Baking Day

Yesterday I had a baking day with Lexi...Sam, Alyssa and Emi helped too. :) We made lots of yummy treats and had a great time hanging out!

Licking the spoons. :)

Working on the bon bons!

Getting the toppings ready for the chocolate covered pretzels.

Emi enjoyed the red sprinkles....we stopped using these ones. ;)

Some of the finished products.

Getting our 1st real Christmas tree!

This year we decided to get a real tree and I love it!!! It was so fun to go pick out a tree w/Nate and the girls and the smell is wonderful! :)

The girls really liked watching the tree getting trimmed.

...and they really liked running around all the trees. :)

The tree made it home, YEAH!!!

Parent/child dedication

A couple of weeks ago Nate and I were part of the parent/child dedication at our church. It was such a great time to publicly commit our parenting to the Lord and ask for our church body to help us daily in this. Unfortunately we didn't get any good pictures, but I wanted to document this wonderful day anyways. :)

Daddy and I love you Alyssa Joy and Emily Hope!!!

Marcus' fun birthday party!

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated our friend Marcus' 4th birthday...he had such a cool firetruck birthday party. The kids got to play in the firetruck, dress up in the firefighter gear, play fun firefighter themed games and spray the hose!!! ...and Marcus got to take a birthday ride in the firetruck. :) He also had the coolest cake, one of his mommy's friends made it for him. Happy birthday Marcus!

Here's the best picture I got of Marcus taking his birthday firetruck ride....look REALLY closely, he's in there! ;)

Elephant Rocker

My friend Kelly is having her 1st baby, a little girl named Ashley. I am SO excited!!! She loves elephants, so when I came across this old elephant rocker at a yard sale I had to get it for her. This was a fun project to do and I really loved how it ended up. I can't wait to see Ashley play on it someday. :)

The flower is a hair clippie, which is removable so it can be changed out for a different look (and can be used by Ashley). :)

Kelly is a huge UofA fan and Tim a huge ASU fan so I got some clippies that represent each school...like the maroon/gold flower clippie below. (Sorry I didn't get a picture of the elephant wearing the UofA colored bow clippie Kelly!)

Nate came up with this idea for the tale, some twine braided together...I love it! :)

Family pictures with the Herbrandson's

A couple weeks ago we were able to get pictures with the Herbrandson side of our family. Thank you Renee for taking so many great shots! :)

Emi with her 'monga' (aka Grandma)

Grandma & Grandpa with their grandkids :)

My amazing husband and I!

Eric & Wendy

My super cute nieces and nephew.

DeWayne & Ruth

Our family

Me and my 'joy joy'

Daddy & 'boo'

Sisters

Emi wasn't really cooperating that morning, but Alyssa's always ready when Renee has her camera...here's some cute shots:

Veteran's Day Parade

On Veteran's day the girls and I headed to downtown Phoenix with my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, nieces, and nephew to watch the parade. It was a beautiful day to watch the parade and celebrate those who have served & are still serving our country!

Emi's favorite part were the cheerleaders. She was cheering right along with them.

Whenever Emi is around one of her grandmas she doesn't leave their side!

Ava & Alyssa :)

Alyssa loved watching the 'princesses', aka 'Miss Arizona', etc. I love how excited she gets when she sees anyone in a fancy dress...."Look mom...a PRINCESS!!!" :)

Random videos from the past month

The girls loved this!!

This is Emi's favorite thing to do at Grandma's! :)

Emi just running...I love her cute little run and had to get video of it. ;)

Pat-a-cake

Emi

Emi's 2 1/2 now and getting SO big! She is so much fun and we all love playing with her and listening to all her new words...she'll carry on with a story for quite a while, I just can't wait to understand all she's saying! :) She still loves playing with her babies and trying to play with real babies. ;) Here's a cute video of Emi watching a baby Brooklyn video and then singing to her...

I've been meaning to do this post for so long that I've forgotten so much of what I wanted to say. :(

Some random new Emi things:

She's in her toddler bed finally!

She's doing really well on the potty...most days.

She calls Alyssa, 'Sissa' ... like Alyssa & Sister put together, I love it!

She loves praying when we eat and she prays so cute..."pray daddy, pray mommy, pray Sissa, pray chocolate milk, pray food, pray me!"

She's starting to color, on the paper and not putting crayons in her mouth...both huge accomplishments!

She loves wearing her backpack everywhere, even if it's just around the house. She'll fill it with whatever...pull-ups, play food, her baby's bottles & paci's, etc.

She LOVES singing 'I've got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart' and 'Jesus loves me'

She can almost sing the entire abc's.

She can count to 11, sometimes. ;)

She'll finally sit and watch a t.v. show...she likes OSO and Little Einsteins.

When you ask her a question now, she'll stop and think about it for a while saying 'ummmmm' and then she'll answer. I know it's not a good habit, but it's stinkin' adorable! ;)

She's such a goofball! No really, she has such a great personality and sense of humor, I can't wait to see it develop over the next months as her communication gets better and better!!!

That's all I can remember right now..maybe there'll be a Emi2 post later! ;)

We love you so much 'boo bear'!

Quick story...

(I have a couple really cute pics of the girls together but they're all on my phone and I can't get them to e-mail, this one of them watching a cartoon will have to do!) ;)

I have quite a few posts to catch up on, but wanted to share this cute story first. Stay tuned (hopefully) today for updated pics. :)

Alyssa invited me to play 'going camping' with her & Emi this morning. It consisted of telling spooky/princess stories, her and I staying up late while Emi pretended to sleep on her bed, and then roasting marshmallows. I don't think Emi's ever heard this phrase 'roasting marshmallows' before or ever seen it done, she looked pretty confused! ;) ...may have had something to do with the sticks Alyssa gave for us to roast with; a blanket for me and a Barbie hair brush for Emi??? She had no idea what was going on, but played along well!

The other cute thing Alyssa does now when playing with Emi is she pretends she's the mommy and Emi's the baby (mostly because she can then be in charge, but we'll stick with the cute part of the story for now! ;) ). Instead of calling her Emi or baby, she calls her 'sweetie'. It is so precious, she just walks around saying "come here sweetie", "are you okay sweetie", "let's play sweetie", etc.

It's been so encouraging for me to see their relationship grow so much lately...they really do love each other and enjoy playing with each other!!! :) What an answer to prayer this is!

Halloween!

We had a really nice night trick-or-treating around the neighborhood and passing out candy (the girls love this part...they pretty much run to the kids to give them candy!). Emi was so cute saying 'trick-or-treat' this year.

I wish I got video of the girls after the sugar set in...at one time both girls were running up and down our street screaming & laughing, back and forth, back and forth and then later Emi was just laughing hysterically and running in circles. It was so cute! :)

Papa & Grandma stopped by to see the girls.

Our next door neighbor carved this. Since Nate's a Vikings fan we had to take a pic...maybe next year I'll do a Cardinals helmet. :)

Running to the next house!

Some of the neighbors had their houses decorated so spooky that the girls were a little scared to go up to the door. ...they were brave though, knowing there was candy to be given! ;)

Halloween over the years:

2005 - Alyssa's 1st Halloween - Our Little Pumpkin

2006 - No family picture :( ...but here's one of just Alyssa being a cute little puppy, one with cousins Zach & Emma, and one with best friend Mercy.

Our family 2007 - Cute little bugs... Ladybug & Butterfly

Our family 2008 - Cinderella & Minnie Mouse

Our family 2009 :) - Dorothy & Ladybug

Fun dress-up/Halloween pics

We had the opportunity to have the girls get their pictures taken for a Halloween photo shoot for Leasure Designer Portraits...and they ended up on their flyer! It was so fun and the girls did such a great job. :)

Pre-Halloween Celebrations

Last week we celebrated Halloween by carving pumpkins with Nate's side of the family. We had yummy treats, ate a good fall dinner, and carved some pumpkins. :)

The kids were not really excited about pulling out the 'guts' of the pumpkin...such girls! ;)

Sudhakar and his beautiful new wife Aneela.

This was Aneela first time carving pumpkins, she did a great job!

While I was carving Emi's pumpkin she found some sprinkles and enjoyed them all! :)

The finished products...I like DeWayne's on the end...he couldn't think of anything to carve so he just didn't carve it! :)

Nate & Alyssa's super cute winking pumpkin and the sad looking ladybug pumpkin that Emily & I did.

This past Thursday Fry's had a Halloween event for the kiddos so the girls and I headed over for a little bit while Nate was working late. It worked great to have 2 trick or treating events since I really wanted Emi to wear her Snow White costume this year too...Alyssa choose to be a ballerina for her '2nd costume'.

The had games set up around the store for the kids to play and win candy/snacks at.

Enjoying the cookies they decorated.

Driving the 'car'.

AZ State Fair

Yesterday Nate took a 1/2 day off and after naps the four of us went to the State Fair. It was a beautiful afternoon to spend the day outside with my whole family!

This turkey is ready for Thanksgiving!

Getting ready to ride the BIG ferris wheel.

Stopped on the top...yup I was freaking out! ;)

Zoo trip

Yesterday morning we got to go to the zoo and hang out with our friends Holly, Brandon & Noah. It was so nice to enjoy the beautiful weather and watch the kids run free since there was hardly anyone there! :) We got to the Orangutan exhibit right when the guy was setting it up for the day. The kids got to learn lots of fun facts about how they live, what they eat, how they play, etc. Then we got to see them enter their exhibit. It was really fun!

Mother Nature's Farm

Yesterday our play group went to Mother Nature's Farm. It was really cute...there was a pumpkin patch, the kids got to decorate a pumpkin with stickers, we went on a hay ride, there was a bounce house, and we got to feed the farm animals. The kids had such a fun time!

My pumpkins :)

Emi stood like this for a long time just staring at the pigs. It was so adorable I had to take a picture. ;)

Luke and Alyssa were inseparable!

Alyssa wanted to grab the whole bail of hay and throw it in!

Daddy's home!

Friday Nate got back from being in Japan for almost 3 weeks. It was so cute to see how excited the girls were to have him home!!! We went inside the airport when we went to pick him up and the girls stood as close as they were allowed to, to where the people come out of the gates. Emi just kept pointing down the hallway like she was seeing him...but after a couple minutes I realized that was not the case (I think she was just so excited that she wanted him to come through the gate right away!). ;) Then when he got to us the girls went crazy, Alyssa just started talking to him non-stop and Emi just kept touching his face and giggling! :)

When we got home Emi laid on Nate's luggage, as if to say, "you're not going anywhere now daddy!" ...and then when he laid down on the couch, she would not leave his side. I love how she loves to cuddle.

We are so thankful that God brought Nate home safely, we love you babe and are so happy you're home!

Fancy Nancy Party

A couple days ago Alyssa went to Mercy's 4th birthday party...a Fancy Nancy party! :) Kristina did such a great job...she set up different stations for the girls to be at, a dress up station (dresses, purses, etc.), a hair station, a nail station, professional photo shoot, a craft station, and a dance area. The girls loved getting all 'fancy'!

My 2 princesses. :)

Didn't get one with them looking at me or smiling, but hopefully Renee did. :)

Dance Party!!!

I love Kristina's pose in this one. ;)

Her favorite dance move... "and we all fall down!"

She was such a big girl getting her nails done.

Time to make a princess cookie. :)

Mercy opening her presents on her throne!

We love you Mercy, happy 4th birthday!!!

Alyssa's 4yr old pictures

Thank you, thank you, thank you Renee! I love these pictures...they are SO Alyssa!!! :)

Here are my favorites: (sorry there's a lot!) ;)

Had to get Barbie in a couple shots! :)

Emi jumped in for a little photo shoot too! :)

Misc. pics over the last week

Emi brought me a bunch of clippies and wanted me to put them all in her hair, what a cutie pie!

Our first watermelon from our garden. It was very small and picked too early, but I think it's so cool that we can actually grow watermelon!

After dinner at the Williams', Emi jumped on the couch next to Kenny and just sat there for a few minutes, sitting just like him. :)

I think this is 'marker attack' #1...there were a few afterwards, but I think I lost the humor (not that it ever was funny...but sometimes you just need to laugh and grab the camera!) in the situation and decided to not take any more pictures. ;)