Random Pics / 10 months

Here are just a few pics from here and there.

Here's Aaron and Emory swinging at the park. Our church class met at the park one night for a devo and play time for the kids. Emory enjoyed crawling around on the ground, picking up wood chips and leaves and then of course swing time with Daddy. So sweet!

Emory has started more and more table food. In fact she's at the point where she doesn't really like baby food anymore, but without teeth it's hard to find things I'm not afraid to feed her. In fact as long as she can feed herself, she's a happy girl. She has gotten very good at "chewing" all of her food and getting used to the texture of different things. She LOVES mac and cheese. In fact that is all she would eat I think if I would let her. She also likes rice and beans, watermelon, bananas, and yogurt. I can't believe how much she's changing. She still has 3-4 bottles of formula a day, but I think it will be an easy transition to whole milk when the time comes. She weighs (approximately) 17 lbs and a little over 25" tall. We haven't been to the dr in a while (thank goodness) so I don't know the exact stats.

The weather has been so nice lately. We have enjoyed many evenings hanging out outside. Emory loves being outside so we try to get out there as often as we can and during times of the day when it's not too hot. As you can see Aaron has been working hard to get our house looking nice. He's done such a great job...now we'll see how long we stay in this house. It won't be long before Aaron insists on moving to the country again.

Mother's Day/Graduation

Yes I know I'm way behind, but I have been too tired (until now) to get this updated. We had a big weekend in May. My first Mother's Day came on the same weekend I graduated with my Master's degree. So needless to say, it was one GREAT weekend. Here's Emory and I after graduation. She did great all the way through graduation. It was very nice to have my parents, Aaron's parents, and Justin (and of course Aaron) there to help me celebrate. It has definitely been a long and sometimes difficult journey, but it has definitely been worth it. I learned so much and had a great group of professors and peers to work with.

The other part of the weekend was Mother's Day. We had a very nice day. We ate lunch at Perini Ranch with the family (YUM-MY) and then spent the rest of the day relaxing. Emory has been the best thing that has ever happened to us. I am so lucky and blessed with her and thank God everyday for blessing us with her. Here's a picture of my sweet family on Mother's Day.

Just wanted to include a sweet bath picture. Emory LOVES her bath time. Anytime she has travel out of the same room with me, she is almost always in the bathroom standing next to the bathtub. She is always ready to take a bath. :)

We also had our Baby Blessing at church, but my camera batteries died the morning of so I have no picture to show for it. Hopefully some of my friends got some pictures and they will be kind enough to share. We are so blessed to be part of a church family that has so many babies and kids. We love them all.

Bluebonnet pics

We finally got some bluebonnet pictures. Every good Texas kid needs their picture taken in a field of bluebonnets. This might not be the last ones of the year, but here's just a few from our "shoot" today.

In our Easter best!

This is her new trick. Isn't she cute???

Sweet girl!!!

Our beautiful Texas girl. What a beautiful scenery and an even beautiful girl.

Easter

I just realized I hadn't posted anything about Easter yet. Our family went to Ackerly for the weekend. It was a very nice visit and we spent Easter Sunday at my uncle Mike's house. It was so nice of him and Judy to have us all over. Emory got spoiled by Gramsy and Papa Reg and then got even more spoiled by Judy with an Easter basket, eggs of her own, and presents.

Nana made Emory's Easter dress. It was absolutely beautiful. Everyone was very impressed by Nana's handi-work. She was completely adorable. Here are a few pics from the weekend.

The family before church.

Emory in her Easter dress...thanks Nana.

Look what the Easter bunny brought.

Into everything!

Happy Easter!!!

9 months

I have put this off partly because of lack of time (and energy) and partly because I'm not ready to accept the fact I have a 9 month old. We did not go to the dr for a 9 month appt because we were there a week earlier to check Emory's ears. Dr Wiley said her ears looked much better and is hoping that with preventative meds she will make it to summer without another infection. Once summer hits she will be at home with me and hopefully stay well. I was quite nervous about this appt because I just knew we would have to have tubes. So I can't remember her exact measurements. She weighed 15 lbs and 6 oz and they didn't tell me the height. She is still little, but that doesn't stop her from accomplishing all of her milestones.

She is now crawling on all fours and can get where she wants to go pretty quickly. This causes a few problems of getting things out of her reach and no matter how clean the floors are, she can find the littlest fuzz, dirt, etc and get it in her mouth before we're able to stop her. Oh well, so is life! She started a new class at daycare. She is now a Wallaby. This was a very hard transition. She bonded so much with her previous teacher that drop-off was never a problem. Now I think it's a combination of beginning separation anxiety and not used to her new teachers yet. I am still very pleased with her daycare. They take great care of her and even gave her homework this week. They are beginning to teach sign language so our homework was easy since we have already started that at home.

She has become very independent. She doesn't like being fed her baby food. She would rather eat something that she can do all by herself. This poses quite a challenge because she has a VERY sensitive gag reflex so meal time is quite eventful. Makes it lots of fun eating out too...I usually spend my time cleaning up a "mess" before I can finish my meal.

Emory has thankfully started sleeping through the night. She goes to bed between 8 and 8:30. She will sleep until almost 6:00. This is a huge improvement and I will take every little bit of sleep I can. She has begun to suck her thumb (not my choice). I try to give her the pacifier, but she takes it out and throws it on the floor and goes straight for her thumb. Luckily it's only in her mouth until she falls asleep and then it falls out. Hopefully that won't be a habit we have to break.

She has started liking Bible class again and is tagged the "talkative" one. Emory is quite the talker. She can be very loud (which scares some of her friends) and talks almost non-stop when she in that kind of mood. Where did this come from???? Certainly not her mama or daddy. She can say mama, dada, baba, papa, but is not saying it to the appropriate person quite yet. She has also started this waving thing which I can't figure out if it is trying to get something she wants or if it is mimicking what she's seen for so long.

What a fun adventure we have been on for the last 9 months!! There are times that I am frustrated and tired (especially through this teething time), but the joys and love overcomes those few frustrating times. Emory is our precious little princess. We love you E!!!

*I could only get one video to post. So sorry!!

Spring Break

Aaron, Emory and I went to Missouri for the beginning of Spring Break. We met Aaron's parents at his grandparents house. We all had such a good time and it was so good for Grandpa and Grandma to finally meet Emory. It was a little cold so we didn't get out and do too much, but Emory had a good time showing off for everyone inside where it was nice and warm. Emory also got to meet the sweet lady who lived down the road from where Aaron used to live. She had just celebrated her 90th birthday and still lives on her own. All the little old ladies and little old men at Grandpa and Grandma's church loved having a little one to keep them entertained. We had a great time, as always.

Grandpa had a bad accident on Wednesday (after we left on Tuesday). He was trying to pull a calf from a mama who was having trouble. The mama cow broke loose and knocked him over and then step on his chest. He has three broken ribs and a bruised lung. He spent several days in the hospital, but is now back home. We hope that he is doing ok, but he isn't the type to slow down so we hope he doesn't over do it.

To finish off the week, my mom came and stayed for a couple of days so that I could study for my orals exam (which I PASSED...YEA). While she was here we went to the zoo with Sarah, Grace, and Morgan (and Nana and Aunt Kim too). Emory didn't care too much for the animals that blended in, but she loved the giraffes, the water for the turtles, monkeys, and zebras. We look forward to many more trips to the zoo.

On friday Emory went home with my mom for a night. Emory was great and I was able to get A LOT done. I'm sure there will be many more meetings half-way. We had a great week and now we're ready for summer!

7-month

I figured I better hurry up and post Emory's 7-month happenings before she turns 8 months. She has been so much fun. Just when I think it can't get any better, she goes and starts doing something else and makes it even more fun.

She is rolling EVERYWHERE. She can get any where she needs to go and rolls to get there. She really wants to be crawling but it's just not happening yet. I'm enjoying the limited days of the some-what mobile days. She can say "da-da" which she says constantly. Her daycare teachers told me yesterday she has a best friend in her class and the two girls chat away. They said the girls will talk and talk and then start laughing at each other. They also said the girls will not go to sleep if they can see each other (their cribs are next to each other). I love that she's so social and will go to anyone about 90% of the time. Her chatty nature sometimes causes problems in church, but there's enough other babies to kind of drowned her out.

She loves fruits and will tolerate almost any veggie. She still is not liking any kind of "table" food that has a different texture. She is taking a 6 oz (sometimes less) bottle every 4-5 hours. Our sleeping patterns cannot get on a schedule because of sickness.

Poor baby has had 2 ear infections this month. She was off antibiotics for about a week before we had to go back to the dr. So we're still on antibiotics, but hopefully this will be the last of it.

We are traveling to Missouri this weekend to see Aaron's grandparents...the longest trip Emory's ever taken. We'll see how it goes and I will post about our trip when we return.

I am looking forward to Spring Break, but will spend the majority of it studying since I will be taking Orals the week after. I am finally finishing up my masters and so glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm ready to have my life back. :)

Pictures will have to come later...computer is not cooperating.