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Thank you Braden for letting me know that I had a Won-de-ful week in Michigan!
We closed on the house today and are thrilled!!! So thrilled that we moved up our move-in date to this weekend! Thank God we have such wonderful, amazing, selfless friends like the Blackburns (Christopher's family!) to help move (thanks Sean!) and entertain (thanks Sarah, Reggie, and Christopher) us! I can't say enough about them!
And thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for entertaining Emma on the phone while I had meltdowns and Aunt Jamie for allowing me to vent your ear off without even so much as a sigh heaved. Somehow, by some miracle everything panned out. And Braden is home from his business trip, and we HAVE A HOUSE!!!! Just in time for trick-or-treating!

A WONDEFUL Week

Big sister Emma pulling Bela on our nightly wagon ride. Seriously, this usually takes us about an hour to get around our apartment complex because Emma INSISTS on pulling Bela most of the way (she can't resist the pile of rocks on one corner and drops Bela immediately, and she always wants to run up the hill with daddy, so she drops Bela at that point too!)

Daddy is on a business trip again, so I thought I'd take this chance to update the blog a bit :) We girls are home from our week long sabbatical in Michigan. It went wayyyyy too fast and we didn't get to see everyone that we had hoped to see. But my girls loved getting to spend such quality time with those we did get to see! Emma of course hopped onto Grandpa's lap (and shoulders) and didn't want to leave. She would ask "Want to watch 'Credibles Grandpa?" (Disney's Incredibles) thirty times a day. And each time he would humor her and sit through it all over again. What a guy! We had a whirlwind week, going to the petting zoo, the cider mill, the great grandparents' houses, and just hanging out with Aunt Jamie (which is a whirlwind in itself with all of the forts and tents she builds!). In fact, Emma is Aunt Jamie's little clone and thinks she is about the coolest person in the world. Ohhhh boyyy!! :) She spent as much of the week sitting next to Jamie just looking up at her in absolute admiration. It was hysterical! And our little Bela has really taken to Grandma and became her best buddy for the entire week! She especially liked that Grandma gave her REAL FOOD!!!! and lots of hugs and kisses that made her giggle!
The final morning we were in Michigan I told Emma we were going on an airplane to see daddy and she gave a look that just told me she understood. She got so sad and refused to put on her shoes or go in the car, begging for "Gwampa come too". It ripped my heart in two......but I realize that these girls have a very special relationship with their Grandma and Grandpa that will never change and will continue to build through the daily phone calls and sight speed conversations (a.k.a. Emma's personal dance parties that she invites grandma and grandpa to). And maybe it's a little because of the distance- we take NO moment for granted, not a single one! We went to the bank yesterday that was right next to the airport and spent 15 minutes watching planes land (which is awesome by the way!) And Emma started chit-chatting on the way home about seeing Grandma and Grandpa and Great Grandma (both!) and Great Grandpa and I realize that the distance has little effect on her. She doesn't get that there are miles between us. She just gets the phone calls and daily contact with everybody (which we are so grateful for by the way!), so she doesn't see any difference.......well, maybe she likes that she's a little more spoiled! She still talks about going to Great Grandma's for the "yummy popcorn" (candycorns!) like she's down the street.......so really we aren't all that far away. Y'all are still such a HUGE part of our lives (that's for all of you who are saying I'm picking up a Southern twang!), maybe even more so now since we take nothing for granted and every moment is so special.

Props to my good friend Deanna for the new purple hair! She's such an artist! Can't wait to see you at Myrtle Beach next year- we're counting the days!

Quick funny story: Emma and I have started practicing French every day now and have a cute book tailored to the toddler. Well, Emma calls it her "French Fries book" Niiiiice.......and is so like Aunt Jamie and gets so mad at me when I start speaking French. She'll argue about whether the picture is "un gateau" or a "birthday cake". And instead of listening to me and repeating what I say, she gets that certain Emma punk look on her face, smiles, and runs around the room saying "Bippity, boppity, boo!" So much for bi-lingual Emma. Well, there's always Bela.....

Another funny story- today in our mad rush to meet our house closing requirements, I had to take the girls to the bank. Emma insisted on taking her plastic pumpkin with her and I figured some things are just not worth a fight. I guess I didn't realize how silly she looked when she walked into the bank looking like a trick-or-treater.......I've let a looooooot fly since moving down here and having to take them everywhere by myself! It's funny how common silly things like this are......

Things are continuing to get crazy as I work to put together a fundraiser (MK Christmas shopping party!) for Turning Point, an incredible domestic violence shelter I've been working with since starting my Mary Kay business a few months ago. The invite list is over 1200 people! So say some prayers that this will really help benefit these wonderful women and their children!

Who Brings us Gifts on Christmas?

Funny story......
So Emma happened to glance up at the fridge yesterday and saw a brochure that I had hung up with a magnet about some Christmas event in Rock Hill. She said "What's that mommy?" So I said "Oh- that's Santa Clause, Emma. Santa will bring you lots of presents on Christmas." She looked like she was doing some heavy thinking, so I asked "Emma, is Santa going to bring you lots of presents on Christmas?" She just looked at me and said "Or, grandma and grandpa". Out of the mouths of babes.......these packages Emma and Bela have been getting in the mail are confusing Emma. Looks like we have some re-wiring to do before Christmas! But we sure are thankful for the fun packages!

Some pictures

Emma was all excited today because she got to go to the "yoo-seum" (museum) with Christopher! We had a blast! Then we tooled around down the street to see our new house!!! THERE'S A SIGN IN THE YARD THAT SAYS "UNDER CONTRACT"!!!!!! Now I'm really excited! Emma also wanted to see the park by her "play house", so I put a picture of the park in the neighborhood.

The silly pictures of Emma, Bela, and Monkey are of Emma pretending to have a birthday party! Quite the imagination on that one!

Here We Come Again on Our Own!

We're going to do it. We're going to brave two airports together- just us girls! That's right- I'll be outnumbered, but we want so badly to visit our family that we're going to make the not-so-non-stop flight to Michigan just to see and hug every last one of you!!!! It all starts Saturday- we'll be there in the evening, so watch out (and literally watch out since I'm sure that Emma will be totally sugared out since she has to be distracted somehow)! We weren't sure if we would still be able to do it since WE FOUND A HOUSE!!!!!!!! But we decided to leave poor daddy behind to do the packing while we girls party in Detroit! Poor daddy.........

But yes, the rumor is true! We did find a house. After endless hours of househunting, negotiating, and a deal that almost fell through, we ended up with a house of dreams! I'm not kidding you! God was definitely on our side with this one, and I can't wait to post pictures of it when we visit it very soon! We're just waiting on the builders to put in a fence and then we can close! Yea!!!! (The fence will save the 2 year old from falling into the creek below, so you can see why we're waiting!!!!

I can't tell you the last time we actually had more than 4 hours of sleep at night because of all the chaos that is our life right now (seriously Matt and Laura- how do you guys do it?!) and we are so not chaos people. So we don't handle it well :) So I am just thankful beyond words that our real estate agent is a magician after all and that Braden can negotiate ANYTHING down to a better price! (Seriously, he is a magician too!) Otherwise that house would have very easily sold out from under us just a few hours after we put in our offer! Whew!

So I hear a rumor that NIKI IS GOING TO BE HOME?!!!! If this is true, please tell me because I AM DYING TO SEE YOU NIKI!!!!!! Now I know that you have a laundry list of things to do and people to see, but if you have a couple of hours to spare, please let me know and we can meet up!

Sooooooo our two year old parrot started picking up song lyrics, so I switched radio stations to Contemporary Christian. Now I've always liked this genre, but down here the choices for such stations is WAYYYYY better than in the north (thank you Bible Belt!). So we were on our way home from the park (it's so gorgeous now- in the low 80's and sunny!) and Emma said to me "Mommy- day're singin 'bout Jesus mommy!" Whew, much better than those other lyrics she picked up. But it really got me thinking that she knows WAY more than I give her credit for. So she continued singing the whole way home, making up her own "Jesus song". It was cute, and I'm sure the Big Guy got a kick out of it!

Emma's relationship with Christopher continues to blossom. He's the little boy we met at mass when we first moved down. He and Emma clicked and have been best friends since. Since they're mischievous during mass, we've since separated them, but we continue to see the family (whom we've all grown to love dearly) at least twice a week. But I posted a picture of Emma and Christopher watching "Monster Trucks", one of their favorite activities. And I'm not kidding you, the DVD came from Wal-Mart and is every bit of the 80's hair band, horribly acted, low-budget kids film you could imagine! But those two rock out to it, and Christopher even knows the lyrics! They are soooo cute together!

Bela is still a bit cranky thanks to the teeth and the fact that there just isn't enough food in the world to appease her appetite. She's a cutie! And now that she is not pouch-bound (in my Baby Bjorn), she's loving the fact that she gets to graze like a cow on the grass and woodchips in the park! But.........today she barfed at the park, so I think we'll do a stroller from now on :)

Well, we're coming back to Michigan soon! So wish us luck on the trip! We can't wait!!!

And watch out BUFFALONIANS! We'll be there on the first weekend in December for our little man's baptism! We, as very proud Godparents, CAN'T WAIT to hold our little nephew! And we can't wait for the girls to see our New York family too!