Christmas 2009

Loving my new Barbie car from Nonnie and GrandBob!

I love my new kitchen!

Family Christmas 2009

Christmas pics

I love Auntie Lexi!

Loving my table and chairs from Gigi and Papa! Thank you!

Merry Christmas Y'all!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We had lots of family in town to visit us and it was wonderful to spend time with my parents, Mike's parents, Auntie Lexi, Uncle Aldo, Greg, Vanessa and all of our friends. We are truly blessed. This Christmas was tons of fun since Emmie loved everything about Christmas...the lights, Santa, all the decorations, music, her Advent calendar, and much much more. She really loved all of her Christmas presents! I'll post lots of pics to share...

Rockin' the Brownie Goose...check out Amy's designs at http://www.browniegoose.blogspot.com/

Emmie's momma designed the candy cane shirt :)

Thanksgiving 2009

We had a great Thanksgiving with our friends Tom, Kellie, Tyler, Zach and Abby Mulligan. We ate way too much and the kids had a blast playing together! Do you like Emmie's Turkey shirt I made her? Cute, huh?

A Star Wars geek...just like Daddy.

Other happenings...

Busch Garden Hippo

Sesame Street Live
Elmo's Green Thumb

T-Rex

In other news, we took Emmie to see Sesame Street Live and Walking with Dinosaurs last weekend. She LOVED Elmo and liked the dinosaurs until T-Rex came out...he was a little too scary and she was "all done!" We also went to Busch Gardens one afternoon while Gigi was in town to visit. We loved having her here for her fall break!

18 months

Emmie turned 18 months last week and we took her to the doctor for her 18 month appointment yesterday. She has FINALLY reached the 20 lb. milestone! Yay! We are so proud of her and she can now be "officially" turned forward facing in her car seat, although we turned her around a couple of months ago. Her stats are 20.5 lb (10 %ile) , 29 1/2 inches (10%ile), and her head circumference is 18 1/2 in (55%ile). She is doing so great with her language and motor skills. She is really getting to be a big girl!

Happy Fall!

I love fall. I love the smell of Yankee Candle Harvest and Pumpkin Spice candles, fall decorations, pumpkins and anything pumpkin to eat. I love the cool, sunny weather. (Although we have only had about 3 of those days here in Florida so far.) And Christmas is right around the corner. :)

Didn't your momma teach you not to do that?

I love Tampa, but there is too much crime here! First, our home was broken into in April. Someone pryed open our sliding glass door, walked in and took 2 laptops and a pair of diamond earrings and walked right out our front door. The Sheriff's Dept. fingerprinted but nothing came up and they creeps were never caught.

Then, on October 1, our friends' home (in a gated community) was broken into in the middle of the night while they were SLEEPING! The jerks raided tons of DVDs and electronics, went into their sleeping children's bedroom and took a pillow case to stash some of the stuff in, and then drove off in their minivan. Thankfully, our friends didn't wake up until after the burglars left their home. Their credit cards were also stolen and used at several stores around town. The video of the perpetrators using the cards while with their approximately 3 year old little girl was shown on the news and yesterday two of the three were arrested!!! The mini has also been found. The police know who the third is and have a warrant out for his arrest too.

And then today, some jerk backed into my new car and left a huge dent in the front fender that looks just like a trailer hitch. And they left after they did it. I am so fuming mad.

What is wrong with people???

A few pics...

The Plumber...workin' on a puzzle













Up...


















And down! Wheee!

911, What is your emergency?

Emmie called 911 this morning. All by herself.

She was playing with Mike's phone (with the keypad locked), and the next thing I know I hear someone saying hello?...so in a panic I hung up the phone. As I'm trying to hang it up (because the keypad is still locked), I notice it says emergency contact on it. Oh crap. I just hung up on 911. Needless to say, they called us right back to make sure there wasn't a real emergency.

Note to self, don't let Emmie play with the cell phone anymore.

Naples

So we packed up and headed a couple of hours south to Naples this past weekend! We spent time with Auntie Kim, Greg, Vanessa and Uncle Aldo. We soaked up lots of sun and had tons of fun at the beach, in the pool, and on the boat! Emmie loves being in the water and waves, and has so much fun playing in the sand. Of course I forgot my stinkin' camera, so I'll just share a few pics from the last time we went down...

Time is running out for us this summer...

training camp starts in 2 weeks!

Public Publix

At Publix, they have these Aprons meals. When you walk in the grocery store (or "market" for you Rhode Islanders), they have a little stand set up with samples of the dinner for the night, so to speak. And they have the recipe and shopping list for the dinner right there. And right next to the stand they have a little refrigerated section with all the ingredients you need to make it, right there so you don't have to walk all over the store trying to gather everything up.

So, yesterday's meal was a Lime Butter Tilapia with a Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta. They promise that they are "quick" and "easy" meals to prepare on a weeknight. I thought it looked pretty good, and it called for white wine, which Mike had opened a bottle on Saturday to make a pasta sauce. We don't usually drink white wine, so I thought this might be a good way to use some of it since it was already sitting in our fridge opened.

It was supposed to take only 15 minutes. Perfect.

Well, it turned out delicious! Even Mike, who was critical of my dinner plans, loved it. But then again, he is usually critical when I plan to make something he didn't suggest. And, he usually loves whatever it is that I have made for the record, so I don't know why he even bothers complaining. :)

The meal was easy peasy, but really took about 30 minutes, I think. Maybe one reason is that I had to cook the fish in two batches.

Anywho, if you want to check out the recipe, or any of the other "Aprons" meals, the link is http://www.publix.com/aprons/meals/AllRecipes/SimpleMeal.do?mealId=3022&mealGroupId=1000

And it goes great with the rest of the bottle of Chardonnay you open up to cook with!

A look back...

I am a little late starting this blog! Emmie is now 16 months! I guess we should take a look back to see how much she has changed...




Emmie 1 day old

3 months

6 months

Emmie's 1st Christmas

Happy 1st Birthday!

Emmie 16 months

I did it!

Okay people...after stalking blogs forever I have finally decided to start my own. This blog will serve to keep our friends and family up to date with our crazy, nonstop life! So I will start with a background history...

Mike and I met at Mississippi State, dated long distance for a few years while I finished undergrad and my Masters of Physical Therapy at UMC and then I moved to Rhode Island in 2004. I started my career in PT and Mike was the athletic trainer for the Providence Bruins. We lived in RI until September 2008 when we moved to Tampa. Mike is an athletic trainer for the Tampa Bay Lightning and I am a home health PT. We welcomed our little girl Emmie Claire into this world on April 19, 2008. Emmie is the highlight of our lives and we hope to document our life for her and our family. Enjoy!