Friday, December 19, 2008

Who cares about Santa? Sissy is coming to town!!



Emma Kate could care less about the upcoming visit from the Big Ho Ho. Wanna know why? Because she knows that tomorrow her sweet sister is coming home! We have a super fun weekend filled with most of Emma Kate's favorite people in the entire world: Daddy, MeMe, Hoppy and Sissy. We are doing all kinds of fun-holiday filled suprises and then we will come home for a "relaxing" week until Christmas. It WILL NOT be fun saying goodbye to sissy on Christmas morning, but at least we get a wonderful week with her.

I am so excited to have both of my girls for Christmas. Although we usually have Ashley for a longer time at the holidays, it has always been after Christmas. This year, we get to do fun things like bake cookies for Santa and wrap presents and shop for daddy's present before Christmas.

There have been times when being a step-mom has been hard. NOT because of Ashley, because she is the sweetest, kindest, loving step-daughter I could have asked for. But the schedules and laws and other grown-up-stuff can sometimes seem like too much to handle. But then, I take a step back, and I realize I am so blessed to have Ashley in my life and Emma Kate is so blessed to have her as a big sister. Although we do not see her nearly as much as we like, I know that Emma Kate and Ashley have a special bond that only sisters have.


My heart is full of excitement and joy knowing that in just a few short hours, my family will be complete for the holidays. I cannot imagine a better gift.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.


Mikey T is cold. Well, he will be getting warmer soon because he will be on a plane heading home in an hour. Mikey T has been in Denver, CO all week for a work conference. Even though Mikey T was born in Ohio, he has spent the majority of his life in Alabama and Florida. The man had no appropriate winter clothing. The night before he left, he told me the forecast for when he landed was -19*. So I "sprang to me sleigh" and headed to the mall. I decided that in lieu of NCAA 2009 for the Playstation III, his Christmas gift was going to be a new coat and he was getting it early.
When Mikey T landed in Denver, it was indeed -19*, snowing fiercely and it felt like -30*. But he was warm in his new present and he made it through the week without freezing to death or coming down with any cases of hypothermia.
Meanwhile in the 70* one day and 30 * the next day weather here in Bama, I got a nice case of Strep and a sinus infection. I loaded up on shots and antibiotics and nasal sprays and decongestants and am back at work today.
Mike T will be in Alabama this afternoon and we cannot wait to have him home!!

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Semi-Success Santa


Well, we did it. Kind-of. Our first attempt at Santa with Emma Kate was NOT successful. But, when Joseph and Matthew and Sean agreed to go with us, we at least got her within a 5 foot radius of the big Ho-Ho.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Oh no she didn't.

Sunday night, Emma Kate asked for a snack before dinner. She came to the kitchen, asked for a 'nanna (doing business as a Banana), so I peeled her a 'nanna, put it on her princess plate and put it on her little table in the living room. I turned on the TV (shich I knew she wouldn't watch), and tried to do some laundry.

As I was putting my whites into some hot water, I heard a crunching noise. I looked over and Lucy was sitting, sleeping in her chair. I continued to hear some crunching and I thought to myself, "A banana doesn't crunch?!"I walked over to Emma Kate's table and realized that she had Lucy's food bowl and was eating one piece of dog food for every bite of banana. Lovely.

I thought of all of you first, and I snapped a picture. Then Emma Kate and me had a long talk about Lucy's food versus Emma Kate's food.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

40 Things...

So, I was just "tagged" in an email to tell 100 things about myself. Um, no. That bores even me. So, instead, I am going to tell 10 things about each person in my family: Mikey T, myself, Ashley and Emma Kate. I will try to focus on things you do not know....here goes.

Mikey T:

1. He and his brother work for the same company, ADT.
2. He loves the PlayStation 3. He plays until the weee hours of the morning.
3. We are very competitive in the video gaming world. We used to play Madden 94 on the Sega instead of go to movies like most normal teenage couples.
4. I can beat him at Tiger Woods---any year.
5. One time, he was playing in a golf tourney in Tennessee and they had to stop because a man had robbed a bank, escaped on foot, and was hiding somewhere on the golf course. They caught him hiding in a creek just off the 10th green. Playing resumed.
6. I cut his hair. OK, I shave his head.
7. He takes very good care of me when I am sick. He is a much better nurse than I am. And a better patient than I am.
8. His dad is his hero. And I agree.
9. His pelvis is still broken.
10. He is my best friend.

Me:
1. I have OCD. Not to a debilitating extent, but it is noticeable. This could be ten things on its own. A few of my OCDs include--any screen around me has to be smudge proof. This is getting harder with all the tech gadgets being touch screen. Ick. My blinds have to be facing down. If they are facing up, I get queasy. I have a thing for even numbers. I count stairs. I look at the corners of every room I enter. There are more, I know, I am worse than Monica on friends.
2. I graduated in Political Science which only required one math class and now I work for the College of Science and Mathematics.
3. I have to stay and sing the Auburn Alma Mater even after a horrid loss.
4. I want to learn more about photography and I want a super-duper camera.
5.My mom had poison control on speed dial after I ate a glass, Christmas tree ornament, dipped dogwood berries in expired pepto bismol and ate them and talked my older brother into cutting off the bottom of a children's Tylenol bottle so I could eat them....all. I wonder where Emma Kate gets it from?
6. I have three different novels floating around in my head and will probably never sit down to write them.
7. My best friend from college had so much in common it was scary. We are both democrats, don't talk to our fathers, have random medical problems, our mothers are teachers, are creative and crafty, dig politics, and the list goes on.
8. I only have one saliva gland. You have two.
9. I eat salt and sour cream on everything. Anything.
10. I hate mayonnaise and mushrooms. Together or separate.

Ashley:

1. She is the most talented dancer I have ever seen. And I watch a lot of "So you think you can dance."
2. She is super smart--always on the honor roll.
3. She is a great big sister.
4. She never forgets anyone's name.
5. She had an outy belly button, until she had an emergency appendectomy and now she has an inny.
6. She could stay in the pool from sun up to sun down.
7. She can beat her Hoppy at pool/billiards.
8. She can beat anybody at Wii bowling or tennis.
9. She loves board games. We play board games every time she is home---all day and all night.
10. We miss her everyday.

Emma Kate:

1. She was a preemie.--but she weighed 7 lb., 9 oz.
2. She had level 4 reflux and threw up 10 times a day until she was 8 months old.
3. She learned to crawl at 5.5 months, one day before I had knee surgery.
4. She skipped baby food. She went from reflux formula to table foods(as per the doctor's orders and because she refused to let me feed her).
5. She still calls me Amy about 50% of the time.
6. She kisses a picture of her sister goodnight every night. She started this on her own.
7. She prays every night for Joseph and Matt Matt. Others come and go in her prayers, but Joseph and Matt Matt are constants.
8. When she was 18 months old, she opened my grandmother's front door and walked halfway down the street to my mother's house before we even knew she was gone. We didn't even know she could open the dang door!
9. She has asthma and eczema. Boo.
10. She has a high tolerance for pain. I guess because her stomach and esophagus were on fire for the first year of her life. She doesn't cry when she gets a shot...just really, really mad.

So, that is it. 40 things that you may or may not have already known about me and mine.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

TAG you're it!


A very good friend and fellow blogger tagged me for this photo thing. You have go to your pictures and post the 6th photo in your 6th folder. Well, this has already been blogged about, so no description is really needed.

"Ucy" the Wonder Dog



In 2002, I got Lucy. She was a six month puppy that was the cutest dern thing I had ever seen. It wasn't long before me and Unc (although he wasn't Unc at the time, he was Michael, my brother who lived with me at the time) realized that Lucy was special.

It was like Lucy named herself. I brought her home and walked downstairs to Unc's room and he said, "she looks like a Lucy." We ran through a list of some other names, but it was clear from the start that she was Lucy.

Lucy, was a very quick learner. (Except on potty training.) I had only had her two months before she was sitting, laying down, rolling over, jumping and speaking on command. And that was just the beginning. By the time she was a year old, she was doing all kind of tricks--people are still impressed with her super-tricks.

She didn't potty train so well, and she was a chewer. Once, while Mikey T and I were in our on-again-off-again stage, he had some brand new, very expensive, golf shoes at my house. He came over one day after work and one of the shoes was shredded to pieces. It was FootJoy minus the Joy. He was not happy. It was pretty tense between Mikey T and Lucy the Wonder Dog for a while, but they worked through it.

Lucy is also very protective. She once bit a man because she thought that he was hurting Unc during a game of basketball. I was sitting with Lucy and had her by the leash while the guys played ball. Unc had the ball and someone went to slap it out of his hands. MISTAKE. In less than one second, Lucy had broken free from my grip, wrangled free from her collar, run to the basketball court and bit the guy's hand. There was blood and it was not pretty. Luckily, one of our neighbors was a medic in the Air Force and he took care of the wound. The guy was very forgivving of Lucy (and me) and we did not have to quarantine her and he did not sue me. Whew.

Anyway, when Emma Kate was born, Lucy had some adjusting to do. She was no longer the cener of our household. However, she adjusted well.

Once Emma Kate became mobile, it was over for Lucy. She was re-named UCY and Emma Kate adores her. But, she thinks that Ucy is her own personal toy. She rides her. She gets in the chair with her and lays on her, she pulls and pokes and prods. And Ucy just lays there. She never growls. She never gets angry. She just enjoys Emma Kate as much as Emma Kate enjoys her. They are best buds and will be for a very long time.