Wanting to document something Emma said...

When Emma and I were in Los Angeles, she wanted to see a show at the Griffith Park Observatory Planetarium. We had seen a show up in Montana and Emma loved it! I had forgotten about it until the other night when she started to tell Dave about it. It went something along the lines of "Daddy, you know there is a star that never moves!" Once Dave realized she was talking about the North Star, he downloaded a constellation program so they could find the North Star on the computer. She watched with him and they sped up time to watch the other stars move and look for the one that was not moving. Then she exclaimed "Look, Daddy! There it is, the Polar Express star!" (commonly known as Polaris!)

Sledding fun (in the backyard)!!!

This is the first time Emma has been sledding (other than being pulled around in a baby sled on a flat surface). She had a blast!

update on the decision for the Celtic Woman concert

I was just rereading a couple posts from earlier in the month and I realized I never updated regarding my decision for the Celtic Woman concert. Around Dec 13, I realized I never did call in to purchase the tickets for the Salt Lake City show. Dave and I had talked about it and felt it would be fun for Emma to go and she keeps asking.

So... I figured I would check back in with TicketMaster on Dec 15th when they went on sale to the public. The night before I went on to see what time they go on sale and find out they had been on presale that weekend but no longer were. I started to get concerned about seating at this point. Went on to look on the 15th and scored 2 tickets for less than what it would have cost through PBS. The seats do not look 1/2 bad. They are a lot better than what Dave and I had so that will be nice!

Now the wait until the concert. I decided not to say anything to Emma at this time. We thought about making it a Christmas present which would have totally made her day but then I would be hearing about it for the next 4.5 months... Not worth it!

Christmas morning!!!

We had to wake Emma this morning. I am guessing we have another year or so before she is waking us up! She knew it was Christmas the moment she woke up but she still came out here pretty groggy. Sat in the chair by the tree and glanced over at the table where the hot chocolate and cookie was... commented "Santa came!" and just sat there. So I had her look over at the tree and she saw the My Little Pony play set and then I think things started to set in, although it was still slow!

Santa came!

She really really really wanted a Dinosaur excavation kit, so here it is with two books on dinosaurs.



My Little Pony Ponyville Carnavile set. She has been eyeing this but did not ask Santa for it, he knew she wanted it anyways :)

A toy blender, a wooden tic tac toe game (she thought this was amazing!) and a street hockey ball and puck.

Finally finding the dino excavation kit... can't tell she was thrilled can you?!



Pouring over what was included in the kit... thrilled when she found out it was a T-Rex skeleton!

Another Santa gift not shown above. A very simple telescope that is all hers to use.

Opening gifts from my aunt. Impressed with the way the pictures moved.

After opening a few gifts, she remembered to check the stockings!

Me having fun with my camera... Her ferris wheel from the My Little Pony set moves...

Recap for my own memory... going off memory, will have to look through her stash to make sure I got it all... Will recap California when I post pics from that.

From Santa: dino kit, two dino books, My Little Pony Ponnyville set, tic tac toe game, play blender, street hockey ball and puck, telescope.

From Mom and Dad: maze/dot to dot books, large coloring book, microscope for nature, spiralgraph (I feel like I am missing a thing or two...)

From my Aunt: 2 books, learn to read dvd, paper pad for drawing/writing, activity calendar, candle (for me), White House ornament (for me and Dave), National Parks Passport Explorer Edition (for the family).

Christmas Eve pictures...

Here are pictures from Christmas Eve...




Bringing hot chocolate and cookies for Santa!





Hot Chocolate and cookie for Santa, carrots for the reindeer!




Posing with a ceramic ornament she painted.

Let it snow!

We were forecasted for 1-2 inches Monday. When Emma and I cam home from errands and hockey camp, there was at least that on the ground. Barely starting to spit in Grand Junction, a couple inches in Fruita. It was awesome!

While I started shoveling to stay ahead since it was still coming down, Emma ran inside and got her snow gear on. She came back out and started to make snow angels (as a promise to Donna and Aimee) and then decided to start a snowball fight with me! She quickly learned not to start one with the snow shoveler unless you want shovels of snow coming flying at you!

Couple pics from that day.

Merry Christmas (eve)!

Just stopping by to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Emma is more excited today than she has been any other Christmas Eve day which is funny cause we are staying home this year instead of visiting family. I know it is because she is just at the right age to really start enjoying it and understanding that Santa comes tonight. Be interesting to see if tomorrow morning she wakes up early or not. Every prior year she has not woken early.

Today we have been tracking Santa through Norad and she just ran back to tell Dave that he is in Rome, Italy. Was a great excuse to break out the globe and show her where everything was. We did a mini lesson on how the sun works with the Earth to produce night and day in different locations. While it was day here (light shining on the globe), it was nighttime in Australia (darkness on the opposite side of the globe). She was really impressed and had to show Daddy when he got home how it all worked!

She has been watching the presents pile up under the tree. She was so in awe when a package arrived from my aunt! She kept pulling out presents and exclaiming "Another one for me! Wow!"

We did a mini Christmas in California with my family and that was really nice. On the trip out I packed a duffel bag inside our suitcase and I had no room coming back. I ended up leaving a metal box at my folks to be brought out later. One of Dave and my gifts was a handheld GPS unit and Donna and Aimee gave up a metal box to start our own cache. I had it all packed and started thinking that the box is one way to guarentee my bag to be searched. Ended being too full so I left it for now.

The only thing I am behind on this year was getting a Christmas card out. Chances are I am going to try for a New Year's card instead since that buys me a couple more weeks to get a picture for it. Will save my ideas for a Christmas card photo until next year.

Looks like we are going to have a white Christmas, at least judging by the snow on the ground. We are supposed to get between 1-3 inches each day for the next couple days as well. That is what we were foreasted for the last storm and it ended up dumping about 6inches instead so this could be a very white Christmas! I am hoping so at least!

Well, off to see what can be prepped ahead of time for food tomorrow!

Decisions, decisions...

Found out today that Celtic Woman is touring the USA in 2009. Will be in both Salt Lake City and Denver... Called the local PBS in Salt Lake and tickets are $200 a pair right now. They are not being sold to the public at this time, only through a pledge to PBS... They will go on sale to the public Dec 15th but not sure what kind of seats will be available at that time.

Most likely it will be just Emma and I going and I am really considering picking them up at that price so we can be closer. It will be a new song line up and with her not knowing the songs, she will pay more attention I am sure if she can actually see the woman singing and dancing as well as the opportunity to see the fiddler up close.

It does not seem they are offering meet and greet tickets this time around, which I probably could not have afforded anyways since I was reading that they were like $250 a pair and I am sure that was on top of the entrance ticket price. I do have a few ideas to try out to see if we can get back stage but I am not going to get my hopes up yet.

Identical gifts?

So, the other night Dave, Emma and I are out in the garage (our newly insulated/heated garage!) playing darts. Well, Dave and I are playing, Emma is doing her own thing. She has tried to play but the board is too high. I mentioned that there were magnetic dart boards out there and her eyes lit up! So I start researching and find a reliable on and figure that could be one of her larger gifts. I even managed to find a store in Montana to buy it from while we were up there visiting. Hey, I figure no shipping costs and even better, no sales tax!

So I am all set to make a run to get it. And then... the first night there, Dave's mom pulls me aside and asks me "Do you think Emma would like a magnetic dart board?" I had never even mentioned it to her and she happened to see it in a new toy store and was drawn to it. I took a glance at it, and it was the exact same board I was going to pick up for her!

It was just amazing how that played out. Shewas able to see Emma get really excited when she got it (we did Cmas up there early) and it was worth it. Now I am stuck having to come up with something else. I am struggling to get Emma to even come up with a list to send Santa. She has no problem going through catalogues and saying "I want that and that and that." So now, I need to sit down and actually see what she wants and make a reasonable list. Already warned her that she will not get everything on her list. This is the first year that she has been really like this.

I did make a run to the new toy store up in Livingston and picked up a few things. I feel kind of bad about one purchase though. I found what I thought was a great deal and put it in my pile. When he went to ring it up, he thought it was mismarked for 7.49 instead of 14.99. So it was a great deal just mismarked. While he went to look up the correct price online, I told him that if it was the 14.99, that it was out of my range for what the toy was. He ended up selling it to me for 7.49 and I felt guilty about it. He did run back and remark the last one on the shelf tho!