Pumpkin the Elf


December 2010

We have had so much fun with the Elf from the book, Elf on the Shelf. Although Elf has been with us the last two Christmases, this is the first year that Amy really got into it. She finally named him...Pumpkin! Can you tell we asked her about the name shortly after we threw away our pumpkin from Halloween & Thanksgiving?! Pumpkin the Elf was very generous to Amy throughout the holiday season. He brought her several gifts from Santa, even BEFORE Christmas!! He brought her Santa jammies that she could wear all month before Christmas (though she refused to wear them until the week before Christmas!). He even brought her a birthday present on her birthday from the jolly old man himself. Amy would get so excited to look for Pumpkin. I meant to take pictures throughout the month of the different places Pumpkin the Elf appeared, but I forgot until the last week he was with us. A few days after Christmas, Amy asked about Pumpkin, though we reminded her that he had gone back to the North Pole with Santa after Santa brought her presents. However, we know that Pumpkin will be back next year...we'll have to keep our eyes open to spot him!!

Christmas Eve

Friday, 12-24-10

Christmas Eve...Amy was so excited for Christmas & Santa! Throughout the day, she kept wanting to bake a birthday cake for Jesus. So sweet. We enjoyed spending the day together...going to church, baking cookies, taking family pictures, having dinner together, eating just a few of the cookies left for Santa!!

Amy is saying "cheese" for the camera!

A Jolly Old Day

Wednesday, 12-15-10

Amy & I visited the Children's Museum today. We went a few weeks earlier and Amy really enjoyed the special exhibit they had for Christmas - Jolly Days Winter Wonderland. Amy & I went down the Yule Slide, that seemed especially fast, maybe it was me?? Amy enjoyed it though & even went "whee" as we slid down! I think her favorite part of the special exhibit is the Traditions Kitchen. She simply loves to "cook" especially the cupcakes, brownies, and cookies that they have in the Traditions Kitchen. She would bake the "goodies" and give some for me to eat and then for her to eat - she is so good about her sharing the yummies!

Amy checking out all the food...searching for the cupcakes & cookies!
She found a cupcake along with some brownies & ice cream
I can't remember exactly what she was telling me, but she definitely was telling me something!
Her other favorite part of the museum...riding the carousel!

Telling me all about the different flavors of ice cream that she had


Talking on the phone with Barbie
Having a special visit with Santa
Letting Santa know that she wants a doll house for Christmas

Amy & I had such a fun day at the Children's Museum. Amy already is asking to go back to the museum!!

Princess Birthday Party

Saturday, 12-4-10

Amy's 3rd birthday party was the Saturday before her birthday. I'm sure it will come as no surprise, but the theme of the party was princesses!! Amy helped pick out the party invitations as well as some of the decorations. She was excited for friends and family to come over and play with her!! We had snow Friday night through Saturday morning, which was very similar to her first birthday party. It made for some slow travels for some of the party guests, but fortunately everyone made it safe and sound. Amy wanted to wear one of her "fancy" dresses for her party and then she decided that she needed to wear one of her princesses dresses over her fancy dress, which was fairly fitting since it was a princess party! :) THEN, she decided that she needed to wear her pink cowboy hat...because what princess doesn't have a cowboy hat?!

Amy loved playing with all of her friends and family. She was so excited to see everyone and to be the star of the party! She didn't really want to eat lunch - she was too busy playing! However, she made time to have cake & ice cream! Amy still hasn't quite mastered the art of blowing, so she had some help from the other girls who were at the party. She enjoyed her chocolate cake & strawberry ice cream!! Amy enjoyed opening up presents and was thrilled with the different gifts that she received. All in all, it was quite the party.

We can't believe that Amy is already three years old! It feels like yesterday that we were bringing her home. At times, it seems like time goes by so fast. You get busy with the everyday and the next thing you know, days have gone by. I find myself trying to slow down and appreciate these days that I have with Amy. Although we have had some challenging days, I know that I will miss them as she gets older. She is everything to us and we will take the challenging days along with the less-challenging days. I remind myself on those challenging days that I prayed to be a parent for so many years. Thus, I will be thankful...even on those days where I want to pull my hair out! :)










Here she is
All peaches and cream
Our sweet little girl,
Our long awaited dream.
-Author unknown

What?? No Pictures?

Thanksgiving 2010

So, I'm not really sure how this happened. I still don't really believe that it happened. But...somehow I have lost ALL of my Thanksgiving pictures. Again, how could this happen? This is me we are talking about... pictures are SOOO precious to me. Those who know me well know that I take way more pictures than I need to, but I simply love pictures. So, imagine my surprise when I went to get copies of my pictures from Thanksgiving and I can't find them. They are gone. I downloaded them to the computer. And then they vanished. They apparently are floating somewhere in my computer, but where, I have yet to find. So, for now, the post about Thanksgiving will be without pictures. Which pains me to write. Because, seriously, who cares what I say, we want to see the pictures! :) I will keep looking for the pictures and when I find them (because I am still determined that I will find them), then I will do another post with pictures.

So, Thanksgiving was a bit different this year. This was the first year since Kurt & I have been married that we were at home for Thanksgiving Day. Kurt's parents came up on Wednesday evening and stayed with us until Friday morning when Kurt took them back home. Luckily, though, we went to Kurt's brother's house for Thanksgiving dinner (translation, I didn't have to cook Thanksgiving dinner!). :) (Thanks, Jane!) Similar to last year, I ran the Drumstick Dash on Thanksgiving morning, though this time, I ran with my awesome niece, Emily! It drizzled/rained on us for most of the race. I felt fortunate that the temperatures were fairly warm so it didn't snow and/or ice on us while we ran. Afterwards, I returned home and cleaned up. We then headed over to Brian & Jane's. Amy simply loves going over to Aunt Jane's house. She loves playing with all of her toys!! Aunt Jane had left the doll house out for Amy to play with so she was content playing with it, though she dragged...I mean asked Rachel to go downstairs with her for sometime as well. Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful and Jane did an awesome job with all of the food! It was good that I ran that morning because I enjoyed the many different foods! Yum!! :) Amy enjoyed visiting with Grandma & Grandpa Meyer. I think Amy wore out Grandma Meyer during her stay here! :) Amy was sad to see them leave and is looking forward to seeing them again very soon!

On Friday, Amy & I headed to New Albany while Kurt took his parents back home. Then, Kurt came to New Albany for the Murphy Thanksgiving. Amy simply loves visiting with Grandma & Granddad Murphy. Samantha and Uncle Tim came over around lunchtime and spent the rest of the day with us. Aunt Thuydung came over once she got off work. Dinner was wonderful, as usual. My mom does an incredible job with all of the foods. We enjoyed visiting with each other.

This year, I remain thankful for so many things. I feel so blessed to have my friends and family in my life. God has been so good to me and I continue to praise him for His many blessings.

Adoption Day!

Saturday, 11-13-10

Today we celebrated our second Adoption Day, the day that we legally became Amy's parents. I remember the day so clearly. Getting ready to head to the courthouse. Making sure that we had our camera so we could take pictures of the joyous occasion. The nerves. The excitement. Was it really going to happen?? We were thrilled that my parents were able to come up and enjoy the excitement of the day with us.

We love celebrating Amy's adoption with her and telling her the story of all who have loved her throughout her short little life. We celebrate Amy's homecoming day in August and then her official Adoption Day in November. We had talked about it for several days beforehand, so Amy knew that we were going to celebrate her Adoption Day this weekend.

In the morning, we headed to Monkey Joe's for a little monkeying around!! Amy & I had been here a few time before, though this was Kurt's first time. He loved jumping around with her and going down the big slide with her. Amy was thrilled to have both of us to jump with and jump on!! She had so much fun and can't wait to go back! Kurt and I both just love the sound of Amy's laughter and her beautiful little smile when she is having so much fun.


Amy had just bounced onto Daddy's lap and couldn't stop giggling!
Amy loved jumping in the swimming pool!

Giving the monkey a hug!
For dinner, we headed out to continue our celebrations. Amy continued to have so much fun - she ate fairly well and enjoyed coloring on her menu. Yet, I think she really enjoyed passing out the different sweeteners to us. She would get the different packets out and hand one to Kurt. Then, she would hand one to me. Then, she would start it all over!
After dinner, Amy chose to have a chocolate cupcake, which she enjoyed immensely!

We are so blessed to have Amy in our lives. We love celebrating her adoption!

Disney World - Part Three - Magic Kingdom

Thursday, 11-4-10

Today was the big day...Magic Kingdom. The princesses. The rides. The parades. How exciting!! Since we stayed at one of the Disney's resorts, we were able to take advantage of the extra hours when the park is open just for Disney guests. So, bright and early, we head off to Magic Kingdom!

Amy was excited that she was finally going to be able to see some princesses - I'm sure she thought she was never going to see them, other than the display ones at Downtown Disney! Amy loved seeing the castle as we walked into Magic Kingdom. She was certain that she was going to live there! Amy's favorite ride for the entire time that we were at Disney World was the carousel. She wanted to ride it over and over and over again! She was very particular about the horse as well...it had to be the horse with flowers on it! :)

After riding the carousel one time, we got in line for Dumbo. However, as we got closer to Dumbo, Amy began having second thoughts. She saw some spinning things on it that "spooked" her, as she put it. She decided that she would give it a try, but wanted to sit on my lap. I'm not sure if she truly enjoyed the ride. She was glad when it was over and didn't want to go on it again...though there were a few times when she said that she wanted to ride Dumbo, but would quickly change her mind when we would head in that direction!

We saw so many different characters throughout the day. It seemed that every time we turned around, we would find a new one. We saw Cinderella's Fairy Grandmother. I'm not exactly sure what Amy was telling her here...

But, she smiled when she was told to point to Mommy & Daddy! :)

Other than the princesses, which were Amy's absolute favorite part of the vacation, Amy really enjoyed going through Minnie & Mickey's houses. She loved that Mickey's kitchen was a mess from his attempt at remodeling it! She still mentions how messy Mickey's kitchen was and talks about how silly Mickey is! She enjoyed having "tea" at Minnie's house...

Amy was very patient with any lines that we encountered while waiting to visit with the different characters. She would watch closely as the little kids in front of us would visit with the characters. When we met Mickey and Minnie, she was delighted that Minnie danced with her while Mickey signed her autograph book!

And then there were the princesses....she had a lot of tell all of them, though I'm not exactly sure what all it was! She had her princess dress on as well as her Sleeping Beauty necklace, which was a hot topic of conversation, especially when she met Sleeping Beauty.

I can only imagine the conversation that they are having below...

Showing Sleeping Beauty her necklace...with Sleeping Beauty on it!

We watched one of the shows that they performed -
Amy loved to watch the princesses dance around the stage!


She was telling Ariel about the spider webs that she had seen -
she mentioned that someone needed to clean them up!

We also visited with the fairies. To be honest, I'm not that familiar with the fairies...other than Tinkerbell. But, Amy enjoyed meeting them and talking with them.



We watched several parades, though I didn't get pictures of one parade (I'm not exactly sure how that happened!). The other parade was a nighttime parade, right before the park closed. It had been a long day, though Amy was a trooper. She did really well waiting for the parade to start (it didn't start on time) and afterwards on our way back to the room. Amy waved to all of the characters and were delighted when a few stopped by to say "Hi" to her!




All in all, it was a wonderful vacation. I simply loved seeing the expression on Amy's face when she saw all of the different characters and princesses. I loved hearing her talk about the princesses and all of her thoughts about Disney World. I'll admit that I had some hesitations with taking Amy to Disney World at such a young age. But, I'll admit it - Kurt was right. Amy had a great time and it was a wonderful family vacation! We can't wait to go back!!