What Do You Think?

I'd say these two are related, wouldn't you?

Wordless Wednesday - Santa's Little Helpers

Before and After

We recently had siding put up on our house and let me tell you, it looks like a totally different house. It was funny because on Thanksgiving Day, I looked out the window and saw three people walking down the other side of the street. One by one, they all turned their heads to look. Here are some before and after photos. We still need to paint the garage and the deck at some point but I think we'll wait for warmer weather.

Front Left Before

Front Left After Right Front Before Right Front After Back Before Back After

When Did This Happen?

How did this baby with the skinny little legs...

...morph into this little chunky monkey? I love it!

Jingle Bells

Big Girl Bed

As I mentioned before, we moved Emma into her big girl bed the Eve before her birthday. She has done fantastic at night but maybe the dark has kept her safely tucked away so far. Of course, she was up before daybreak this morning, got out of bed and headed into the hallway where I heard her and told her to come on in to our room. Hopefully this won't become a routine thing especially since she had no intention of going back to sleep. While nights have been good, naps have been another story. Today was the first day that I managed to get her to take a nap in her bed and that involved chasing her back into bed three times before I took her and put her in the pack and play. She wasn't too keen on that so I gave her the option of going back to her bed and that was that, she stayed put and fell asleep. It was a small victory but I'll take it! Hopefully we can get a nap in tomorrow as well. We were a little afraid at first that Emma would think the bed was a trampoline as evidenced in the photos below from the day we set up the bed. However, she has been great about not jumping on it and is excited to head off to bed at night. She is getting to be such a big girl!

Emma's 2nd Birthday

Thanksgiving was extra special this year since not only did we get to give thanks for our many Blessings but we got to celebrate Emma's 2nd birthday. She had a great time tearing through all of her gifts. She was so sweet though because the first thing she opened was a plush Elmo that we told her was from Josh. She took that to mean that Elmo was for Josh and tried to give it to him. Once we convinced her that Elmo was hers, she tried to give Josh some of her other packages. I love her willingness to share with him; may it continue always (wishful thinking, I know). After presents, it was time for some cake, which of course had to be Elmo this year. It wasn't perfect but I was pretty proud of my decorating effort. We had to blow out the candle twice because the video camera wasn't rolling the first time through. She got it right away the first time but needed a little extra assistance on the second round. Here are a few highlights from her birthday.

Wordless Wednesday - After Saturday's "Nap"