Why is it so hard to find a good pair of jeans? I used to love Abercrombie jeans, but they have since changed their style, plus they always wear out in one season now. (Also, while I used to not think twice about spending $70 on a pair of jeans, I refuse to do so now.) My old favorite jeans from there all have holes in the knees. I bought a couple pairs from the Gap a few months ago that I thought were okay, but they have somehow morphed into "mom jeans". I don't have a single pair of decent jeans...argh! I need something that is somewhere in between the mom jeans and the ultra-low-rise, butt-crack-hanging-out, teeny-bopper jeans. Does such a thing exist?

Emma LOVES her kitchen. She got some food and dishes from other people in my family and she's been busy cooking all day. So far I've pretended to eat and fervently enjoy about 3,794 meals today.

So many of the things she received for Christmas have a bunch of little pieces. I'm concerned that these things are going to turn the usual annoying clutter around our house into a much worse organizational disaster. Last night we went to Target and bought some cute baskets that fit on her bookshelf and can hold (and organize) toys. I hope that these will cut down on the mess a little bit since it will be easier to toss toys into the correct bins instead of putting them all back in their original containers.

One more picture...this is the kid running off to deliver some mail while wearing her fairy skirt and a little purse from her aunt and uncle.

Tomorrow morning we are doing our family Christmas. Well, the stuff Steve and I ordered for each other hasn't arrived yet so it's really just Emma's Christmas. We waited until she was in bed tonight (which, as usual, wasn't until after midnight) and then Steve got busy assembling the kitchen while I sewed her skirt and mail bag. (The poncho is taking much longer than expected so she's going to have to wait awhile for that.) I'm so excited for her to wake up tomorrow morning! :)

We had a wonderful Christmas. Here are some pics from the weekend. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them if you want.

Here is David wearing lovely mittens knitted by yours truly.

I'm so bummed that this one is blurry. Ems got these singing, light-up antlers from Abbie and her family.
Finally, your chance to see my chopped hair!
My grandma knitted this adorable little dress for Emma.
This is Emma and my cousin's baby, Colin, looking at the Nativity scene together. So cute!
And, finally, here are the pants. I stayed up until after 3:00am twice last week working on them. I finished everyone's except mine and my brother Andy's, who lives in Oregon and won't be here until New Years anyway.

I keep thinking of more things I want to make Emma for Christmas. Why couldn't I have done this before now? I have three days to sew her a mail bag (she is obsessed with mail and the mail carrier) and a fairy skirt, and knit her a poncho. The poncho won't be a problem because I can do that on the trips to/from St. Louis, but I really need to get busy on the other two.

I am exhausted.

Emma is really into playing house in a laundry basket lately. She will drag around a laundry basket, saying "House? House? House!", until I sit on the floor with her and place the laundry basket over our heads. We then enjoy tea parties and the singing of Let's Go Fly A Kite, which is her current favorite. I keep waiting for her to get bored with this game, but so far no luck.

Sometimes in the evening Steve and I will bring Emma into the bedroom and we'll lay there with her, hoping she'll go to sleep early for a change. This is always a mistake. Someone always falls asleep, leaving me to stay up with the kid, who does not. Tonight Steve has been asleep since 9:30 and I'm still up playing house with Emma, even though I desperately need to be sewing pants right now.

I just had the worst trip to the store with Emma. We had to run in for about five small things, and it started out okay. She was riding in one of those little truck things in the front of the carts, but after a few minutes she started trying to climb out and saying she wanted to walk. When she says walk, what she really means is run swiftly away and throw food on the floor. I said she couldn't walk, but could sit in the cart. After struggling to get her in the cart, which did not have a buckle, I also had to struggle to keep her there. By this time she was wailing and people were staring at us, probably thinking I was a bad mother. I couldn't push the cart and hold her in there at the same time so I said I'd carry her. Luckily we were ready to check-out at this point, but she flailed and writhed around and I couldn't handle her and look through my purse for my card at the same time. I set her down and held onto her coat hood. I found my card, but the stupid thing wouldn't swipe. Emma threw herself on the ground and wriggled out of her coat. So at this point I'm standing there searching through my messy purse for my checkbook and holding an empty coat that once housed my toddler, who is now racing for the door in an attempt to leave the store. The poor people in line behind me had to wait while I ran after her, then more while I carried her yelling, kicking self back to the line. She laid on the floor wailing, "Noooooo! Owie! Noooo! Owie!" while I held onto her shirt and wrote out the blasted check at the same time. I was so happy to get out of there! If I believed in spanking, I think today I would have done it. Luckily, she is asleep now and back to looking sweet and angelic.

With my mom visiting last week and Steve working late, we had to put our viewing of 24 on hold for a while. Saturday we resumed it and we didn't stop until we finished. After watching until 3:00 a.m two days in a row and knocking out twelve episodes yesterday, we finished the season. That show is like crack. Once you start, there is no stopping. Yesterday we mistakenly made the mistake of thinking we were just going to watch a few episodes, and then accomplish some useful things the rest of the day. Oh, no. Another trip to Blockbuster ensured we were not leaving the couch anytime soon. I probably haven't spent that many hours, total, in front of the TV since, well, the last season of 24 came out on DVD.

In other, less obsessive-addiction news, I finished knitting these mittens yesterday.

Exciting news! I think after staying alone with my mom twice in the last week, Emma is getting a little more independent of me! Usually when Steve is home and I'm going somewhere (the store, the post office, etc.- any place that would be easier without a toddler along), Emma clings to me and Steve says, "Well, I guess she just wants to go with you." And, surprise, I always end up bringing her along while Steve sits on the couch and reads a book or something. Well today I had to run to Goodwill to drop off some stuff and secretly look for sweaters to unravel for yarn. Emma ran away from me when I tried to put on her coat. I asked her if she wanted to stay home with papa, and she gleefully called out, "BYE!" while waving to me! Woo-hoo! I got to go to Goodwill all by myself! I don't think Steve is nearly as excited about this development as me! Bwahahaha!!!

Well, Emma and Steve were asleep at 11:30, so I figured it was my big chance to knock out a pair of trousers or two. I decided to have a snack first, and sat down at the computer while I ate. I got sucked into some long threads at MDC, and now it is 1:30 and I'm tired and going to bed. Way to go, me.

After rethinking my previous post, I should have said that all money not otherwise spent on gifts should be spent on oneself OR, even better, donated to a good cause.

Emma is obsessed with purses. Also, she loves the shoes I wore on the date Tuesday, and has hardly taken then off since then. I took these pictures of my little lady yesterday.
Last night Steve had to work late so we met him at Minsky's for dinner. While we were there, he told me that his firm recently took an anonymous employee satisfaction poll. In the Kansas City office, 92% of the employees said KPMG was a great company for which to work!!! Ha!! They should give the survey to the employee's spouses!

I feel like I should update, but I've got nothing interesting to say. Here's a rundown of the general uninterestingness around here...

- Steve is working late tonight.
- My house is a complete mess.
- I haven't sewn any pants.

Woo-hoo! I told you things were exciting around here.

Tonight was our date and it was wonderful. Emma adores my mom and I didn't worry about them while we were gone at all.

When Steve and I were dating, it was always so exciting just being around him. I always wanted to be holding his hand or touching him in some way. Sometimes I was so overjoyed that I felt like strangers looking at me could just tell I was in love. Over time, the excitement has faded as we've settled into our comfortable lives together. Now concerns such as what to have for dinner, who's going to take out the trash, and wondering how one kid can poop so many times in one day tend to get in the way of romance. Tonight we didn't have to worry about any of those things. I guess a special night out can, for a while, bring back the excitement.

Last night we got back from a fun time at my mom's house. Friday night we all made gingerbread houses and Saturday afternoon we went to my dad's Christmas concert. A fun time was had by all, that is, until the trip home. Emma had basically no nap the whole weekend so she fell asleep immediately when we got in the car. On the way out of town, we stopped for pizza with my brothers and Abbinator. She slept through the entire meal and woke up just as we were leaving. Of course she didn't fall asleep again in the car and spent about 30 minutes crying to get out of her carseat. The last hour was filled with Steve's and my singing every song from Annie, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, VeggieTales, and Disney's Robin Hood many times over.

Today Emma has been incredibly fussy. She'll cry about something and when I try to comfort her she just tells me to go away ("o-way-o-way-o-way-o"). Her most recent meltdown resulted from my not letting her have some wire clothespin bag thingy. After she calmed down, she fell asleep in my arms. She's now sleeping on the bed *crossing my fingers* maybe for the night? Let's hope so.

My mom is coming to visit. Yay! I'm leaving in about 30 minutes to pick her up from the train station. She watched Emma while we were at the concert on Saturday. We were gone five hours, which is Emma's and my longest separation ever, and I think it went pretty well. She is going to watch her this Tuesday while Steve and I have a date at a local dinner theater. I'm SO looking forward to that!

Steve stayed home from work today (!) and we had so much fun. We went and bought two awesome sleds and spent the afternoon out in the snow. The first time I tried to take Ems down she did a faceplant in the snow, so after that she just stood at the top and watched us take turns going down. After sledding, we came back in and watched some more 24. Now he just left to go rent the next episodes of 24 and pick up some pizza. We are settling in for a fun and cozy evening!

Today it was snowing when Ems and I got up and it is still snowing now, over 15 hours later! I think we have about 8 inches. I really want to take the kiddo out to play in it tomorrow but the high temp is supposed to be 14 degrees so that may not be a good idea. She could probably handle it, but I am a wimp!

Steve was supposed to fly to New Jersey today but cancelled the trip because of the storm. Woo-hoo! Tonight we risked our lives to venture out to Blockbuster and get the first two DVDs of the newly released Season 4 of 24. We are obsessed with that show and the releases of each season are cause for much celebration around here. Tonight we watched the first six episodes. Steve said he is taking the DVDs to work tomorrow to make sure I don't watch any episodes without him. I'll just have to wait until tomorrow night to get my Jack Bauer fix.

This afternoon I ran across this website, and decided to try out the recycled yarn thing. Why didn't I do this long ago? I went to the thrift store and bought six sweaters, and so far I've unraveled one whole one and a sleeve each of two others. It's a pretty slow process, but a great way to get cheap wool. You can't beat 24 large skeins of wool for $26! Have I mentioned that I am infatuated with wool?




And, no, I haven't made any progress on the pants.

I am really starting to stress about those Christmas pants. I have 6.5 pairs left to sew, and only 19 days to do it. The problem is I can only work on them after Emma has gone to bed, and by then it's usually midnight or so, and the last thing I want to do is drag out all that sewing stuff. :( After I finish this entry, I am making myself go in there and finish the half-done pair. Then only six more to go...

Today Emma and I were at the mall, waiting in line at a little kiosk. There was a girl in front of us, holding a baby boy (who had to have been under a year old) and leaning against the counter. The baby was messing with a little glass trinket on the counter, and he knocked it on the floor, where it shattered. The mom yelled, "Dammit! What the f*** is wrong with you?" and smacked the baby pretty hard, twice, on the forehead. I was so upset after seeing that. I also am very sorry that Emma had to see it. The mom started telling the kiosk employee how the baby was being so terrible and driving her crazy. I considered offering to watch the baby down in the play area for awhile so the mom could have a break, but I think that would have been too weird. Besides, who is just going to let their baby walk away with a stranger? I really felt helpless.

Emma's hair has been out of control lately. It stands up everywhere and there is no taming it. Tomorrow I will try to take a picture of both of us with our bad hair.

Okay, so I brought in that picture and gave it to the hairstylist. She told me she likes having pictures because then she knows exactly what the customer wants. She even pretended to look at the picture for awhile, and then proceeded to give me a terrible haircut that doesn't look anything remotely like the picture!! The kicker is that the entire time she was cutting it, I was turned backward so I couldn't check on the progress. The pieces falling to the floor looked really big to me, but I figured she knew what she was doing. Um, no. All night Steve has been making jokes about my being Emma's big brother, and he keeps calling me Little Guy or Little Buddy. Swell.

I've been noticing that Emma seems much older these days. Tonight Steve mentioned that he thinks her facial features and even her demeanor have changed in just the past few weeks. She's gotten so many more words, and is now pronouncing them more clearly. Her binky used to be "bee" and it's now graduated to "bink". She's putting multiple words together now too. My baby has grown into a little girl right under my nose. WAHHHHHH!

We were having a good day yesterday until about 9:00 when several bad things happened. First, I realized I'd made a horrible mistake on the mitten I'd been knitting and I had to rip out the entire thing. Second, Emma knocked over the Christmas tree and Steve tried to blame it on me by saying I'd set it up wrong. Third, while trying to right the tree, Steve managed to crush several glass ornaments and grind them into the carpet. Things sort of seemed to spiral out of control, and by the time Emma went to sleep at freakin 2:00 a.m., I was so mad at Steve (who had already been asleep for several hours) that I was going to sleep on the couch. At around 4:00, I realized that Emma, Jose, Paco, and I weren't all gong to fit comfortably (or even uncomfortably) on the couch, so I swallowed my pride and we all went to bed.

Today we noticed that poor Ems just had a tooth pop through, so that probably explains her constant nursing as of late.

Now I'm going (all by myself!) to get my eyebrows done and hopefully get this haircut. I'm sure it will look cute whenI get home, but tomorrow when I have to actually style it myself, it will be back to it's usual blah self. Either way, I am so looking forward to having an hour alone!

Today was the first cooking club get-together and my freezer is now full of delicious meals made my someone other than me! I'm so excited! The only bad thing about it is I have an intense hatred of onions and this may have to force me to get over that. Or maybe just get really good at picking them out!

Steve and Emma are asleep so I'm off to spend a few hours sewing some lovely Christmas pajama pants!

Emma has been wearing our tree skirt like a cloak for the past two days. I feel like I'm in some Star Wars movie or something! She is much cuter than any Star Wars character, however (although Ewan McGregor is a close runner-up!).

I got some wonderful yarn in the mail today! I can't stop looking at it and feeling it. I'm almost afraid to mess it up by actually knitting something out of it!

Before Emma was born, my mom gave me this book. It's full of great little stories that have been compiled from New Beginnings (LLL's monthly magazine). Today I was paging through it, hoping to find some encouragement regarding night-nursing a toddler. I did find it, and also found a poem that I was searching for a few months ago.

The Family Bed
by Carrie Scully
1979

It's only a double
And sometimes there's trouble
With covers and kicking about.
But o-o-o-h it's so warm
And it can't do much harm
When you feel all the love in and out.

This morning I woke
And this is no joke...
I was holding my little girl's hand.
So who could disgrace
The love that took place
While we dreamed our sweet dreams hand in hand?

It's a cute poem, but the sweetness is sort of lost on me now. I think I'm getting a little burnt out on co-cleeping. Lately Emma has been nursing all night long, and it's getting old. Plus she is getting bigger and suddenly taking up much more room. Sometimes I lay there, smashed on all sides by Steve, Ems, Jose, and Paco and fantasize about having a whole bed all to myself. I always thought we would co-sleep indefinitely but now Steve and I are discussing getting Emma her own bed in a few months. We'd probably put a little mattress on the floor in our room and have her sleep there sometimes, just for the sake of a little breathing room!

I ordered some Babylegs (legwarmers, basically) in a co-op and they came yesterday. They are so cute and very convenient for diaper changing. Here is the kid sporting her favorite pair.

I just finished knitting these mittens. They are MIL's Christmas gift, but I just realized that she will probably never wear them because mittens are not smoker-friendly. Oh, well.

I have more to say and pictures to put up, but Blogger is acting funny. I guess this is it for now.