26 mos and 9 mos

Its that time again...

Emily has begun to spit out new words and sentences everyday. Just the other day, after seeing a manger scene, she told Joe "Jesus... loves... me... YEP!" So cute. I guess she does listen when we talk. I used to sing her that song before bed almost every night (now Joe puts her to bed and they have their own routine). She has also learned to count hairthings and cookies. So far she has counted to 6 on her own.

Maddie is all over the place - she crawls everywhere and has begun trying to climb anything and everything. All this activity has slowed her growth rate. She is no longer gaining 2 pounds every month, which I think is a good thing :) She just got her first 2 teeth, but its nearly impossible to get a picture of her, much less her teeth!

SANTA!

Grandma and I took the girls to a fancy hotel on the Riverwalk to hear Santa read a book. Really, we heard there was going to be free milk and cookies! Anyone who knows me know that I can't pass up cookies. The hotel was really nice and the cookies were really yummy. Emily loved Santa's chair as long as Santa wasn't sitting in it and she refused to sit in his lap. Maddie sat in his lap but gave him quite a look.

Decorating the trees!

With Grandma in front of the fake tree on the middle level (to look pretty from the street, ha ha)

Here we are in front of our Charlie Brown tree

A Day on the Christmas Tree Farm

Early this December, our family and the George grandparents went to pick out Christmas trees at a farm called Devine Acres in Devine, TX. It was a great little farm with a couple of different types of trees and lots of stuff for kids to do. There was a petting zoo, fishing pond, mazes, hayride, playground, tetherball... the list goes on. We had a great time and bought two nice trees. Emily loved to feed the goats and llama and honk at the funny goose with a bump on his head. Here are some pics from the day.

Time with Aunt Sherry

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we also got to see Aunt Sherry and her family in from the Houston Area. She has 3 boys so she loves to get to spend some time with little girls. Sometimes Emily can be very shy, but over that weekend, she really came out of her shell. She even helped Aunt Sherry and Kevin find leaves and bugs for his science project. That's not that surprising though because she loves to be outdoors looking at plants, animals, and bugs. She likes to dissect plants, especially when she thinks there may be beans inside.

Here is a picture of Emily, Aunt Sherry, and Christie, their family dog who has been around for 12 years.

Maddie also got to know Aunt Sherry this weekend. She is a big fan of standing in your lap to taste, oops, I mean admire all the jewelry you are wearing. Maddie rarely sits still, so when this happens, you have to take advantage of it!

Playdate with Baylee!

Once again, we were so lucky to get to have a playdate with cousin Baylee while we were in Cedar Park. She is such a smart, generous little girl who realizes that Emily is "bashful" - her words. Emily and Maddie love to get to see Baylee and all her fun toys. This time Emily was more interested in eating the fruity cheerios, but Maddie got her first ride on a push car. She was absolutely thrilled!

Here is Baylee sharing her Granmommy (Aunt Judy) with Maddie.

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year! We went to Cedar Park where Aunt Lorrie hosted for 4 days in a row. She roasted a turkey and another turkey was fried by the Rushing guys and Nate. Everyone made something and it was all good. We also attempted to take a picture of all the Davies family in attendance - I'm still awaiting a copy of that from our photographer, Uncle Lee. But there is a pic of our smaller family

And here is one to make some of you laugh. Here are the guys of our generation (+ an old guy) doing the Heisman stance. It was the old man's idea. Notice Joe's Heisman stance - I think he played defense...

In the Texas Hill Country

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpop George and a pump, Joe and I were able to get away for a night to the Texas hill country. We stayed at a nice B&B outside Kerrville with a great view. We drove all over the place to Fredericksburg, Comfort, and everywhere in between and did touristy things like going to a winery, eating in a biergarten, and window-shopping.

Here is the view from our room with some early morning fog.

And here we are once the fog had disapated some. And yes, we always look that goofy.

Cooking from the garden with Emily

I can't sleep tonight so I thought I'd try blogging. I guess I'm that desperate to get tired again :)

Every once in awhile I am productive in the kitchen, maybe even Betty Crocker-ish. Most people are surprised at the domestic streak I sometimes have, probably because I spent most of the years before Emily was born on a softball field, or in a dark engineering building with 5 windows, or driving around trying find houses to buy. They usually have a shocked look on their face and say "I had no idea you were so domestic". Ha.

Anyway, who can resist working in the kitchen when you have fresh vegetables from your own garden and a cute little person to "help" you. One day last month (like I said, its only a streak, I'm not fully domesticated) Emily and I baked honey wheat bread, zucchini bread, and eggplant parmesan. Yum! There were also some cookies in the oven at the time of the picture. The eggplant parmesan had eggplant, tomatoes, and basil from our garden. The zucchini in the bread and the tomatoes in the salad were also from our garden. I think there was something else from the garden in here, but I am drawing a blank at this horrible hour when the rest of my family is asleep.

Here is a closeup of my little garden and kitchen helper. It has taken awhile to teach her that you only pick red tomatoes. And now I have complicated matters by planting a lime green salad tomato plant. It still has about 20 tomatoes on it now in December! Please pay no attention to Emily's shirt. We have no intention of raising a "glamour girl". In fact, she plays in this shirt and gets it as dirty as she wants, which is very glamourous