happy birthday

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Next time I'll point her away from my face.

So. There will not be photos in this post.  I have a really gross story to tell and if I posted related photos, you might not forgive me.  Shoot, I'm a bit concerned that you might not forgive me for sharing the story without photos.

So consider yourself warned.

Yesterday we went to lunch at an "all you can eat" buffet, complete with a dessert buffet. Well, we have a no-holds-barred attitude when it comes to buffets. Meaning they can eat as much of whatever they want.

It's the American way.

And we like to get our money's worth.

It was fabulous (well, as fabulous as all-day-buffet can get).

The end.

Except not.

Chris and I were watching a movie last night when Emmy came downstairs crying that she had a tummy ache. She laid on the couch and slept (beautifully, I might add) in my arms while I covered her ears so she couldn't hear the war movie in the background. I heard her belly rumbling, then here eyes shot open.

I said, "You have to go poop, don't you..."

Emmy replied, "Yeeeaaaah...", and went.

The end.

Except not.

She came back to the couch, cuddled up in my lap again, and about 5 minutes later, she sat up and started crying that she had to burp.

At first I thought she was having a dream, but then it hit me that she probably felt like she needed to vomit.

I scooped her up in my arms and headed straight for the bathroom, and right outside the bathroom door, she puked.

The end.

Except not.

You see, when she threw up, she was facing me. Meaning, her face was facing my shoulder, so most of the vomit went on my. My pants. My sweater. My bare foot.

The end.

Except not.

Some of the vomit went on my face and up my nose.  And when that happened, I kind of froze. I had my face scrunched up, my eyes closed, and was holding my pukey daughter.

I told Chris it was all over my face, and then, and then, some of the vomit dripped out of my nose and into. my. mouth.

At which point I somehow controlled the urge to lose my buffet lunch all over the floor so we could get a little girl bathed and wipe bits of macaroni puke off the floor, door, and wall. We were wiping puke off the door as high up as six feet.  For a split second I wondered why on earth the vomit was all the way up there.

Oh yeah. Because it splattered off my face.

Also interesting to note is the fact that I was blowing vomit out of my nose for the next several hours. Just when I thought I'd got it all, lo and behold, there would a little bit more.

And Emmersyn? She's doing just fine now. No more vomiting.

The end.

No really. The end.

The Aniston Doll

Emmersyn very rarely plays with any of the dolls that she has. It used to confuse me because when we would go to Wal-Mart she would just gush over aalll the cuuute baby dolls, yet she wouldn't play with any of the ones she had at home.

But one day it hit me.

Why would a little 3-year-old girl want to play with a bunch of fake dolls when she has her very own live version?

We'll call it her the Aniston doll.

Emmersyn loves playing with her Aniston doll.

The Aniston doll cries. She poops. She laughs. She crawls. She even drinks milk.

Sometimes the Aniston doll even hits, but Emmersyn doesn't mind. She's forgiving like that. Because she loves her Aniston doll.

A whole whole lot.

pumpkins and stuff

Don't you think it's about time I wrote about our trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving?  Yeah, me too.

The kids cleaned out their pumpkins...

Aniston did too! At first she just stared...

Then she investigated...

Then she had a little taste-test.

Here's Pierce's pumpkin (Chris carved it):

Xander's (also done by Chris)

Emmersyn's (obviously done by ME...very simple)

I also carved a butterfly in Emmersyn's pumpkin. She was thrilled!

We were planning to Trick-Or-Treat locally but Xander was still sick on the 30th. So the next night we decided to trick-or-treat in the town where I grew up, where my parents live. Grandma had treat bags ready for the kids. Here's my cute mom with her cute "grandbabies".

Grandpa with the kids. This photo shows their costumes a bit better. I'm ashamed to admit that these are the ONLY photos I have of that night.  Emmy and Aniston were both princesses (we didn't do much), and the boys are wearing "knight" outfits with homemade wooden swords made by their Daddy! We found the costume pieces at Dollar Tree and spent a total of $8 for all of the kids. Don't mind that the boys' costumes were actually robot costumes. We improvised, and they were still excited.

How cute are these next two photos?!?!

Aniston and Phoebe (mom & dad's Pug) checking each other out.

We realized about 1 hour into the evening that Xander was definitely not well enough to be out. He rode in the stroller as we went from house to house and only got out when it was time to walk to the door. Poor guy. He was such a trooper...

When we got done, Xander was all about going to get pizza at Happy Joe's, so we did. A little pizza perked him up a bit! And while we were waiting, Aniston showed us that she is surprisingly good at holding a crayon and coloring. I don't remember any of the other kids being this interested in coloring at such a young age, but she was content to sit there and color and color for about ten minutes. Until food came. Food trumps coloring. At least we know she's got her priorities in line. :)

November 10

Today I opened our history curriculum schedule, and when I saw that the next few lessons were about the first Thanksgiving, I almost postponed it until next week. But then I decided that since we've had some whining, thanklessness, and obsession over the Christmas toy catalogs, perhaps it would be good to get focused on THANKSgiving starting "now".

So we read the story of the first Thanksgiving.

We learned that the Pilgrims arrived in America on November 10, 1620*.

We learned that on November 10, 2009.

Isn't that a strange coincidence?

Also, November 10, 1775 is when the United States Marine Corps was born (they were called the Continental Marines at the time).  I wonder if there is a connection.

(The kids and I wished Chris a "Happy Birthday". I think he is surprised every year when I remember...)

*This is the date our book gave. The internet has many conflicting dates.