Santa was here

Tuesday brought another full day of Christmas festivities. Santa brought Emma some great toys, like a bowling set and a big box of legos. We had Grandma & Grandpa H. and Aunt Laura over in the morning to open gifts. They brought Emma a great rocking horse, but she is still working up the courage to try it out. She does like to stand next to him and pet his nose, though!

Aunt Martha, Uncle Don, and Emma Sr. came over later for Christmas dinner. We all had plenty of room in our spacious new dining room, and the pumpkin pie was a hit.

All in all, Emma seemed to enjoy herself this Christmas. She's still totally captivated by the "pretty pretty pretty" ornaments on the tree. The toys underneath the tree have been a constant source of "ooh"s and giggles all week. We also learned that Emma is a big fan of Grandma's cranberry & apple dish, Great Grandma's pumpkin pie recipe, and Mommy's sugar cookies!

For more Christmas Eve/Christmas Day pictures, click here.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night

Whew! Two entries in one day!

Christmas Eve is upon us. We got back just a little while ago from Grandma & Grandpa Korey's house, where the kids racked up plenty of toys and clothes. Emma is fast asleep, and we are busy making last-minute preparations to leave out a plate of cookies and a cold glass of milk, and get ourselves to bed before Santa slides down the chimney with his sack of goodies. (I made sure to send him a copy of this year's Christmas card, so that he would know our new address!)

Alex & Emma had a blast opening their presents at Grandma & Grandpa's earlier tonight:

More pictures to come after Emma experiences her 2nd Christmas morning ever. For now, it's off to bed!

Beautiful morning

Emma & Mommy woke up early this morning. (Well, mostly Emma woke up early this morning and decided she wanted company...we all know how that goes.) We were downstairs playing after breakfast, and I was reminded of one of the biggest reasons we bought this house. We had the most beautiful view of the sunrise from the family room window. I took a picture, but this doesn't even do it justice.

Christmas Eve Eve

It's the night before the night before Christmas, and we are busy making preparations for the upcoming two days' worth of celebrations with various sides of the family. Emma's been busy exploring the ornaments and lights on the tree. Meanwhile, I have made my first attempt at my grandmother's recipe for pumpkin pie (Emma Sr.). We'll find out on Tuesday if I got it even close to right!

No walking yet for Miss Emma, but she has recently started trying to stand up on her own from a sitting position. We figure it's a sign that she's headed in an independently-mobile direction. It's obvious that she is getting more confident in her ability to stand alone without holding on to anything.

Although she's not walking yet, we do have another first to share -- her very first take-home art project! Miss Sarah had the kids make wreaths out of their handprints. This is the first of what will surely be hundreds more pictures to grace the front of our refrigerator over the years:
Now that her hair is getting longer, we are able to put it up into ponytails and piggytails. It's going to take some getting used to on her part. This lasted for about 4 minutes today:

Deck the halls

We finally got our Christmas tree up last night. So far Emma is intrigued by it, but she hasn't tried to pull it over or anything. That's a relief! We left the bottom branches bare, just to help remove the temptation. It's quite a sight. But it's up, and it's twinkling, and it's filling the house with Christmas cheer.

It's been a very busy weekend around here. Last night we did an excursion to the mall for some Christmas shopping (hopefully the last time we have to go there until after Christmas!). Grandma & Grandpa Korey come over for a visit this afternoon, and then we went out for dinner. Tomorrow is Audrey's 1st birthday party. Emma is very excited about the gift we picked out for Audrey, but she can't seem to understand why Mommy won't let her play with it!

Tim took this video the other night after dinner, hoping that she might try walking without holding on. As usual, she didn't try, so it ended up being just a minute-long glimpse into a typical evening at our house. It's like Seinfeld...it's about nothing, and yet you keep watching to see what's going to happen next!

Home sweet home

Here are a few pictures of the house, now that we are mostly unpacked and fairly organized. Between her cold and adjusting to a new place, Emma had some rough nights last week, but she has slept like a log for the past few nights. Hopefully that trend will continue!

Emma's vocabulary seems to grow on a daily basis. She still doesn't seem to use "mama" or "dada" in any meaningful way, but she can point out a pair of "shoes," talk about her "fish" (Goldfish crackers), point to a picture of a "baby," and show you all of the "pretty, pretty, pretty" Christmas decorations around town. I'm trying to teach her to say "all done" when she's finished eating, but right now it sounds more like, "ah duh." It's a work in progress...

We'll post more pictures later in the week, but we wanted to go ahead and get some up for those of you that have been waiting to see them. You'll all have to come over and visit us sometime!

Mission accomplished

This marks the first post made from our new house. We officially moved in on Saturday (with the help of some strong friends & family - thank you again to those of you who helped!). After 3 solid days of unpacking, we are proud to say that both cars are parked in the garage tonight. We will sure appreciate that in the morning, when we don't have to brave the cold and scrape the frost off of the cars before leaving for work.

We will put up some pictures of the house, this time including paint on the walls and furniture in place, once we have things a little more organized. For now, enjoy some pictures of Emma eating her waffle & pears this morning:

And her latest fascination - what's in Daddy's pocket?

Poor girl is still fighting the runny nose and cough. Sounds like it's been going around all over. Hopefully she'll be over it soon, so that all of us can get a solid nights' sleep!

No longer homeless

As of this past Wednesday afternoon, we are officially homeowners once again! We have been busy preparing the house for move-in day, which is tomorrow. There has been plenty of activity, with painters, appliance deliveries, and a few last minute fixes from the builder (small things like repouring part of the concrete driveway - !). We are looking forward to Sunday evening, when we can sit down, take a deep breath, and finally feel like we are home.

Emma has been dealing with a cold for the last two weeks, but we are hoping it's on its way out. She went to the doctor for her 2nd flu shot yesterday, and her ears and lungs were clear. She hasn't gained any weight in the past month, which shocks me considering how much she has been eating lately! That tells you how active she is these days.

I have been convinced that I have heard her say a few words over the last few weeks, even though some people think I'm just hearing things. Yesterday, Miss Sarah backed me up. Emma was standing near Laila's shoes, and she said "shoes" several times while looking at them. Well, actually it was more like "shusss....shusss" but it was definitely referring to Laila's shoes. We'll have to see if the trend continues. Regardless of whether she is saying words, she has been babbling like crazy lately!

Pictures next time, I promise...

Turkey Day

After two days in a row of Thanksgiving meals, we are sufficiently stuffed. We spent Thursday at Grandma & Grandpa Korey's house, where Emma played with Alex, chased the dog, and had Great Uncle Tom teach her how to take golf balls out of the huge baskets full at G & G's house. (I'm sure Grandma & Grandpa will thank him for that after the next time we are there, when she will surely take out at least a hundred and roll them all around on the floor!)

Friday brought a second meal, this time with the Hill side of the family. We somehow managed to fit 20 people in Grandma & Grandpa H's house, and with 4 meats and 11 desserts, we all ate more than our fill!

Emma wasn't crazy about the turkey, but she was way into the cranberries. We may have to bring them out again at Christmas time, so that she can have another helping.

On the house front, we have our final walkthrough and closing this coming Wednesday, and we should be all moved in by next Saturday afternoon. It's so nice to think about this long journey finally nearing completion!

I'm ready for my close-up

Well, today's 12-month photography session went alot better than the 6-month one(s). We got some really great shots, and bought more than we had planned, as usual. At this studio, if you order enough pictures, you get a CD of every shot the photographer took. The ones posted here are shots we did not buy in print, but I thought it would be fun to share some of the ones from the CD that might not otherwise be seen.

Emma didn't want to take her thumb out of her mouth towards the end, as they were running behind and we were nearing her afternoon nap time. But she was a trooper and hung in till the end.

Not much in the way of exciting news this week, which is okay. We could use a week without any major excitement once in awhile! Emma continues to eat like a horse, and has finally come around to liking bananas. I figured she would eventually. Blueberries, goldfish crackers, and cheese are all still high on the favorite foods list as well.

We're getting ready to see lots of family next week over the Thanksgiving holiday. For those of you that are traveling out of town, be safe!

We finally have a yard!

What a busy weekend we have had! Saturday's errands included the usual trip out to the new house. The only major thing left is the refrigerator. Since last week, they have installed all of the carpeting, finished the railing, and done all of the landscaping for the 5 houses in a row on our side of the street. Click here* for all of the pictures we took on Saturday.

*link now fixed

Today was Alex's baptism ceremony. We went to Uncle Mike & Aunt Heather's church for the service, and then back to their house for lunch and a little celebration. It was a very nice ceremony, and we got to spend some enjoyable time with family and friends.

Hi, kitty!

Sometimes it's unbelievable how much goes on in just a few days. No huge developments to post about, but lots of little ones!

First of all, the picture above is Emma checking out Ralph the cat. (You can barely see him just to the right of Emma's right hand.) She gets so excited when she sees animals! I wish I had video of this moment because she was standing at the window, just babbling away like she was having a conversation with the kitty. We visited Grandma & Grandpa K over the weekend, and she was equally excited to see Fred, their dog. I think she could have spent hours on end chasing the poor guy!

She's not walking yet, but she is cruising along on just about anything within reach. If you can get her standing and focused on something else, sometimes you can let go and she will stand for a few seconds all by herself. Dr. Dewling may not have been wrong after all when she predicted that Emma would be walking by Thanksgiving.

Over the past few days, our picky eater has turned into a bottomless pit! I think she has eaten more in the last 3 days than she did in the entire month of October! I think switching from formula to milk increased her appetite because it's not as filling. She seems to be a fruit and veggie girl lately, although she is crazy about plain Goldfish crackers too. She gets a kick out of eating with a fork. She hasn't mastered the skill of spearing the food with the fork, but she knows how to eat the food off of it.

The new house is almost ready. Our final walk-though is scheduled for 2 weeks from today. As of last weekend, the only big things missing were the carpeting, one of the railings, and the refrigerator. It also looked like they were getting ready to lay the sod sometime soon.

This weekend we will be celebrating Alex's baptism. We can't believe how quickly time flies. He is already over 6 months old!

Trick or treat

Emma went trick-or-treating for the first time last night. There weren't many houses giving out candy on our street (four, including Grandma & Grandpa H), so it didn't take very long. But it was just enough to give Emma a taste of what she can look forward to in the coming years. She seemed to enjoy being dressed up in her cow costume.

Click here to see more Halloween pictures.

Seven teeth and counting

We got the pictures from Aunt Laura's camera, so there are more pictures in the photo album below from Emma's party. If you already looked yesterday or early today, look again. The new ones are worth an extra click. I know we still didn't get pictures of everyone there, so if anyone has more pictures they want to share from Sunday, please feel free to send them our way and we'll add them to the album!

Last night, I stuck my finger in Emma's mouth and discovered another tooth! This one is popping through on the top. No doubt there will be a matching one on the other side coming through soon.

For those of you who haven't gotten to see it in person, here is the best shot we could get of Emma's mean, scary Halloween face. You really have to see it live to get the full effect with the snarly breathing, but this is a pretty good idea of what the face looks like:

We'll be sure to get lots of good poses tomorrow with the halloween costume. I'm sure she is going to the the cutest one-year-old scary-faced cow ever!

Happy birthday to Emma!

Emma turned 1 on Sunday. We can't believe that a year has gone by so quickly. And yet, at the same time, Emma has changed and grown so much over the last 12 months.

We had family and a few friends join us at Webb Bridge Park for Emma's first birthday party yesterday afternoon. We couldn't have asked for better weather, and everyone seemed to have a good time. I'll let the pictures tell the story of how Emma reacted to her birthday cake! Here's a teaser...

Click here to see the whole story and more pictures. There will be some more pictures to come once we take the pictures off Aunt Laura's camera, but these will do for now.

Happy birthday to our sweet little Emmy!

12 month check-up

I'm going to do a separate entry for the birthday festivities, but we've had alot going on over the past week to share (and pictures, finally!). First of all, Emma's cousin Alex officially became a member of the Korey family. All of the adoption proceedings were finalized last week. Yay!

On Saturday, we headed over to see what progress had been made on the house construction. We found some very visible developments. The granite countertops are in, and some of the appliances have arrived and are ready to be installed:

The railings are up, and they look really nice:

The family room is really starting to take shape:

The official front door has also been installed, and the shutters were lined up on the driveway, ready to be put up shortly. We're down to about 4 weeks now, and we are so excited!

Emma had her 12 month check-up today. She weighs 21lbs and measures 29" long, which are both right around 50th percentile. Dr. Dewling thinks she will walk before Thanksgiving, but I'm not so sure. She pulls up constantly, but she barely cruises while holding on to something, and I have yet to see her let go and try to stand on her own. She got more than a few shots today, which is never fun, but she stopped crying as soon as it was over. She's a trooper!

When we got home, she was a little out of sorts from the shots. While she was playing on the floor, she came over to me, pulled up so that she was standing next to me, and reached over to give me a big, snuggly hug. We sure do have a sweet little girl.

Quick announcement

No pictures again (sorry!). Just taking advantage of this public forum to make sure everyone has our correct email addresses. Through all of the mayhem of Part 1 of our move, we have lost access to our Bellsouth email accounts. Here are the email addresses you should use to contact us from now on:

Amanda - amkorey@yahoo.com
Tim - commishkorey@yahoo.com

Sick bay

A nasty virus has made the rounds through the Korey household. Tim fought through it like a trooper last week, and just when we all thought we were out of the woods, it took both Emma & me out of commission for most of this past week. The symptoms started over the weekend (fever, nausea, sore throat, achiness, etc.), and we seem to both finally be starting to feel a little more human today. We each paid visits to our respective doctors, who both came up with the same diagnosis: a nasty virus that just has to run its 5-7 day course. No flu thankfully, but this wasn't your run-of-the-mill cold, either. And talk about bad timing -- we move out of our house on Saturday morning. Poor Tim has packed up 3/4 of the house all by himself!

Hopefully we will have some new pictures and a fully-recovered update once we are settled in our new temporary home...

Welcome, Ashley!

Forgot to mention in yesterday's entry that Katie & Richard's little girl Ashley Carolyn was born on October 10th. (That's the baby whose shower we went to in Florida last month.) From the pictures we've seen so far, she looks adorable and so tiny. We can't wait to meet her in person one of these days! It's hard to remember Emma being so small, although she was almost 3 lbs ahead of Ashley from the get-go!

Congrats to the new parents, as well as the grandparents and other family that are reading this!

Pumpkin picking

Emma had her first trip to the pumkin patch today. We had planned to go up to Burt's Farm up in Dawsonville, but with everything going on lately, there's just not enough time to make the trip. We stopped by a church down the road instead. Thankfully, Emma is young enough that we didn't have to worry about her begging to go in the moon bounce or to get her face painted. Next year, we may not be so lucky! Here is Emma looking for the perfect pumpkin:

And here we are with Emma's very first pumpkin.
Before pumpkin picking, we met Grandpa & Grandpa Korey over at the new house. As you can see, we now have a front porch with columns:
We went to the back yard, and Emma pointed out all of the trees:
Most of the doors are now in, as well as the trim and moulding. They have also installed the fireplace and the kitchen cabinets. As we left, it looked like the railing on the stairs was on its way in. Things are really starting to take shape!

Dancing with Spiderman

Emma's babysitter has an adorable video of Emma and her daughter Laila playing with a dancing Spiderman toy this morning. Click here and look for the entry called "Too Cute" to watch the video. You need to have the sound on to get the full effect, and make sure you watch all the way to the end, when Emma gets really excited!

Forgot to mention last time that we have more progress to report on the new house. As of last Saturday, we finally have a driveway and a front porch. The patio in the back was also poured, and the drywall is ready for paint. We forgot the camera, so there are no new pictures. We'll try to take some more next time.

Barring something unforeseen, we should be closing on our current house on October 24th. We are very excited to (almost) have our house sold, but that's in less than two weeks -- yikes! We'll be busy packing from now until then, I'm sure. Grandma & Grandpa H will get a big dose of family time, as we will be staying with them and Aunt Laura for about 5 weeks until our new house is done. Sounds like a set-up for a bad sitcom, doesn't it?

What's up, doc?

Emma would like to remind everyone to eat your veggies! (That's a carrot she's holding above.) Actually, the carrot is part of her little garden play thingy - don't know what the proper term is - that she absolutely loves. It keeps her busy for awhile, which is not something we take for granted these days! You can see Elmo joining in on the fun below: We had a busy Saturday over at Niki, Andy, & Audrey's house having a garage sale to try and get rid of some of our stuff before we move. We did pretty well, considering neither Tim nor I had ever done one before. Emma hung out with Audrey and Audrey's cousin Ian for part of the morning. Audrey has started walking in the last few days, but it hasn't rubbed off on Emma yet! She is starting to pull up more, but we are in no hurry.

Today we found a new food that Emma seems to love...blueberries. She's clapping in this picture to show how much she loves them:
You may notice that there are none on her highchair tray. Cheese...eh, turkey...you can keep it, goldfish...nah, but there is not a blueberry left in sight! I only fed her a few at lunch and dinner to make sure she doesn't have a reaction before she downs a huge helping, but so far so good. It's nice to see her enjoying something that actually has nutritional value for once...

We also made another discovery this evening: two new teeth! She had been fussy on & off last week, but we attributed it to her cold. Plus, last time I checked, there were only 4 teeth in there. Tonight, I ran my finger along her gums and felt extra bumps on the bottom. I took a look (which is harder than it sounds when you have an uncooperative tot on your hands), and there they were -- one on each side of her bottom teeth. They look like they must have come in within just a few days of each other. No wonder she was cranky!

We'll end with a photo of Emma's favorite new game, called Throwing Toys Under The Couch And Getting Them Back Out Again Over And Over. At least she's good at pushing them under just far enough, so that she can still pull them out.

Dinner with friends

First of all, the promised pictures from last week's dinner with the Farbotko clan. We couldn't get a picture where both the girls and the dads were looking at the camera, so we settled for half.

After dinner, the girls crawled around in a courtyard near the restaurant. Audrey was all about the gravel, but Emma...not so much. For those of you that have seen it before, she held her feet above the ground and did the little foot circles!

As it started getting darker, some people came around with glow-in-the-dark bracelets. Tim scored one and let Emma try it on. She loved it. This is one of my favorite expressions - the scrunchy face.
Since then, we've battled head-on with a family-wide cold, and poor Emma managed to develop an ear infection. We caught it early, thankfully. She's been on her antibiotics for 2 days, and she seems to be feeling much better. We saw a new doctor at the pediatrician's office. For those of you from Ohio, she lived in Westerville as a child and moved to Dublin as a teenager. I know some of you reading this have lived in at least one of those towns. Small world!

And now, Emma is excited to bring you a new photo, taken in our front lawn today:
(Doesn't she look like she is meditating in the picture? Makes me relax just looking at her!)
Anyways, that's right -- our house is officially Under Contract! We'll leave it at that for now and save the details, as things could still change at a moment's notice, but having the sign in our yard is a huge step! As for the new house, lots of changes last week. The brick was just about done, and the sheetrock was up. Click here to see the latest photos.

Like father, like daughter

We are going to try putting up a video clip (hope it works!). Emma was imitating Tim the other day, and we managed to catch it on camera...



Pictures on the way soon from our night out with Audrey, Niki, & Andy!

Trust

Did you ever play that game called Trust, where you fall backwards and trust that the people behind you will catch you before you hit the ground? We are thinking Emma will be great at that game. She pretty much does it now, except she does it on our bed, where she has the mattress to land on. She sits straight up on the bed, looks you right in the eyes, and just flops backwards, giggling the whole time. (That's her -- mid-flop -- in the picture above.) Thankfully she hasn't tried it on the floor yet, but it seems like it's only a matter of time. I suppose she'll learn after the first time or two that it's not as funny when you land on something hard...

Grandma & Grandpa K come over to visit tomorrow, and Thursday night we are going out to dinner with Audrey and her parents. We'll see how the girls interact this time -- it's been awhile since we've gotten them together. Hopefully at least one set of parents will remember to bring a camera!

A walk in the park

It was such a nice day today that we decided to make our first excursion to the park with Emma. There wasn't a whole lot that she could do there, but we did put her in the baby swing for awhile. She didn't cry, but she didn't seem super excited about the whole thing either. She did enjoy watching all of the other kids running around, and I'm sure in a few years we won't be able to keep her out of the sand and water area! We did find a big plastic tunnel-ish thing that she stood at for a little while. Had to include this last picture because it's too cute the way the only things you see under that hat are her nose and her trademark cheeks!We stopped by the new house this morning, but there's not much new to report. They have graded the backyard and are working on the back deck, and it looks like we should be getting the brickwork done in another week or two. They are projecting a completion date around the third week in November, which will surely be here before we know it!

Toothbrushing pro

We have our nightly bedtime routine firmly in place, and one of Emma's favorite parts is brushing her teeth. I used to fight with her to try and control the brush, so that I could make sure I got all 4 of her teeth good and clean, but she loves chewing on the bristles so much that she gets them just as clean on her own! Plus, she loves watching herself in the mirror the whole time. We're pretty sure she gets that from her daddy, who can't pass by a mirror without posing or making a silly face!