Eleven Months!

As of last weekend, Emily is in the final countdown to her first birthday! She is growing up and learning new things every single day.

As of today, her repertoire of tricks includes:
waving and say bye bye
throwing her arms over her head when you say "touchdown"
saying Mama, Dada, tickle tickle and Hi (clearly). She mimics alot of other things as well, but you kind of have to use your imagination to make them sound like English.

She has 6 teeth and another one coming in any day now. Her eyes are still bright blue, as you can see from her pictures. We definitely get some questions about that we people see her with her brunette, brown eyed parents. I think I will just start saying that we bought her on the internet and they were all sold out of brown eyed kids.

She weighs right at 20 pounds and is wearing 12 month clothing. I am so excited for the "1 year and 20 lbs" milestone that means I can turn her carseat forward facing. I know the recommendation now is to wait as long as possible before turning them around, and I will give it a bit more time, but I have to admit that it is not easy to get her big self in and out of that carseat when it is in the middle of the backseat.

Eating is a bit of a challenge at this point in time. She doesn't really want the pureed baby foods, but she also isn't big on the "real" food we offer her either. She eats a lot of cheerios!
Her stomach has been a mess the past few days too. I know this is gross to write about, and please skip ahead if you need to, but I want to remember EVERYTHING about our first year with her. Honestly though, I don't think I could forget this scenario! The past two mornings, Emily has woken up in a puddle of her own poop. Not sure what is going on with her tummy - there is something going around her daycare, but she seems fine all day long. It has just been night time when the poop monster attacks! So as a result, she has begun the past two days with early morning baths! And we are cleaning, cleaning, cleaning everything she touches. Just before I sat down to write this, we looked at the monitor and noticed that she had thrown up in her bed. So yeah, this has been memorable!

Now for a change of subject!

Her most exciting skill by far has been the walking attempts. She has done a maximum of 4 or 5 steps at a time, but she is getting better each day! She really wants to walk - you can see those little wheels in her head turning as she decides if she should just walk somewhere or drop down and crawl. She is a speedy little crawler, too, so I understand why she chooses that method most! When she wants to get somewhere fast, she lowers her head and GOES.

She loves to climb stairs - any stairs, all the stairs, as much as you will let her. We have ours outside the "baby gate area" so she can't climb them, but she will occasionally stand at the gate and whine and try to stick her foot through to get to the bottom stair. She is really good at going up the stairs, but she wants to come down face first and that doesn't really work. We are working on teaching her to "sit on her bum" to come down.

Her monthly photo shoot was a short one this month. I have to admit, I like having the photos to compare her growth, but the actual taking of the pictures has become a bit of a pain in the rear.

Only one more month to go though! I am sure I will be complaining about missing it when we are done.

Double Digits

Sweet Emily is 10 months old!
The months are flying by so fast now, I can't wrap my head around it. The first birthday party planning has already begun and it's going to be a blow out! (not really, Mikey, don't worry)
She hasn't been weighed in about a month but I am guessing she is getting close to 20 lbs. If you ask my back, she weighs 400 lbs.
She is all over the place and in to everything. You can just see the wheels turning as she looks around a room for something to mess with.
She can stand unassisted really well, but she has yet to take any steps. She prefers to drop down, crawl somewhere else and then stand up there.
She loves to stand at the windows in the living room and breakfast nook and watch her Daddy throw the ball for the dogs. She bangs on the window and puts her mouth on the glass and just cracks up laughing every time he looks her way.
She has started making a "fish face" when she eats, which is about the cutest thing ever.
Eating is going ok for the most part. She will try pretty much anything I offer her, as long as I am feeding it to her. She feeds herself cheerios and other little puff type snacks, but she doesn't even try to pick up anything else. Some days she eats like a bottomless pit, and some days she won't even take a bite of anything and just wants bottles.
I am trying not to be concerned and just letting her guide me, but that pretty much goes against my nature so I am also worrying that she will never eat "real" food. :) Of course, now that I wrote that, she will be eating steak tomorrow!
Here are her 10 month photos. The light wasn't very good so I messed with them a little to try to brighten them up. So if they look kinda weird - my fault, I have no idea how to edit photos!

Pulling the sticker off.

She looks way too big here!

This one kills me! She looks like a toddler!

Touchdown!

Only two "month" stickers left in the pack now!

9 months old

Slow down, time! All of a sudden my baby seems so big!

She now has 4 teeth - two upper and two lower. She is a speed crawler, especially when she is chasing the cat around. And she is pulling up a lot - she likes to get in a "4 point stance" with both hands and both feet flat on the ground - a yoga downward dog position. She doesn't know what to do once she gets there, but she has the idea at least.

She weighs a little over 18lbs and is wearing clothes in sizes anywhere from 6 to 12 months depending on the clothes.

Her monthly photo shoots continue to prove challenging. This time we attempted to corral her in her crib. 

yanking the fibers out of the rug

coming to get the camera

what a face!

look at the teeth!

You would think this child gets her picture made a lot with the way she hams it up.....

The comments we get most often when we take Emily places (other than "Where did those blue eyes come from?") are about how happy she is. And she really is a happy girl. She just rolls with whatever we are doing and takes things in stride. I think all parents only want their children to be happy, so I hope she continues with this sunny disposition throughout her life.

I just can't stress enough how lucky we feel to be raising this amazing child. Every time I look at her, my heart just swells and I can't believe that she is ours forever and ever!

Oh, the places you'll go! California Edition

Hey, did you hear the one about those people who took their 9 month old to 3 different states in a week and a half? You didn't? Guess that's because only crazy people would do that!

That's right, we have been some traveling fools lately. We went to Mikey's cousin's wedding in California, then we flew to Utah to visit Mikey's dad, then we came home and drove down to Florida with my family for Labor Day weekend. It was exhausting, but awesome all at once. 

It is rare that we get to see all of Mikey's family at the same time and it was wonderful to spend some time with them and let Emily meet her Western cousins.

As is my nature, I stressed about flying with a baby for days before we left. And as is her nature, Emily made my worries seem totally foolish. She flew like a pro! Minimal fussing, lots of sleeping, just easy as could be. 

On one flight, she spent the whole time flirting with the older gentleman in our row and trying to pull his arm hair.
As usual, pictures tell the story better than my words, so here we go!

At the airport, waiting to board our first flight.

Our first flight was direct to California, which was awesome. It was also pretty empty so we had plenty of room to spread out. She had a bottle on takeoff, then played for a while and then slept for almost 3 hours.

When we did finally get to CA, we headed to the rental car place. 

Emily was looking like this at that point.

We headed to our resort, the Westlake Village Inn, and we all collapsed into bed.

The next morning, we met up with the family and checked out the resort. It was absolutely gorgeous!

She's so Hollywood

Then we headed out to explore LA.

Ryah and Emily were not fans of the traffic.

After lunch, we split off on our own and headed down to Santa Monica. 

Emily's first experience with the ocean - and it wasn't the Gulf, like most little Southern girls! This girl dipped her toes in the Pacific!

We weren't dressed for the beach and had places to go later in the day, so we couldn't stay and play long, but we still did some more exploring around the Santa Monica Pier.

Emily's first time to crawl on grass was rather hilarious. She didn't like it very much and would pretty much only sit in one spot. She kept putting her hands down to crawl and then pulling them back up like it was nasty or something.

At one point, she was trying to sit with only one bare leg touching the ground. Silly girl.

I think we could have sat there all day watching the people and watching her laugh and smile at the dogs that people walked by us.

We eventually moved on and headed to the bride's parent's house for her mehendi night. This is the party where the bride and her attendants have their Henna done on their hands and feet. We were also able to get some Henna and it was so cool! 

Here is Mikey's Aunt Pat, looking lovely in her sari.

They served a huge buffet of Indian food, which was delicious, and it was a great night for seeing family and meeting new people. 

Em was a trooper and stayed up WAY past her bedtime. 

The  next day, Mikey and the other guys played golf, so Emily and I took a few minutes to wander around the gorgeous resort and have a little photo shoot.

Just imagine how good the photos could have been with a decent camera, a photographer who knew what she was doing, and a subject who would sit still!

After some shopping with the girls, we got ready to go to the rehearsal dinner.

blurry as usual

The day of the wedding, we just relaxed around the resort and played at the pool (no pictures of the pool- but we did document the relaxing!)

And then it was wedding time!

Baby rednecks first time wearing shoes. Lasted about 30 minutes, and then she chewed on them the rest of the night.

Kellen and Nisha Greenlee!

The wedding and reception were seriously gorgeous - as are the bride and groom!

You could tell that they put a lot of thought into the details and everything was perfect and so personal and touching.

Now we need these two to have some kids - the world needs to see that genetic combo! 

 I am posting both of these pictures from the reception because the first one is better of Mikey and me, and the second one is hilarious of Emily.

Goofball!

 Her favorite part of dinner - the silver chargers.

Not long after this, princess and I retired to the room so she could rest up for our flight the next day. Mikey stayed to hang out with his family and said it was a great evening.

The entire week was a blast and it was over way too soon. We were so thankful to Nisha's family for welcoming us to their home.

After we left Cali, we headed to Utah to see Mikey's Dad....and that will be continued in another post!

Congratulations Kellen and Nisha, and thanks for everything!