Emi's Camera

My in-laws gave Emi her very own digital camera for christmas. She adores it! The camera holds 250 pictures and she can blow through those in about 5 minutes.

I had to share some of the pictures that she has taken.

A New Way to Play Video Games

We have been feverishly trying to potty train Emi. We have purchased every potty they make in hopes that she will bond with one and actually use it. She finally connected with the hot pink baby bjorn potty. The only issue I have with this potty is that she can easily scoot herself, while still seated on the potty, into any room she pleases.

Yesterday, this is what we found her doing.



There is nothing like playing video games while doing your business!

Merry Christmas

Santa was very good to our children this year! Here are a few pictures of them enjoying their christmas goodies.

My Christmas Present

For years I have been complaining - nightly that I want a new mattress. I hated our queen size mattress - there was not enough room and it was horribly uncomfortable. Well, look what Santa brought me - a king size pillow top!





And here is a shot of Brian and Emi enjoying Mommy's present.

Love This!

I came across this song and I just love it! Wanted to share it.

School Pictures

I just had to publish Emi's first official school picture. I can't believe she is old enough to have a school picture!

Santa

Emi was almost 1 her first Christmas so, seeing Santa for the very first time was quite traumatic! Last year, when we walked by Santa at the mall - she would totally lose it. Needless to say, we have no picture of Emi with Santa during her second Christmas.





Hello 2008. My how things change! Emi's cousin Rebecca said that she would not visit Santa unless Emi went with her. When I explained this to Emi she agreed to go and we ended up getting the best picture and those girls didn't hesitate a bit to run up to Santa and tell him that they wanted Barbies for Christmas.

Muscle Shoals

For Thanksgiving, we went to Muscle Shoals, Alabama and stayed at the Marriott Resort and Spa - it was awesome! We love that place, we go there every fourth of July for a long weekend - this year we went twice. In the lobby of the hotel they had a huge 20 foot tree with a train running underneath the tree. The train track was outlined with ginger-bread houses and the coolest part was they had a snow machine somehow on the ceiling and it was snowing in the lobby - real snow all day long on thanksgiving day. Let me just tell you that getting Emi out of the lobby was nearly impossible! I am pretty sure that I logged at least 8 hours in the lobby of that hotel while we were there.

Emi probably walked 2 miles following that train around the tree!

showing me where santa was

my little man chillin' in the hotel bed

Christmas is here!

i love, love, love this time of year. we decided to put a tree in emi's room this year and let her decorate it herself. she doesn't quite grasp the concept of spreading the ornaments out throughout the tree, all of the ornaments were hanging on one branch and i think the tree was about to fall over, so she got a little help from mom - even though she didn't want the help and we spread them out. i hear that they have princess lights at walgreens, we may have to purchase those to add to her tree.

the beads were by far, her favorite!

trying to figure out how to hang the ornaments

jack and daddy in front of the "big tree"

Jack's Baptism

so, we finally joined our church (after 2 1/2 years of visiting) and we were able to baptize Jack. it was really sweet and touching and i pretty much sobbed like a baby throughout the entire thing. we had a luncheon afterwards and really enjoyed spending that special day with our friends and family.

our little family

baby boy sleeping - it can be hard work getting sprinkled!

emi and rebecca - best buddies!

dad and jack after the party, this was just their attempt to get out of cleaning up!

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, we are going to the Marriott Resort and Spa in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. I am so excited! No cooking or cleaning - just showing up at the restaurant and ordering your food. How great is that?

We are having a family reunion and I am looking forward to good company and good food!

Poor Brian will not be in attendance, he has to work the day before and after Thanksgiving. He will be enjoying turkey with his parents in Olive Branch.

I will be thinking of him while I am at the spa :)

Tagged!

My friend Jennifer tagged me. This is so easy and cute!

Here are the rules:

1. Choose the 4th picture folder on my computer
2. Choose the 4th picture
3. Explain the picture
4. Tag 4 people to do the same.

This is from Emi's first trip to Destin. We were at the indoor pool because it was raining, of course! She loved to float around in that thing, all she needed was a pink drink with an umbrella!

Carving Pumpkins

Every year I get so excited to go to the pumpkin patch and pick out pumpkins to carve, I even made Brian do this before we had kids. So, off we went the the pumpkin patch and picked out:

1 large pumpkin - Daddy

1 medium pumpkin - Mommy

1 little girl pumpkin - Emi

1 baby pumpkin - Jack

The carving day quickly approached, we set everything up outside and got started. After doing one pumpkin, I was totally over it and was wondering what the heck I had gotten myself into. Now I know why my parents never carved pumpkins for themselves, and why they only did ours. But, we pushed forward and got all 4 of them cleaned out and carved. They did look pretty cute, if you want my totally unbiased opinion. We let Emi draw on hers with markers and after about 2 minutes she was totally over having anything do to with a pumpkin - maybe next year she will have a little more "pumpkin enthusiasm".

Disco Fever

Emi and Rebecca groovin' at the disco

Halloween Preview

We attended Zoo Boo last weekend. Here is a sneak peak of the costumes at the Matochik household.

Jack being Jack

Cinderella

Veggie-Tales

While we were at Dollywood, we came across a man selling CDs that you can have your child's name inserted into the songs like 90 times. We thought that it was cute and bought the Veggie-Tales one for Emi - for those of you who don't know, Emi is OBSESSED with Veggie-Tales. It is cute the first 100 times you listen to it, but it gets old quickly. Every time we go anywhere, it must be played or she just sits in the back constantly begging for it. It is so sweet to watch how excited she gets when they are singing her name, I must say.

I am thinking about ordering the Disney Princess CD just to give myself a break from Veggie-Tales.

Uncle Fudd's

On Saturday, we went out to Uncle Fudd's Pumpkin Patch in Gallaway, Tennessee with Brian's brother, his wife and their daughter, Rebecca. We had so much fun!

The girls feeding the goats

Walking through the corn maze

Jack enjoying the hayride

The girls with their pumpkins they picked themselves out of the pumpkin patch!

Dollywood

Good ole Dollywood. On our last day in Gatlinburg, we went to Dollywood. We heard it was great and that it was very family friendly. Well, it was great and it was incredibly family friendly, it was also incredibly elderly friendly as well. I am pretty sure that the elderly people out numbered us twenty to one. They have something like 30 musical shows playing 'round the clock and that, we figured out, was the attraction for the elderly. I was almost run over by a hoveround at least 10 times. All that aside, we had a blast and the scenery is gorgeous! They have a section called the County Fair and that is where all the kiddy rides are. They had a veggie-tales roller coaster, so Emi and Brian rode that first. I thought Emi would be terrified, she did have the look of pure fear on her face throughout the entire ride, but she says that it was her favorite ride. When asked if she wanted to ride it a second time, we quickly got a NO!

They are in the orange car

She made "Pinky Bear" at the Build-A-Bear workshop

We had to ride the t-sef (carousel, for those of you who don't speak Emi) several times!

Notice that Emi is hysterical, she hated the tea cups!

Poor Jack, all he did was hang in the harness or sit in the stroller. The only thing he got to ride was the train - and fell asleep before we left the station.

On the train, some "older" people shared a seat with us and while everyone else was enjoying the scenery they were plotting their attack on how many shows they could cram into the rest of the afternoon.

Yikes - I wonder what they are showing at these things!

Mini-Vacation

Last weekend we went to Gatlinburg for 5 days. We started out by leaving 3 1/2 hours late - welcome to my life! But, that was fine because this was our vacation and it was ok that we were not leaving as scheduled, I kept repeated this to myself as we spent an hour driving around Memphis so Brian could get his chik-fil-a and starbucks for breakfast. If things don't go exactly as planned I tend to go from zero to grumpy in a matter of seconds - this is what having kids has done to me. I have become a little bit of a freak when it comes to schedules and planning. I wasn't like this pre-kids, I promise! So we finally got on the road and started the long trek to Gatlinburg - Praise God for the invention of DVD players in the car! When we finally arrived, the mountains and trees were so beautiful and the traffic was soooo not! It would take us about 25 minutes to go 2 miles - scary when you have 2 babies in the car and you are completely out of diapers and formula! We learned quickly that you stay off of the main roads!

We spent our first day at the Ripley's Believe It or Not Aquarium - it was awesome! I highly recommend it to everyone.

Jack and Poppa looking at fish

Emi looking at sting rays

After the aquarium, we drove to Cademan's Cove. Cademan's Cove is an 11 mile driving tour that takes you through the mountains and you can stop at various spots to hike and look at the scenery. There are these old homesteads that you can actually walk through - I love that stuff! Emi's says that hiking was her favorite thing to do, on the trails she would stop and look at everything!

Ohhhh, look at the rock!

Ohhhh, look at the leaves!

Ohhh, look at the holly berries!
Ohhhh, look at the worm!

Ohhhh, look at the squirrel!

It took us an hour to hike half a mile, but she was enjoying nature so we let her look.

Notice, the sucker. Brian and I bought a bag of suckers and would bribe her to do everything. "If you smile at the camera, you can have a sucker!" She probably consumed 50 suckers on the trip, I am surprised that her teeth didn't fall out.

The things you'll do for a little peace, right?