Dear Lou,

Happy belated 21 month birthday! As you can tell, things are really crazy around here-- I can't believe I'm just now writing your little monthly update!

I'm sorry if I've been a little preoccupied lately with all the shopping and baking and wrapping and decorating, but I want to reassure you that despite how it may seem, yes, you are still my number 1 priority, and no, we have not moved into Target permanently. And although it's been hectic, I'm not too worried about you because you seem to really be eating this Christmas thing up. You love the lights and the trees and the elves and the Santas and the trains and the fake snow and the singing and the dancing... and so on and so on (and, of course, most of all, the CANDY)...

Since you are so interested in pointing out what things belong to whom or who did what to whatever these days, you are convinced that Dada is responsible for every Christmas light everywhere. Every once in a while you give me a shout out for doing whatever Christmas-y thing I've done around the house (which is everything except for putting up the lights), but you're obviously most impressed with Dada and those damn lights! I guess he should get some credit, though, because at least his task involved a ladder and climbing at dangerous heights.

You love our Christmas tree. Every single morning you tumble out of bed and head straight to it where you point at it and yell "uh-oh! uh-oh!" because the lights are out. Since we have them on a little clicker-remote, it's always your job to turn them on, and you LOVE doing it. You've gotten better about not touching the ornaments-- sometimes you remember to look at the tree with your hands behind your back (you look so cute doing that!) but I've also learned which ones are the most indestructible.

Along with the excitement, this past month has brought a few challenges as well. Although you don't really know the word "mine" yet, you definitely have the concept. A little pushing, a little taking-things-away-from-other-kids has shown up (you went to time-out for the first time at the gym!), but your teacher says it's only a mild case and that you'll grow out of it soon. Everyone agrees that you're not trying to be mean, you just see something you want and go after it. I have to say that I think that's a whole lot better than hanging back and not making a move at all. We'll just have to work on the manners part a bit more!

Well, Christmas is in five days and I can't remember the last time I was so excited about an upcoming date (maybe waiting to have you?). Daddy and I had so much fun shopping for you! We've told you that if you're really good, Santa might bring you not just one, but two presents. I can't wait to see your face when you see half the room filled with toys for you! I'm sure we overdid it, but we figure now is the time to do it and not when you're asking for a room filled with iPods, Wii's and flat screen TV's.

I love you more than all the Christmas lights in the whole, wide world!

Love,
Mama

I just got back a little while ago from a weekend of shopping in Houston with Lizzie, Emily and my mom, so Gary's been taking care of Emmylou! Luckily, Mimi came in yesterday for back-up. I believe the weekend included a trip to Chuck E. Cheese and shopping so it's probably good he wasn't on his own. Here are a couple of photos:

Emmylou with Mimi...





And with Daddy in front of the fire Sunday night after the long, fun weekend...



In other news, remember how a couple of posts ago I was bragging to you all about how I could bribe Emmylou to do anything with candy? It turns out she's smarter than I thought- she's actually been trying to bribe me! I don't even want to admit this, but one morning before I dropped Emmylou off at school, I gave her a piece of candy to sit still so I could put pigtails in her hair. She HATES when I mess with her hair and although I got the pigtails in, she struggled to get away from me the entire time. In fact, she usually won't even let me spend more than 0.2 seconds brushing or combing her hair after a bath (which explains why she has homeless person hair a lot of the time). So anyway, as much as she hates it, the other day, after asking for some candy without success, she came up to me and pulled her hair out at the sides of her head, as if to say, "I'll let you put pigtails in my hair if you give me candy." Oh. My. God. When did this upper-level reasoning set in?!!! I guess I have to try parenting with some integrity now rather than bribery. Here she is recreating the scene:





P.S. Emmylou, your letter is coming soon, I promise!

It's beginning to look a lot like... FALL!

Finally!

Emmylou and I were enjoying playing in the leaves yesterday after an unexpected cold front blew in. A nice change considering the thermometer in my car said it was 91 degrees on Saturday. That just isn't right in December, even in Texas!

I've been meaning to post pictures of Emmylou in her camouflage Ducks Unlimited outfit PawPaw and Nana gave her for ages. But maybe it was good to wait so we could test out the efficacy of the camo against the Christmas tree. See if you can find Emmylou in this picture:



It's almost like she's just a floating head, right? Maybe she'd be better camouflaged if I hung some ornaments and lights on her. Here she is really trying to hide, crouched down low in front of the tree:



Ooh, such stealth-like hiding skills! Hmmmm.... Maybe we can try this again sometime soon out in the wild? Thanks, PawPaw and Nana!

----------

In other news, today was a very big day for Emmylou-- she met Santa! We've been talking about him for a while and I was a little nervous she might freak out, but I knew things were going to go well the moment I saw that he had a big bag of candy next to him. Santa's pretty smart. As you all already know, she will do ANYTHING for candy.*



After seeing Santa, she rode the little train all by herself. Can someone please tell me where my little baby has gone?



And back at the house, just after telling Emmylou for the millionth time to quit rearranging the lights and ornaments on the lower third of our Christmas tree, a Christmas miracle occurred: a giant package arrived from Mimi that among other, adorable things, contained a stuffed children's Christmas tree (with its own ornaments) that she can hug and love and pet and touch ALL SHE WANTS! How smart are the people at Hallmark for making this and how smart is Mimi for picking it out?! Thanks, Mimi! I might actually keep my sanity throughout the holidays now!





(Emmylou's pretending to nibble on the cupcake ornament.)

*In another "Am I a terrrible mother?" moment today, I overheard the woman in front of me with her three (crying, approximately 3-5 year old) children tell the helper elf who offered them candy that "they don't know what candy is." Um, is she CUH-razy?! Doesn't she know what she could bribe those kids to do with a little candy?! No wonder they were all crying and clearly not as well-adjusted as my little sugar-filled angel.

Wanna see our family really getting into the Christmas spirit?

CLICK HERE

And, as usual, I'm a couple of days late but wanted to share this with all of you. World AIDS Day was December 1st, and with the holiday shopping season upon us, we want to encourage you all to look for Product (RED) items! Here's what you can help do:



Learn more HERE.

What all the fashionable 1 year olds will be wearing this season: plastic toy lawnmowers!



Inspired by Flava Flav?

Yay! Yesterday we finally got to meet little Isla! (Oh yeah, and Craig, too-- sorry for not sounding as thrilled as with Isla, but you know how it is these days, right, Craig?) Alison, Craig and Isla were in town from Scotland for Thanksgiving and, fortunately for us, had time to come to Austin for a visit. We have always kept in touch via their blog, www.ClanBuchanan.co.uk, but it was really good to see them all in person. Isla is so, so cute and I never heard her fuss once during the entire afternoon!

After lunch at Shady Grove with Ashley and Emily, Alison's brother Andrew, the Buchanans, Emmylou and I, and our friend Bev and her son Leo met at the playground at Central Market. Leo is just too cute as well, and since he lives in Austin, hopefully Emmylou will be seeing more of him soon. Emmylou and I actually went to the Farmer's Market with Bev and Leo afterwards and when we left, Emmylou kissed him on the lips! It was her very first kiss-- and his too!

As usual, I was kicking myself for forgetting my camera (what is wrong with me?), but Alison (a professional photographer) took a few at lunch and on the playground. Too bad I didn't get one with her and Emmylou or all the kids together!

Emmylou helping to push Isla's stroller...



Bev checking out Isla...



And Emmylou's first boyfriend, Leo...

Although I don't have any actual Thanksgiving Day photos to post, here are a few that were taken over the long weekend.

We were out at Grammie's lakehouse in Horseshoe Bay from Wednesday to Saturday and although we never could go out on the boat since it got cold and rainy within about five minutes of our arrival, Emmylou (fortunately) had plenty of time to torment Lola with jewelry:





Turkey Day was yummy and laid back with lots of poker, Scrabble and domino playing. And Friday was full of football, a little shopping in Marble Falls and an unexpected Christmas light boat parade we caught out of the kitchen window and ran out to the dock to see:



Aunt Em held a bundled-up Emmylou so she could see the boats...



Since Emmylou wanted more, we drove in to Marble Falls a little later to see their "Walkway of Lights." It was freezing but fun.

On Saturday we went to San Antonio for the Am Rhein Thanksgiving celebration which was fun and lively (as always) and then headed to see PawPaw, Nana and Steve for lunch on Sunday. Although we were exhausted by the time we got back to Austin, we managed to have enough energy (or was it Christmas spirit?!) to go buy our Christmas tree. Now, I don't want to brag, but my nickname for the tree is "The Most Beautiful Tree in the Whole Wide World." And although it is truly beautiful (it was love at first sight for me and Emily agrees since I made her come over specifically to look at it), I'll admit it also might have something to do with the fact that because we've been away and/or in limbo during the past 5 Decembers, we haven't bought a tree in that many years. Regardless, Gary, Emmylou and I love it and you can be sure there will be many pictures of it to come once it gets decorated. In the meantime, here's a sneak peak of us picking it out and taking it home...





And Emmylou in front of it trying on her new mittens and hat...

Emmylou's gotten a couple of neat things recently. First, here is a t-shirt Kirk got her from Antone's last time he was in town:



And here's a silk Chinese dress (I can't remember what these are called- I used to know) that Mimi got her in San Francisco's Chinatown this summer:



Thanks, Kirk and Mimi!

And look at what Emmylou's been interested in lately:



Nothing's happened yet but we figure that if she wants to try it out, we'll let her have a go at it.

Dear Emmylou,

Time has gotten a little away from me- you turned 20 months old a couple of days ago and I'm just now getting around to writing your letter! It's been an interesting month. You bounced back from a super-scary high fever and a trip to the emergency room a few weeks ago, experienced the excitement and fun of Halloween, started going to school, and have still continued to get smarter, more talkative and more curious with every day.

And what are you doing these days? The better question is, "what AREN'T you doing these days?" You have an opinion about everything: what you want to do, where you want to go, who you want to see, and you can make things pretty clear now. It's kind of exhausting but it's also exciting and fun to see you anticipating things and really understanding what we tell you. For example, last night you spent the night at Grammie's, and I knew you really understood where you were going when I told you a few hours beforehand and then you knew exactly what was happening when I dropped you off with her. You were so excited!

The food you eat has been changing a little bit. This month you are still loving apples, started eating scrambled eggs for the very first time, yogurt again after a month or two hiatus, and gave up oatmeal. Even chicken nuggets don't tempt you like they used to. I think the thing I can always count on you to finish (aside from candy) are your mini blueberry waffles for breakfast. Yum. Since you like dipping anything solid into anything liquid (I've seen you dip a strawberry into ketchup and eat it without batting an eye), the maple syrup is a big draw. We've been working really hard on not dipping fingers into whatever delectable dip we have, just trying to stick to food. I know, it's sooo super hard!

Have I told you lately that you are the sweetest thing that ever existed? It seems that your jaunt into hitting last month has been replaced with quite the opposite: you want lots of hugs and kisses and will let us snuggle with you a whole lot more than you ever used to. And you share everything with us! One toy for Emmylou, one toy for Daddy. One bite for you, one bite for Mommy (even with CANDY!). At the bottom of this letter I put a picture of you sharing your ice cream cone with me today. Thanks, it was the best ice cream cone I have ever tasted!

Your sweetness comes out in so many ways. Tonight I laid down with you while you were trying to go to sleep and, as usual, you laid on your back or side, sucked away rhythmically at your left thumb, and just barely stroked Babo's matted fleece foot with your other hand's open palm. So gentle, so soft, so loving. You are all these things plus vivacious, funny and spirited and I could not be more thankful and grateful that I have the privilege of being your mother and experiencing this life with you. It is all so sweet.

All my love,
Mama

Okay, Project Runway last night did not disappoint! Even if I did end up picking the eliminated player and accruing a pitiful -7 points.

I know some of you are playing the game with me, and now I've made a blog so we can have our own little league instead of merely playing against the thousands of other Fafarazzi people.

HERE IT IS

If you want to play and I don't have your email address, you'll need to email me so I can add you as someone who can post to the blog. If you're unsure what to do, I'll email you instructions. We'll start tracking points next week. I hope this can work!

Just a side note here...

Is anyone else as excited as I am that the new Project Runway is starting tomorrow?! This season I'm going to try playing the Project Runway Fantasy Game on Fafarazzi. Every week you pick three players for your team and they earn points for winning challenges, having model problems, crying, hearing "Make it work" from Tim Gunn, etc.

Here's my team for the week:



I'm hoping these three girls are either really good or total disasters.

Ed. note: this widget changes each week when I make my team picks. The original group posted (a truly pitiful selection) was Simone, Kit and Victorya.

Play along with me!

Here's another photo I meant to post earlier, taken a day before Emmylou decided to test our thermometer to see how high it could go. We were at the Texas Book Festival with Mimi on the grounds of the state capitol.



And in the meantime, when she hasn't been hanging out at Papaw and Nana's or with Grammie in Austin, she's been learning all sorts of useful things:



Oh, and every day is still Halloween at our house. Any ideas on how to get her to stop asking for candy every two minutes?

I meant to post this right after Halloween but never got around to it...

Emily had bought this talking dog skeleton a few days before Halloween and left it at our house since we'd all be celebrating here. It had a motion sensor on it and when triggered, its eyes would light up and it would say things like "Now that I'm dead, I can eat all the anti-freeze I want!" and "I hope those no-good cats eat their own litter!" Charming, right? Well, Emmylou didn't like him so much when he was turned on, but when he was off, they became fast friends. Here they are sharing a tender moment together:

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!



(This is one of the pics you get when you google "yay!" images)

We want to send a congratulations out to Emmylou's Aunt Emmy who just finished her HUGE project re-vamping the Austin City Limits website! It went live today and now you can see videos of the artists who have been on this season, starting with my two favorite bands, Wilco and Arcade Fire. Yay, Emily!

You can CLICK HERE to see it, or use the permanent website link to the left I added a couple of days ago.