Ain't Leftovers Wunnerful?

Happy Thanksgiving weekend to our peeps everywhere. We had a loverly holiday yesterday. Joe cooked up a moist and delicious 20-pound turkey and made cornbread stuffing. I expertly opened a variety of cans and heated things up. Grandma & Grandpa Hiatt, Janie, and nephew Jonathan joined us for dinner. Jon brought us a key lime pie to enjoy along with the pumpkin. That's a nice taste combo! Grandma & Grandpa stayed overnight and Emma got up in the middle of the night and wandered downstairs in search of them...not wanting the fun to end, apparently. (We heard a plaintive "PA!!" -- what she calls Grandpa -- wafting up from the depths of the house as we lay asleep.)

Today we're putting up the tree, listening to the Carpenters' Christmas album (the pinnacle of all Christmas music) and eating the odd green olive and turkey fragment.

In other Emma news: She now only wears two shirts (willingly), the pink one pictured above and its light green twin. I wash one or the other almost daily, and sometimes we turn them around to get a different, non-stained view. She's got a million darling outfits that she's just now growing into but thumbs her little nose at all but these two summery shirts. (I tried to coerce her into wearing some cute black velvet overalls over a pink turtleneck yesterday. I asked her if she'd wear her new outfit and she retorted "No ow-fih!" A pox on outfits.)

She also likes to wear an extragavant pink dress with a fluffy skirt covered with netting given to her by a lovely lady in our ward. She saw a tutu-wearing ballerina on BYU's World of Dance program recently and dashed into her bedroom to don "the dress," then began spinning across the living room floor. "The dress" is now the apparel of choice for Sunday.

One of Emma's favorite phrases is "happy choo choo." I don't know where it came from. A few months ago she started saying "happy happy choo choo," then it dwindled to just "happy choo choo," and now it is applied solely to birthdays and birthday cakes (as in "I hope you have a very happy choo choo birthday and eat a lot of happy choo choo birthday cake"). Next week is Grandpa's happy choo choo birthday, which I'm sure Emma will enjoy, and I told her that Christmas is Jesus' happy choo choo birthday. I think she understood. We're looking forward to the next five weeks of festivities and hope you and yours enjoy a very happy choo choo Christmas season.

A Halloweeny Update

We should probably give Emma's update on Halloween before Thanksgiving gets here. We also celebrated "Emma Day" on October 30th. I took some time off of work, and we all went to Jungle Jim's for the morning on Emma Day. It was great watching Emma ride all of the rides and ignoring lunch in the process. We took some footage of the occasion, and may even post it some day when we can figure out how to do it.

It doesn't seem like a year has passed since we first saw Emma. The year has gone by quickly, and Emma has made so much progress. She now has added to her vocab words and phrases like "mine!," "stop it," and "move!" So much has happened that it is difficult to think of how life was without her. The time her mother has spent with her has produced great results. Go Mama!

Halloween was a fun day. While Denny was playing an out-of-tune piano at a funeral, Emma and I hit a couple of Halloween parties. The first was at my work, and she was a big hit in her ladybug costume. She filled up her collapsing pumpkin with candy, and we took off for the party at Boo Boo's work. Those folks at OCC know how to do Halloween. All of the employees were geared up for the occasion, as well as about 30 or 40 kids. The office was decked out, and there was candy and favors at each desk on three levels. I took a few pictures at this location, but our trusty camera gave up the ghost, so there will be no pictures. Bummer. We then took off to meet Denny at her folk's place out in Sandy. We had a pleasant visit, and ate crackers to help balance out the sugar.

After a sugar-laced nap, we took off for dinner at Andy and Kathryn's place up by the "U." There was a parade of about 50 kids that Emma joined, and they marched around [Emma had her arms folded like she does when the Nursery kids at church walk down the hall] and enjoyed hot cider and donuts (before dinner). Dinner was great, and it was good to see Andy and Kat. We then went up the street to visit Emma's other grandparents for a few minutes. By that time it was getting dark, so we headed for home to greet trick-or-treaters. Emma was bushed from a long day of partying, so we stayed home and handed out candy to about 28 scary visitors.

It was a busy couple of days, and much fun was had. She may not completely understand the Emma Day or Halloween, but that will come later. In the meantime, everybody is sure enjoying the ride! OK then.