Halloween Card 08-Smilebox

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Happy Halloween!

This is the second year we got to take Emaline out for Halloween and some trick or treating, although this time around she really knew what was going on! We had a great night starting with my parents, my sister and her husband and Kaya come over to have our traditional meatball sandwiches for dinner and getting pictures of the kids. Emaline was so excited to get her costume on when she knew she would be going house to house to get some tooth decaying loot. Unfortunately, Josh had to work early that night, so he didn't get a chance to walk around with her this year :-(, so hopefully next year. Emaline climbed in her wagon and we strapped in Kaya for the initial start out and then she never got in the wagon again after the first house! For her "real" first time I think she did very well. She always said "trick or treat" and "thank you" after her conquests. I was very proud. Her and Lt. Dan were a hit and were even told they had the best costume on the block! We also got to see her cousins and Grandma Audrey before the night ended and ate quite a few pieces of candy :-). Its funny, now she wakes up every morning asking if we are going trick or treating again...I hope this excitement stays with her for every holiday throughout her teen years as it did for me. I love Halloween and can't wait to make many more costumes and thoroughly brush teeth every year.

Boo at the Zoo!

Yesterday we took Emaline to Boo at the Zoo this year on probably one of the best days of the week! St. John's Mercy Children's Hospital puts on this event every year and all the proceeds go to the hospital. Its fun to run through the zoo during the night and they have Halloween displays throughout the whole park with sponsors giving out candy in the main pavillion area. We saw lots of graveyards, ghost pirates, mine shaft ghosts, a monster house and the Scare-ousel. It was $5 to get in and lots of fun watching Emaline run around getting treats and checking out everyone's costumes. I didn't put Em in her costume cause I figured the hat would get a little frustrating for her and she'll have plenty of time to wear her costume tonight! Thanks to Nana and Pepere for tagging along with us to check out the fun!

Visit to the Pumpkin Patch

I think every year at some point during the fall we will make the trip to Rombach's Farm in Chesterfield for their annual pumpkin patch event. They have pumpkins, animals and games throughout all of October and November. This year it was a fly-by the seat of our pants outing since Josh was off and the weather was nice. It was me, Josh, Emaline and Nana and it didn't last very long since Emaline was apparently in no mood to pick out pumpkins...she was basically in the mood to try and climb onto all the tractors, run away from us and want to get into the big kid bouncers (which she would have been clobbered in). So instead we snapped a few photos with Dad, big pumpkins and a couple goats. After she was bribed with a twist lollipop by Nana...When we did go in the afternoon, it unfortunately had gotten cloudy and pretty windy and all the bright sunshine had disappeared. I'm glad we got to make a visit though, especially on a week day when it wasn't very crowded. :-) Next year should be an interesting visit with the baby and Emaline (both possibly running around).

Kansas City Road Trip!

Last Wednesday (the 15th) Me, Emaline, Aunt Stephy, Kaya, Pepere and Nana went on a road trip to Kansas City for the semi-annual AMCP (Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy) Meeting. There is usually one in the fall and one in the spring. This fall it happened to be in KC, so with it being so close we all decided to go. Pepere went to all the meetings and seminars and unfortunately Stephani and I didn't get to have that privilege this year. We did however get to see one of our dear friends and colleagues, Don and enjoyed a really nice lunch with him. Besides seeing the usual cast of characters, I got to see a few friends and Steph got to see her in-laws. We had fun dinners at all sorts of places with the Irish pub being one of our favorites (we went to 2 whilst there). We hung out in the Power & Light district, an up and coming hot spot in the city, cruised and ate at The Plaza shopping area and spent an afternoon at the Crown Center. We did a little bit of shopping and Emaline got to go to the Crayola store and Crayola Cafe. I think she had a really good time and the girls did pretty well considering we were all in one room. Every morning Emaline would wake up and look out the window and say, "look Mom, Kansas City!". I really don't think we'll have any problems taking her to other places considering just a couple days ago she asked when we were going to the hotel...

It was great fun spending time with family and friends and thanks to Sarah, Liz and Janna for taking the time out of their busy schedules to hang out with me and my family. Love you guys! Here are a few more pics of the weekend:


1st taste of Irish Music!--------Dinner @ Buca DiBeppo

Eating lots of pasta!------------Making a wish in the fountain!

20 Week Ultrasound

We went for our 20 week ultrasound today. Unfortunately, it was just me and my Mom cause Josh had to do some mandatory training for something...I was definitely anxious to see what we were having and not surprisingly at all, we are having another girl! I'm so glad that so many baby stuffs can be recycled!! I think Josh was secretly wanting to break the girl trend and add a boy to the Little clan, but overall we are both thrilled! The sonogramer said that everything looked perfect and she was measuring exactly where she should be. She is roughly 9 inches long and 11oz, not to mention she has ten fingers and toes, 2 arms, 2 legs, a perfect little round head, 4 heart chambers and 2 working kidneys! Oh yeah, and her brain is in excellent shape too :-)

Now we will move on with the task at hand and get moving on a room for this child. Lord knows I don't want to be painting with a 2 month old in the house...so if anyone is free to come strip horrible golf-themed wallpaper, I would greatly appreciate it. Or, I guess I could get off my lazy bum and do it myself. Although, we do have some time; 20 weeks down, 20 to go (technically). I think the next big thing is to take my glucose test in 8 weeks and then continued smooth sailing until birth, my guess is roughly around Mardi Gras. Ooooh a little Fat Tuesday baby....just you wait and see. Well, off to the ladies...Miss Thang is dancing on my bladder.

The Power Tool Shower

On October 4th we hosted a Power Tool Keg Shower for one of my best friends, Robyn and her fiancee, Cory. It was probably the most hilarious thing I've seen in a long time, considering I was probably the only sober one there...It was complete with two kegs, fried chicken and lots of power tools. The night started off early with Emaline tapping the keg, and I'm completely serious. She just wanted to get a drink of what everyone else was getting and ultimately figured out how to push the lever down to get liquid out. After that, she was banned from the "keg area". Thankfully, my parents, who were there, took Emaline to their house to have a sleep over whilst I remained, to my surprise, up until 3:00am making sure no one did anything completely stupid. All in all, I had a great time and I'm sure everyone who was there did too. The gifts were great and the keg stands were a-plenty. Thanks to everyone who participated in our fun little "shower" and I'm glad the bride and groom-to-be had a relaxing (and quite tipsy) time!

Emaline's 2nd Birthday Party

Well, as you can tell from the picture above, Emaline woke up the day of her party knowing something was going down. She was so excited to open that silly "2" candle I thought her head might explode before everyone got to the house. We started the day off with two containers of cherry applesauce, so that could have been why she ran around like a wild woman.

The party was at one o'clock and went off without a hitch. I set up the little bouncy house we borrowed from The Tinkers (thank you Brian & Christine!) and Em went nuts inside it while I cleaned up the backyard and got ready for food. Then we had an absolutely beautiful day for an outdoor party! Everyone ate and drank, the kids played, then Em was about to have a meltdown since she didn't have a nap yet...then we tried to coerce her to open her presents and you would have thought we were asking her to sit in a prison cell for 30 minutes.
Her Mom & Dad got her a sweet indoor/outdoor folding picnic table, Nana & Pepere got her a pretty cool kitchen (she never leaves her room now, she's "cooking"), Grandma & Grandpa got her a Fire Dept. themed Cozy Coupe (unfortunately they didn't have a police car, but that's okay she still gets in it every time we go outside!) and a shopping cart from her Aunts Jennifer and Angie (and family :-). Those were pretty much the big gifts and then she received an array of books, dolls, clothes and Little People toys (thanks Trish & Conor, she loves that castle!).

Finally, she calmed down and liked what she was seeing and thanked everyone for their very generous gifts. Then she was in seventh heaven with her Oswald cupcake...After that, I think everybody was a little tired and started to head out. All in all it was a really great day that we got to spend with family and good friends. Thanks to everyone for coming out to celebrate our little girl getting so big! Here are a couple more pics of the day, including the one of her completely crashing after everyone left. What a busy day! P.S. More pictures to come from Nana's camera :-)

Emaline's Birthday Lunch at Chuck E. Cheese

For Emaline's actual birthday, Sept. 25th, we took her to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch. We hadn't been in quite some time, so she was due a visit to the house of the gaming mouse. Thankfully, it as pretty quite on a Thursday afternoon, so Emaline pretty much had her reign over the place. She ran rampant, threw skeeballs and almost ate some pizza. She was so focused on the games that all she had to eat was some cottage cheese from the salad bar and a breadstick with ranch dressing. I tried to throw a handful of raisins at her to see if any would land in her mouth, but no luck. She did drink a whole "adult cup" of Hi-C fruit punch though--what kid wouldn't? We had a really funny time and enjoyed watching her embrace the freedom to run wild. I think we racked up close to 400 tickets and with that she ended up getting a travel pad with crayons (included), stickers, a tootsie pop, a mini police badge, a bracelet and more stickers. All worth it, don't you think?