We finished the Year of the Rat (2008) by spending a week in Kansas City with my folks, and then Christmas Eve on with the Busbys in Tucson. It was a memorable first Christmas for Emma and us, and we're glad she was able to spend the holidays with extended family. She loved hanging out with her cousins who fawn over her and play with her. We saw snow in Kansas - lots of it - and enjoyed sunshine in Tucson. Emma was not too pleased about getting bundled up for the snowy cold. Good thing her Auntie Hyeyoung knew how to get layered up nice and cozy because her mama's kind of useless these days in the cold weather.
Emma and her cousin Naomi dressed like twins for their first Christmas photo, and Emma got to be baby Jesus for the Busby family nativity. She was a wee bit too big for the manger, and poor Mary (Emma's cousin Annika) had to feed her finger snacks to keep Emma quiet and occupied during the whole thing.
Emma (whose middle name is Virginia, after her aunt) met her Aunt Virginia for the first time. They got along just great. After Christmas, we celebrated Grandpa's 70th birthday a week early with a special Mexican dinner and pinata.
The whole family contributed to create for a book of memories for Grandpa, which brought tears to his eyes. (I used Blurb to publish the 40-page book of written memories and photos - about 140 of them. I highly recommend their services for publishing your own books.)
Once we returned to Phoenix, we were lucky Curtis was able to take a few days off around New Year's to spend them at home with Emma and me. We were sad about taking down the Christmas tree, but glad we were safely home after a wonderful time with our loved ones.
On January 1st, Emma turned 10 months old. She is now almost 17 pounds and 28 inches long, and despite catching the sniffles from her cousins, she is pretty healthy overall. She rolls around like a tumbleweed when lying down and has had a couple of falls off our bed already; scoots around on her bottoms to get where she needs to go; and becomes very frustrated that she can't just get up and go wherever she wants to go. She will be turning 1 in 6 weeks.
As for what we look forward to in the Year of the Ox:
- Curtis has a busy trial schedule this year, with 4 trials currently scheduled for latter half of the year. We hope his work will be manageable, so we can still have some time together for family activities.
- I am still employed at the hospital, but in an on-call project manager role. It will be just a few hours per month (or zero hours as is the case now). I continue to teach at University of Phoenix, too, and have been working on other home and personal projects (although I never seem to make as big a dent as I think I should). I am hoping to become more proficient in digital photography, scrapbooking, and finally (start and) finish the wedding album, and Emma's first year book.
- Emma: walking, talking, and singing; going to church nursery in the fall (she's been there a few times - see photo below from Kansas where my mom works in the nursery - and she loves it in there with all the kids and toys); more trips and "firsts"; swimming lessons; and going to the beach.
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