Groundhog Day!

Amazingly, the groundhog saw his shadow this year.  I now know this whole groundhog prediction thing is a farce.  We never really had a winter this year anyway and we were in the 70's and 80's almost all the way through March.  Not that I am complaining.  I'm not.  Still, there has never been a cuter groundhog so...
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S'mores!

A long time ago, I got a S'mores maker.  Don't ask me why.  I'm not sure.  It looked fun, I guess.  I used it a handful of times over the years.  Dan, Nathan and Bonnie and I used it a couple times on game nights, I think.  Anyway, somehow it made the cut through several moves and I dug it out to take with us on our ski weekend at Winterplace.  We all made S'mores one night.  It was super fun...and super yummy too.  Emily ate several.  Glad it survived all the moves.  I guess it was worth $19.99 afterall.  Who'd have of thought?



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Ski Weekend!

We may not be as close to the beach as we once were, but we are a lot closer to ski slopes!  On January 20-22 we headed to Winterplace for the weekend with Bonnie, Nathan, Ben and Lauren for a weekend of snowy fun.  Emily had been asking about snow all winter, but we just did not have much of a winter this year.  Even these pics from Winterplace illustrate that.  But, there was enough snow for some tubing, snowman making and even skiing.  Dan and Nathan had some Daddy time on the slopes and he, Nathan, Ben and Lauren also skiied down the mountain together quite a bit.  Ben and Lauren are both very accomplished skiiers. 

This was Emily's first time on skiis.  She was a little scared at first and was not a big fan of the boot bindings.  But, once we got her into a lesson and got her moving she had a great time.  She really did pretty well considering she was only 4.  When we got to the bottom of the bunny slope, she was able to get on the "Magic Carpet" and ride back to the top.  She held hands the first few times down the hill but after a half hour or so, she was trying it on her own.  She did a good job balancing, but everytime she picked up a little speed, she got scared and sat down...not that I blame her.  That is what I do too.



In addition  to skiing, Emily also tried out tubing.  There was only a little tiny "hill" for her to slide down, but it was enough.  If there would have been a little more snow (look behind me in the picture) it might have been better.  She was just too little to go down the tubing hill...and I was too scared to let her try.  She would have had to go by herself and I just did not think she was ready.  Maybe next year.  Emily also enjoyed just playing in the snow and making a snowman.  It was a really fun weekend.


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Best Friends

Emily is lucky to have found a new best girlfriend here in Charleston.  Reagan lives right next door and Emily and Regan became fast friends.  It is so sweet to watch them play...most of the time.  The girls like bouncing in the bounce castle, playing princesses, riding bikes and scooters, dressing up and more.  They even share the same birthday which is kind of a fun treat.  I hope they are friends for a long time.



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Visit to Cincinnati


The Christmas celebrations continued into January when we visited Grandpa Marshall in Cincinnati.  Unfortunately, Karen and Daniel both had to stay behind and work.  Emily was happy to see Grandpa and even happier to learn that there were more gifts!  Emily was Grandpa's best gift...although you can see pictured here that Grandpa also enjoyed his blog book from 2011.  Uncle Scott came along for the visit too.  This also made Emily quite happy.   As has been tradition for many years now after exchanging gifts and catching up, we had Feliz Navidad lunch at Don Pablos.  Very yummy and very fun.  A great visit to wrap up (finally) Christmas 2011.

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Christmas in Martinsburg

We spent New Year's weekend in Martinsburg celebrating Christmas.  This year more than ever Emily really enjoyed playing with Jacob.  We arrived on Friday afteroon and had dinner and opened gifts with Great Grandma and Granddad Miller on Friday evening.  Emily got a soft Belle doll, a pink princess castle playset (imagine that), a hop scotch set, pink sparkly shoes and a stuffed lamb that says a bedtime prayer.



On Saturday morning we had breakfast and then opened gifts with Grandma and Granddad Miller, Laura, Andy and Jacob.  And of course Santa left more gifts too.  Emily got an Ariel vanity and hair salon, a fairy playset, a Chutes and Ladders game and an Innotab (like a litte kid iPad with books and games on it) with Dora and Princess games.  She also got the Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus book and game as well as some new clothes.  She must have been really good this year to have gotten soooo many presents.  Mommy and Daddy also got lots of nice gifts and were even able to fit in a trip to the outlet mall.  Overall it was a really great Christmas.
Emily trying out the hiardryer on the Ariel Salon.

Emily playing with her new Innotab.

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Bounce Castle!

This is the bounce castle that Santa brought.  Talk about a hit! Daddy went into the basement a couple of hours after all the gifts had been opened on Christmas and "found" this wonderful gift taking up one complete end of our basement!  When we bought Emily down to see it, she literally could not believe her eyes.   She seemed so stunned she could not even speak at first but I could tell she was so excited! 
She bounced on and off just about all day on Christmas.  She bounced in dress-up clothes.  She bounced in Christmas clothes.  She bounced in jammies.  She bounced with the plastic play balls inside and she bounced without the play balls.  She immediately wanted Jeff and Reagan to come over and bounce in it too.  Even now, two months later, she still loves having friends over to bounce with her!  Lots of things made this Christmas one I will never forget and the bouce castle is just one of those many, many things.
Emily & Reagan love the bounce castle!
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Christmas Day 2011


Emily loved her stocking!
We started Christmas morning off with Emily running into our room to tell us that Santa came!  She walked out to the loft and looked down and said in the tiniest little voice "wow!"  Then she came downstairs and found a Cinderella castle with lots of play pieces that Santa left out, unwrapped for her.  That provided quite a bit of entertainment before she ever asked to open any gifts.  After playing with the castle for a little while and giving everyone a chance to wake up a little, she went for her stocking.  She got some candies, new toothbrushes, some little princesses, a puzzle and more.  She played with her stocking stuffers for a little while longer then we ate breakfast.
As much as she loved unwrapping, she only opened her gifts!
After breakfast, the real fun began!  Emily dug into her gifts full force.  It would be awful to list everything she received (a sure indication we bought too much) but here were the highlights:

1.) Cinderella Castle playset
2.) Littlest Pet Shop tree house
3.) Snow White dress-up with crown
4.) Clothes
5.) Shoes (which she was actually pretty excited about)
6.) Princess Bounce Castle (more on this in the next post)
7.) Princess and The Frog playset
8.) Dora the Explorer DVD
9.) See and Spell game
10.) Tinkerbell shoes


Fairy Hat from Uncle Scott & Aunt Karen.
Our Favorite Princess


Christmas Dinner!



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Christmas Eve

This Christmas was by far the best ever.  First, we stayed HOME.  Second, my whole family was at my house - Mom, Bob, Scott and Karen.  Emily was so excited and she really took it all in.  We spent most of Christmas Eve just playing and relaxing.  Poor Daddy was on call and worked all day...and almost all night.  Luckily he did make it home for Christmas Eve dinner and for reindeer feeding (the reindeer food from Th Ridges Christmas Party) and cookies and milk for Santa.
Emily with cookies and milk for Santa
Putting out the reindeer food.

Visions of sugarplums danced in her head...


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Annual Gingerbread House!

Last year, we started a tradition of building a gingerbread house every year at Christmas.  I remember as a child that my grandmother used to make us a gingerbread house every year.  k, so I am definitely NOT my grandma (last year I bought a pre-assembled house) but this year I bumped it up a notch and bought the pre-baked gingerbread, but assembled the house myself.  Harder than I thought, but it came out ok in the end.  Certainly not a rival for anything my grandma ever did, but a good tribute and tradition all the same...especially since this was our first Christmas without her.  Emily liked putting on all the candies.  And sampling a few along the way as well.  Amazingly, there were enough left to decorate the house. 


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