Mother's Day & 5 Months Old!!

As you may or may not know, Sunday was Mother's Day. Coincidentally, it was Christa's first, and Emily wanted to do it up right. She decided that one day wasn't nearly enough, so we had Mother's weekend. Appropriately enough, we started on Saturday.

We all got up earlyish in the morning and Christa received her first surprise, a massage. Emily and I hung out in the lobby while Christa spent an hour getting rubbed the right way. While in the lobby Emily collected more fans, and I started to reread, "Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince" (I know that book titles need to be underlined but that is not an option I have).

After the massage, we went home briefly to let Christa pretty herself up to get some Mommy/Daughter pictures taken. This is when things got really fun. At the Picture People, Emily was having a blast! She was very smiley and happy, and our photographer Amy Z. was snapping off lots of film. Emily was making things a little interesting because every time we put her on her belly for a picture, she would roll right over. She was having a great time with this because every time she did it we all laughed and clapped and just went crazy. Unfortunately, during one of the times she was on her belly, there was a sudden increase in gravity and she bonked her nose on the floor, that was the end of the fun, which is why she in not smiling very much in her Mommy/Daughter picture. When we came back an hour later to look at our pictures, the people there apologized to us and then brought us FOURTEEN incredible pictures and a gorgeous frame with 1 8"x10" and 4 cropped 5"x7" pictures. Trying to pick which pictures we wanted was virtually impossible. To add to the difficulty, the people at the store kept offering to take considerable amounts of money off of their packages so that they could use Emily's pictures in their display to help them sell frames. We ended up not taking any of their deals, even with the offers, it was way too much. We did, however, let them use Emily's pictures; this causes two problems. First, upon discovering that she is now a professional model, Emily began insisting that she now be called "M-Joy," and once she becomes famous outside of the Strattford Square Mall, she has decided that her name will simply be the sound, "Eh." The second problem presented by using Emily's pictures on the wall is that all of the people who go to the Picture People will decide that they want pictures of Emily instead of their "goofy lookin' kid." I am very curious to see how all this plays out.

After the Mall, we picked up Grandpa Jerry and Auntie Mandy to go to the driving range to try out the new golf clubs that Mommy got from Emily and Me. Emily decided to stay with Grandma Kathy. At the driving range, we all had a lot of fun and Christa was really killing the ball with her new clubs. Auntie Mandy and I were having a little trouble, but the day was really about Christa, and like I said, she was doing great. After the Driving Range, we went back to get Grandma and Emily, and we all went to dinner.

On Sunday morning, Emily decided that Mommy should be allowed to sleep in. So Emily and I let Mommy sleep until 8:30, at which point she came out to the living room and woke up Emily and me on the couch. After a diaper and wardrobe change, Emily had breakfast before her next big activity, ARTS AND CRAFTS WITH MOMMY!!! That's right folks, it was time for Emily's favorite thing and Christa's specialty, Art's and Crafts. Can you think of a better Mother's Day activity for this particular mom? I know that I couldn't, so that is what we did. The pictures that follow and their captions will explain this better than I could, so I will move on to the next topic.

Following Arts and Crafts time, we went to Paul's Family Restaurant for Christa's favorite breakfast, a Belgian waffle with strawberries, bananananananas (I never know when to stop) and whipped cream. After breakfast, we went to spend some time with Grandma B (aka, Grandma Roberta, who opted for a name change). Later in the afternoon, we stopped by Grandma Kathy's for a little while, and opened the rest of Mommy's presents. We did a golf theme, everything she got was golf related, and was also pink. When we finished with the gifts, we headed back to the Bellock's for a terrific steak dinner and Grandpa Bellock's famous Whipped Cream cake. This was the end of a fabulous weekend, which saw Christa celebrate her very first Mother's day and led to Emily's five month Birthday, which was today.

"Hey, Mommy. Have your people call my people, we'll do lunch!" (This was the face that I caught looking up at me while we were in the car over the weekend.)

Grandpa Jerry bought Mommy & Emily matching bracelets for Mother's Day. Here, Emily is modeling hers.

Time for some Mother's Day Arts & Crafts. Remember how much Emily loves Arts & Crafts? Today's project: To make Mother's Day cards for Grandma Kathy and Grandma B. Here we are running the ribbons through our Xyron machine to make them sticky.

Now we are rubbing the ribbons to get the extra Xyron stickiness to stick to the plastic sheet, so we can pull the paper off and stick the ribbons to the cards.

Now a Glue Dot to make the bow stick to the ribbon.

Emily liked the Glue Dots so much, she stole them. Look closely and you'll see them in her left hand. Hey, Em. Give those back, we have to finish our cards!!

After putting her hand into some pretty pink ink, it was time to add the finishing touches to our cards. Emily did a much better job this time, no outfits were harmed in the making of these cards.

OK, Emily. We have to clean the ink off your hand before we can do your foot.

Now that's one pink foot!!

Adding one last thing to the final card . . .

We did it!! Daddy, isn't it pretty? I think Grandma Kathy & Grandma B will love it!!

Our first Grandma stop was to see Grandma B. (She did love the card.)

While at Grandma B's, Emily modeled off her beautiful Mother's Day outfit.

Later in the afternoon/early evening, it was off to Grandma Kathy's for a quick visit. (She also loved her card.)

On Saturday, we took Emily for her 5 Month portraits. She was such a ham and did such a great job!! This was her first pose. It's a really good thing that the photographer snapped this shot quickly because right after the camera clicked, Emily grabbed her blanket and rolled over.

She knew that this would be another perfect photo opportunity. She's such a goof ball!

We just can't get her to keep her hands out of her mouth. Why fight it? It made for the perfect picture, especially since this is how we usually see her anyway. (She's not happy just sucking on one thumb, no, she's got to get both hands in there at the same time!) This was the favorite picture of the day at the Picture People, all of the employees there were fawning over Emily and they all loved this picture. Look at this kid, who can blame them?

Pay close attention to her toes!!

We decided that since we had to change her clothes for the Mommy/Daughter picture, we'd take advantage of this and get a couple naked (diaper) baby shots. Emily was having a great time, as you can tell from the pictures.

Could she be any cuter?