Dancin Feet

Emma loves to dance. This week, John is home with Emma as I am working extra as this is a busy time of year for me at work and John is done with school. One of the things that Emma loves to do with John is go up and down the escalator at Macy's. Yesterday, John was taking her on one of these trips to the escalator and our favorite Christmas song came on over the loud speaker at Macy's. Emma stopped in her tracks and started to "shake it". She then looked up at John very intently and put out her hand. John figured she wanted to go up the escalator again so he took her hand and started leading her toward the escalator but she wouldn't budge. He let go and asked her what she wanted. She put out her hand again as if she wanted to go and then wouldn't budge. John said she did this over and over until he got down on her level and asked her what she wanted for the 5th time. She grabbed both of his hands and started to "shake it". She wanted to dance with her daddy. So John said they danced in Macy's for a while and then she was ready to go...How sweet is that story????

A day of Christmas Events

We woke up in the morning and headed off to get our spot for the Greensboro Christmas parade.  The parade is a popular event in Greensboro during the holidays and even has the big blow up floats like the Macy's day parade.  A big group of us met to watch the parade.

Then back to our house to watch a football game and eat spaghetti.  At around 7, we all headed down to the arboretum near our house.  Each year the park is lit up with luminaries.  There is hot chocolate for sale, you can roast smores, go on a carriage ride, or just walk around and listen to the music played by various bands.  It was a little cold but well worth it.

They even had Santa there to take pictures....

It's Christmas Time!!

Our Family LOVES Christmas.  It is defiantly my favorite time of the year and I hope it becomes Emma's favorite time.  This is our Christmas decorating day.  Emma was very good about gently playing with the ornaments on the bottom of the tree and I don't think realized that the gifts under the tree would be toys for her.  We also purchased a large blow up snowman for our front yard.  Each time we would leave to go to the car, Emma would tug us toward the front yard to say hello to her snowman.  We are hoping to become those annoying neighbors that have way too many blow up items in their front yard.........

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends again this year.  We had all of the traditional items along with great dollar store decorations to top everything off.  The next day, in Pell family tradition, we got up at 4:30 am to get to the after Thanksgiving sales.  Alisa came with us for her first early morning shopping experience.  We had a lot of fun and Emma was a trooper as always.

Bath Time

Kai and Emma had their first bath together......we are hoping that this picture will be one of those embarrassing moments to bring up in the future.... 

Leaves, Leaves and More Leaves

The good and bad about living in the south during the fall are the leaves.  They are beautiful to look at but a pain to clean up.  Emma loved it though so we think she will be in charge of cleaning the leaves from now on.  She insisted on having her own rake so she could touch the leaves, then touch the trash can, then touch the leaves, then touch the trash can...very helpful.  She is like her mom and just loves being outside for any reason.  I hope her love for helping with yard work continues.....

Grandma Holly and Pappy come to Visit

Emma loved spending time with her grandparents.  She would cry when my mom left the room and was very spoiled by all of the attention.  Emma spent most of her time at home with my mom looking at pictures of herself on the computer (one of Emma's favorite things to do).  My dad was teaching down in Charlotte so got to do some shopping and stay in a hotel down south for a night and then got a couple of days with both parents.  We also took her to her first movie as a big girl Madagascar 2.  She loved it...I am not sure if it was the movie or the big tub of popcorn but it was a big hit...Since my mom is the big picture taker of our family, I take a break whenever she visits so I will post some more pictures as soon as I can get them from my mom.

Trip to Brevard

During the last weekend of October, we took a trip to Brevard with our friends the Gassaway's and Wells'.  As you can see, we now all have little girls.  We had beautiful weather and a great time catching up....

We were there over halloween so of course, had to get the girls dressed in their costumes for a picture....


This was as good a picture as was possible with the girls.... no one was very happy about the outfits they were made to wear...but don't they look cute?Ducks, Ducks, Ducks.....Emma loved feeding the ducks.  There was a pond we could walk to from the cabin (really nice house) we were staying at where we went to feed the ducks...



Emma also loved tromping in the leaves.....

Miscellaneous Fall Pictures

We went to a pumpkin carving contest (and won!!) at Will's house.  Emma arrived in her flower costume and left in her pink tights and jacket.  Ours is the "Trick or Treat" pumpkin...

This is Emma's "cool dude" hat.  John told her it was cool and got her excited about wearing it so she will wear it wherever we go.  This is her putting her hands in her pockets and being very excited about her hat....
We go to a library group on Wednesdays and for halloween, all of the kids came dressed up in their costumes...

She loves her doggy.....

Emma's First Slumber Party...or Our First Weekend "Away"

This past weekend marks the first weekend that John and I have spent without Emma since she was born. Our good friends the Renslow's had offered to take Emma for the weekend for a while and we finally found a date that worked for us all. I packed Emma up at 5 and dropped her off. She was greeted by her BFF Leah (8 year old daughter) with a squeel. I don't even think she noticed us leaving.

We began our weekend with dinner out and a movie. We decided to just stay in Greensboro for the weekend as we didn't really feel like making the effort to go anywhere. Sleeping in and spending some quality time with eachother was our main objective anyway. We went to bed late and slept in until 11!!! I woke up, looked at my watch, rolled over to John and exclaimed "Still got it!" I was very excited that I had not lost the ability to sleep in (one of my favorite past times pre-Emma)

We went shopping with no child to hold us up, read books in a coffee shop and then went to dinner and another movie (yet another favorite past-time of ours pre-Emma)

It was a wonderful weekend. We felt so blessed to have good friends that were excited about spending the weekend with Emma. It is difficult to live away from our families and having a wonderful family like the Renslows to share life with makes it easier.

Emma did great! She didn't really seem to miss us during the day. Gayla sent me a picture of her bouncing on their trampling giggling mid day on Saturday. It was good to know that she was having fun. John and I began to really miss her as we got into bed on Saturday night. We came to find out, Emma had started really missing us as well as she had a hard time sleeping on Saturday and ended up in bed with Jimmy and Gayla. A weekend apart was the perfect amount of time to feel refreshed and reconnected.