What we have been up to

Daddy is back in Washington DC for business, so Emma and I have kept bust doing lots of things. We have been Christmas Shopping, Hiking with friends, and to various playgroups. Today we went to storytime at the library and then Gymboree. Hopefully this means that we will take a good nap today. We have also been busy decorating our house. Here are some pictures of some of our decorations. Hopefully we will get our tree this weekend.


Our fireplace

Emma decorates the tree in her room

Emma plays with the jingle bells

Here I Come!

Emma loves to see the snowman play music

This morning Emma built this tower all by herself!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello all! We had a very relaxing Thanksgiving Weekend. We went to our friend's home for Thanksgiving Dinner. Emma got to play with her good friend Kaylee.

From Thanksgiving fun

Emma and Kaylee
Unfortunately, we did not get many good pictures on Thanksgiving day. Emma and I did take some time to make some hand turkeys:




Daddy had to work most of the weekend, but Emma had time to relax


She also spent some time on the phone while showing some interesting fashion sense

We also put up some of our Christmas Decorations. We will take pictures and post them once we put up the tree!
We have so much to be thankful for this year!

A Visit to Virginia

Last week, we had a great visit with all our friends and family in Virginia. We flew in on Saturday and stayed with our friends Billy, Sarah, and Sydney.

On Saturday we relaxed and Dan and the girls enjoyed a very good Virginia Tech Game

From visit to virg...

Dan and Sydney watching the game

Goldfish are a great gametime snack
On Sunday, we got to go to our old church, and then the Scotts had a potluck at their house so we could see more friends. On Monday, Nana and G-pa watched the girls for us while Sarah and I went shopping

Dancing to G-pa's music
On Tuesday we went to see our friends Monica and Amanda.

Emma, Amanda, and Sydney
There was also a lot of playing going on


Wednesday was the perfect day to take some fall pictures.


We also set up the Christmas tree to try and get some Holiday picture. (And yes, we did resort to hiding animal crackers in the tree to get some of these pictures :)



On Thursday we went to the mall and had Chick-Fil-A for lunch and then had some play time in the playground



Emma and Syndey have become great friends!

Halloween

Emma had a great time on Halloween. First, we met some neighborhood friends and went trick-or-treating to a few houses. Then we went to the church Harvest Festival for lots of games, food, and treats.

From halloween

Emma spots the Halloween Candy

On our way!

Emma is a little excited

Where did you get your outfit?

Trick or Treat!

Emma's favorite are the M&Ms

At church with Kaylee

Happy Halloween!

We Survived!

Well, last night we encountered another first in California. I was sitting watching NCIS, Emma was snug in her bed, and Dan was still at work. All of a sudden, the house started to shake and there was a sound a little like a train coming though. It took me a second to realize that it was an Earthquake. The quake lasted about 20 seconds and then all went back to normal. I quickly went to check on Emma. She was still sound asleep. Then I called Dan. He said his whole building had shook, but he was the only one that ran outside. The earthquake was considered a moderate one at 5.6, but there was very little damage. It was entertaining to watch the newscasts try to find damage footage. One station was at a Target where one ceiling tile had fallen down while another showed and broken Mickey Mouse that had fallen off a shelf. Must have been a slow news day! Anyway, we survived no worse for wear!

Happy Halloween!

Google-ween

Daddy invited us to Google for their special "Google-Ween" celebration. There was music, trick-or-treating , balloon sculptors, and lots of food and treats. Emma donned her halloween costume and had a great time!

From Halloween Eve

Emma in her costume, ready to go!

Checking out the scarecrow

Trick-or-Treating

Making our trick-or-treat bag

Juice Break

Yummy

Listening to the band

They were silly!

I found a hat

With mommy

Look what I got!

Making Cookies for Daddy

One of my favorite things to do growing up was to make sugar cookies and decorate them, so I decided to share the tradition with Emma and make some Pumpkin Cookies. Emma was great at putting ingredients into the bowl and stirring and she likes rolling out the dough. Then she got her first taste and she lost interest in anything else but eating!


Mommy, do we need Cinnamon?

Mixing

Waiting for the next ingredient

Rolling out the Dough

Using the Cookie Cutter

I got my first taste!