Sweet sleep

Emily hasn't been taking the greatest naps at daycare. Monday she slept for 20 minutes (before 3pm). Tuesday she slept for a whopping 45 minutes. So today I took her Pooh to sleep in the crib with her, since she's always snuggling with her animals (thank you Uncle Jim & Aunt Christie), and she took two 45-minute naps. Hopefully the streak will continue. I just think she's too social and interested in what's going on, even though they do have "nap time."

Pretty dinner

I actually made a dinner that looked appetizing. It's lasagna noodles with a cheese & spinach mixture all rolled up and then set in spaghetti sauce. It was pretty tasty, although next time I'll lower the amount of spinach.

We start 'em young in the South

Feel free to add your own captions!

Just to clarify, I was making beer bread, and Emily grabbed the can (I guess it is silver & shiny!). It was so hilarious that I had to take pictures.

A cow, in another sense

Or maybe a pig. Last week Emily started eating three 8-9 ounce bottles at school, along with 1/2-1 jar of babyfood. She was eating every three hours, as if she were a newborn. Needless to say, I was having a really hard time keeping up, and was very concerned. Over the weekend, I kept track of what/when she ate, and it wasn't nearly what she was eating at school. So Monday I had to tell them that no matter what stories she was telling (my parents don't feed me, I didn't eat breakfast, I'm starving to death, etc.), she really only needed to eat one 7-8 ounce bottle every 4-5 hours. One of the directors also helped me to understand that at this point the bottle size should start decreasing as she eats more food--ie she'll eventually go back to 5 or 6 ounce bottles. I'm glad I don't have to turn into a dairy.

Sunday outfit

She was a real "cow girl" at church. That hat barely fit over her huge noggin. The best part is that the cuffs on the pants and the cow on the shirt are actually furry.

Nap

For the first time ever, probably, ALL of us came home from church and took a nap. It was wonderful. It lasted more than two hours! That's what I call a day of rest.

Zwieback toast

Before...
After...

My after pictures don't really capture how messy she really gets with these. And her face isn't truly that messy--I had started feeding her some sweet potatoes and then remember to take the picture. It's usually just mushy crumbs ALL OVER her body, from her hair to her toes.

Smart dog or weird dog?

We have a pecan tree in our backyard, and several nuts have fallen. Kronk brings them over to the tote that is on the patio (also know as his table, apparently), or the wood pile, and proceeds to crack them open, and eat the nut. We're not exactly sure how he learned to do this, or why he only eats the nuts. It's just odd to find a pile of shells on the tote.

Emily Urkel

Cindy gave Emily this awesome sweatsuit for Christmas, and it's just a bit long. But she loves it and wears it anyway.

Saturday detention escapee

Today when I worked Saturday detention, a kid (from another middle school) asked to go to the bathroom, and he never came back. We hold detention in the cafeteria, and you have to walk across a small patio to get to the bathroom. He took his backpack, which we thought was odd, but some kids are paranoid, so we let him do it. After five minutes my asst. principal went looking, but we never found him. Oh, well.

Bath fun

How far can I fit this fish into my mouth?

She looooooooves splashing!
The windup...

I'm sorry, dear readers

I don't really have a great excuse for not blogging, other than saying that we've been busy. And when I have had time, Jon's been using the computer for work/homework. I also haven't had tons to blog about...
Sunday I did get some GREAT garage sale deals from a friend who just let another friend and I rummage through her garage (we've had rainy Saturdays the past two weeks, thus preventing an actual yard sale). I got an air purifier, weed whacker, skirt, material for a curtain for my back door, candlesticks that will match our new bedroom, cute nesting boxes for Em's room, and a few small storage totes for $10. I think I did pretty well.
Work has been interesting, but not overly exciting.
Jon has been working on the bedroom a little, but has also done A LOT of work for his new job (which isn't public knowledge quite yet), so he's been very busy this week.
Emily has been enjoying school and LOVES to eat, especially veggie puffs and zwieback toast, whick looks like a giant crouton and gets very messy. She is very independent and wants to do it herself, and I think that's a main motivator for eating these foods. I also think it helps that she's getting better at the hand-to-mouth coordination. Still no teeth.
That pretty much wraps up our week.

YOU on a diet

I bought the book. It really is very, VERY good. I agree with Sarah, in that it's very practical. Granted, I haven't finished it yet, but several friends here have lost weight using it, and they do claim that it's a real lifestyle changer, which is what I need. I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, and thanks for letting me steal your picture, Sarah :).

Being ticklish is clearly hereditary

Sheetrock

All of the drywall is up in the room--Jon just has the closet to do, and then all of the mudding & taping.

Allergies

I went to the doctor today for what seems like an annual visit concerning my allergies. I'm allergic to Louisiana, it seems, and around this time each year my medicine quits working. I've done Claritin, Claritin-D, and Allegra. I find it odd that every time I go in for this, someone says, "Oh, that stuff is terrible, it doesn't really work, you may as well take an aspirin and hope it works." That's what I heard again today right before I was prescribed some Singulair and Flonase. Hopefully this new combo will work...at least for another year.

Weather day

I just got to come home from school at 11:30 due to "inclement weather". Meaning we're having sleet & freezing rain. The nice thing is, since we fed them lunch, it counts as a day, and we don't lose our built-in snow day. Granted, it was a bit hectic with all of the little darlings wanting to call home, etc.

Bedroom project

Before--toward backyard
Before-ish--his & hers closets (although he had already taken the paneling off in my closet)
Our closets now (they are destined to become one). On a side note, can you tell that they added on our bedroom--nice siding!
Now--no more paneling on one wall...

Surprise visit

My best friend, Jessica, and my other best friend/sister-in-law, Kim, surprised me and came for a visit this past weekend. Sadly, bad weather in Dallas prevented them from arriving until Sunday at around 5pm, so we really only had about 36 hours together--a quick trip. But they did get to meet Bono in the Chicago airport, so visiting Shreveport was really just icing on the cake (their words). We ate at the Waffle House, we took pictures next to the Elvis statue where the "Louisiana Hayride" used to be, we watched movies, played with Emily, and attempted a few other feats, but ran into dead ends. Somehow we didn't get a picture of Emily & Auntie Kim...we didn't take enough pictures. Hopefully she has one somewhere. Anyway, it was a visit that (of course) was too short, but still LOTS of fun.

Emily & jumper

Emily's 6-month checkup

I don't have more stats because Jon didn't get the neat handout like last time and I wasn't there, but I do know that she weighs 16 pounds. She only had one shot (silly base) becuase they were out of the others. So I'll have to take her back one afternoon next week for a few more. It'll be weird not having checkups for the next six months.

Youth group

This past week, we switched our youth group meetings from Wednesday nights to Sunday nights. We're hoping that this way, homework/practice/games/dance/hunting won't interfere as much. It was REALLY strange to have nothing to do on Wednesday night.

Teacher Inservice

Our inservice on Monday made the evening news on Tuesday...

Graphic lesson learned about online sexual predators
BY CHRIS REDFORD credford@ktbs.com

This week, dozens of teachers and staff at Bossier's Greenacres Middle School watched in horror as an accused online predator showed everything.

The man is now behind bars. He was arrested near Houma, La., Wednesday morning. He'll be brought to Bossier in a few days.

Just when Greenacres Middle School Principal Kathy Bouck thought she had seen it all, she saw something shocking.

"The initial reaction was one of shock and then disdain," she said.

What Bouck and about 50 others saw was a 25-year old man sexually performing on his webcam for who authorities say he "thought" was a 13-year old girl. "She" was really Matt Wright with the local Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Wright says he was giving a presentation about online sexual predators to teachers at Greenacres when Jeremy Robichaux made contact with him. Wright says within minutes, Robichaux started talking about sex, then showed all.

"It really did illustrate how quickly these predators can get in contact with these children and move to a point where they would send something like that," Wright said.

This is why Bossier D.A. Schuyler Marvin says school presentations are so important. The more educated the educators, the better educated the kids.

Robichaux is the 78th person to be arrested by the task force since it formed last June. Bouck says she has asked the task force to give another presentation at the school's next PTO meeting.

Emily & balloon

She's a bit of a ham for the camera, and this video was after she'd been playing with it for a while so she's not AS thrilled as she was at first, but it's still fun. Oh, and long, for those of you who are waiting for something spectacular.

News

I started back to school today--a lovely, informative teacher inservice day (bleh). Emily didn't have to go, though, because Jon was off. He technically has three more hours to work for the Air Force! Hooray!

Jeff--I promise I'll get the video of Emily & the balloon up tomorrow--Jon had homework tonight, and then he was burning DVDs so I couldn't use the program that I wanted. Everyone else: I'll soon post a video of Emily's first encounter with a balloon--she was more than thrilled.

Where's Emily?

Emily is determined to sleep in any/every situation that the experts say NOT to in order to avoid SIDS. Not that we're helping. But she pulls all of the animals around her to sleep--definitely a people person.

6 months

Emily turned six months old on Sunday--we CANNOT believe it!

Baby food

On one of my last days of Christmas break, I decided to make some baby food. As I suspected, it was pretty easy--steamed some carrots & baked a sweet potato, then used my poor, neglected blender. On the advice of Debi & a website I found, I froze them in ice-cube trays and then put them in ziploc baggies for handy storage. Brilliant.

Lazy

She's pretty worn out after playing with her new phone.

Kronk & Emily

I love this picture--looking up at her BIG dog.

Living room rearrange

Jon built this neat cabinet for our living room so that we could rearrange it. It even has doors with hidden hinges so that you can't see what's stored behind the couch--the base and my two 4' folding tables. Before--window side.
Before--toward the door (with my messy table still out from my projects).
After--in front of the new cabinet.
After--window side.

GO TROJANS!

Touchdown!
Another touchdown!

A MUCH better Rose Bowl this year! Fight on!

Duvet mock-up

I made a small-scale mockup of what I hope will be a neat duvet cover for our bed. The colors are difficult to see, but it's cream, khaki, and wine red with black ribbon at all of the seams.

Sweet potatoes

We added sweet potatoes to Emily's diet since she seemed to hate the rice cereal so much. I think she liked the added flavor.