emery pearl 10 months old

emery pearl is two days from being 10 months old. i have said it so many times before but we can't imagine the mcmurray family without our sweet emery pearl.

- emery loves to EAT. . . asparagus, peas, squash, spinach, beans, carrots. . . . our fridge is filled with frozen vegetable cubes but avocados and frozen red grapes still are her favorites!!

- emery loves the gym. . especially watching volleyball matches and basketball games she waves her arms frantically in the stands. so glad she loves the gym because this family spends a lot of time there.

- emery used to smile at everyone all the time. . but the last few weeks she has started with the stranger anxiety thing. . . even bursting into tears at times.

- emery loves it when mommy sings "itsy bitsy spider" . . . she is mystified by the hand motions!

- emery is not crawling yet but gets where she wants to go by scooching and rolling.

- emery is such a cuddler. . it is so sweet when she snuggles in and lays her head on your shoulder.

- emery now wears the same size leggings as Lucia . . . 20 pounds (77%) and 99% percentile in height

we love you so much. . . you just bring a sweetness to our family. I have realized lately that you bring the best out in all of us. . . . . your brothers are tender and helpful with you, lucia only shares with you, daddy sings new songs to you everyday, mom slows down and cuddles you!

two more months of the baby stage. . I am sadly trying to enjoy every minute. . . I LOVE BABIES and am so sad we are reaching the end of this stage. i wish this stage would last at least 4 more years!!!!!!

i love these pictures of emery. . my sister-in-law took them. if you need a great photographer and live in the portland area let me know and i will get you connected with her. here is her blog -

http://habit-of-art.blogspot.com/

too quiet

at this stage of life when everything is quiet it usually means trouble. . . to my delighted surprise this is what I found up in the girl's room. . .two happy girls reading books! Reading with my kids is my all time favorite activity to do with them. I love the cuddling, good conversation, laughing, great questions that come up. . . so I LOVE IT WHEN I FIND THEM READING on there own:)

our little monkey

I LOVE winter hats on babies! this is my new favorite. . .

love the eyelashes!

i feel like emery has really changed the last few weeks. . . . she is just looking older . . SIGH!

the oregon coast!

during our time in Oregon we went to the coast for a day! my kids are obsessed with the ocean and they have a brand new aquarium in Newport. so the whole family packed up and headed to the beach. we had the most wonderful day . . it was sunny and warm, the beach was gorgeous, lunch was yummy at Mo's and the aquarium was amazing. there is really nothing like the oregon coast. . it is very special to aaron to bring his family here since he spent so much time on the coast growing up. thanks Papa and grandma for such a special fun day! the big kids. .

love this sweet picture of the grand-daughters!

dad and lucia loving the aquarium.

very cool pic of uncle trevor.

twin brothers. . .

almost as big as a a snowy egret. . .

there were these amazing tunnels where fish surrounded you and lucia would sprawl out every time she saw a window on the ground.

loving the fish. .

the boys wanted to stop the car every time we saw big waves.

What a great day at the beach!

christmas in oregon

we are all so lucky every year we get TWO Christmases! our tradition is to leave the day after Christmas and head to Oregon. we love going to spend Christmas with the McMurray family! my sister-in-law is a fabulous photographer and captured some really great shots. Here are just a few. . . love this first one of the cousins. . not easy to get all 6 smiling!

the whole fam!

my sweet nieces. . adore these precious girls!

unlce adam and emery pearl!

guess where mommy and daddy are?!!

Hi Kinkade, Keagan, Lucia and Emery! We miss you so much. We promised we would put up some pics from our time in Hawaii. We feel so blessed to be here Daddy had a business trip and Mommy snuck along using our miles. I told Daddy to stand in the ocean waving but I did not tell him about the wave coming behind him:) I thought it was really funny when it hit Daddy and I had my camera ready. He thought it was funny a few minutes later. . he was soaked!!
This next picture is the view from our room of the canal.

Daddy had a Whitworth event he was in charge of and the wonderful people brought us these leis. They were so beautiful and made us feel really special.
Here is a close-up of one of the leis it is so amazing and smelled like ginger.

It has been such a treat to get-away for a long weekend. It was really hard to leave but we truly believe the best gift we can give our children is a great marriage which takes time away sometimes. We miss our sweet kids so much but I have loved. . . long uninterrupted showers, long uninterrupted conversations, sleeping in and of course great food and sun!

new years 09-10

we have dinner at my parent's house every Sunday night! we have been doing it since aaron and I were dating. it is a very important tradition in our family. my mom "grammy sparkle" is a party girl through and through!!!!!!!!!!! she makes every holiday FUN and goes all out with special dishes, beautiful table, props, costumes , gifts and on and on. our kids think it is normal:) thank you grammy for all your work to make life fun and special. this year for a new years celebration we had tons of hats, horns, and played games all dinner long. the hit of the night was the name game where a name is put on your back and everyone else can read it but you. so you go around and ask yes/no questions until you figure out who you are. the boys have never had so much fun. we decided maybe we will play the name game every sunday night. here are some photos of the night. i will post our resolutions at the bottom.

emery even had a name . . marty is my mom's orange cat. our family is weird I am well aware of this. . but FUN!

I think we have another party girl in the family!

2010 resolutions

Kinkade - be more mind strong in sports (he means mentally tough. . can you tell he is surrounded by coaches)

Keagan - read a "real" chapter book by the end of the year

Mom - be nicer to all the other humans in the family in the mornings

and spend more time trusting God instead of worrying.

Dad - work out more times in the week, and not raise his voice in parenting.

Happy New Year everyone!

decades

we have talking to the boys about the decades in the life of our family and i thought this family picture describes the last one!!!!!!! it is so fun to reflect on the last year and years and look forward to the years to come. .
the 70's - we were born
the 80's - we grew up. . .our childhood
the 90's - mom and dad fell in love and got married
the 00- 10 - we made a family - 2002 the boys, 2207 Lucia, squeezed in emery in 09!

And the big question is what will the next decade hold for our family???? I pray God protects us guides us and we live intentionally to serve Him daily! it is so crazy to think in 2020 the boys will be juniors in high school, lucia will be in middle school, and emery will be in late elementary 5th grade! so weird yet so fun. . .

everyone needs to have a baby around at Christmas or two!

this is how moses looked at emery most of the vacation. . he thinks she is nuts!

grammy and grampy with the newest grandchildren this year!

Emery and Moses

we had so much fun with two babies here for Christmas. it was Emery Pearl's first Christmas and her cousin Moses was here! he is 6 weeks younger. my brother and his wife Grace and Moses are planning to leave this spring to be missionaries in Central Asia. we all know they are deeply called but it is bittersweet . . we are going to miss them so much.

Christmas Eve and Day 09

we had such a wonderful Christmas. The kids are at such fun ages and so excited about every little part! Here are way to many pictures but I could not choose and really wanted to recap all the special moments. One of the most special parts was having my only brother and his beautiful wife and their new baby Moses here.

emery pearl wore lucia's Christmas dress from last Christmas eve. . so sweet! dressing little girls is so much fun!

Christmas morning holding their gift from Santa.

yes grammy dresses up as Mrs. Claus you should not be surprised. She made more gingerbread houses and gingerbread men with the kids. it was the year of the gingerbread houses the boys made one at their school Christmas party and brought home the supplies to make one with Lucia. Then they made one at church and of course with Grammy.

love this pic for some reason.

keagan loves his baby sister so much. one of our favorite things about keagan is how affectionate he is with his family.

uncle damian doing magic tricks always a highlight.

we gave grace, damian and moses hats from krochet kids a really really cool organization that we LOVE to support! http://www.krochetkids.org/home.php

the little ones!

all the grand kids on the Long side of the family in their Christmas jammies from Grammy.

keagan and lucia love it when dad plays the piano.

I made each child a special photo book for Christmas. Christmas morning devotional with dad. my sweet hearted sister-in-law Grace. her name fits her perfectly. she is a dream come true for our family! lucia LOVES Frosty the Snowman. Keagan got her the stuffed animal for his sibling gift and we got her the snow globe another favorite of hers. Grammy got her the new "little tiny" table she calls it. speaking of sibling gifts this is the kids favorite tradition buying for each other. This year we chose names which is a blast in itself. we started this tradition three years ago with Keagan and Kinkade and both sisters got to be involved this year. every Christmas uncle damian and auntie grace take the boys on an adventure instead of buying them a gift. every other year they have gone tube sledding up on the mountain but this year sadly there was not any snow. so they made the best of it and went to laser quest for laser tag. it is one of the boys favorite traditions!

grammy and grampy have a real player piano and the kids all loved it!

There is much more Christmas to go since we leave for Oregon the 26th so stay posted. and live nativity scene photos. . oh boy!