A new friend

Emerald LOVES being this close to Aunt Heidi and Uncle Jeff. They shared their Christmas present early and took her to Build-a-Bear. They are the ones that gave her Mango (for those that don't know Mango, he is Emerald's best friend) at 5 months. I don't know who was more excited for this trip, Emers or Jeff & Heidi. She is very into dinosaurs lately, yeah, I know, little weird. She picked out Dino and had a great time stuffing, naming, and dressing her. Then Emers got to take a ride on the carousel.

I think she looks good walking in the mall with her purchases. I see trouble in our future. :) She also thinks that Aunt Laura and Uncle Shane live close, because she always wants them to come over. She settles for many phone calls to them per week. I know we are all excited to see them at Christmas.

Update on the home front:

--We found out that Walt (Skip's dad) lost his job as of the end of the year. We feel very sad for him. We can only know that this is part of God's plan for him. Please say a prayer for Walt & Cheryl.

--We got our van back yesterday--much prettier than we left it. However, the sliding door isn't working right, so it may end up back in the shop. Couldn't be easy, right?

--Insurance issues with the car accident are still "fun" as we are still trying to chase down the car owner and is policy. It is such a pain!

--It has been a winter wonderland here. I wish I had my camera as we drove to get the car yesterday. It was like a picture, so beautiful!! You could see every single blade of grass and each tree branch. These are just a couple of pics out of our window at home. I wish I had taken it yesterday while there was more ice and the roads were still white.

--We have our house inspection tonight. We are anxious to see the house again and get some ideas on how "nice" it is per the inspector.

--Calvin has gotten a new tooth, which brings his total up to 8 now. He is into everything right now, and smiling just as cute as ever. Emerald loves to try to help him walk these days, but doesn't quite understand that he can't go as fast as her. Here is a picture of Emers trying to close him in a toy box.

That's it for now. Hopefully we will have some good news about the house after tonight.

PS Happy birthday to Karen and belated happy birthday to Anna & Anthony!