Turkey Day - Belated Update

Hope all our family and friends had a nice Thanksgiving!!! We had a lovely day and went to Aunt Dee Dee's for the big feast. Here are some photos from the day. We are thankful for all our loving family and friends this Thanksgiving and always. We are also thankful for the good news about Grandpa - that his tumor is shrinkng and the treatments he has been under for many weeks are working. We are thankful for the good news about our cousin Ben who is now engaged to his girlfriend, Pam. We are thankful for the news that Jim's cousin Teresa is having another baby. And we are of course thankful for our beautiful and wonderful girls. They are both growing so fast and are the loves of our lives!!

(Note, I started this post about a week ago now. I had some trouble uploading Thanksgiving Day photos so I just haven't been able to finish the post. Sorry to keep you waiting!)

Happy 6 Month Birthday Emily Anne!!

Today is Emily's 6 month Birthday!! Happy Birthday Sweet Emily Anne!!! 6 MONTHS!! 6 MONTHS???? Really? Half a year? Already????Now she is closer to "1" than a newborn. Soon she will be crawling and then walking and then running around with her big sister (who truly cannot WAIT to have a mobile plaything and partner in crime).

Already Emily is now sitting up by herself. She still is a bit unsteady but you can let go of her for longer periods of time and she balances herself really nicely. She is rolling all around on the floor and rocking back and forth on her hands and knees like she just needs that extra little push to get her going and she'll be crawling all over.

Hair beautiful fuzzy hair is growing in - more and more each day it seems! And I'm very happy to say that she is sleeping longer stretches at night a lot more, too. Some nights she only wakes up once (not too shabby!) so there is hope at the end of the sleeping through the night tunnel.

She had her first ear infection last week which was really tough. She was clearly in agony and had the worst night where you just could not put her down and she was screaming all the time. Thankfully, her sweet daddy held her and got her to sleep finally but when she woke up still screaming in the morning we knew it was time to head into the doctors office. In truth, I was a bit relieved to know it was an ear infection after all because nobody wants to see their baby in that much pain and misery and not know how to help them or what it is, you know?

And Emily now can basically get out of her own car seat. Like a tiny version of Harry Houdini, she squirms around on her left side and uses her arms to push up and peer over and try to make her way out. It's um, a little disconcerting to say the least. Last night I was pushing her around in Target and I saw her little head poking out of the side of the seat. Guess she needs to be strapped in all the time now!

Jim and I also think that Emily says "mama" now. Look people, I know it's early for her to be talking but she says it clear as a bell. Guess she is going to be verbally advanced like her big sis!!!

Other than that we are super excited for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends and then spending the next few weeks really enjoying Christmas with our two beautiful girls. Just think, NEXT Christmas Emily will be running around and talking along with her big sister - heaven help us all!!!

Emmy Bouncing

I have really been meaning to post more videos for you here cuz I know the grandparents LOVE the videos but since we got our great new point and shoot camera, we've had some troubles uploading videos because they are in HD and way too large most of the time. We have to find a way to make the file sizes smaller so we can post videos more frequently for you. I promise - we'll work on it!

In the meantime, we just got back from a long weekend get away with Dee Ree, Pop Pop and GGMom. It was a beautiful weekend in a beautiful place (Peddler's Village) with some of our most favorite people. We were very lucky to have had the opportunity to go (thank you Mom and Roger!). That said, boy oh boy, traveling with two small children and staying together in a hotel room especially when the small children are on different sleep and wake up schedules is very very challenging. Add to that the fact that Sophie got a woke up with a cold the day we left to go and Emily got the same cold the day we left to come home and you have a fun mix there, don't cha? All that aside, we had a grand time in "the village" and ate like pigs and Sophie had a blast spending time with her beloved DeeRee as always.

Now, we are looking forward to Turkey Day and of course gearing up for a very magical holiday season with not one but TWO beautiful little gorgeous girlies this year. Only 40 days till Christmas!!!

Halloween 2010

I'd say Halloween 2010 was a huge success. We managed to pack A LOT of Halloweening fun into the Halloween week culminating on Halloween Day. For breakfast on Halloween Sophie got to have M&M pancakes to start her day off right. We took GGMom out to breakfast and then made a special visit to the Minchins (who are BIG Halloween people themselves). After our visit with the Jersey crowd, we headed home for a little real food and a nap and then geared up for the big event. All four of us went out trick or treating this year and we had a great time. Probably only were out for about an hour which ends up being the perfect amount of time to hit our street and one or two other sections of streets near ours. Sophie wanted "MORE TRICK OR TREATING" which was her gleeful battle cry as soon as she would finish saying "thank you" and come down the stairs of each house. What can I say... the little girl has a sweet tooth like her mommy and hasn't met a candy she doesn't like yet. She didn't have any major meltdowns and went to bed later than usual but not too late and with very minimal if any sugar crashing drama. It was a good Halloween for the Oxenfords.