Christmas Pictures

I decided to take Emily's Christmas pictures this year and we tried two different backdrops. We tried our Christmas Tree and then a White Background. I ended up taking 100 pictures to get 1, 1 measly picture, that I could use! Of course none of the pictures had a smile in them, as Emily is pretty stingy with her smiles on camera, but the one that was chosen, I actually really like.

Funny story on it too, I went to Meijer to pick up some of the pictures that I ordered and the lady told me that she needed to see a copyright release because it was a professional picture. I told her that I didn't have one, as I took the picture. She believed me, which was good because I had no idea how I was going to prove that, and said that it was a very good picture. The weird part about the whole thing was not but 2 days before I had been in to get a bunch of wallets printed for our Christmas Cards and they never said anything to us.

Of course, I am not going to put the one that I ended up using in our Christmas Card online yet, but here are some of the many bloopers that we had...

Bloopers...

Christmas Picture Bloopers...

Look I do let her eat Cake...

Emily eating cake....which I will say I took a large chunk of frosting off of it and set it to the side of the plate, what does Emily reach for? The frosting. I took it away, there was a ton of frosting on the cake!

The Birthday Boy, Zsolt and his friend Olivia....

All Dressed up after our tortoruous Santa adventure...

Happy Birthday Zsolti!!!!

On Sunday, December 7 we went to Chuck E Cheese for a friend's son, 3 birthday. It was a nice day, luckily, so Emily and I braved our way to Kalamazoo. Emily wasn't too sure of the place when we first got there, but she warmed up to it after awhile. She really liked the slide, I actually couldn't get her off of it after she warmed up! At one point, I wanted to go play some games with her and so I carried her, screaming none the less, away and set her down in front of a game, and she then proceeded to run straight back to the slide! So, she played on the slide while I stood there being very bored! Emily really didn't care about the rides or the games. She sorta liked skee ball, but she couldn't throw the balls hard enough. She did enjoy ripping people's tickets out of the machines though! Luckily they were mostly ours or a person that we knew, but one time she did rip a little boys off and handed them to me. So, I had to apologize to the poor kid and give him back his tickets. We also had a hitting and pushing incident. Emily was playing at one station with a wheel and another little boy came up to her and hit her and pushed her, because he wanted to play with it. The dad saw the whole thing and made the little boy apologize to Emily, who was just standing there with a dazed look on her face. The boy broke my heart because he was sobbing so hard, but we stood our ground, as I knew it was important for him to learn his lesson. See what becoming a parent teaches you, that even when you feel bad for a little boy for crying, you stand there until he apologizes, because it i the right thing to do.

All in all it was a fun day at Chuck E Cheese. We left there and went to the Kalamazoo mall to see Santa. Well, we decided not to wait because he was just getting back from feeding his reindeer and I figured we could stop in Battle Creek. Once we arrived at the Battle Creek mall, we found the Santa and I was going to grudgingly pay 25 for a picture with santa!!! Yes, you heard right, $25 big ones for a crappy mall santa picture! So, we get up there and what does Emily do SCREAM her head off! The lady takes 3 pictures, 2 of them she is screaming in and the 3rd one she has her paci in her mouth and has this dazed look on her face. Needless to say, we didn't buy those pictures.

The slide...

Skee Ball...

She was not happy because I put the hat on her head. Apparently, no hats for our baby.

Tissue Queen...

Emily loves to pull tissues out of the box and throw them on the ground! Stinker that she is.

Thanksgiving...

We went home to Muskegon for Thanksgiving. We went to Matt's Mom's house and ate dinner there and Emily got to play with her Uncles and Grandma. It was a busy weekend and we stayed the whole weekend up there. Emily spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Thanksgiving Day, as I was going shopping in the morning. Matt had to leave to head back home as he had to work the next day, of course.

I spent the night at Stephanie and Trevor's house and got to see Ms. Avery again and unfortunately didn't get to see Carson as he was up North with his Grandparents. Avery is doing well and is so full of smiles, which is nice, since Emily hardly ever smiles at me. Stephanie and I developed our game plan and decided that we would hit Younkers at 4 am to go by sheets and towels =). Yes folks, we got up at 3:20 am to go stand in line to by sheets and towels. It was decided that it was tradition for us to be at the first store that had what we wanted when they opened, and that happened to be Younkers! This is the first year we have ever done this, so we laughed at ourselves, but we had a good day. Spent way too much money and were out till about 2 pm in the afternoon. By that time I was exhausted and could no longer shop! Got most of my Chrismas shopping done that day and then that evening we even wrapped!!! So I came home with wrapped presents!!! WhoooHoooo!!!!

Saturday brought Emily back to Grandma's house so she could play while I scrapbooked with Stephanie for the day. It was a nice time and glad that I had the opportunity to do that. We left on Sunday and had to drive back in a snowstorm, but oh well. We made it home and I was glad to be home because the roads were getting worse.

That was our Thanksgiving in a nutshell! I hope your Thanksgiving was a joyful and Thankful day and you got to spend time with your loved ones!


Grandma and Grandpa, Emily was done taking pictures at this point, but we tried.

All the Boys

Here some pictures of all the boys and Emily. If you remember we did this last Thanksgiving, have to dig one out for a compare and contrast...

L to R: Uncle Eric, Daddy, Uncle Jake, Uncle David and Uncle Jeff

Just Uncle Eric and Uncle Jeff

Good catch...

But I have no idea who you are?!....and from then on out it was a losing situation...

Happy Thanksgiving Pictures!!!

Emily with Uncle Jake, paying very close attention to what he has to say.

Daddy, Emily, Uncle Jake and Uncle David (Do you know how hard it is to get them to sit that close to each other?!)

Goofy Picture

"What are you looking at?!" Is what Emily was thinking when she was looking at Uncle Jake

Look at that Hair

Emily has some pretty wild hair on days when we don't do it. These were taken Thanksgiving Day morning, before we left to go to Muskegon! She loved sitting on that box until Matt moved the box.

First Time

Feeding herself yogurt. As you can see it turned into a HUGE mess, but it was funny to watch her do it. Oh the mess that she made though.

My little Ham.

Sunday Morning

On Sundays, when Matt is home, we usually have donuts for breakfast. Emily loves this time, as she gets a plain cake donut and makes a HUGE mess of it. Which I must say Maggie, must love because we call her in once Emily is done. Emily usually eats the WHOLE donut and wants more.