8 years.

I can't believe it has been 8 years.

I miss you, Dad.



For information about organ donation, go here.

Merry Christmas! :)

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!! Mine was fabulous! As usual, we went to my Aunt Kathy's for Christmas lunch, presents, and games! I'm excited that both of my brothers were able to come, and of course my future sister-in-law, Jamie! NEXT YEAR she'll be my official sister in law!!! oooh, that's exciting! :-D

The only set-back was my sinus headache that I woke up with which progressed throughout the day. Luckily, my brother is a chiropractor and after he cracked my neck, it went away for a little bit. He's kind of like magic!

After lunch {which was delicious... and Aunt Kathy made my favorite - noodles! They tasted just like Grandma's :-) } we opened presents.

My brother Adam and I had a great time fighting over eachother's presents. He especially wanted my new cardigan from Aunt Kathy {it is really cute! But sorry, bro, I don't think it'll fit you!}

look at him eyeing my new lotion! ;-)

lovebirds :)

Gabrielle's 1st Christmas!

Aunt Kathy's spa basket from me!

Gabrielle modeling the hat from Eric's office. What a cutie!

Aunt Kathy & Uncle Richard - thanks for hosting a wonderful Christmas! :)

It's interesting watching our family change... and remembering what it was like when we were all little.... I miss everyone that's no longer with us, especially my dad, and I wish they could all still be here. But it's also fun to see how we've all changed and how our family has changed. Gabrielle is a wonderful new addition and it will be fun watching her grow up! And Jamie fits in perfectly - I can't wait until she's officially a Davis!! :-D

Hope your Christmas was wonderful!!

Christmas Eve Festivities!!

Merry Christmas Eve!!!!!!!

Mom and I celebrated our Christmas tonight and opened presents from eachother. We also ate lots of cookies {gingerbread & sugar} and peanut butter fudge!!! delicious! Then we watched Elf!!!

Tomorrow we're going to my dad's side of the family for Christmas lunch/dinner & presents, so I'll have better pictures {as in, my hair will actually be fixed and Mom won't be in her PJ's}, but here are a few from tonight...

I won't include all the pictures of each present, just a couple... I got lots of great stuff which I'll write about later. I've got to get to bed so Santa can come, you know!!! :-)

I got mom the best gift ever {at least for her} - UGG HOUSE SHOES!! She always wears shoes around the house because her feet always get so cold, plus we have hard wood floors... and she always buys herself $5 sandals or something to wear. Her latest pair was a pair she splurged on - an $8 pair of fake crocs with the furry stuff inside. So now she has super comfy Uggs and she LOVES them!!!

I got the David Cook CD. No need to say more, he is my boyfriend, if you didn't know. The Kellie Pickler thing is just a cover-up.

Of course Tobey got presents too! You didn't think he'd be left out, did you!?

HOPE EVERYONE HAS A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Christmas at Grammy's

Went up to my grandma's to have Christmas with my mom's side of the family today. You may remember Bubby - well, he was there! That kid is so funny. He calls me "the princess"... I'm not sure why or where that came from, but it's funny. It's kind of hard to see since Mom cut the top of my head off, but he gave me a crown/tiara to wear all day! Silly kid! :)

And my poor mom got sick all of a sudden. She had been complaining of a back ache all day {which is not too unusual with our degenerative spine disease!} but then out of no where she got all achey and FREEZING! Kind of like when you're getting sick. So I ended up driving home and she was wearing her coat, my coat, my gloves, and we had the heat BLASTING. I was basically sweating and she was still cold!

She finally took a layer off once we got home, so I'm hoping she's getting better...

But anyway.. Christmas there was good. Not everyone showed up, but it was nice. One of my little cousins is about to start driving, and that toally makes me feel old.

Bubby & Mom went "camping" in the living room. Bubby kept trying to get Addie to go "camping" with them, but she's 18 months old and didn't understand. Bubby couldn't understand why she wanted to be "out there alone in the dark." Kids are so great for entertainment! :)

Of course, his favorite part were the PRESENTS... and I'm pretty sure these Hulk gloves/fists/whatever they're called were the most popular...

Well, maybe besides this thing...

????????????

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!!!! :-D

Old School Christmas: Edition #3

Not sure who took this picture since it's a little off-center... probably Grandma. I love everyone's styles- Mom's hair cut, Adam's sweater, Eric's braces... man we were hott in 1990....

Christmas Wish List :)

So here is the thing... with Christmas being less than a week away {oh my gosh!!!!} my mom, as well as a few other family members/friends, have asked me what I want for Christmas {slackers - JUST KIDDING! - I'm still not done with my shopping either! ;-)}

And the other day as I was perusing some blogs, I stumbled upon this neat little thing called polyvore.com.. and I made myself a neat little Christmas list.

Disclaimer: First let me just say that I REALLY don't expect anyone reading this blog to buy/make/steal me anything for Christmas {ESPECIALLY not steal :)} BUT I also know that, for me anyway, it's much easier to shop for people when you have ideas for what they actually want... I'd rather get people stuff they want and will use rather than just something random. So these are just some items that I would not mind receiving, or purchasing for myself, should I win the lottery.

This is mostly for my mom anyway, cause I know she hasn't done much shopping for me {she gave that away when she said, "what else do you want for Christmas? can you make me a list? have you given me a list yet? we'll go shopping for you this weekend... no, i want some stuff to be a surprise...WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR CHRISTMAS?!?!"}, so I thought I should make her a list & give her some options. And this little thing is pretty nifty because you can click on it to see the items bigger, AND THEN you can click on the items to see what they actually are, and most give you a direct website. So, Mom, here ya go...here are some ideas & you can finish up your shopping online. ;-)


{she will probably buy approximately one item from this list, so if i do happen to be on your Christmas list, the other items are fair game also ;-)}
Christmas List by thelynnied

An Embry Christmas

Yesterday was fun! As previously reported, I went to Shelly's to take pictures of the babies for their Christmas card. I was fairly certain that this would be as good as it got:

But I was pleasantly surprised at how good they came out! It wasn't so hard photographing Emma because she's 2 and she's pretty cooperative. You can tell her to sit and smile, and she'll do it for at least a minute until she gets bored. It's also easy to photograph Ian because he can't go anywhere. But Abby is a different story. She can move, and she doesn't quite get the whole, "If you're good and smile you'll get a gummie bear!" just yet.

Anyway, here are some of my favorites:

I love Ian's little suit and tie!

I told Emma to smile and she did, but she also closed her eyes!

cute Abby!

3 babies in a row, looking the same direction and one is even smiling! Pretty good, I say!

I love Abby's {right} face in this one...and Emma showing us her teeth!

aww...lovin' on little brother

Not bad for our make-shift photo studio, huh?

Yes, we definitely put a white sheet across the back of the crib and took the front rail off...but it works!

I also made them a cute Christmas card, but I won't post it yet because Shelly hasn't seen it yet! And if she likes it and decides to mail it out, I don't want to ruin the surprise!

Embry Kids Photo Shoot: Preview

I went to Shelly's today to take pictures of the kids for their Christmas card! I thought all of the pictures would end up looking like this one just because it's hard to get a 2 year old, 1 year old, and 3 month old to look in the same direction, let alone smile at the same time. But we got some good ones!! I just love little Ian in his little suit and tie! So cute!

More later! :)

Let's go to the BassPro Shop and shoot things!

What? That's not what you do on a Saturday night?

Around here we're fortunate enough to live close to the biggest BassPro Shop in the country!

I know, right? Please contain your excitement/jealousy.

So sometimes that's where you have to go to have fun.... either there, or.. umm, Wal-Mart.

And Wal-Mart doesn't have a "shooting range."

Actually though, it is a pretty neat place. There's not much in there I'd actually like to purchase, but it's just a fun store.

And HUGE!

Previously, the building that it's in used to be a mall. A two-story mall with a movie theater and games, rides, bumper cars, etc... not to mention all the stores. So it was a pretty good sized mall.

And now the whooole entire thing is the BassPro.

Anyway, they turned the putt-putt course from the mall into the shooting range.

AHHH!

{we were pretending to be scared of the giant rhinocerous coming towards us!}

The next picture was after I actually shot my first "animal".... which, incidently, ended up being the only one I shot all night.

Moses told us to be sexy, so we complied.

Also, creepy men were walking past us at the same time.

It was kind of awkward.

our hut house:

no, it is totally NOT a change machine

Then we did more exploring and looked at the fishies:

They were behind us but you can't see them.

She was being a fish, in case you missed that.

And look at the pretty waterfall:

We also went to Archiver's to stock up on some scrapbooking supplies. And then to Mai's Thai for dinner. That was interesting - we had a 12 year old waitress, which I'm pretty sure is illegal, and then as we were leaving they gave us little glass ornaments from Thailand as a gift. How sweet. They were actually pretty cute though.

And now, I REALLY need to finish Christmas shopping!