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.

Guess who has pneumonia?

Yep. She's had a cough for a week or two and then she had a sudden fever yesterday morning that went away only to come back even worse late last night. While I was at a movie with Em, Gary ended up taking Lulu to the emergency room with a 106.8 temperature.

We were there until about one in the morning and by the time we left, she was almost back to normal, pumped full of Motrin and antibiotics.

She's been fine today with no fever.

And even in an intense, stressed out, fearful situation, you can always count on me to document the occasion. Especially because she looked so cute in the hospital gown!

Before and after (popsicles at 1am are "num num")...

Emmylou would like to let you all know that her mama is running the Race for the Cure this Sunday and that if you'd like to donate to the cause, you can click here.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation! I had only set my goal at raising $20 (I know it's un-ambitious but I hate asking for money) and now the total is at $130! It was a fun run for a great cause- I specifically ran in celebration of my aunt Andy and Eric's mom, Sue, both breast cancer survivors.

After having a super-fun time last night (and getting to bed an hour and a half past her bedtime), Emmylou had another big day today: her first day of school!

Okay, okay, so it's not really "school," but rather Children's Morning Out, which kind of cracks me up because when I was little it was called Mother's Day Out-- but I guess we can't let kids think for a second that their mothers would ever need any time away from them. Truth be told, I did actually miss her the three hours she was gone today. But I got so much done!

When we picked her up, the teacher told us she did really well, that she asked for "Mama" every 30 minutes or so (awww...) but was easily redirected back to playing. Here's a picture of her before I took her this morning, and I can't believe I did this because my mom took a picture of me every first day of school and I hated it so much that for probably the last 8 years I'm rolling my eyes in every one. So here's to having a daughter who's unable to roll her eyes on demand yet.