X-mas!

Being that I have to work all weekend we are going to celebrate Christmas on Friday. Emma is not going to know the difference anyways. It was so much fun. We had dinner here at our new house. I actually cooked everything myself. This is the first time I have ever done a big meal. I rocked! Well, the only flaw was that I was a total over achiever and I had dinner way earlier than it was suppose to be done, so everything was mostly cooked and nobody was here to eat it. So, I called everyone and they came over. I made the best sweet potato casserole. Then we opened presents. I didn't think that I could possibly have fun watching an 8 mo old open presents. It was so cute. She would pull off the bow and play with it. I would take it away, she would complain, and then we would get her to pull off the wrapping paper! It was so much fun.

Perfect Baby

Our First Family Pictures.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

Is this not the cutest Santa picture ever?

New house.

We have been in the new house for a week now. It is so surreal still. I actually drove to the old house the other day, ooops. We are replacing light fixtures and all sorts of stuff. We were planning on having a party, but I don't think we are going to be ready in time. Emma seems to be adjusting ok. We set up her room pretty quickly. She is the easiest baby, doesn't seem to mind much. I love her so much.

Teefers

Emma is getting her upper three teeth all at the same time now. She has her lower three teeth, the middle two and the left tooth, which is how the top teeth are coming in. It is weird, she has her left front teeth but no signs of her right teeth. I hope she had teeth on her right side. I feel so bad for her, she is miserable now, she doesn't want me near them to brush them or anything. Thank God for Oragel, although she hates it. At least there coming in several at a time, makes the process quicker I think. I would hate to drag it out with one tooth at a time.

Moving Day

We hired movers to move all the furniture. We will officially be living in the new house tonight! Weird!! So weird.

Thanks to God for my baby

Emma's first Thanksgiving. We had dinner over at my step-grandmother's house. We gave Emma turkey, she gobbled it up (pun intended)! I think this is my favorite holiday. I look forward to spending holidays with my children, watching them grow and enjoy traditions.

Packin'

Packing, packing, packing.... here we go a packing. My husband and I have been moving stuff over to the new house gradually. It is so convenient to be only two doors down. It is so weird going over to the new house, I can't imagine us living there. Really surreal. Emma has been so good with all this. She really is the best baby in the entire world.

Closing

We closed on our new house today, the construction crew is going to start tomorrow. We are having some walls built, wood floors installed, and painting. This is SO exciting.

SOLD

Our house is sold, we close at the end of the month. Better start packing. Boy this is going to be stressful with the baby. Ahhh! At least she is not moble yet. Thank God for that.

Trick or Treat.

Well, I tortured Emma again by dressing her in her lobster outfit and taking her out to "Trick Or Treat" at our neighbor Eddie's house. She looked so cute, and miserable. Eddie was passing out Trick Or Treat pretzels, she may actually be able to eat these! It was short lived but fun.

Offer

Yeah, we had an offer on the house!!! Hope it works out.

Gerber baby

Now, you must agree that she is the CUTEST baby in the whole world!

Happy Halloween!

Emma is going to be a lobster for Halloween. A lobster you say, that is a weird first Halloween costume. Well, here is the story about how we came up with a lobster costume. A few years ago I had heard a tidbit of information that lobsters mate for life (apparently that tidbit was on Friends, but I didn't watch that show). Anyways, I told my husband and and he would say sweet things like.. Your my favorite lobster, my only lobster, the best lobster for me, ect. Of course we had to have a baby lobster!! So that is how she got to be a lobster for Halloween. When I saw the outfit I had to have it, I just couldn't believe that someone made a lobster costume for babies. I am sure you will think she is a cute as I did.

Selling and Buying

Good news is that our neighbor took our offer, looks like we are closing on Nov 8th. Being that this is the first house we have had to sell this is all new to us. We put it on the market this weekend and have had a few lookers. It is really stressful to have people coming into our house with a 7 mo old and her nap schedule. And trying to keep it super clean all the time with 3 animals is not easy. I am just glad Emma is not mobile and messing up everything. I hope our house sells quick.

Selling our house

This is the first house we have had to sell. We put it on the market this weekend and have had a few lookers. It is really stressful to have people coming into our house with a 7 mo old and her nap schedule. And trying to keep it super clean all the time with 3 animals is not easy. I am just glad Emma is not mobile and messing up everything. I hope our house sells quick.

Pictures

We took pictures of Emma today with her friend Madeline. They are so cute together. It will be so much fun when Emma is walking and they play together. I hope they are friends for a long time.

Flu Shot

Emma got her first flu shot today. I had to work so daddy took her to the Pediatrician to get it. He said she did great.

Strangers....

Today is the first day that I have left Emma with strangers. I went to the Moms Day Out Program at my church and left her in the nursery with 3 volunteers, all older ladies. I think they thought I was crazy b/c I wanted them to clean the toys before Emma played with them. I also wanted them to wash their hands before they touched her, but I couldn't get the nerve to say that. I am such a wimp. I teared up a little when I left her. But overall I did ok, I even resisted the urge to go and check on her. She seemed ok when I picked her up, exhausted. Apparently she didn't nap at all. She feel asleep immediately in the car. Well, it seemed to go ok, so maybe I will go back.

Possible House

After several weeks of looking we found a house on our street (actually on the other side of our neighbor) that we really like. We're putting an offer in and putting our house up for sale next week.

Finger foods

I started giving Emma little baby cereal to practice picking up and putting them in her mouth. Its so funny to watch her. She can get the cereal piece in her hand and then can't figure out how to get it out of her hand into her mouth. She will shove her whole fist into her mouth. It's so cute. Well, just about everything she does is so cute. I just love being a mommy.

Playgroup

It was so cute today at the playgroup. Emma was sitting on the floor playing with some blocks, sticking them in her mouth as usually. Well, Lauren came over and took the block from her and started to feed the block to Emma. It was so cute, well, untill Lauren realized that the block didn't fit and started hitting Emma's face with it trying to get it to fit. It was so funny. Luckliy Emma is so laid back that she didn't seem to care.

Sitting up... all alone.

Emma is officially sitting up all by herself. She has been doing it for short amounts of time lately, but today at the playgroup I sat her on the floor and she played with toys almost the entire time. My baby is growing up! Whaaaaaa.

We're Gonna Move

After thinking about the decision and discussing it with my husband, we have decided to make a big change and move. My husbands sister and son are going to move in with us next summer so that she can go to nursing school. We are going to look for a bigger house. We need all the luck we can get while we house hunt to find what we need.

Third tooth

I just noticed tonight that Emma has gotten her third tooth. It is on the bottom next to the first two teeth, on her left. She is going to look so goofy with three little teeth on the bottom. Funny that she got the one on the bottom and not the top ones. Hopefully the matching tooth on the right will come in soon also.

Anniversary

Today is Kevin and I's 4 year wedding anniversary. I can't believe that we have been married that long and that we have a child together. It seems so surreal sometimes. I had wanted to get married and have a baby for so long, I can't believe I have already done those milestones. What now? More kids, graduation, college, my kids getting married and having their own families? Life seems to be going by so quickly. Too quickly.

Flight home!

Well, we doped Emma up with Benadryl again for the flight. She did great. She actually slept through most of the flight. It makes is so much easier that she is not very mobile yet. I am not looking forward to flying with her when she is 1-2 years old. Hopefully I won't have to.

Grandparents!

So far so good. Emma doesn't seem to be to scared of anyone, a few times she has brought out the lip with my dad, but otherwise she has done great. She really loves grandma Kim (my dads wife). Kim has 3 grown children of her own and use to babysit so she was great with her. I even trusted Emma to stay with her a few times while Kevin and I went horseback riding. Emma refused to nap one of the two times, but otherwise was great. What a great baby we have! We did a four generation picture today with Emma, me, my dad, and his dad (my grandpa). It turned out great.

TEETH!

While we were on our trip Emma busted out with two bottom teeth! I couldn't believe it! I thought she was fussy because we were in a different place and didn't really have a routine!. We went to Target and bought some Oragel to use. She doesn't like it much, I try to use it only if she seems really fussy. It is so cute, my baby is growing up!

First Flight

Emma did great on her first flight! We decided to go ahead and use the benadryl. She passed out on take off. I nursed her to help with her ears. She slept on talk off and landing. Woke up to play in the middle. She did great! I couldn't have been happier, I am sure the guy next to Kevin was happy she was good also!

Benadryl

Tomorrow Emma is going on her first flight. I asked one of the pediatrician that I work with for suggestions on how to make the flight ejoyable with a 6 mo old. Her first response "Benadryl". So, today we tried out the benadryl to see how Emma would react to it. Didn't seem to make a difference. Don't know if I want to use it or not tomorrow. Kevin thinks we should. We'll see. Well, gotta get packing.

6 mo Pedi Appointment

Emma had her 6 mo shots today. I really think it is harder for me than for her. She cried a lot less this time than last time. I think I even cried last time! I am such a wimp. You would think since I am RN and I give baby's shots that it wouldn't bother me. Well, it is different when it is your own child and you are subjecting them to pain. I always insist that two nurses come in and do it at the same time. They always look at me like I am crazy, well I don't care, it makes the process and pain quicker for her. Plus, at work when I am giving more than two shots to the premies I always have another nurse do it with me. I think it should be mandatory. I am annoyed that I have to keep reminding them that I want two nurses. Anyways, she seemed much better this time. Although she was a bit fussy today, I gave her tylenol around the clock to help. Seems to work ok.

Green Beans

We started her on green beans today. I thought I would start with the nastiest one and then maybe she will eat it later, maybe. Well, she didn't like it at first, then thought it was ok during the middle, then started gagging and spitting it out at the end. Maybe I will start mixing it with her cereal, that might help. I can't wait to do mango or bananas!

Walking

I have started walking to try an lose some weight. We take Emma out in her stroller around 8pm, it seems to be a bit cooler at that time. Not so furnace like! She really loves to be out, she will sit so contently and look around at all the scenery. It really helps at night because she seems to be fussier and more tired in the evening. Then we can come home, do her bath, feed her and put her to bed. I hope that we can teach her about exercise and how it is good for you. Or at least she might learn from example, right?

Talking . . . dadada

So, Kevin is just in heaven because Emma is babbling "dadadada". I just keep reminding him that it doesn't count towards her first word until she looks at him and says it and means it. It is soooo cute though. She is really working hard with her mouth to make all these babbling noises. I have been videotaping it when ever I can. It cracks me up. I wish you could see it, she uses her whole face to "talk". I just love hearing her.

Playgroup Date #2

We went to our second play group today. At the playgroup was Ethan, Madeline, Lauren, Emma, and Lauren. Ethan and Emma were the only babies not yet mobile. It was so much fun to see the other babies playing next to each other. I will be out of town for our next playgroup, that will be a bummer. I think once Emma is more mobile she will really enjoy going. The babies kept poking and prodding each others faces, it was funny. I am so glad that I started this playgroup!

Oatmeal and Sippy Cup

I started Emma on oatmeal today. She seemed to like it as much as the rice cereal. I think I will give her the oatmeal in the morning and rice cereal in the evening. Maybe next week I will try out some vegetables. I don't know what my hesitation is for trying other foods, I guess I want her to be closer to 6 mo old before we get into anything really exciting. Hopefully she won't have many allergies since I am waiting to start the other foods, hopefully. I also used the sippy cup for the first time this morning, she seemed to be thirsty with the oatmeal, it is thicker than the rice cereal, so I put a little breast milk in the sippy cup and tried it out. She seemed to really like it. Actually even held it herself and brought it to her mouth, of course anything she has in her hand goes to her mouth so I am sure that doesn't mean anything. I think I will continue to keep practicing with it, maybe by her first birthday she can be weaned off the breast and bottle, maybe?

Another baby?

Well, I thought I might be pregnant again. Although if I was, God would really really have meant it to be. Turns out I am not, but after talking about it with Kevin for that last week, we kind of got use to the idea of having another baby sooner than we had originally planned, a girl of course, no stinking boys! hahaha We had worked out the difficulties of having a baby sooner than expected. I was almost disappointed when we found out I wasn't, and then I was a little relieved also. So, I think after talking about it we may start trying for another baby next spring instead of waiting two more years. Who knows, maybe by then I will change my mind, Emma should be walking by then.

Date Night

Kevin and I went on a date tonight while Grandma watched Emma. I can see now why people who have children have a hard time going out with their spouse and try to not talk about the kids. What else is there to talk about really? So, how was your day, what did you do? You know, Emma had a really big poop today. Really? What color was it? Oh yeah, we aren't suppose to talk about the baby, soooooo, it sure was sunny today! I mean really, if Emma is basically my day, then why can't I talk about her. I think the problem comes when the kids are leaving for college and then what do you say? I guess I will find out in about 18 years.

Sleeping 12 hours

Emma has been sleeping for 12 hours every night since Friday night! Isn't that fantastic! We put her to bed around 9 or 10 pm and she will sleep until 9 or 10 am. It is great! I didn't think she would ever sleep that long. She is staying up longer after her morning and evening feeding. She still takes a longer nap after her afternoon feeding. We started feeding her twice a day with cereal, maybe that has something to do with it? Whatever it is, I am glad she is doing it. Well, I better head to bed, take advantage of her sleeping longer.

Aunt and Cousin

Emma's Aunt Manon (Kevin's sister) and cousin Xavier were here visiting last week. Of course Emma still wasn't feeling so well, so they got to visit fussy Emma. Her fever had basically gone by the time they came but she still had a runny nose. It was the cutest thing, Manon started making this popping noise with her mouth
Emma was intently looking at her and was trying to mimic the noise, eventually she made the noise! It was so cute. What a smart baby we have! =) I wish that they lived closer so that we could get together more often. I don't remember living by my cousin's. I think it would have been so cool to be close friends. While they were here we went to the arcade and swimming while grandma watched Emma. We had a great time visiting and I was sad to see them go.

Home Again

We slept great over at Laura's house! Emma did great also, I was afraid since she was in the same room with us she wouldn't sleep well, but she slept until 6:45 am like she always does. We got up around 8 am and went to breakfast with Laura, John, and Madeline. I really hope they get the AC fixed today. It must have started working again last night, b/c if feels fairly comfortable in here. We'll see. Were off to pick up Kevin's family.

Air conditioning

Yuck! Our air conditioning is out! Again. We have been dealing with our air being out, off and on over the last 2 months. It is out again. So, as it is 80 degrees in the house, to hot for our baby (and me), we are going to go and spend the night at Laura and John's. They have so nicely offered to let us stay, of course we could stay with mom, but her bed is too small for Kevin and I (were use to a king bed now). I sure hope it gets fixed before Kevin's sister and nephew come into town tomorrow.

Playgroup

Today was Emma's first playgroup! Her friend Ethan, Kaci, and Madeline were all there to visit and play. Well, Madeline played anyways everyone else just stared at each other. Madeline is 5 mo older than Emma. Ethan is 3 weeks older, and Kaci is 4 days younger than Emma. Unfortunately, Colton (who is 2 mo older than Emma), Lauren (5 mo older), and Lauren (4 mo older) couldn't make it this time. Maybe next time. It was nice to have all the mom's to talk to. I am looking forward to the next playgroup!

Emma Sue Who

I am sure you are wondering, where did they come up with that name? Well, I started calling our baby, Emma Sue, because it rhymed with You.I would play with her and say "Emma Sue, what's wrong with you" and she would smile real big. Her nursery is decorated in Dr. Seuss with a framed picture of the little Sue Who holding up the Christmas ornament. So, now we sometimes call her, Emma Sue Who. We do this silly little game with her saying "Emma Sue Who, Who. Who. Who." (like a owl), she would just "Who" back to us. It was so cute, you would just have to hear it to understand. Anyways, that is how we came up with her blog name. Catchy, huh?

Sneezing and Snot

Emma had a slight runny nose last night when I came home from work. This morning when I got up to feed her the snot was all crusty! Ewww. This is the first time she has been really sick. She had a low grade temp and I had to use the 'ol bulb suction to get all the snot out. She seemed a bit irritable today also. I felt so bad for her. I don't know how she got sick, none of us are sick. She seemed to be a little better by the end of the day, well, at least there seemed to be less snot anyways. All her friends are coming over tomorrow to play for our first ever playgroup that I started. I am so excited. I hope she is better by then, I would hate to get everyone sick. I'll let you know how that went.

5 mo Pictures

We set up the studio today in our living room and took her 5 mo pictures. They are so cute, now tell me she doesn't look like the Gerber baby! She did great! Although, she wasn't as smiley as we would have liked her to be. We will post all the pics on a web site for everyone to see and order if you want.
I am sure we will get around to that once she is about two years old! hahaha Just kidding. We will get them up and available for you in the next few weeks. I hope that you enjoy the few that I have added here. I love the pic of the two of us, so sweet.I will be able to look back at this and remember how sweet she was. Because I am sure that I will forget when she is about 13 years old! Oh how I remember middle school. Was I as terrible as I remember being? I am so looking forward to that age!

Thumbsucking!

Ok, Emma started sucking her thumb about two weeks ago. It is sooooo cute when she does it. I am a bit concerned that we will eventually have to wean her off of it and how we are going to do that. But right now it is so useful. If she wakes up at 1am she can find her thumb instead of us having to go in there and give her the pacifier. I have to say I am thrilled that she started self soothing herself. It is weird though, she only sucks her right thumb. She can't seem to find her left thumb at all. I don't even give her the pacifier when she is taking a nap anymore, she just spits it out then puts her thumb in her mouth. Oh well, I suppose I will worry about trying to wean her when she is older.

Sleeping and Eating

Emma has been napping for about an hour now, I expect her to wake up any time now. She actually slept for 11 hours last night. I fed her at 9:30 last night, and she slept until 8:30am. Although I will have to say that she did wake up around 4:30 last night and I just turned off the monitor and went back to sleep. I know, terrible mom. Well, if she really wanted to eat that bad she would not have gone back to sleep she would have just gotten louder in her protesting. After her 8 am feeding I put her in her crib with her mobile on so that I could go back to sleep. I know, I know. It's just so hard to get up on Monday after working all week. Anyways, she must have entertained herself for a while then went back to sleep. She was awake and ready to eat at 11am. After breastfeeding we gave her some cereal. I doubled the feeding this time, a whopping 2 tsp today. She did great, she was opening her mouth and watching the spoon. She seemed almost disappointed that it was all gone. It was so cute, I videotaped it. I think I will continue with this increase this week and then next week go to twice a day. Once she is eating a decent amount of cereal then we will upgrade to other foods! I can't wait until we can do bananas! This feeding thing is so much fun.

My first blog.... ever.

Hello, this is officially my first blog ever. I found this article in one of my Parenting magazines about this mom and how she blogs to keep in touch with family and friends, I thought, cool. Then my thought was, nobody will care what I am thinking, but they might care what is going on with Emma. So my blogs will be Emma centered. Well, if you don't care about what is going on with Emma, then your loss. I love the idea that I can type whatever I want and if you want to read it great, otherwise I am not forcing myself on you with an email, you know? You can visit at any time and see whats going on in my life. I love it. Plus, I have not been really good about writing in Emma's baby book, it takes so long to sit down and write really pretty. Anyways, I could type a few lines pretty quickly every few days and just let you know how everything is going. And I can keep this forever, with all her milestones typed here for everyone to see. How cool would it have been to have blogs from our parents. To know what they were thinking about us as babies and to know when I started doing cool things, like walking. I would have loved that, then I could have passed it on to my kids also. "Here is what I did as a baby."

Well, Emma is going to be 5 months old this Friday! I can't believe it. You know, I never believed anyone when they told me how quickly she will grow up. It seems like just yesterday when I delivered her. She is getting so big, she weighs about 17 pounds. It's so cute, she has this fat roll that goes all the way around her. Sometimes I don't think she will ever be able to sit up on her own because her fat gets in the way. She is so cute, of course I am sure I am biased, but I think she could take the Gerber baby spot. After looking at her picture I am sure you will agree. She started rolling over a few weeks ago. She has only done it three times. She rolls from front to back, I am sure it will be ages before she rolls the other way.

We started feeding her rice cereal two weeks ago. She hated it the first time, she thought I was poisoning her, see picture.But she has gotten better, she actually opens her mouth when the spoon comes near her, instead of scrunching up her nose and turning away, big improvement.


She sleeps through out the night mostly. We put her down around 10pm after bath and feeding and she will sleep until 5-7am. Hey, I am not complaining. Although, she did wake up at 4 am today, I think she is going through a growth spurt. After her morning feeding she will go back to sleep until 9-11am, that part is great! We are training her well. She smiles all the time now, and laughs. I don't think I have heard anything sweeter than my own baby laughing. I try to get her to laugh all the time. Blowing in her face and tickling under her arms seems to work really well now. It changes every day though.

Well, being that it is midnight and I get up for the first feeding, I better go to bed. I hope that you have a great week. I will be having a great week with Emma.