Merry Christmas!!! (Childers’ Style)

We are back from our unexpectedly long visit in North Carolina!  As mentioned before, we ended up travelling there on Sunday due to the blizzard in DC, and so we were able to spend a few extra days visiting family and friends.  Mamaw had lots of new toys for Emmy Cate to play with, even prior to Christmas morning. 

 

On the night before Christmas Eve, EC had dinner with the Childers’ side of the family, and opened her first official Christmas gift.  Unfortunately, none of the pictures turned out very well.  Here is the best we have:

On Christmas Eve, we headed over to EC’s great-grandmother’s to celebrate with the Smith side of the family.  But first, we took some time out to take a family picture!!

It took a couple of tries to get a good shot!  Ever since EC’s little toother has been coming in (or maybe it’s just her silly little personality!!), she makes all kinds of funny faces.  Case in    point …

   

She was quite the entertainer while we were there, mainly running around in circles with her walker and enjoying lots of attention from all of her relatives!  Papaw and Daddy took a minute to pose for a pic as well:

And not to be outdone, Great Uncle Terry posed with all three babies ….

  And it wouldn’t be a visit to NC without the obligatory 3 baby shot!!

Of course, in pictures, EC looks all sweet and calm, but here she is caught in the act of her usual shenanigans!!  Don’t get me wrong, she is sweet, but calm she is not!!  :)

On Christmas morning, EC opened gifts along with Macy and Makayla at Mamaw and Papaw’s house.  I love the look on EC’s face in this shot where Mandy is showing Macy one of her presents!!

Then it was on to spend Christmas with the McDaniel family back in Atlanta … more to come!!

Our little Frequent Flier and Blizzard 2009!!!

Last week, Emmy Cate took her first airplane trip!  Her parents are happy to report that she did very well!  We were lucky to have gone to the pediatrician earlier in the week and she prescribed some numbing ear drops in case EC had trouble with her ears.  They worked like a charm on the descent. 

As mentioned before, we were up in DC for Nathan’s company Christmas party, which was Friday night.  We were supposed to leave Saturday and head home, but umm, yeah, that didn’t even begin to happen!  Even as of Friday morning, all flights Saturday were canceled.  We were rebooked on a flight for Sunday, but as the storm wore on, most flights on Sunday were also canceled.  The blizzard proceeded to drop record-breaking amounts of snow on the whole east coast, including DC where we saw 17” fall!!

 

After several flight cancellations and re-bookings, we decided to rent a car and drive down to North Carolina to Nathan’s family’s a few days early.  What an adventure to be able to tell Emmy Cate about when she gets older!!

Snowed In!!

It has been a whirlwind few days!! I'll post lots more later, but Emmy Cate, Nathan and I flew up to DC for Nathan's company Christmas party last Thursday and we got stuck there!! A huge blizzard came through dumping a foot and a half of snow on us!! Needless to say all flights were canceled for days but we managed to make it out. More later!! Here is what the weather looked like outside:


And here is what we were doing inside:



I'll update more later when I get my computer and get the files loaded. Sorry for the poor quality - these photos were taken on my iPhone and I'm using the Blogger internet-based software to post. :(

All I want for Christmas is ….

Yesterday, we went and had Emmy Cate’s first photo with Santa taken!  It couldn’t have been more perfect … there was NO line, I’m talking none, and Emmy Cate was so smiley and happy that we had a hard time choosing the photo!!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas ….

Recently, we got Emmy Cate all dolled up to take some Christmas pictures under the tree, mainly to use for our Christmas card.  We were planning to get pics with Santa, but then we all got terribly sick and decided that our tree at home would work just fine!  We still plan to get the Santa pics too, but we needed to get those Christmas cards out!!  :) Anyway, Emmy Cate had just woken up from a long nap and was a very happy girl eager to get her picture taken!!  Of course, that is until she realized what was behind her!!  After she caught sight of the tree, it was all over!!

Here is the first take with a headband on …. but it was a little too big …

This was outfit #2 … at this point she was loosing focus and kept laughing and looking a little too happy!!  Ok, so that’s not really possible ….

Then she spotted the tree and lost total focus once she saw all of the pretty lights and sparkly ornaments …

 

So we tried distracting her with a present to unwrap ….

But by that point, she was a goner!!  So we went back to one of the very first photos ….

Happy 1st Christmas to our little girl!!

Yummy …. Homemade Baby Food

This past weekend, I made some baby food for Emmy Cate.  I wanted to see if it really would save some money as everyone says and I wanted to make her some things that you just can’t buy in a Gerber jar.  Also, I’m fine with the plain veggies, but I am wary of things like the “meals” and “smoothies” and “custards” because of added ingredients and preservatives.  I’m fairly adventurous when it comes to food, including veggies, so I’m scouring the aisles looking for things like pureed rutabaga, Fordhook lima beans, and even your basic mashed potatoes (Daddy’s fav)!!  So, I figured it couldn’t be hard to make, and it wasn’t!  I just bought bags of frozen veggies and followed these simple steps:

Boil or steam for a few minutes on the stove according to the directions on the package …

… throw into the food processor with a little bit of water and puree …

… and voila, homemade baby food!!

 

I put each veggie in empty Gerber jars, popped them in the freezer until frozen, then popped them out into ziploc bags and labeled those.  It was pretty easy and didn’t take too much time.

As far as the financial stuff and whether it was worth it, here is how it breaks down for me.  Each bag of veggies was $1 and made approx. 6 jars of food.  If you buy premade Gerber food, a two pack is $0.90.  So homemade, each “jar” is $0.17 and Gerber is $0.45 per jar.  If Emmy Cate eats about 2 jars per day, then that’s a savings of about $4/week.  Since she will only likely eat baby food for a few months, I don’t think the cost savings is worth it to put in the effort.  Still, it’s great to make for those things that you simply can’t find in a jar, or if you don’t want your little one to eat things that you can’t pronounce!!

And because everyone wouldn’t be happy without seeing EC’s smiling face, here she is hamming it up:

Life as Bits knows it is O.V.E.R.

Bits better watch out because Emmy Cate is on the loose and she is gunning for him every chance she gets!!  She has figured out the walker and her favorite activity is chasing “kitty”!!  She can really get going down our long hallway, but when she hits a roadblock, she is still stumped as to how to turn around or maneuver in another direction.  She has gotten unstuck a couple of times now, so I think once she learns that, we are in trouble!  Here is what we hear around the house … pitter patter pitter patter …. then …..  BAM!! as she hits a wall or the Christmas decorations!! 

{P.S. Ignore the mess in the dining room – we were putting up Christmas decorations!! :) }