2nd Birthday Bash Chuck E.Cheese Style

We had a small family birthday party for Emma tonight at Chuck E. Cheese.  I figured one week after move-in wasn't the best time to host a party at home and Chuck E. Cheese's turned out to be a lot of fun! :) 

Emma and I visited Chuck E. Cheese's about 2 weeks ago to scope it out so she that it wasn't new territory for her tonight. 

Here are a few pics from our evening:

Nana fixing Emma's hair:

Emma and Daddy:

Cousin Haley, Emma, and Nana:

Chloe, Cole, Christy, and Coleman, what a cute family!:

Emma checking out one of the games:

Uncle Ron, Emma, Cousin Haley:

Aubrey and Emma playing the phone game:

Emma, Daddy, and Aubrey watching Chuck E. Cheese perform:

Emma and Daddy playing a game:

Daddy goofing off:

Emma's Cookie Cake, it was yummy!:

"I need more tickets mom!..."

We had a great time celebrating Emma's 2nd Birthday.  I am certain that she will sleep well tonight and have a blast playing with her new toys tomorrow.  Thank you family and friends for helping make Emma's birthday so special!

Now... on to Christmas. :)

Just What Every Little Girl Wants...

A kitchen... if only she knew that someday she is going to get to play kitchen for real!  Why aren't dishes fun now that I'm an adult?

Emma woke up the morning after her 2nd Birthday to this fun new kitchen from mommy, daddy, and Nana.   She absolutely loves it!

Daddy started putting the kitchen together at 11:30 last night and fell asleep at 4:30 and it still wasn't finished!  There were 43 steps to put this little guy together! :)  Welcome to the world of Toddler toys!

Checking out the microwave (love the bed-head hair!)

Checking out the burners:

Testing the sink:

The washer and dryer work great too!

 

Happy Birthday Sweet Emma! Happy Homemaking!

Emma Katherine Curry is 2!

My baby girl turned two today... I can hardly believe that she has only been in my life for two years!

We had a great day celebrating her Birthday all day today... let me share a quick synopsis of our day:

We started the day by waking her up with Happy Birthday balloons (I think we stole that idea from some good friends' blogs- thanks Rowe's!)  Emma loved the balloons!:

Next, Mommy fixed Emma a gourmet breakfast- a biscuit with butter and honey, with a "2" candle stuck in the middle of it!  We sang Happy Birthday to Emma and practiced blowing out the candles several times:

Next, we got Emma all ready for school in her cute Birthday dress:

Emma had a great day at school where they actually celebrated Jesus' Birthday AND Emma's Birthday!  (I have a feeling this will be happening a lot during her lifetime!)  Emma came home from school very sleepy from all of the days' festivities and took a long nap while mommy went to work.

When Mommy got home from work, we all went to Chick-Fil-A, Emma's favorite restaurant, for dinner.  She really wanted to see the Santa Cow... until he came over to talk to Emma, and then she hid her head on Daddy's shoulder:

We ended the night by singing and dancing to some fun songs in Emma's bedroom before bed... she had a ball!

Tomorrow, the celebration will continue as she wakes up to a Birthday gift from Mommy and Daddy and Nana (stay tuned to find out what that gift is) and then tomorrow night as we celebrate her Birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's!

Moving Day

Today was moving day for our family!  Unfortunately, ALL 3 of us were sick today, but that didn't stop us!  I've been sick since last Monday with an upper respiratory infection.  I can't remember the last time I've coughed so hard for so long, I'm ready to feel better!  Emma started in with the runny nose and cough on Friday and has run a fever all day today.  Robin just started feeling sick today and was pretty miserable throughout the move, but we made it!

Thank you SO much to my family: my mom, my brother, my Uncle Ron, and my Aunt Judy for selflessly volunteering their Sunday to just be with us, help direct traffic, clean, watch Emma, and unpack.  We couldn't have done it without you because we were a bunch of sickies!

The movers met us at our storage unit at 9:00 where they loaded up the majority of our stuff.  Seeing them load up the entire storage unit really got me thinking about how much we really can live 'without.'  We were without 90% of our belongings for 10 months while we lived with my mom.  Sure, we were fortunate to have her appliances, her furniture, etc., but really, we have so much STUFF!  It just made me realize that while I'm grateful to have my stuff back, it's really just stuff. :)  Does this make any sense?

Emma was a real trooper today during the move.  She mostly hung out with Nana and Aunt Judy (Doodie.)  She LOVED seeing all of her 'new' toys!  I think she remembered most of them, but to her, this was like an early Christmas.  Too bad her Birthday is this week, then Christmas one week later- that's a lot of gifts at once!

"Look Mom, a horsey!" She got this rocking horse from Aunt Fallon and Uncle Craig last Christmas.  She's been riding it all night tonight:

I am sitting in my living room tonight so grateful for our home.  We have slaved over this thing (and not done yet) for several months.  I will say that putting blood, sweat, and tears into something, really makes you have a great appreciation for it.  I also feel strongly that this is the house that God had planned for us- He put it on my heart the first time we saw it and I couldn't stop thinking about it.  There were several bumps along the road, but through it all, God kept revealing that this was the house for us. 

It's sleeting outside with temperatures in the 20's/30's right now which means we may be homebound tomorrow.... which would be fine because there is a lot to be done around here!

Kitchen boxes, ready to be unpacked... tomorrow:

Tonight, we all got in our P.J.'s and watched the Dallas Cowboys game- the T.V. was the first thing we hooked up of course:

And just in case you're wondering... Koby made the move well also.  He was a bit stressed out during the day but once he found out that his food was here, he decided this could be his new home:

Stay warm everyone!

Crunch Time

We plan to move into our new house sometime this weekend!   Yipee!  We currently have movers scheduled for Friday, but we may have to push it back a day depending on when the carpet and tile are complete.  They are almost done, just a few areas of tile to grout. We have been frantically finishing a few painting projects this last week before the carpet was installed- it's so much easier when you don't have to worry about dripping paint on the carpet. 

Thank you so much to our family members who have sacrificed their time to help.  Robin's parents were a tremendous help when they were here for Thanksgiving.  My mom has watched Emma for us countless time so that we could work on the house without a 2 year old at our feet.  This last weekend my mom, my aunt Judy, and brother Brandon and mom, came over to help with last minute projects.  We had a great time hanging out while we worked. 

Here are a few pics from the last crunch week:

My mom and Emma putting new shelf paper in some of the kitchen drawers- it was a "sticky situation!"

 

Brother Brandon and Robin getting rid of a very huge plate rack that was on the living room wall.   This thing was a beast!

 

Aunt Judy painting the sunroom- we saved the very hardest room for last!

 

We even enlisted Emma to help paint!  She kept asking "Emma paint the house?"  We gave her a brush and she chose to paint the windows.  Good think the paint was washable.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

Well... not at our new house, but everywhere else!  I so wish we were moved in to our house and all decorated for Christmas.  We are tentatively set to move in to our house sometime next week, just a few weeks before Christmas.  We probably won't be able to go all out on Christmas decorations, but we definitely plan to put up a tree, stockings, and a Christmas wreath on our front door! :)  Emma is so fascinated with Christmas trees this year.  She loves to look at them, touch them, talk about them, etc.  Every time we go to Target, we have to go to the Christmas decoration section for Emma to browse. She demands that we see the "Kwismus twees!"  So, for now, we are getting our Christmas decoration fix from Target each week.

Thanksgiving

We just wrapped up a wonderful, memorable, Thanksgiving week.  We were very lucky to have lots of family members from both sides of our family travel to Tulsa to celebrate Thanksgiving.  We were sad not to be able to see Robin's brothers and sisters for Thanksgiving, but with all of our house projects pending, we didn't feel like we could travel.  Luckily, we'll see them in just a few weeks for Christmas!

My mom's sister, Renee, traveled from Colorado, her brother, Danny, traveled from Kansas, and my cousin, Steve, traveled with his family from Louisiana.  Robin's parents also traveled from TX and were here for several days.  It was so great to spend time with everyone... we had quite a full house!

Our weekend was jam packed with fun events.  We had hobo stew the night before Thanksgiving, had an awesome meal on Thanksgiving day, went to see Christmas lights at Rhema on Thanksgiving night, went to Incredible Pizza on Friday night, had a Ruby Slipper ice cream float party on Saturday, and had a pajama party on Saturday night.  Emma LOVED spending time with her 2nd cousins- she loves big kids and she loves babies so she was in heaven.

Here are a few pics from our weekend!

Emma was so excited to see Gigi- she kept hugging her very tightly!

  

Emma cuddling with Pops:

Emma and Aunt Judy:

Brandon and Koby napping together:

Emma and Olivia hanging out in the wagon:

Jill reading to Emma and Madeline:

Cousin Robin reading to Emma:

Emma loved sitting between Pops and Gigi during our Thanksgiving meal:

The Foster clan: Judy (dad's sister), Ron (dad's brother), Jill, Emma, Sara (dad's cousin), Haley (dad's 2nd cousin) (Brandon was napping during this picture!):

Family at Rhema lights:

Robin, Jill, and Emma at Rhema lights: 

Emma and Olivia playing:

 

Olivia brought Emma a new baby dol l that she immediately fell in love with.  Pops affectionately named the baby, "Bubba."

Emma hugging Madeline:

The whole clan at Incredible Pizza- yes, it was incredible!:

Emma taking care of Maddie:

Emma's favorite game at Incredible Pizza- the coin game:

 

Mom's good friends, The Ruby Slippers, came over for an ice cream float party on Saturday.  They had met mom's brother, Danny, on their road trip to Kansas this summer.  They wanted to meet the rest of the family.  Mom served yummy ice cream floats and cookies:

The Ruby Slippers, plus Danny and Olivia!:

Cousin Pajama party:

Pajama party dance-off :

Wrestling match: