Christmas Day with Daddy's Family!

We went to Daddy's (Brian) parents house (Grammy & Pawpaw) for Christmas Day lunch and stayed on into the afternoon. Brian's Murphy side of the family were there. Not everyone was able to make it this year. Brian's Aunt Ann & Uncle Sonny who live in Tennessee didn't get to make it in and we all really missed them! We hope to go see them in 2011! We enjoyed a lunch of fried turkey, ham, smoked turkey and many many casseroles! Lots of dips and some desserts too! The adults played the gift game "dirty Santa" and the kids got to open a gift brought by their own parents. I brought Emme Claire a Mickey Mouse guitar to open. Emme Claire had a lot of fun running around entertaining everyone with her cuteness! :)

My sweet girl Emme Claire in her Santa dress!


Lane, Chloe and Emme Claire


Fried Turkey!!! Yum!


My chocolate chip cheeseball! Yum!


How cute are my Santa cookies?!!!


Some casseroles


Chicken & dressing and more casseroles

Christmas with Nonnie & Poppy!

On Christmas Eve my parents (aka Nonnie & Poppy) came over along with my brother Jay (aka Uncle Jay). My husband cooked us some yummy beef stew and cornbread for dinner. I made some Bit O'Brickle bars for dessert. We ate and then we opened gifts! We had fun and Emme Claire had LOADS of fun! Nonnie and the gang came in with a ton of presents! Being the only grandchild on my side of the family makes Emme Claire a very lucky little girl! She better enjoy it while it lasts! :)

Ready to get the fun started!


My living room (Louisiana house) is looking a lot like Christmas!




Emme Claire and Poppy playing ball with Brody (the Bichon Frise). He loves to play ball! And Emme loves to throw the ball for him or to say "Throw it" and have Poppy throw the ball for her.






All those bags and boxes are what Nonnie brought over! They aren't all for Emme Claire, Brian and I had some too! :)








She loves Handy Manny! And she really loves playing with the tools from the show!




She loves this lamb. It is sooo soft and cuddly!


Helping Nonnie open her presents.



Yippy! Nonnie and Poppy got EC a Portable DVD Player! Now she can watch Elmo everywhere! lol




She was so excited to have her own Elmo player! She thinks my laptop is her Elmo player but now she has her own! :)

Aunt Bridget's 2nd Annual Christmas Party!

We went to my best friend Bridget's (aka Emme Claire's "Aunt" Bridget) Christmas party again this year, it was Dec 17th at her father in laws house. It was extra special this year because Santa came to see all the kids! Most were happy about that. Some, including my Emme Claire, were not! haha! Santa came and he brought all the kids a gift. And the kids also had drawn names ahead of time and so they got to open two gifts that night. We had a lot of great food! My husband Brian made crawfish etouffee, which was a big hit with everyone. And we had lots of great sweets to eat too! Here are a few pics from the evening.

Here are all the kiddos that were at the party. In case you can't find her amongst all the children, Emme Claire is the 3rd one from the right end, sitting in Hunter's lap with Brody.


Look everyone, Santa is here! :) And that's Aunt Bridget letting Santa in the door.


Here is cute little Emma Kate getting her gift from Santa.


I didn't get very many good pics that night because there were adults and kids everywhere! haha! It was a fun party!

A trip to the Children's Museum

The Sunday before Christmas we took Emme Claire to the Children's Museum in Monroe, LA. It was the last day they would be open with their special Christmas exhibits. Santa was there and EC wasn't too excited about that. At that point she had already seen Santa 3 times so a 4th time was not on her to do list! We talked to him and got a few pics but she didn't sit with him.





Can't you see her enthusiasm?!!!


After we left Santa and moved on to fun stuff like this she had a good time.




Mailing her letter to Santa!


Snowgirl Emme Claire!

Christmas at Grammy & PawPaw's House

The Saturday before Christmas (Dec 18th) we had our Christmas with my husbands parents and his brother's family. It was us 3, Grammy, PawPaw, Uncle Tim, Aunt Melinda, Chloe (Tim's daughter) and Lane (Melinda's son). We had some crawfish etouffee and some yummy ham and cheese sandwiches to eat. Emme Claire had a great time playing with her cousins.

Emme Claire, Chloe and Lane


Emme Claire opening her Learn & Move Music Station from Grammy and PawPaw


Grammy found Emme a cute Elmo shaped magnet doodle pad! She loves Elmo and she loves those magnadoodles so it was perfect!




Waiting on PawPaw to open the box holding the Tickle Me Elmo doll they got her.

Gifts for the Grandmothers!

For Christmas this year I decided to do some "special" gifts for my Mom (Nonnie) and my husbands Mom (Grammy). Back in October Emme Claire and I attended a Plate Party, this is where you choose a plate/platter/ornament and have your child's finger print, foot print or hand print pressed onto the plate in paint. I talked over some design options with the artist and came up with some very cute ones! Both Grandmother's loved their plates so much! :)

Grammy's plate was Emme's foot print turned into a red bird because Grammy loves red birds and collects them. The plate said Grammy's Little "Tweet"heart! and has the year 2010, Emme's name and age on it.



For Nonnie's plate we did Emme's hand print and turned it into a bouquet of flowers because Nonnie doesn't really collect anything but she does love flowers and has lots of flowers in her yard. Her plate says "Love Grows In Nonnie's Garden". It also has the year 2010, Emme's name and age on it.



This artist also made me a plate and a ornament to have as my own keepsakes.

Here is my Owl foot print plate.


And this is my reindeer finger print ornament.
Front

Back

The artist who made these plates and ornament lives in Winnfield, LA and she has a Etsy shop and a Facebook business page. Her name is Cyndi Beaubouef and her business is called Crayon Princess.

Back in August I also ordered some painted items from a local artist that I have used in the past. You might remember her as the person who painted the frame, canvas and name letters for Emme Claire's 1st birthday party. She also did the artwork to match Emme's new bedding for the Texas house. So for Christmas gifts I ordered a painted frame for each Grandmother and I also ordered a last name initial canvas for my sister in law and a Our First Christmas ornament for her as well. I forgot to take pics of the canvas and ornament before I wrapped them. :( But I did get pics of the frames. Oh and I also ordered myself a keepsake ornament for Emme Claire and I'll post a pic of that as well. This artist is Rachel McGehee from Ruston, LA. She has a Facebook business page called The Peek-A-Bootique and also a blogspot under the same name.

I Love My Grammy


I Love My Nonnie (I will have to replace Nonnie's 5x7 picture with a 8x10 later, I only had the one 8x10 that was horizontal)


Here is the keepsake ornament that I ordered for Emme Claire. It has a monkey painted on one side because she is definately my little monkey and the year 2010. They other side has her name.




Besides the handmade gifts above we also gave our mothers (Emme's grandmothers) a few other things. By the way, it was very hard to keep it a secret for such a long time about the frames and plates! I wanted to spill the beans but I didn't!
Nonnie got a pretty Christmas platter with 3 presents painted on it and a cute Santa shaped cookie jar. Grammy got a beautiful Cardinal (red bird) plate that is just decorative and not for actual use, it's too pretty to use and a matching salt and pepper shaker set. Brian (my husband) got each of them a tiny pink key chain flashlight that is super bright. I guess it has LED lights in it or something. Both Grandmothers had very good Christmases this year! :)