Emily is 7

Emily is finally 7. She has been telling everyone since Christmas that it was almost her birthday. I was volunteering at her school saw the principal and he said to me, "one more day!"

She is very social, like her dad. She loves playing the piano this year as is learning very quickly. She loves dance too. She is doing great in first grade and wants to have everyone over to play.

she's growing up so fast.

She's all about puppies right now. We had grandmas new puppy for a month while we potty trained it and she was a great help with the process. She held Casper whenever she got a chance and would end up with a rash on her face. She's a little allergic but she didn't seem to mind.

She got her ears pierced TWICE. They were a little crooked so we finally convinced her to take one out and go back the next day. (thanks, Traci for being the deciding factor). Thanks to dad the numbing cream worked great and they look tons better.
She had friends over to help her celebrate. We didn't want to leave anyone out so we ended up inviting 11 girls. To my surprise, everyone showed up. Thanks to Britney we managed to get through all the fun and games in an orderly manner.

Can't invite Tommy to a party with a bunch of girls so we celebrated again later with cousins and Grandma Due. Emily had to have a Casper cake. Next time we're saving the coldstone cake for the family party.
Aunt Jill is always so much fun. Ice cream sundae lip gloss yummm!

Family party

The rest of the family came over for dinner. Sammy was willing to help everyone open their presents. The dice game has started to become our new gift giving tradition. Grandma surprised everyone with a hidden $200 in a not so favorite video. Wow!

When we were cleaning out Dad's shop, Troy suggested we put together tool boxes using his tools. So Jill put together a tool box for each of the grandkids from Papa. It made it feel like he was part of the party.
Even the little kids thought it was pretty cool. Jake kept picking up a tool and asking "What's this for mom?"

Christmas morning

I love my sister

Christmas morning started early this year. The kids woke up at 6:30 even after I told them the night before not to get up before the sun was out. We made them wait until seven before they went down to wake up Britney. To stall, Devon told them to go out and see how many presents were out under the tree and Jake came back with "There's 200 no a million" You can get away with a lot when they're little.

Britney had to work so she spent Christmas with us. It was fun spoiling her even if it was with necessities like diet coke, tp, fruit snacks, candy etc. The kids enjoyed having someone else to play games with and to paint fingernails.

We always have cinnamon rolls and fruit salad Christmas morning. Emily was number one at adding just the right amount of sugar to the cinnamon rolls. They were very tasty. We had fun making them. Now if I could just teach her how to cut the oranges and grapefruit!

All I want for Christmas is a hula hip. If I knew how to get the video to upload I'd show how good she is. We had no clue.

All I want for Christmas is an alligator matchbox set. We couldn't leave target until dad called Santa to put it on his list, he wanted it soooo bad. He was very happy that Santa remembered.

Thanks Gramma and Gpa Skinny for the church videos.

carmel

You know it's Christmas when Devo starts talking about the carmel business. He invested in all the equipment to make our own. This is our little set up in the garage. Spending some quality time with the family. Devo has narrowed down some ideas to get RG Classic Candies up and running. Maybe some day our kids will take it over and make millions.

Emily enjoyed giving dad a little break.