge of red (maybe a strawberry blonde), but who knows?? It can change any time.

I think that she's trying to figure out if the strap is food too!!
A face full of cereal
Emilia is actually pretty good at feeding her, not too pushy.

OUR NEW PETS!!

This is our new puppy Zuki, yes Tim did name him after his bike! We got him from the pound last weekend (September 30th) after two weeks of Emilia waking up almost every night sad about her puppy being gone. We just couldn't handle it any more, and the kittens just weren't cutting it for her, although she does love them too (until she gets scratched). So, we went around to all the pet stores around us looking at the animals the various rescue organizations had up, but ended up going to the pound where they were having a fundraising event. We walked through all the dogs and picked out three that we might like. The first was too big!! He was an extremely HUGE black lab, but I think he night have had a bit of great Dane in him because his head was just massive. The second was too old, we didn't want to go through another Walker so quickly again and he was about 7 or 8 and also pretty big. The third was JUST RIGHT (sound like a fairy tale to anyone else?) a little cocker mix that's about 9 months old. He's a cute furry little black ball with just a bit of white on his chest. He was fixed just three days before we got him, so we don't have to worry about that, and he is potty trained (another BIG plus), but he didn't really have any obedience training, so we are working on that, but he's a smart puppy and I think he'll catch on quick. His biggest problem right now is stealing all our dirty clothes and laying on them. He understands "Zuki, Drop", and he does, but we're still working on the follow up, where he doesn't pick it up right away again, but it's only been a week!Here are the kittens! Yes, I know that it's actually been two months, but it seems that every time I try to put up a blog on them, something goes wrong and the whole thing deletes just as I'm finishing up (which is why you're getting a few smaller ones today, not one big update). So here they are, Harley (the little girl with the solid black face) and Davidson (the little boy with a white nose and chin) . They are now three months old and still VERY active running all over the place with each other, and Zuki (well, Davidson plays with him, Harley still just spits when she sees the dog)! They have been to the vet three times now, so they have all of their shots, de-worming, and microchipping done, we now just are waiting for them to get big enough to get fixed (Davidson is almost there, he's scheduled to be done on the 25th -- we don't want any more baby animals around here!) They have grown so much just in the two months we've had them. Davidson was the runt, and he weighed 13 ounces when we got him, and Harley was 1 pound 2 ounces, they both now weigh 2 1/2 pounds! These babies were born at our friends house, he was a vet tech on post and when a pregnant cat was brought in, they were going to abort the babies, but he asked to take her home to let the babies be born, and so we were able to adopt them for only $60 which included all of their first year shots, microchipping (which is only about $17 even off-post so I think that every animal should have it done, I had no idea it was that cheap!!), de-worming, flea and tick meds AND spay/neuter since they weren't boarded at the vet clinic. The Mom decided that she was done nursing the babies, and started attacking them all (there were 5 total) at 4 weeks, so we got them pretty early. It's been fun to watch them go from sleeping ALL the time, to only sleeping MOST of the time!!!! In the picture, they are sleeping on a pillow that they have decided is theirs in the den/sewing/eBay/computer/laundry room. It's going to be interesting to see how big they get since they were so tiny when we got them. Davidson has already grown so much from the tiny ball of fluff he was when we got them.

Emilia's First Day of School!!!

Emilia started pre-school on Tuesday the 26th!!! She was such an excited girl that she was up at 7 instead of her usual 8 or 8:30. She is going to the Marvin United Methodist church preschool on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 9:30 to 1:30. She was barely able to make it back to the van on Tuesday she was so tired from all of that playing, and she told me that "We shouldn't go to school ALL day like that". On Tuesdays, they get to walk over to the church (it's right next door to the gym/school) and have a bible story with the whole school (from 2 to 4 years) which they work on that all week. They also learn one letter a week and work on telling time, colors, numbers and lots of other great stuff. On Thursdays they have show and tell where they bring in something that starts with the letter they are on that week. This week is "F" (which means we started her about 5 weeks late), so she brought in a stuffed baby horse (a foal or a filly, depending on if she wants it to be a boy or a girl). This was a hard letter, Tim wanted her to bring in a fishing pole, but all I could see were the law suits from someone getting an eye poked out, so we searched the dictionary for another word that wouldn't hurt (obviously fork was out!). On Friday's they get to bring in a book from home to share with the whole class. The four year old class also gets to go on field trips, so she'll get to go visit a farm and have a picnic there either at the end of this month or the beginning of next (can't remember right now). She's so excited about that, that she keeps telling me that it's "tomorrow"! They also have different groups come in from time to time like firefighters, dental hygenists and other cool people that kids will like. She will also have a Christmas program in early December (they have the last part of Dec off of school), so if anyone wants to time a trip for them..... hint, hint. The kids are outside playing every day at the same exact time that Tim drives by on his way home for lunch (the school is only about a mile and a half from our house), so he gets to honk at her and wave. She, of course, missed it on Tuesday (we'll see if she watches today or not), but a little boy in her class came up to me and told me all about seeing her Daddy drive by on a BIKE!! It was so cool!! So, I guess that earned her some cool points with the other kids. Mommy did OK, I didn't cry, but I did sit outside the school waiting for a phone call for about 10 minutes. No one called though, and even when I walked in to pick her up that afternoon, it took quite a while for her to even notice me, she was just too busy playing!

Here she is in the van, ready to get going! The day we went to look at the school (last Thursday), she went out to the van all by herself and sat there for about 10 minutes, just waiting for me to get Shelby all ready and fed so that we could go see the school!!

Here she is standing outside our house smiling HUGE, waiting to go. She takes a backpack with a change of clothes (in case she gets dirty) and also gets to take her lunch. She picked out the pink camouflage lunch box, mostly because it had it's own water bottle, and we all know how much she loves water!! She picked her motorcycle shirt to wear, but didn't want to wear the pants, "Just regular jeans Mommy". My baby is growing up so fast!!!

Walker in the back seat of the little Kia on his way to his new home in Maryland (Before Emilia and the gray hair!).

Our baby boy Walker had to go to a new home today. Yesterday, Emilia accidentally put her foot on his back, and he growled (which he has every right to do), but then he jumped up and bared his teeth at her, which he had never, ever done before. It was then that Tim and I both looked at each other and we knew it was time. He will be 10 next month, and has been hurting for quite a while. We had an appointment at 10:30 this morning to put him down, but about an hour before then, the vet called us and asked if it would be alright to contact the local greyhound adoption group to see if they could find a home without kids to take him. Of course we agreed, we didn't want to put him down, but the girls do need to come first. So, we took him to a meet and greet over in North Augusta so that the adoption coordinator could look him over to see if it was possible to adopt him out or not. They agreed that he is probably too old to adopt out, but one of the ladies there has 4 or 5 greyhounds of her own and said that she would take him into her home if they couldn't find another one. They did agree that the kids do need to come first and that he can't stay here, he just hurts too much to put up with two active youngsters (especially with Shelby ready to crawl at any moment, Walker was Emilia's favorite object to crawl over). So, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but we had to drive off without our big "poor old man" baby. He just kept looking at us and trying to follow, he didn't understand why we were leaving him. I'm still trying to decide if this is really best or not. He is hurting so bad with his hips and back (he did race 4 1/2 years before we got him), but I'm sure that after they've done all of their X-rays and tests they'll know for sure (because they didn't really want to believe us that he's hurting as bad as we said) and decide from there if he's just going to live out the rest of his life in an "Old Greyhounds" home, or if they think that he's just too hurt to go on. We were told that they will keep us updated and that we can call any time to see how he is doing. We miss him so much already and Emilia keeps saying that she wants him to come home and not live with those other dogs, it's so hard for a four year old to understand. So, for everyone who loved and still loves our boy, I'm putting in lots of pictures of him, including those with his favorite people, his girls.

This is Tim and Walker standing out in the biggest snowstorm Maryland had seen in a long time, in February of 2003. Poor Walker just wanted to come inside, or at least find a place to pee that didn't have snow up to his pee-pee!

This was the moment I knew that Walker had decided Emilia was his. It was about 3 in the morning, and I had laid her on the couch while I got a bottle ready (this was before she learned to nurse, she was only about a month old). Walker climbed up on the couch (which he knew he wasn't supposed to do), and laid down with his head on her lap. He also seemed to know that I don't have a sense of smell too because when Emilia would get a poopy diaper he would go over to her, smell her bottom and look at me. He would keep doing this until I picked her up to change her, but his patrol didn't stop there. He would follow me back to her room EVERY TIME I went back there with her, I'm sure just to make sure I was doing everything alright.

Now THIS is how everyone remembers Walker. What a spoiled dog he was! He had not only his bed, but also his very own head pillow too. What a rough life!!

Here's Walker when we moved down here to Georgia last summer (2005) with Abi and Emilia. When the rest of us were sleeping on air mattresses and sitting in camp chairs, Walker still had HIS bed to lay on. Even with his bed though, he still choose to lay in the hallway right out side the door of his girls, it's where he still slept as of last night, guarding them.

Here he is with his newest baby. I had laid Shelby down on the floor for some "tummy time" and I guess he thought that she looked kind of lonely, so he moved to lay down beside her. Then he decided he wasn't close enough so he moved his head over by her head, just so she'd know he was there. When we brought her home from the hospital he did the same exact thing to her that he did to Emilia when we brought her home. He started at her belly and smelled up to her head and then licked her from her forehead to the back of her head. I think it was his "blessing" to them saying that they were OK to be in his family. He never would lick an adult, but he did lick pretty much every kid he saw (that would let him, he was a big dog with BIG teeth after all!).

I took this picture yesterday after telling Emilia that we were going to have to take her doggie to the "pet doctor" (she for some reason can't say vet) and that the doctor was going to give him some medicine so that he would go to sleep and stay that way, so he could go live with Jesus. She really didn't like that idea, she just wanted him to go to sleep, and then come home. She still doesn't understand, but she liked it better that he was going to go to a new house with lots of other dogs, instead of going to sleep. We will miss our baby boy, but we do both agree that we did what we had to do, and we trust that he's going to have a comfy bed and lots of love in his final days, we wish that those days could be spent with us, but this is the next best thing. We love you Walker!!!

OK, I just had to put this one up too. This is a warning to all 5 1/2 month olds out there........Just because YOU think you're too old for a nap, doesn't mean that you ARE!! Sometimes, you just play so hard that the only thing left to do is pass out, standing up in your exersaucer.

Emilia made crowns this morning for her craft. She made one for herself the "Princess" and one for Shelby too. Emilia wanted to tell everyone, "We love you!" and "Please come see me, I want to show you my new house with NO stairs." Emilia's decided that pretty girls wear dresses, and wears a dress almost every day now. I didn't realize until she started doing that just HOW tall she's getting. At her check up last week, she was 28 pounds (5th %tile) and 39 1/2" (50th %tile)!! How'd she get that big???? We have to get her 4's (not 4T's) and 5's now, just to get dresses that don't show off her undies too! Shelby has her 6 month check up in three weeks, so we'll see how much taller she gets too, at her 4 month, she was already 13 pounds (50th %tile) and 26" tall (75th %tile). Well, that's all for now, until more cute pictures come up ---

Biker Sunday and Emilia's Birthday

Hello everyone!

Well, Emilia is now officially 4 years old, as of September 5th. She was a very excited girl! She got her very own Princess CD player with "kid phones" that fit her ears just right. Now Daddy doesn't have to listen to the Princess, Veggie Tales, Dora, ect.. CD's in the van. She was also able to use some of her birthday money to buy speakers for the player so that she can listen to CD's in her room too. She also was able to get three more CD's (of course, another Princess one, a Dora one and a worship jams CD), a CD case and a Princess canopy to go over her bed. Do you feel the theme? She's REALLY into Princesses right now!

Last Sunday (the 10th) was also biker Sunday at our church. There were 316 bikes in our parking lot, and we fed 500 at the lunch. The ride after lunch was great too. We were able to find someone to watch the girls for us so I was able to go on the ride also with Tim. I took lots of pictures as we drove through the beautiful South Carolina countryside, and then some more as we sat in the beautiful South Carolina countryside while our police escort decided if it was safe for 300+ bikes to drive over the tracks with the flashing red lights. To thier credit though, this was the intersection where a year ago January there was a huge train wreck that spilled chlorine gas all over the little town of Granitville and a handfull of people died and many more were admitted for poisoning. So, after about 10 minutes, the figured we were safe, and they let us pass. All in all, it was about an hour ride when we got back to church. They then did the door prizes, and it was all over by about 4 o'clock.

The girls were quite a hit with their

biker outfits too. People kept asking all day if they could please take a picture of them. Shelby's little headband was actually thier favorite part, although the vest came in pretty close!