Emaline's First Haircut

Our little girl got her first "trim" today! Not that Emaline's hair was growing at an exponential rate or anything, but she was starting to take on the term "shaggy". I took her to my hairdresser and friend Ammie and she watched Mommy get a haircut first and thought it was hilarious. Then we plopped her on top of a step-stool on the chair and put this fancy smock on her. She actually sat there! It was great, she did so good and A LOT better than I expected, probably due to the fact that I brought snacks for her. This kid will sit and stay still as long as there is food available, especially food she likes (i.e. snacks). So here are the pictures of her getting her hair trimmed and eating veggie puffs. What a life....

And here she is all finished!

New Years Resolutions

Obviously this isn't me, but we did buy one of these confounded machines after the holidays. You won't get to see my new svelte legs until after I've been running 10 miles a day...well, we'll see what happens. I did buy this model since I'm much more of a speed walker than a runner, so we'll see how well these little cross arms work. I am pretty proud of myself though and I have used it everyday since we got it except one. Now that the week we've had it is over, I hope I can continue this trend. Thanks to everyone who gave us gift cards over the holidays cause this is what it went towards! I'll hopefully have some results posted over the course of the next few months (keep your fingers crossed). Now I just need to find a way to get Josh to walk in real clothes, not just his bathrobe....

We (I mean, Ryane) Got a New Car!!

Well we have said good-bye to our little Ford Focus and bought a 2008 Chevy Equinox. It was time for some much needed room for the inside of the car. Its a metallic gold color (Sandstone, sounds fancy, right?) and is the LT1 trim. Its pretty sweet, lots of room, easy to manuever, attractive interior w/ a much needed iPod jack, and decent gas mileage. I of course have put unnecessary mileage on it since I have to drive it everywhere, but hey, everyone does that with a new car, right? Here are some pics of the interior:

Where is the Focus you ask? Well, I sold it to a foreign exchange student from China attending Wash U. I put it up on Craigslist on Tues and it was gone by Saturday of that same week. She was a good little car and I'm sure the little girl that got her will hopefully take good care of it. Here is a tribute picture of the Focus, we'll miss you girl!

XOXO Little Focus....

New Years 2008!

We rang the new year in pretty much the same way as last year, but fewer family members :-(. Unfortunately, Josh had to work New Year's Eve, as well as New Year's Day so mine and Emaline's plan was to go to dinner at Kitaro (where Emaline learned very quickly how to use chopsticks) in O'Fallon with my sister, her husband, my parents and youngest sister. Thankfully Josh did get to join us for dinner and in full police uniform no less! It was a great night in my opinion: family, food, drinks and games! After dinner we retreated to Stephani's house and proceeded to have some mean rounds of (electronic) Catchphrase. Thanks to Uncle Richard and Aunt Connie for getting my parents that game, it rocks! I'm pretty sure I was the star player...although I know Adham will fight me for it! Here are some snapshots of the evening, but really I didn't take many since I was busy kickin' butt in Catchphrase.

Christmas 2007

Ah, another Christmas has come and gone and we couldn't have asked for a better one (except to have Josh off the whole time). Lots of celebrating was enjoyed and with that LOTS of food eaten...hopefully I'll have money left over to buy that treadmill I have been wanting. We started the celebrating on Sunday, the 23rd with visiting with Josh's Grandmother, Aunt & Uncle and cousins. It was nice for everyone to sit have time to catch up and exchange gifts with the kids. Emaline had quite the time running around after all the her bigger cousins. All the kids got a long great and it was a fun evening for us. (Still waiting for the pictures of that night--hint, hint Angie).

Then the following night on Christmas Eve we went back over to Josh's parents house to do our family gift exchange. Emaline can't get enough of her cousin Madisyn and loves play with her, especially when Maddie likes to "play school" and teach Emaline stuff. It was classic. Everyone ate and drank merrily and we all got way too much stuff than we needed. I also had to open most of Emaline's presents since she really wasn't too interested in anything unless she was holding it.

As for our Christmas morning, you ask? Well Daddy came home from a long night of fighting crime to find Emaline in the living room eyeing her new goodies. Yes, Santa had indeed come to the house and dropped off a couple things he thought she would like. This included a new "big girl" chair, a new blankie, and some Little People. She loves them Little People! We then threw on our shoes and ventured over to Nana and Pepere's house while Josh slept. Of course it was the usual (and mighty tasty) cinnamon rolls for breakfast with an added sausage casserole for us meat eaters and on to the task for the day: destroying the living room with paper, plastic and boxes. Although we didn't break our record, we did end up opening gifts for roughly 3.5 hours. I love it and so did Miss Em--although, she didn't really respond to the opening of gifts, she did like what came from it. Then she had a nap, Josh came over and opened his gifts, then we went back home to get cleaned up and finally Emaline and I went back to have dinner. Christmas was definitely busy this year! Here are a few more shots of Christmas Day.

Rob Your Neighbor, Dec 22nd, 2007

Our annual "Rob Your Neighbor" shindig was this past weekend, held at Jack Patrick's downtown and yet again we have another year where we drink a little too much, eat a little too much and give crappy meaningless gifts to one another. It really is one of my favorite events of the year. Although, we did miss one of our girls this year, Liz, my heartfelt apologies go out to you since you missed getting a random empty bottle of booze and/or a Rubik's cube. Obviously this is a "gag gift" party and I'm sure all of you that have these types of parties (i.e., "White Elephant" or "Pass the Trash") know that much debauchery ensues. I must say, Josh and I had a great time (thanks for being sober driver, honey!) with friends that we haven't seen in far too long and getting to have some "adult fun". No bad party stories to tell, just good clean (somewhat) fun. I loved catching up with everyone and seeing all the great gifts brought to the table. What did we receive you ask? Well, I'll show you:

A lovely Cardinal home plate to hang on our wall and various old records, yeah for RYN!! We gave a completely 80s skort suit that my mother wore almost 20 yrs ago and various knick-knacks from the parent's basement. Here is the picture of Cara, who was fortunate enough to pick up that box with the suit in it:

It was a really fun night and I'm glad that we got to see our good friends. Merry Christmas everyone! Here are various pictures from the rest of the evening.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

Tonight Emaline and I decorated our Christmas tree. It was definitely the highlight of my day! Since this is her first Christmas where she really is trying to understand what is going on, it just keeps getting better and better. We unwrapped and unboxed all our ornaments and she watched as I strung the lights around it. This took way too long since I was constantly sweeping up the needles that continued to fall off the tree...wonder if the tree lot was the way to go this year. Usually my whole family goes to a tree farm out in Wright City, MO to cut down our tree. Its a great tradition we try to repeat every year, but since this past weekend was overtaken by the ice and rain, it just wasn't going to happen.

So, here we are 2 weeks from Christmas decorating a tree, I guess we should have jumped on that nicer weather! As I said before, I love Christmas time, but unfortunately with Josh's schedule we don't get to do much of this stuff together. He did get to sit with Emaline while she drank her milk and watched me light up the tree, but I didn't think about taking pictures until he left for work! Anyhow...my list is almost complete: Tree up? check. Lights up? check. Packages mailed to CA & MT? check. Christmas cards made? uh, skip to the next one. Gifts purchased?? half a check. Cookies & goodies baked? gettin' right on that. I'm almost there!!

The Ahmad Family Christmas

This past Sunday, my sister invited us to her in-laws Christmas. Unfortunately, Adham's mom has to have surgery next week and won't be available the week of Christmas, so his brother's wife and boys came into town to celebrate. It was really laid back and great to see Emaline interact with the boys. Tariq is 7 and Yousef is 4 and I think they didn't know what to do with Emaline! Although, they were very helpful when it came to decorating Stephani's tree. We had some great finger foods and desserts, yum.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but it is the holidays and we are super busy! Emaline is constantly shopping and spending all our money...

Here are some more pictures of our fun night at the Ahmad's home:

Ding Dong, the Rickety Wood Door is Dead!

I know I should have posted this weeks ago, but we finally got a new garage door and opener. No more guessing whether or not the door was going to open or not and/or hearing the "clankety clank" of the opener. Since Emaline's room is directly over the garage we opted for a quieter (if only a little) screw opener and since Josh has his work station up and running, we got an insulated door. It is so much easier AND we don't have to paint it! Woo hoo! Less work for us, that's aces in my book.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Stephani and Ahdam getting ready to enjoy our feast.

Please forgive me, since these are the only pictures I have from my family's Thanksgiving. Apparently, we were all too busy eating to remember to take pictures! What can I say, we've got a pregnant girl, a itty bitty garbage disposal (Emaline) and Josh...we had to get to the food.
We started the day off at my parents' house and enjoyed lots of time of lounging, eating, reading the newspaper ads and sleeping. It was a normal Thomas Thanksgiving, although this year we told some of our other usual guests to stay home since Emaline and myself got everyone sick this year. So needless to say, Pepere and Nana weren't their normal 110 percent for the day. Thankfully, we did get food and get to spend some quiet quality time with one another. I think the dogs were especially thankful for Emaline's droppings from her tray...

After that, Josh, Emaline and I went to Grandma and Grandpa Little's (Don't have the pictures yet!) for a little more turkey with all the trimmings. It was wonderful because all the Littles were all together, most importantly Grandpa! I'd venture to say that my favorite times with Josh's family is when the whole family gets together, even DJ Monkeyface! Emaline also had sweet potatoes (real, not baby food) for the 2nd time ever and still liked them. Although, mostly she just wanted bread...hey she definitely belongs in this family!

I hope that you all enjoyed a safe and happy holiday with your family and friends. We sure did! Now let's get this Christmas stuff started...