Christmas 2009

Well we've all had a week to have our Christmas time and get back home, get sick, get well, and get to Corpus for another round of visting the grandparents and I haven't even told you all about it!

The house at night

It all started last Wednesday, the 23rd, when Mommy and Daddy and I packed the car up, dropped Maggie off at Lisa's and headed on our way to Olney, TX to go see the family and participate in that yearly (as I have been told) tradition of the Strealy family sing-along.

All the girls

All my cousins and Uncles and Aunts were there. I am glad they were too because all of us kids got to sit in the center and pick any instrument we want. And then we wailed on it as hard as we could to make sweet beautiful music to no one but our parents (well ok Nana and Grandad too).

The adults got to participate by singing Christmas carols over our rock jam session.

Like the rock stars we were, once we were finished we left (without picking up, I mean seriously what are parents good for but that?) to head to our rooms demand food service and pass out. Some of the band members went over to their grand parents house (since they live in Olney) and crashed there. It was a sweet gig.

Oh I forgot to mention that Nana was a the little drummer boy this year. What? Costumes at Christmas? Yes that is what makes the sing-along cool is that Nana dresses up as a different character each year (so I am told). I channeled this costume inspiration into my rocking out that night with my cousins and had lots of fun.

All the great grand children

Next morning, I woke to a Christmas morning surprise! Despite the fact that the weather during the drive to Olney was nice, sunny, and 75, we woke up to SNOW! It was a White Christmas.

The beginning and end of the day

Seeing that the weather man totally failed in predicting snow for the entire week, Daddy and Mommy didn't have their snow clothes, but being the good parents they are they brought my stuff just in case.

Playing in the snow

We spent the day running around outside, building snowmen, and tossing snowballs just before retreating to hot chocolate. Well that's what Daddy did mostly. I played outside some too but the snowball throwing was all Daddy and my Uncles.

We spent the rest of the day watching the snow get deeper and by the end were watching "Its a Wonderful Life"

The best part of the movie was when it got interrupted by the funniest public safety announcement EVER! It started with what sounded like a police car driving into the living room to flash its sirens only to be followed up by the most informal message delivery to ever pass as official.

This guy, who sounds like he is sitting in his living room with the mic propped up on his Santa belly, kinda sighs in the mic and says:

"huuuuhh.....Well folks...........the weather outside is.......tuurrilble"

Laugher erupts on our end and the rest of the message is not heard

That was Christmas Eve

Christmas Day YAYAYA

I got me a play house and a stroller that I am learning to walk with and clothes that make me look cute (if it is possible to make me look cuter) and tons of toys that make noise (DADDY SAYS THANKS ALOT FAMILY)! My cousins came over that afternoon after Daddy and Papa rescued them in their 4x4's from being trapped in their snowed in house. We ate lots of food (peas and bananas for me) and spent the rest of the day playing in the snow and finally for me learning how to pull my self up!

Play time

The next day was the day after my first Christmas and the first day for me to sport some of my new clothing. We made our way through the snow again to the car and loaded it up to leave town. We ate at Koffee Kup in Hico and had some AMAZING burgers before heading home and fell asleep.

Standing tall!

Emma loves to pull herself up and stand on her own at her laugh and
learn table. She also likes to dance to the different songs it plays!
When she gets tired she just falls back on her chair, sometimes she
misses but she doesn't mind too much ;)

Thanksgiving

Emma had her first Thanksgiving this last week and as predicted, stole the show. From dinner to play time, to the gift exchange she was the center of attention! And rightfully so, as she did her best to make every moment the cutest.

This was our year to have Thanksgiving with Daddy's side of the family (much to GeGe's dismay, though she can't complain because she gets Christmas). We started the holidays on that Wednesday by putting my engineering to the test in order to pack all of the girls's stuff into the car.

15 Hours later we were on our way....

No, more like 30 mins later, but anyway we were off to the
booming metropolis of Waskom, TX

There Emma got to see her Great Gran Rena and John as they hosted the family Thanksgiving. There was turkey, corn, stuffing, pie and more pie! Yummy

Uncle Jared and Auntie Morgan were there as well as the Grandparents. The family greeted us at the door and daddy was happy to let everyone hug Emma right away......Emma wasn't so happy though! She didn't recognize everyone in the room just yet so she got upset, but as you can see it didn't take her long to warm up to everyone. Catching up with the family was fun and daddy and grandaddy got a chance to do so for the next 5 hours as they proceeded to unload the car with all 50 of mommy and Emma's suitcases so that he could get to the one bag he brought. Emma spent the evening entertaining the guests and the day ended well.

The next day was thanksgiving and Emma got a chance to have turkey for the first time. EWWWW she didn't like it.

The rest of the food for the grown-ups (and Morgan) disappeared quickly and the whole family moved quickly to the gift exchange. THE WHAT!??!? Yes the gift exchange (since Aurlie had Emma for Christmas). Everyone got some amazing stuff. What Emma got was epic. Her things littered the floor and seeing her play with the things as they were opened was the best gift of all.

By the weekend Emma, her parents and the grandparents all packed it up to head to Dallas for two extremely important events.

The Texas Tech vs Baylor Shootout

In the newly constructed Cowboys Stadium

And the 29th Annual Dickens of a Christmas Event in McKinney, TX

In addition to the wonderful breakfast that we enjoyed Sunday morning at Spoons Cafe the highlight was Emma's first picture with Santa Claus (for real this time, not the scary one from Halloween)

Though judging by the look of things Emma doesn't know that!

As always you are invited to click on any of the above photos and check out the rest of the best on Emma's photo page.

Crawling

Life as Daddy knows it is over.......

EMMA CRAWLS!

What you can't see is that after successfully crawling to the Wii remote, Emma used it to beat a video game on expert difficulty.

Been Busy: A story of hope and enduring memories

Prologue
As I am sure you can tell, Emma has been a busy little girl. Between the red carpet events, fashion debuts, and prune luncheons she has had little time to actually tell the world what she has been up to. There have been moments of fun and moments of boring but mainly the time has been awesome with happy sprinkles. So, now on to the story everyone has been waiting for!

Chapter 1
It all started a few weeks ago when Emma got to participate in one of those classic growing-up-but-you-hope-doesn't-turn-out-like-what-happened-to-Elizabeth-Shoe experiences of having a babysitter! Paige Trostel was happy to do the honors as she and Emma became bestest of friends on October 24th, the day of Christine and Karl's wedding....

Wedding you say? Yes it was awesome and mommy and daddy enjoyed themselves and there was much festivities with the rejoicing and dancing and much feasting on the fruits and fruitbats and sloths and orangoutangs and all that fancy stuff that kids do nowadays during that time of a wedding.

Emma cared not for these activities as she was having party time while her parents were away, yay! Daddy will worry more about these moments as Emma gets older. In fact he has prepared a graph to illustrate:

The evening went quite well and then we all fell asleep.

(This space intentionally left blank)

Chapter 2
It was a dark and scary night and Emma decided to descend (in all of her cuteness) upon a group of unsuspecting (ok, they knew...) band of mommy and daddy's friends as Emma donned her awe-inspiring lady bug outfit. This was Emma's first Halloween!

The types of parties that Emma attends are top notch, ok folks? She did not settle to go to any ole party nay, she attended one of Tatiana's super-fun-over-the-top parties in downtown Austin. There were ghosts and goblins, Smara (from the Ring,....I know I was scared too), and Santa Claus! SPOOKY!

Yes, Emma knocked out her first pictures with Santa at the party as well so she would like everyone to know that she won't be sending any Santa photos this year and in return would like you to send money. Thanks!

The party was fun to say the least. There was even halloween sushi with colored rice. That's right, halloween sushi. Emma demands the best.

Chapter 3
The next day, BeBe and Grandaddy Jeff invited Emma and her parents to come see them in their B&B in Salado. High end shopping and down right kick-you-in-the-face good cooking were the order of the day. Emma enjoyed playing at the cabin and swinging on the porch. She even got a chance to play on a playground for the first time. Her granddaddy caught her playing.

Daddy did too:

Thinking back Emma would have to say that her favorite part was getting to play not with the new clothes that BeBe got her, but with the paper that they came in....

Chapter 4
Once Emma had had a chance to see her northern grand parents she figured that she might as well send daddy to California, to get him out of the way, and then get mommy to take a week vacation to Corpus Christi to see the southern grandparents. Now Emma is enjoying a relaxing week there.

You may contact her through her agent (aka mommy)

THE END

(Sing to the ending credits of Star Wars)
duh nah duh nah duh nah, DUH DUH DUH daaaaaa DAAAAA duh duh duh DAAAAA DA duh duh duh DAAAA DA duh duh duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

Prunes!!

Emma just ate her first container of prunes, I am surprised at how

much she likes them!!

EMMA PUMPKIN FALL LINE UP

Experience.

Wonder.

Like.

Never.

Before.


EMMA PUMPKIN FALL LINE UP

See what critics say is revolutionizing the pumpkin industry

"Viewing these photos changed my perspective"
"Beauty unimaginable"
"My God, that is a large flower"

Little Book Worm

Emma loves her Halloween book, especially all the fun noises it makes
thanks BeBe!!

Are we there yet?

Stephen got tired so Emma drove the last leg of the trip home!

Emma hearts technology

Like father like daughter

Special Delivery!

Today Emma got a package from her BeBe! It was very exciting, and Emma
was so thrilled she immediatley put an outfit on and insisted that mom
take her to the mall to show off. On the way home she fell asleep in
the car from all the excitement.

Emma's first doll!

Emma had dinner with her friend Madelyn last night.
Madelyn just turned one so Emma loves to see all that Madelyn can do!
Emma loved her tiny purse and cell phone, but when Madelyn showed Emma her baby doll Emma got so excited she was shaking!!

So of course after dinner was over GeGe went across the street to Toys R Us and bought Emma her first baby. As you can see Emma loves it!!

Lunch Time!

We tried baby food again today, here is Emma having her first taste of

bannanas

MMMMM?

Time of Sweet Potatoes

Better!

Emma recommends the following savory spirits to compliment these meals:

*Enfamil Formula, prepared medium to mildly warm

*Pedialite, chilled

Squash!

Emma had her first jar of squash tonight, needless to say she did not

finish it!

EWWWWWW

Peggy loves Emma

Check out her post from her visit last weekend. Quite the photographer:

STILL can't get enough of...Emma!

Stroller

It was finally a little cooler this morning so Emma, Maggie and I went
to get the mail. Look how big she is sitting in her stroller without
the carseat!

Re-living the early days

There are momentous videos out there in the world that capture a glimpse of events that truely change the course of humanity.


Emma has her own

I love hanging with my Grandparents

Look at how wonderful I am playing on my mat in Dallas. Thanks to Aunty Morgan's incredible skills of a photographer for my picture awesomeness!

I love playing

So there is no way that Emma was going to keep this a secret:

She's wears her socks to play

Stay classy Emma, stay classy

Eating like a big girl

Last week Emma decided that she wanted to try out this whole eating cereal bit just to see what the hype was all about.......

Needless to say she just doesn't understand why anyone would want to go through the extra effort of holding spoons and aiming for your mouth when she could easily sit back and get Mommy or Daddy to feed her a bottle.

She also doesn't understand why everything is so funny when the food was obviously SOOO bad!

Rock and Roll

Emma was in Corpus Christi this last week for those that didn't get the memo. Her father was away in California working on a project so she said that she wasn't going to just sit around the house and thus packed her mom up and headed south.

While down there she got a chance to catch up with a few of her favorite Grandparents and Uncle as well as many friends.

One of the coolest things that she did while away was nothing short of:

LEVEL UP!

That's right, Emma totally figured out the whole rolling to the stomach maneuver. Mommy was quick enough to catch it on video:

SHHHH Don't tell Emma she lost half of her hair in the process! That would just upset her. And you know what happens when Emma gets upset.......

Poker Face!

Read 'em and weep ladies!!

Swimming

After a good swim at the pool I like to retreat back to my cabana in style!

I get so tired in the pool I enjoy a little nap on the way back!

Bumbo!

Emma is sitting up so well she can finally use her bumbo chair!!

Peek A Boo

Emma learning how to play peek a boo!!

Emma's July Photo Shoot

Emma decided it was time for her to show off her versatility again so she and the family headed on down to Sears for a studio photo shoot. She did really well and was cooperative with the photographer before retiring to her trailer (a.k.a. stroller). The parents made a casual stroll around the mall while the photos went into post-production. We weren't gone long as Sears couldn't figure out how to improve upon PERFECTION so we paid up and left. Then there was much feasting and napping and all was good.

Here are some of our favorites

You can click on any of the photos to see the full set

Peggy in town

So this last weekend was Peggy's time to see baby Emma again. Since Peggy also ended up buying a new camera while she was in town, she was the de-facto photographer for the weekend as well. As apart of her love for the Byrd family she saved daddy the effort of chronicling the events of the weekend by blogging about it herself. Check it out!

Emma's check up

Emma had her 4 month check-up and shots today. She did really great
until the nurse put the shots in her leg and she freaked out!!! Poor
Emma! She is 24 in long (she was 20 in at birth) and weighs 13 lbs
12oz (she was 7lbs 1oz at birth). She is in the 50th percentile for
height and weight. The dr says she looks good and has reached all her
milestones on time! Here is a picture of her trying to comfort herself
after the shots.

Busy girl!

I love to study the ocean life on my play mat!

Hi Daddy!

Mom is so funny when we play!!

Fourth of July

So Friday rolls around and we all find ourselves in Midland. Well this is a good thing because Emma was SOOO excited about staying at Palacio de Byrd's Super Awesome Grandparents Fun House!!! The whole day was spent playing and eating some really great brisket. Grandaddy Jack and Nini got a chance to show Emma around the house.

The next day we made our way to the Midland Country Club for some awesome fun in the sun. You know you want to check out the photos. Those are, quite frankly, the only way to describe what happened there really. Emma made sure, before we left, to spell out the rules on how things would go down at the pool. Including, of course, how much service she would require. Below is a candid shot of her laying out the ground rules.

Uncle Jared did not follow the rules!

Of course everyone got a chance to feed Emma! Because she demanded it!