Singing with her new microphone
Emma loves to sing for Mama and Papa and was thrilled to learn that this special microphone puts her on the radio! :)

Christmas Morning
The tree was so beautiful in the dark hours of the morning. So was Emma's face as she came downstairs to view the tree and the gifts from Santa. Unfortunately, since mama forgot to change the settings on the camera between pictures her expression was a little hard to capture.

Christmas Eve
Emma wrote a very cute thank you note to Santa, left him a cookie and carrots for the reindeer and happily complied when it was time for bed. If only every night was so easy to get her to sleep! :)

Christmas at Granny's
On Christmas eve we enjoyed celebrating with Aunt Bobbie, Uncle Bob and Great-Grandma Alber, aka Granny. Of course Auntie Shell, Silly Uncle Paul, Grandma Sandy, Mama, Papa and Emma were there too.

Celebrating with good friends!
Maddie, Meg and Brian joined us for a night of merriment and fun to welcome in the holiday season. We had a great time!

School Christmas Party
Emma and I had a great time celebrating at her school. Emma and her best friend at school, one of the other Emmas, watched for Santa out the window for quite some time. Their perseverance payed off and Santa arrived with a book for each of the children after a very cute rendition of Jingle Bells.

Christmas with Grandpa
We celebrated a little earlier with Grandpa since he wasn't going to be around this year on Christmas. Emma enjoyed all her presents but especially her fuzzy hoodie and Hannah Montana doll from Sue. Thanks Grandpa, Sue and GG for all the wonderful gifts!

Flower Daisy Rose Butterfly (as she was loving known around these parts) has passed on, but she was very neat to have around for her short lived life. We aren't quite sure if Emma or the cats liked her better, but she was a popular attraction at our house for the past few weeks. Emma even got to share FDRB with her school friends before she passed on. We had fun checking in on her growth and witnessing each stage; and though sad, even as FDRB died, her passing allowed us to explore news ways of coping as well. A great learning experience all around, even if the last stage was not as fun as the other stages.

The Polar Express
Emma put on her jammies, Grandma Sandy packed us dinner and off we were to the the North pole (wink, wink) on the Polar Express. We had a blast. With hot cocoa, cookies, dancing, singing Christmas songs and meeting Santa- our evening was filled with lots of fun! Too bad they are moving the trains out east and won't be around next year for us to do it again.

Singing on the Polar Express
Emma loved singing for the crowd! Up on the housetop and Jingle Bells were my personal favs! Watch out Hannah Montana, here comes Emma!! :)

Cuddling Charlie
Although he can be an annoying, full of energy puppy, he is also a very sweet dog who tolerates more than he should have to from Emmie. He was a good pick. : )

Upside Down
As many of you already know, Emma's world (and ours) has been turned a bit upside down the past few weeks. First with the glasses and now with the patching. She currently has to wear her patch for 6 hours a day. It could be worse and are thankful there have been some signs of improvement. The Dr. didn't seem optimistic that her vision will ever be able to be fully corrected, but he thinks we can make progress. And progress is a good thing. So for now, patching away, we are. Emma, although very shaken when she learned about needing to wear the patch, has been a real trooper and wearing her patch without too many complaints.

The Christmas Parade
For the 2nd year in a row we have bundled up to take part in the Christmas Parade. It was lots of fun (although we did all wonder if we still had toes afterward, and thankfully after we thawed the answer is yes- all are accounted for :).

Celebrating Nikolas Tag!!

And the count down begins!

Heading to the Chicago Christmas Market with Auntie Shell, Uncle Paul and Grandma Sandy (Our German side might just choke if we told them how much a glühwein costs here!!!)