Sick days

Emma had a fever for 5 days, but it finally broke. And she started eating, drinking and talking again. :) She still has a cough and runny nose, and is still kind of tired. But she is finally on the mend...although now Steven seems to have caught what she had.:(  We have played with new toys, watched lots of cooking shows, and run a couple errands. Today she went to Ashlynn's 4th birthday party, a princess tea party. :) It was fun, but we are tired and needing a day of rest tomorrow for all of us. 

Building towers with her Magna-tiles

She fell asleep watching cooking shows 

She was having so much trouble sleeping, we just let her stay like this for a while. Then she slept on my lap until I went to bed. It seemed to be more comfortable for her.

Check out her new shoes from Aunt Faith!

Daddy putting together the dolly bunk bed from Uncle Alex 

Her dolls and animals have been taking turns

My present from Alex

We got out of the house the other day, getting fresh air was good, but exhausting 

This was during errands yesterday.

Heading to Ashlynn's party.

Some of her princess party favors.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! What wonderful news, that God became man, came into the messiness of our world, in a very messy and humble way, to make it all right again...what a great love. 

We are having a sick Christmas here. We made it to the Christmas Eve service last night, but Emma woke up several times coughing in the night, and just couldn't stop. And Steven said he isn't feeling good either. This morning she opened presents quietly, tired and sick. I'm sure she will be more excited when she feels better. But for now, she has a 102.7 degree fever, has taken medicine, is supposed to be drinking water while watching Veggie Tales. Afterwards I think it will be nap time, as we seem to all have been up in the night. 

We let her open one present on Christmas Eve, which we opened at the station at dinner with Daddy. This picture shows how sick she feels...we didn't get one smile out of her this morning. 

She carried this present around from Aunt Faith. She couldn't wait to open it...It was shoes with a unicorn horn.

Snuggling with Mom after opening presents.

Resting on the couch...new pillow, new PJs, and my fabulous new blanket. Poor sick girl. :( 

Dance Class Christmas Songs

On Thursday, Emma had her last dance class before Christmas. I was glad her teacher didn't cancel this week, partly because last week we all missed because the roads were flooded and we couldn't get there. And since Steven had been running errands (Christmas shopping) in Roseville all day, he even decided to come with us, even though we don't get to watch anymore. (Emma missed him all day.) But it turns out he picked a good day to come. They did 2 Christmas songs/dances for us! He went to the commissary and got back in the middle of their first song...you can tell when he walks in because Emma gets silly, with her tongue out.

School Holiday party

Today (Last Thursday) Emma's class had their Holuday Party. Tomorrow (last Friday)  is Pajama Day, but we will see if I can convince Emma to wear them, she thinks that is silly. They sang sines, and made lots of crafts.

Her letter to Santa. I'm starting to see why she knows all about him.

Here are their songs. Sorry I am just now getting this uploaded. Some songs are from Thursday's party, some are from Pajama day.

White Christmas

Today Emma and I watched White Christmas together. She actually watched the whole thing. She loved all the singing, dancing and pretty dresses. At one point she went upstairs and put a dress and shoes and jewelry on so she could dance pretty, too. :) 

And a side note: Sorry for anyone trying to text me today, my phone just stopped getting texts apparently, because at 9:30 my phone went crazy getting old texts. Ugh. Sorry people, not ignoring you!

Friends

The last few days have been full of friends. Lots of fun with friends at preschool, crazy fun at Ada's birthday party, and a going away dinner for our friends that are leaving. 

Pajama day

Apparently Tristen loves Emma

Decorating/eating cookies at Ada's party

So much sugar and screaming

The girls were playing dress-up, Kosiahtjought he would try the shoes, 

but carried his gun, too, just in case.

 Elise, Emma, and ClaraBeth. (Hopefully I got their names right.)

Christmas baking and cooking shows

Well I think we are FINALLY done with our Christmas baking. I have lost count of how many dozens of cookies we have made, but it's over 10, not including the pfeffernusse. Today we made truffles for Emma's teachers and dog-bone shaped sugar cookies for Ada's party on Sunday.  Two days ago we made our best cookies so far, white chocolate chip, coconut cookies with almond extract, which I added in. They were soft and yummy...and pink. We tried to color the coconut red to be festive, but, as I feared, it just turned it all pink. Oh well, still yummy. Emma is always good helper,  but she just wants to help so much, it is always a good workout for my patience. We have lots of conversations about following directions, washing hands, and why we are doing things a certain way.  But she is way beyond normal 4 year olds...she can crack an egg without getting shell in the batter or making a mess. It's one of her favorite jobs. She also loves to wash dishes. And after watching my food shows with me, she is quite the food critic...although she still has to eat it even if she "didn't like the taste of it." She loves to chant, "get it on the plate!" As we are watching. :) 

We tried to make some of our leftover truffles into snowmen. As they would say on in our shows, it was a good idea, but we did not execute it well.

Her other favorite part is kicking the batter. As she licked these beaters from the Oreo truffles, she said, "I don't like the cream cheese in these, but I do like the chicken." (Ingredients in these are Oreos  and cream cheese.)

Cleaning up sprinkles.

She really wanted to do the 'wet mopping.'

Our pink cookies.

Rough days

You wouldn't think after a hard parenting day like today that I am looking forward to Emma's 3 week holiday break, but I am. We are tired. Just in need of lots of rest, catching up on cleaning, playing, just normal together time without having to do too much or go anywhere. I think we are more than ready. Normally Emma goes to bed pretty easy, but lately she has had a lot of trouble settling down at bedtime. We often hear from her after she has gone to bed. Sometimes it's her tummy, but usually she just "isn't tired." I think tonight may have been one of those nights when she "wasn't tired." This is what I found when I went upstairs to bed:

She was fast asleep, didn't even open her eyes when I carried her up to bed. 

FD Cookie Exchange

On Sunday we went to a Cookie Exchange at the Fire Station. There was lots of sugar...although Steven managed to eat a salad while the rest of us enjoyed cookies. I think he did have one bite. ;) 

Fancy hot chocolate 

Cookies...and a salad

Raelynn in her adorable hat

Ginormous gingerbread house

Raelynn did some coloring, and she liked her bracelet with the bells

Emma colored, too.

Emma worked on the gingerbread house.

It was fun...she may have sneaked a little candy during her decorating

I stole this one off of FB. I helped Emma with the icing.

So this is from the mall when I took Emma shopping...in Roseville...at Christmas time. We were taking a break and they gave her coloring pages. She is very into coloring right now. 

This was from her homework this morning. She was supposed to tell a story about her holiday. When I asked her why we celebrate Christmas, she said, "because Santa brings us presents." What?! For those that don't know, we have not done the Santa thing...Emma has always just called him 'the Christmas Guy,' on her own, but I think she may have picked this up at school. I did try to explain who he was a few days ago, about who Saint Nicholas was, but I don't think she quite got it...she started singing a song that Santa died. (I don't dislike Santa, for the record. I just think Jesus is way better than Santa.) Anyways, her story is about how a raccoon are Jesus's birthday cake.

Back in the swing of things

We are all getting back in the swing of things after Thanksgiving break. Emma only has one more week of school until Christmas break, which is 3 weeks long here. Here is what we have been up to:

Pretending to be a dead princess

My Christmas  Moose is getting g lots of love from Emma.

She had to make a musical instrument for her homework. Daddy found a new way to play it.

We went to Winterfest on base...a small thing the Commanders put on in their neighborhood. However, it was cold, and the good was expensive. This was definitely Emma's favorite part.

My Pfeffernusse buddy

We do one pan's worth of cookies each day until they are done. Every year she gets better and it's more fun!

She may also enjoy the treat of eggnog we share while making them...she calls it a milkshake.

We finally broke down and got her a coat. 

She actually rode her bike to school  today...sort of. Walking would have been faster, though.