Halloween 2013-- Snow White!

It was inevitable that Emery was going to be a princess this year after our Disney trip!  Her first choice was Sofia (the newest little girl princess on Disney Junior) but after seeing that outrageous price tag I opted for a dress that was half the price... so Snow White it was (she truly would have been happy in any costume)!  Before I show pictures of this year I have to go down memory lane real quick...

Our little Ladybug in Georgia back in 2011:

Our Double Scoop Ice Cream Cone in the NC rental house back in 2012:

And now a beautiful Snow White at our home in NC in 2013-- is it just be or did she grow up so much this past year?! (We totally put lipstick on her for the first time for her princess debut!)

Mom and Dad were here visiting and we had a blast walking to a couple of our neighbors houses together.  Of course Mom was the first one who Em got to trick-or-treat with.  She wasn't afraid of anyone and said "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" to every person!

We only went to about 4 houses and then headed over to Mandy and Warren's to trick-or-treat at their house in our neighborhood.  Mandy made a special gift for Emery full of lots of treats just perfect for her, so sweet!

I can't tell you how many times Emery lined up and organized her candy over the following week.  She was SO excited about it all.  I think it was a success!  Hope you all had wonderful Halloween's as well!

G Family Boone Trip

The weekend before Halloween, we invited all of Kyle's side of the family to the cabin with us for family time and to all go to the APP game together.  It's always so great watching all the kiddos play together since they are so close in age and we all had a lot of fun.  

Saturday morning, we surprised Brenda & Don by dressing up all the kids in their Halloween costumes so they could go "trick or treating" together.  The kids had a ball!

We also had a little bit of snow left on the porch so the kids had a blast playing in the snow and throwing it at each other.

We also asked Caleb to bring up his Strider bike so he could show Emery how to ride it!  Kyle had just picked one up for Emery off Craigslist a couple days earlier.  She got the hang of it pretty quickly and they had a lot of fun riding all over the porch together.

Before we knew it, it was time to head to the APP game!  And unbelievably WE WON-- must be good luck!

A fun weekend with family in one of our favorite places!

Time for a Big Girl Bed!

Emery had been asking if she could sleep in a big girl bed for a while before we actually made the switch from her toddler one.  We wanted to make sure she was absolutely ready and our timing ended up being perfect as she LOVES being big and hasn't looked back once.  So out to Ikea we went and picked up the Hemnes Daybed which is a twin daybed but can also pull out and have two twin mattresses side by side on the same level (maybe for sleepovers one day!).

Once we brought all the boxes home we decided to FINALLY pay attention to her room and paint over the Pepto Bismol pink color that was left from the last owners.  Thankfully, Em has always loved her bright pink room so we had ignored decorating or putting anything on walls since we knew we paint & redecorate when she switched to a big girl bed.  

Here are some before pictures of the wall color:

I chose Sherwin William's White Dogwood for the paint color, a light pink that actually makes the room seem so much bigger than the last color!

And after: (All these pics are from my phone so the color isn't exact)

The next step was going out to buy a new mattress!

And lastly the fun part.... putting together the thousands of pieces from Ikea :)  It wasn't that bad and probably took us 2 and a half hours to put together on night.

I bought her sheets from Target and coverlet from Ikea as well.  Emery was so excited to wake up and see her big girl bed!

And she's been sleeping great with no rail, with a big pillow under covers.  Crazy how quickly she's growing up!

So that's step 1 of her room.  I'll have more pictures to share soon once I get all of her decorations up on the walls!  Fun fun!

Family Visitors!

The month of October we referred to as "Family Month!".  We had visitors almost every week & weekend but had a blast hanging out with everyone.  The Dew crew visited us first and we loved having them at our house to introduce them to fun things like dirt cake ;)

Best buddy time with Em and Mantha:

They had come in town to go to Addyson's 5th Bday party so Saturday we all headed to South Charlotte to celebrate with more family!

Emery liked helping blow out her candle :)

And bounce houses are always so much fun!

The next week Gigi came to stay with us!  It's always such a treat to have her all to ourselves and Emery cried when it was time for her to leave!

Then a week later my parents came to stay!  I have a big update on this later and the huge project that happened when they were here but I did take a couple cute ones of Dad and Emery.  Every time I see the bond that Dad and Emery have I am just overcome with gratefulness that he is kicking cancer like a beast and not skipping a beat!

Teaching Emery about clean work spaces :)

And having a blast soaking up Grandma time too!

Love having family come visit!

The Croup :(

Monday morning after we got home from Disney, Emery woke up with nasty sounding cough and hoarse voice.  She didn't have any other cold symptoms leading up to that but we thought maybe she was just fighting off something from our trip.  Monday night she got progressively worse, only sleeping every 30 minutes before waking up and coughing.  She started wheezing in the night as well, so we decided to bring her into the Pediatrician's office first thing Tuesday morning, around 8:30 am.

Before we even were able to check a nurse took us back to our room where the doctor was waiting for us with a quick diagnosis of Croup.  The rest of our visit was pretty much a blur.  After trying a nebulizer treatment which didn't work, Emery was given a steroid shot in her leg (to help reduce the swelling in her throat) which takes about 4-6 hours to kick in.  We were then told that we had to go to the emergency room to get an Eppy breathing treatment to immediately reduce swelling in her throat while we waited for the steroid to kick in.  We were then escorted outside by the paramedics to their ambulance as our Pediatrician's office cannot give out Eppy breathing treatments. Thankfully, Kyle was in town only a couple minutes away and after only being able to get out the word "ambulance" on the phone to him (the only word I could get out without crying) he immediately rushed over. He was able to meet us outside where we decided to drive ourselves to the hospital but they did give us an eppy shot just in case Emery started to get worse.

We had to go downtown to Levine's Childrens Hospital but everyone there was really nice and overall we were impressed with their children's unit.  She was given an Eppy breathing treatment (and was falling in and out of sleep just from exhaustion from the night before) and unfortunately after it wore off the steroid shot still hadn't done what they had hoped it would. 

We were then admitted into the hospital for another Eppy breathing treatment to give the steroid shot more time to work.  The floor workers gave Em an Ariel DVD to watch in our private room, Minnie Coloring books and lots of popsicles-- so thankfully staying at the hospital wasn't a bad experience for her at all (we called it the drs office though).  I will say seeing your child in a little hospital gown with hospital bracelets on is the scariest and most horrible feeling in the world.
Around 7:30 pm, we were finally given the green light to be discharged after they had watched her for a couple hours to make sure her breathing would remain stable.  She kept the mucas-filled cough for about a week but the wheezing almost immediately stopped once the steroid shot had kicked in.

So thankful that our little girl bounced back fairly quickly and for knowledgeable doctors to help get us through this whole whirlwind of a process.   Love our sweet girl!