Emma and Hayden

Emma's favorite snack is is flavored rice puffs. They get us through car trips, church and many other things. Over Christmas break her cousin Hayden came to visit and he liked puffs too. On Christmas night I was feeding some to Emma and Hayden came over to share with us. He tried to feed some to Emma, but would then just put it in his mouth instead. She caught on to his game and was not very happy about it. It was pretty entertaining.

The Rest of Christmas

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers over the lest couple weeks. They have been greatly appreciated. Karleen's funeral service was beautiful with lots of music and lots of family and friends.
Now life is just going on like always. Sterling is back at work, and Emma and I hang out together all day. She has always bee the cutest baby in the world, but I think she is getting even cuter. She does the cutest things. She waves every time she thinks someone is leaving, she says "Yes", she crawls up the stairs (I am getting tired of chasing her up the stairs all the time. We need a gate.), and she just does the cutest faces.
We were so excited to have Emma with us for Christmas. Sterling and I could barely contain ourselves when it came to buying her new toys to play with. For the most part on Christmas morning she didn't really care about her toys. We could barely get her to help open her presents. Her cousin Hayden was in town for Christmas. He is about 6 months older than her. Neither of them cared much about their own presents. They just kept crawling over and getting into other people's presents.
Hayden and Emma waking up Grandma on Christmas morning so we could got out and open presents. Aren't they a cute little pair?
Emma opens the blocks, doesn't care about them or the fact that I got up super early on Black Friday to get them, so Hayden comes over to play with them. I'm glad someone appreciated them. :)

Our little family in our Christmas pajamas. It was a great day.

Emma has started playing with her toys more, which is nice for me. Since Christmas I haven't had to spend nearly as much time following behind her putting the shoes back on the shoe rack, the magazines back on the shelf, or the handfuls of dirt back in the fake plant. Now she pulls out the blocks and I build something, or I make the animals pop up and she pushes them back down, or she turns her musical steering wheel and we both dance. Being a mom is great.

A Very Special Christmas

On Christmas Eve we invited Sterling's parents over for the evening. A few days earlier Karleen, Sterling's mom, and I had been talking about Cafe Rio salads. She had never had one, so Sterling decided we should make homemade Cafe Rio salads for Christmas Eve dinner. Kind of an odd choice I know, but they were amazingly delicious. After dinner we put Emma into her Christmas jammies and put her to bed so we could watch It's a Wonderful Life. Val, Sterling's dad, wanted to go home after a little bit, but Karleen wanted to keep watching the movie. So during the next commercial break, they ran home so Karleen could keep watching and not miss too much. Later that night Sterling realized he had missed three calls from Karleen. She had left a frantic message saying that she couldn't find the right channel on the TV. It was so funny.
I'll write more about Christmas morning later. That afternoon we went to church with Sterling's parents to see the Christmas program Karleen had arranged. It was nice to be together for church.
Many of you know that the reason this Christmas was so special is that Karleen passed away on New Year's Eve. It was very unexpected, which has made it very difficult. I wish so much that I could see her just one more time to make sure that she knew how much we love and appreciate her.
Although this is a very sad time, there are two things that bring me so much comfort. The first is thinking about what a blessing it has been for us to have lived so close to them for the past year and a half. We have gotten to see them often and do lots of things together. I am especially glad that Emma was able to spend time with Karleen. Even though she won't remember it, I will have lots of stories to tell her about her time with her Grandma. I can't even begin to tell how much it meant to me that we got to spend time together at Christmas. It was really special.
The second thing that comforts me is knowing that we will get to see her again. I am so grateful to know that our family can be together forever. So although we miss her here, I know we'll all be together again.