Socializing

This evening, the church in our valley, literally 2 miles from our house, held their annual fall get together for the local folk.  They invite everyone on our valley road for neat little get together pot-luck type of thing.  This year John and I finally had clear schedules so we were able to go!  We have generously been invited every year and without fail have had something else come up that we had to go to!  This was our first year going and we even got to share it with Emelia!!

It's very neat because we get to meet some of the people that live around us that we don't really know.  It is just one of those things that really mean a lot to everyone.  In this small, rural area we live in it's nice to at least know the names of the people around you.  Especially if there is something fun and exciting going or if you need to help or lend a helping hand!

It was very fun!  Emelia enjoyed trying some different foods, her favorite tonight was the potato salad!  She also got to play with other children, which I'm sure was the highlight of her night!  There was one little boy there who was one year old.  He was crawling around the place like crazy!  I finally had to let Emelia down because she kept watching that little boy and she wanted to get in on all the fun!  Once I put her down, she promptly decided to follow the little boy all over the place.  I had to stay close behind because there were so many people, I didn't want Emelia to get stepped on.  It was so CUTE!  The boy was able to go much faster than Emelia so he would zoom ahead of her and then stop to check her progress.  If she was too far behind, he would zoom back up to her and point at her.  Meanwhile, she would sit up the second she saw him coming back and point back at him.  Both of them making cute little happy noises, of course!!  It was great!  Emelia was shy with other people, adults, and wouldn't let anyone hold her except me and John, but once she got down and was playing with that little boy (and another, older little girl) her shyness went out the window!

The best part of tonight, for me anyway, were all the compliments we got on how smart Emelia is already!  People couldn't BELIEVE she can wave bye-bye!  This is something she's been doing for probably two months!  They were also amazed at how well she could stand up, get back down, and crawl.  It made me feel really good!  The lady we sat next to, she even was impressed with how vocal Emelia was.  Compared to the other little boy, who is 3 months older than Emelia, I can see a difference.  That little boy rarely stood up against any furniture and he hardly made any noises at all except squeals.  And he totally didn't get "bye-bye" at all!

Emelia did start getting bored and tired of the whole ordeal after an hour or so.  John was ready to go, too, so we left with full tummys and I felt really good.  It felt good to be around other people, for one, and meeting new people, for two, and showing off my beautiful and intelligent little girl, for three!  A very good night!