Just before Christmas Amara got the most wonderful, handmade doll from her Aunt Suzi who lives in Arizona. She named the doll Emily Suzi and they are now best friends! Emily is one of a kind, made with lots of special love, over-sized rag doll! Even Amara’s Daddy couldn’t get over how tall she is. Aunt Suzi made her the cutest pink and yellow flowered dress with a bright yellow apron — all hand made!

She even came with a change of clothes so of course the first thing Amara did  was change them! Next, the two of them laid on Amara’s bed so that Amara could read to her. I am still so impressed with how well Amara reads. The girls had lots of fun in Amara’s room playing together while I cooked dinner. Emily met all of the other stuffed animals.

Amara had a wonderful tea party and Emily was the guest of honor. Grampy and I weren’t even invited, but I did peek in and take pictures. It was as if Amara had someone besides us to play with while she was here. When I was little, I had tons of cousins to play with when I visited my grandparents. Amara’s Mommy had many cousins to play with, too even if some of them were really children of my cousins. Does that make them second or third cousins or what? I never could figure that stuff out so we just lumped them all into one group – cousins – aka, other kids to play with! Amara doesn’t have that when she comes to visit us so Emily is a welcome addition to the family.

Emily officially lives at Amara’s house. She has met Spot and Kitty. She loves Amara’s room. Emily has come over and spent the night with us a couple of times since Amara got her. I now know that Emily is afraid of the dark. If she gets tired and needs a nap during the evening while Amara is here – we have to leave the bathroom light on for her so that she won’t be afraid if she wakes up. Emily gets lonely if left alone so she is glad that we have all sorts of stuffed animals to help keep her company. Emily likes to watch movies with us, too! We put her in one of the chairs in the front room while we have dinner so that she won’t get messy. Our family has grown.

On New Year’s Eve Amara and Emily helped me get the New Year’s cards ready to mail. They did all the work. I am always running behind at Christmas so I like doing New Year’s cards. I had printed the address and the return labels before they got here. I’d even gotten Christmas stamps. Amara put all of them on, with some help from Emily. She then stuffed all the cards and sealed them. Again, Emily helped.  I took pictures!

The next morning the three of us took the cards to the mailbox. It was fun listening to Amara tell Emily all about the neighborhood. Emily isn’t very good at walking yet so Grandma had to help carry her part of the time. I didn’t mind. Emily and Amara were here last night. It was so cute when I peeked in to check on her and she was hugging Emily and sound a sleep. Wish I could have taken a photo but the memory is burned in my head.

There is another great Emily story from this weekend but I am hoping I can get Grampy to tell you that one.

This post has been linked to Say it Saturday at Family Home and Life.