Snow Princess

Almost a year ago to the day, we got in the car to go to the hospital to have Emmy and it started snowing out of nowhere! It continued to snow that night as we were in the hospital. We even have pictures of me holding a snowball in my L&D room. Being the little diva that she is, we knew that she had waited so long past her due date to come becasue she was waiting to have some type of dramatic entrance into the world. What's better than snow in Texas?

We have been joking all year that we would have snow for her big 1st birthday party since she's our little snow princess. We even looked into having some made for the party. Well, lo and behold, here it was the day before her big party and look what happened, MORE SNOW!!! We're guess that at this point, Emmy not only controls us, but Mother Nature as well.

It snowed really hard in other parts of Houston, but it didn't even stick up here in Tomball. We managed to run outside and snap a few pictures while our little "flurries" were happening. If you look REALLY closely, you can see the tiny snowflakes on my coat and head =) It counts!

Turkey Day Numero Dos

We spent Turkey day with the Sansom's this year, instituting our first one family holiday. While we missed seeing Blake's family, we did enjoy not having the stress of having to drive all over Houston and not really seeing anyone except the car.
Emmy helped make the dressing. Mom justified this by saying that it would all go in the oven so any of the "nasties" that Emmy added would be baked off. She was so worn out from all this dressing making that she actually slept through lunch!

As usual, we all ate too much. Well, except my sister. Here's her pathetic Thanksgiving dinner plate... Emmy's was actually bigger I think!

Photographic evidence... I give it to Emmy!

Emmy ate so much of that plate that she not only had to unbutton her pants, she had to take them completely off =) It would be nice to have that option sometimes I think.

We also celebrated Sean's 26th bday! The desert Gallery will let you have half a cake, and it's really enough since there cakes are SO rich and yummy you can just eat a little bit. It just makes for some really funny pictures. My favorite part is that they squeeze Happy birthday onto the top. It looks like....happy birthday, here's your half eaten cake.

It was a nice relaxing holiday! We followed with a very successful Black Friday. We didn't haul Emmy out, but Blake and I woke up at 4 to head to Frys and Sears. We got a LOT of Christmas shopping, at the traditional Mexican lunch, and Mom and I closed down Macy's at 10 that night. Yes, it's absolutely insane, but we continue to do it every year! We're crazy! It's not Thanksgiving without it!

Happy birthday to.....

These are a little belated, but we partied it up this weekend celebrating some special birthdays...

Gan Gan! We partied at Pappadeaux's. Three kids makes for an interesting dinner. I hope i'm running around as much as GanGan when I'm her age.

and my future son-in-law Benjamin! He's saying.. no pictures please...

This is him at the beginning of his birthday cake

and this is him at the end. I think he got into it the most of all the Graesser kiddos. For some reason it was REALLY fun to rub into his eye.

Getting in the Holiday Spirit..Turkey Day Numero Uno

We started off Thanksgiving a little early this year by celebrating with my mom's sisters and brothers. We went ahead and made it all the way traditional by having lasagna. You can only eat so much turkey and dressing. We were also celebrating the new engagement of my cousin Blake. He was presented with the East "ball and chain." My grandfather gave it to my father when he married my mom. From that point on it's passed from marriage to marriage. This is it's 7th pass. That's pretty amazing considering all the moves and houses it's been in. By the way, it's very strange to me that my "little"cousins are now starting to get married and bring their boyfriends to family events. I'm think I'm having my quarter-life crisis about five years late. Life is moving WAY too fast. These are my formerly "little" cousins. To give you a little perspective on my freakout...when Blake and I started dating, Leslie and Heather were in pre-K and now they're graduating from high school and Courtney (in the middle) was about two!!!!!
We ate WAY too much as usual. My aunt Michelle and cousin Courtney made tons of yummy gourmet fixins. Here's Courtney with a new tradition, the 2nd annual Thanksgiving Rice Crispie Treat Tukey. Hey, I never said we weren't strange =)

Today we maet the Graessers at the mall to start planning a potential 30th bday/7th anniversary trip together! Anything with 1 kid is difficult, but with 4 it's pretty near impossible! The girls wrangled the kids while the boys planned away. We did manage to squeeze in one trip around the mall in the train.Emmy and Ben took a romantic fireplace shot for the wedding album. It's pretty ridiculous to me that the mall is already fully decked out in Christmas gear, but I guess i better get in the spirit. It'll be here before we know it!

Emmy does the Nutcracker Market

This weekend, Emmy did some moonlighting on my sister Laura's blog... you can read what she wrote below about our trip to the Nutcracker Market. (yes we are absolutely insane and took a 11 month old to the Nutcracker market with no stroller)

******************************************************************************* Today, Mom, Rara and GiGi took me to this thing called a nutcracker market. They didn’t let me eat any nuts because I am a baby and I definitly didn’t get any crackers either! We ate pancakes and I found out I really like scrambled eggs and then we sat in the car for at least 3 days until we got there. Once we got out of the car we had to walk a long long way.
We finally got there and there were a whole lot of other Mommys and Gigis there. There were a few Daddys there but none of them looked very happy. After we walked around a little while to look at sparkly things, Gigi and I sat down on the floor to have lunch. She was nice and let me eat her tato and play with her bottles. After that we went to look at more sparkly things and things that look like mommies toys she keeps around the house. You know, all of the stuff mommy and daddy say no no when I try to take it down and play with it. Since daddy wasn’t there, mommy even let me ride on her shoulders for a little while! I looked at lots of people and pointed at the ones that I really liked. They liked me too and told me my bow was pretty. I don’t know why everyone likes these bows so much…I just like to take them off my head. I even decided it was time for an outfit change. I wanted to show everyone my versitility.
I found a couple of different houses that I really like. I am still deciding which one is more “me”. Mommy says maybe next year when I’m bigger. After we were there for a couple days we took a ride on a train. I got to point some more and dance a little bit. Everyone liked my dancing. Mommy, Rara and Gigi looked really tired. I guess they aren’t used to going all day without their nap. I will have to teach them how to do that one day. I don’t know what the big deal about this whole nutcracker thing is but I liked seeing my Gigi and my Rara and getting held by my Mommy so much! Maybe next year Mommy will let me bring that house home!

Rolling right along... the last cupcakes

We can't believe that this is the last cupcake picture. (I spent the whole day being slightly depressed about this) Where did the year go! Next month we'll be celebrating our big first birthday!
(Emmy says, Look! ... this is getting ridiculous) Squatting is her new "thing"

It's hard to believe that this was ten months ago....(about the same amount of hair!)

Why I Hate the Texas RenFest (And Why You Should Too)

On a day I had to go and take an exam in the morning, I should have known that something would be amiss with the plans for the rest of the afternoon, or what we had hoped would only be the afternoon. Kathy and Tim arrived at the house around 11:00 a.m. and we loaded up the Tahoe for a day at the Renaissance Festival.

Since it happeneed to be Emmy's lunch time, we decided to stop at a BBQ place in Tomball before continuing on to Magnolia. We were back on the road around 12:15 p.m. only to meet traffic just north of Tomball. I won't go into too many details but the 10.8 miles (which Kristen was so good to continue reminding me of as the tenths of a mile ticked off her IPhone) took approximately 1.5 hours.

That part of the afternoon was fairly agonizing as each and every car in line jockeyed for position, some even using the suicide lane as their personal highway. Although it sounds completely miserable, there were a few highlights. We were passed by a funeral procession speeding down the suicide lane. We were fairly delirious at this point and laughed about the fact that we thought the people in the procession had hired the officer to get them to the Ren fest faster. I for one thought that the hearse was going to arrive in Plantersville and unload a dozen people dressed in skanky Renaissance faire much like a car full of clowns. Please don't hold the jokes against us God, we were only kidding and had to entertain ourselves some way. If that wasn't enough, Emmy broke the silence in the car as she pushed and pushed and pushed out a poo. We all felt bad for her since the four of us were listening intently to her struggle and then sigh in relief as she passed what we believed to be a monumental poo.

We arrive in Plantersville, make our way onto the property and park on lane 25. By the time we got out of the car, changed Emmy's soiled dipe (a terd about the size of a quarter, nice acting baby...) and walk to the gates, its 2 p.m.

For those of you who have never been to the RenFest, it is a mass confusion of some of the oddest looking and acting people you have ever come across. We joked that no matter what you liked, or what you wore, at the RenFest there would always be someone that looked more ridiculous than you. And many people there take that very nugget of information to heart. Its a place where so many let it ALL hang out, and I do mean ALL...Sure, there are tons of families there, but everything from the dress to the entertainment is not really family oriented. Or, to some, maybe it is...Emmy is small enough that she won't remember a thing...

(Petting zoo #327 of the festival season...but the only one with a giant drugged out donkey!)

We did the important things. Kristen got her apple dumpling and candied almonds.

Kathy bought Emmy a maiden's flower headdress



and I enjoyed an adult beverage. We took in the sights, sounds and experiences that the age of Renaissance had to offer. I laughed when Tim said "I think that some of these people have a very loose interpretation of the Renaissance." So true Tim, so true.

(Scary monkey carousel...as you can see from her face, Emmy was not amused)

But our Renaissance Festival experience was not about the satyr music that my daughter jammed to, nor was it about the Alco-Balls that Kristen's client (who was there) enjoyed with his family, and it definitely was not about the giant Wizard that scared the ever-living-you-know-what out of Emmy (Tony, it's a height thing)...

No, no, no, our RenFest experience can be summed up in two words, eighties rock. Yep eighties rock. For it was eighties rock music that our neighbors stuck in their car, as we were in ours, blared loudly even after Kristen had asked them nicely to turn it down due to our sleeping baby. Eighties rock that the drunk lady from that car dirty danced to outside my car window, so close I felt like smacking her with my door.

Most of the rest of the TWO AND HALF HOURS was spent trying to figure out ways to ruin their parking lot party. We fiddled with the idea of waking up Emmy, screaming and cranky, and then hanging outside in their group. Tim volunteered to get out of the car, infiltrate their area, fart and then just leave. We all really wanted this to happen. We even thought about blaring one of Emmy's kiddo CD's to drown out their music. A little "Home on the Range" jerks! I just wanted to run a couple of them over with my car, but I thought better of that choice. One thing was for sure, they would not get in front of me when we started moving. There had to be a victory. My passive-agressiveness demanded it!

At first we were annoyed. "I don't think I will be coming back." Tim stated. "Who do we write letters too?" Kristen asked. From the poker games on my Blackberry, to the Meet the Fockers DVD in the car, to the drunks, to not moving an inch for more than 2 hours, to Emmy sleeping soundly in her car seat and Kristen's arms and Kathy's arms, the experience of the RenFest blew up right before us. It had taken 1.5 hours to get there (a normal 20 minute trip), we had stayed for 4 hours, and it took us 3.5 hours to get home. Let that sink in, 3.5 hours. Jokingly at 6:15, when we first got into the line, I had asked where we would spend more time during the day, in the car or at the Festival. I never thought I'd be right!

In the waning moments of our stay in the Festival parking lot, Kristen asked "when do you think this will be funny?" Its going to be a while babe, its going to be a while.

(Our favorite thing about the Renaissance Festival...this goat)

WILD Child(s)

So we're thinking that our nice Friday night dinners might be a thing of the past. Emmy and Caroline were flat out WILD tonight at dinner when we met the Watson's. (Ok, so it was mainly Emmy) Seth and Aiden sat on the end of the table and politely ate their food, colored, and even said the prayer for us.

Emmy and Caroline did this... Mostly at the same time at the top of their lungs...

Betsy and I also got there a little early, so we ended up hanging out for a while. The girls ended up eating their fair share of Kix and a LOOOOOT of bread. Caroline preferred the Kix to the bread (and I agree) so she decided that she would feed Emmy the bread. We didn't know she knew how to do this, but Emmy seemed to like it and it was the only way she'd eat any food ( I can't imagine that it had anything to do with all the bread) , so we ended up leeting C-Ro feed Emmy her chicken. Hey, whatever it takes.

We're in trouble! It's just going to get more and more interesting (and fun.)

HowieWeenie

Lets start with the name of this post. In one of the more memorable moments of the evening, Kathy brought a little known joke to the table not once, but twice. I think it went, "Weenie (Tim and Kathy's dog) was sad this morning. She thought Halloween was Howie (Laura and Sean's dog) and her birthday celebration!" Ba-dum-ching! I think I will remember that for quite some time. Overall, HowieWeenie was a success. How this day has changed. From parties with adult beverages to walking the streets of a Katy neighborhood early in the evening with three kids under the age of 3 getting candy.


Very memorable. Not to mention that Emmy, Abby and Jackson had a paparazzi section that outnumbered them 3 to 1.


We lit up the night with 4-5 cameras and 2 video cameras catching each moment Abby waited patiently for Emmy, who is not as agile and does not quite understand this Halloween thing just yet, and the moments when Emmy, catching on, would grab a piece of candy from the bowl and then make a mad dash for Mom as if she just had gotten away with something amazing!




The girls and little guy were a huge smash amongst the creatures and parents and others criss crossing the neighborhood streets. We did however enjoy other people's take on Emmy's costume. As you are all aware from the pictures we have posted previously, Emmy was a skunk for Halloween. There really is no question. I'm not sure how you could get the black costume with a white stripe lining the back mixed up with any other animal, monster, goblin, Disney character, etc. Those roaming the neighborhood had other ideas. "What a cute bunny!" said one candy giver as we walked Emmy to his door. A bunny? Seriously? "Look at the cute eskimo!" remarked one small girl walking with her parents in the opposite direction down the sidewalk. To which her sister retorted, "Thats not an eskimo, its a horse." The hits just keep on coming.
After about a dozen houses and one cul-de-sac party, Abby proclaimed that she was indeed done with HowieWeenie for another year.

So we grabbed the little one and made the trek back to Megan and Keith's house where we surveyed the haul of candy our young daughter had gotten, but cannot eat.

Little does she know that we intend to utilize her cutness factor for at least two more Halloweens in order to get candy for our own consumption. I don't think she'll care. Heck, just give her a Laffy Taffy with the wrapper still on and she is good for the entire night.

One holiday down, several more to come as we make our way towards Emmy's first Thanksgiving and first Christmas. Each will more than likely be more out of control than the next. She's going to love every second as will Kristen and I. Life sure is changing, for the better.


And to close it off, Blake made me add the pictures, so I'm putting this one at the end.. just becasue it makes me laugh.