My baby girl is eight years old today. It was eight years ago that I lay in the hospital bed awaiting the first time I would get to hold my first born child. Miss Emmaline was officially born at 8:58 p.m. As I told her today, that was the moment and she was the one that made me a mommy. Precious baby girl, happy birthday. Today, as is the usual, we made our annual voyage to Build A Bear. This marks our sixth trip. Would you take a moment and look back over the last couple of trips with me? I tried to get similar photos, as in all these were taken at the fill the bear station. This way you can see how much she has grown. 2005, Emma's fifth birthday (oh my.....she looks so incredibly tiny here) 2006, Emma's sixth birthday (no idea who the random kid is) 2007, Emma's seventh birthday (I will admit, I miss the long hair) 2008, Emma's eight birthday (where did the little girl go????) Yes she is carrying a wristlet purse. And yes it seems in a lot of the pictu...

Yesterday I was searching for pictures of me when I was pregnant with Davis to see if I am huge or not. Turns out, I am likely not. Or if I am, I was with him as well. Anyway, in my search I found one of the most wonderful pictures I have. Now with the digital age when you say you looked at pictures it means popping a disc into your computer and watching a slide show. I found the picture below. I remember getting my copy of the pictures from the family reunion for the year 2003. I sat down at my computer and began to look through them. My uncle is the official photographer for the reunions. So you never knew what may be on the discs. He is like a fly on the wall and when you see a picture you think, "I do not even remember him being around then." This is Emma and I in the lake. She was a little over three in this picture. I was barely pregnant with Davis at the time. I love how you can see that she still had chubby little hands and fingers. Emma and Davis look a lot alike too...

We have finally completed all of Emma's birthday gatherings. Here are pictures of her Hello Kitty cake. And cookies. I made Hello Kitty cookies too but do not have a picture of one right now. I know I have been MIA. Life has been crazy busy lately. I promise I have not gone anywhere and this month (April) I will get better about posting more often. I am sure that anyone who is reading this has absolutely missed me. Right?!?!?! The random thoughts are still there. Stay tuned.......

Her she is at seven years old officially.... Her inner beauty radiates all the way through to the outside. Now, if I could just get her to listen to me.......

Tomorrow my little girl will turn seven. It was seven years ago that I went into labor and anxiously awaited knowing if I had been carrying a little boy or a little girl. It was seven years ago that Emmaline entered my world and changed who I was. It was seven years ago that Emmaline made me a mom. The best way to show my little girl is through pictures. So here it is. Emmaline as she has grown... Emmaline at about two months old Emmaline's First Birthday Emmaline's Second Birthday Emmaline's Third Birthday Emmaline's Fourth Birthday Emmaline's Fifth Birthday Emmaline's Sixth Birthday Emmaline a few days shy of her Seventh Birthday You have grown from a baby to a toddler, to a little girl and now a young lady. I have watched you go on this journey for the last seven years. It has been an honor and a blessing to be your mom and it always will be. Happy Birthday Baby Girl. I love you.

The rest of the pictures can be found here.

My girl is back home. There are lots of pictures to get through. I am working on it. Emma has a new camera and I am technologically challenged. Apparently it was a fun vacation with gorgeous weather. More to follow.....

I only have one thought for today: I get to go get my Emma and bring her back home with me. I have missed her face....

I have forgotten the last few Thursdays to do Love Thursday. Today after reading Amanda's post, I was reminded that it is indeed Thursday. And even though I already posted today (a long, not sure what I was trying to say post), I do have a Love Thursday post as well. You get a two fer today. Early Saturday morning, January 6, I will put my Emma on a plane. I will not be getting on this plane with her. She will be going to California with her Tia (Mark's sister who is 27, I think) to see Mark's father. I know she will be in very capable hands with Emily. I know Emily will guard her with her life and I know the girls will have a great time together. That is not was saddens me. It is not the first time my girl and I will be separated for a few days. She will be coming back on Tuesday afternoon. So her absence will only be four days. We have been apart for that long a few times before. It is not that I am not used to that sort of time apart. It is not that I want to be going t...

Yesterday Emma came into the bathroom to get her hair done. I asked if she wanted anything in her hair and she said only if I was going to. I said I was going to pull mine back and she decided she wanted a head band. She got down the basket that holds our hair things. She pulled out three choices and picked one. She put it in her hair and asked, "How does this look mom?" I said it was fine and smoothed a few pieces of her hair. She looked at me and said, "I think this will look pretty for church." I try to make her realize that it is not about how you look or what you wear that makes you pretty. I also tell her often that she looks pretty no matter what she has on or how her hair looks or any such things. So once again yesterday, I looked at her and said, "Emma, you looked pretty when you got out of bed. You ALWAYS look pretty." And before I could continue on with my lecture Emma said, "Mom, it is not about the clothes I wear. That is not what make...

My Emmaline.....

Back in January, for Davis's second birthday my sister redid his room. From baby to big boy. My sister, Kiki, has an eye for doing these sorts of things. To see the results of her work on Davis's room you can click here to view them. I had wanted to redo Emma's room for her birthday as well, back in March. We thought about finishing off the other half of our attic and moving the kids upstairs, so I waited. Then we thought about moving, so I put it off once again. I finally decided that it was time to fix it up some. I started looking for new window coverings. And lo and behold a few weeks ago I found some Hello Kitty shower curtains (fabric) on sale at Target. They had the matching shower hooks on sale as well and we were off for a new look for Emma's room. I put in a call to my decorator, the one and only Kiki and the pieces came together. Today, Kiki and Uncle Patrick descended on Emma's room and worked their magic. After a few weeks of preparation and a few hou...

Yesterday we found some new black drees shoes for Emma at Target. They are cute and were really a bargain. I bought them for her and brought them home to her and thankfully they passed and fit. Today, she was getting ready for church, which we did not make it to, and put on her new shoes. She asked me if we could go ahead and keep her old black ones even though they are too little. Her new shoes are patent leather; her old ones are satin. I told her we could probably look for new ones like her old ones. She only has one pair of black dress shoes anyway. My daughter looked at me and with all seriousness said, "But we just got a new pair of black shoes. I don't need another new pair." Somebody help me. This child can not be mine. Only ONE pair of black shoes for the winter?!?! We are going to have to sit down and have a little woman to woman talk tonight about how one can NEVER own too many pairs of black shoes.

Emma showed me how loose her tooth was before I left for Chicago. I knew it would likely fall out while I was gone. I told her to keep a hold of it if it did and the Tooth Fairy would come once we were back at our house. Sure enough, I go away for a few days and she loses another tooth. That makes Numero Dos. Why does she keep having to grow up?

In My Daughter's Eyes ... See my Tabblo>

When Emmaline was born it was obvious who she looked like. It took me some time to be okay with that. I mean, I was the one who carried her and gave birth to her. It was like a slap in the face that she looked just like her dad. But as she got older it became more and more apparent that she looked like her dad. Had I not been the one pregnant with her, I would question whether or not she was even mine. Just in case you do not believe me, here is a picture of the girl with her Papi. (this picture is from Christmas 2005, it is hard to find pictures of Mark in general....) So, I gave up long ago realizing that Emmaline was just going to look a lot like her Papi. Now, she acted a lot like me. Her personality is a lot like mine. She is loud and she never shuts up. She does not stop ever and she is beyond sassy. A lot like her mama. However, her ability to memorize and learn comes also from her dad. This became even more apparent today during Day Two of school. We have a Bible course. It is ...

It was just a little over seven years ago that I found out I was pregnant with my girl. It took some time (seven months) to get pregnant. We had just moved into our house. We had not been here for more than a few days. I went ahead and bought the pregnancy test. My cycle was all crazy, never any sort of regularity to it. I had a feeling that it was possible that we had finally done it. I took the test and could not believe when two lines showed up. I made Mark look too. I then took I do not know how many more home pregnancy tests. Just to make sure. I even went to the doctor and made them do another one. Sure enough, pregnant. Nine months I carried her. We did not know what we were having. We put together a nursery. Bought all sorts of baby things. Picked out names. My stomach grew bigger and she started to move. It was the most amazing feeling. We saw the baby on the ultrasound. I started to bleed in about the seventh month. They figured it was just a hemorrhoid (sorry, I know it is g...

Yes, Emma lost her first tooth. It was dramatic and exciting. Her tooth had been loose for about a month and a half. Yesterday it started bleeding some and she of course freaked out. I told her it was because it was so loose and getting ready to come out. I asked her if she wanted me to yank it, which of course sent her into a screaming fit. All day she was wiggling that tooth. Last night, I was on the computer looking for new tap shoes for her as she has out grown her other ones when I hear her shrieking, "MOM! My tooth came out. Am I bleeding???" Sure enough, Emma's first baby tooth has fallen out of her face. I wanted to take her picture but she was too upset about tasting blood. I got her a wash rag with an ice cube in it. Then we had to find something to put the tooth in. After all of that, I got a picture. Emma with a hole in her mouth. She put her tooth under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy. Luckily the Tooth Fairy remembered and had cash. Four dollars was left in h...