weir here

Fam Visit #41

2012-01-31T23:08:00.000-06:00

My whole family came to visit this weekend. I went shopping with my mom and it was so much fun. We gabbed, found some KILLER deals for a bunch of cute baby clothes and FINALLY spent a Pier One gift card I got for my bridal shower. It was also Tyler's b-day on Friday so we all went out to Hu Hot to celebrate.

Great pic, huh? I didn't want to annoy everyone in the restaurant with a million flashes, so I just called it good. This is what life really looks like anyway. Oh, and this.

A collage of the temper tantrums I mentioned in the last post. Yikes. Looks like we ended up annoying everyone with flashes after all.
She wanted to be doing this.

After dinner, I presented Tyler with the Dexter- themed cake I had made for him.

He liked it so much he decided to take some senior pictures with it.

And then I jumped in.

And then we finally sang to him and ate it.

Admittedly, it is a little crazy with everyone all together in our little apartment, but I think we will look back on these times with fondness. Moments like this make it all worthwhile.

It was a super short trip for them, but I am glad they made the effort to come out. Thanks guys! We love you!

Tricks n' Treats

2012-01-31T14:35:00.005-06:00

Lately little Emmy Lou is picking up lots of new things.

Tricks:

points to hers and others' noses (but often gets them mixed up, or kind of starts at her eye and slowly moves her finger down to her nose until you say "yay!")
when asked, will put her binky back in her bed when we get her up (she only uses it for sleeping)
experimenting lots more with words and sounds, and copies more. She can say mama, hi, dada, dog, bye and a version of "good girl". yesterday she climbed on the table and when I turned around and saw her, she said "good girl!" No, not good girl on that one, Emmaline. Also, this morning there was a dog on TV and she pointed and said dog (da) all on her own. Here she is saying "hi"
knows what I'm talking about a lot more now and can follow simple directions. I say lets go bye bye and she runs to the door. I say "give it to mama" and she sometimes will, if the mood strikes her. I say, "give your best friend (bear from Uncle Tyler) a hug" and she does it. I have also recently discovered that she knows what such things as her socks and a bird are.
Has entered the points-a-lot stage.
I can tell she wants to communicate. I think she is starting to get frustrated over the lack of control because she sometimes gets mad about little things, kicking and flailing in true toddler fashion. Oy.
Starting to want to share her food and such. (This was not put under "treats" because more often than not it is pre-slobbered-on.)

Treats:

seems to sympathize with others. The other day Nate was goofing around and pretended to cry when she didn't give him a hug, and she ran over and gave him one. This worked twice!
will walk holding my (or Nate's) hand in the parking lot or public places. She LOVES doing this rather than being carried and giggles the whole way.
is more lovey now than she used to be. I wonder if it was because she was so obsessed with conquering all things physical that she had nary a moment to spare for silly things like snuggling. Nowadays she will kind of check in with me and want to be picked up (for a split second, mind you, but this still improvement) or sit on my lap. Below is an especially snuggly moment while sick a couple weeks ago :(
It is not impossible to get her to sit through Sacrament meeting!

and i had to include this one of her sleeping sitting up the other night.

Because I know you don't want to miss ONE SINGLE PICTURE

2012-01-24T15:17:00.010-06:00

I (read: Nate) recently factory- reset my phone, so I (Nate) put all my pictures on the computer. There were some fun ones. If you follow Emmy on Twitter, you may already have seen some of them.

crawled into her stroller by herself

fish tank at the doctor's office

And the shopping series:

alone

with friends

backwards

driving the race car cart

feasting on the word.

She and daddy found their first robin's nest. Love the chubby little hand!

I don't trust these guys.

look at the leg chunk and wispy hair! i barely remember her this way.

Do you mind? We're snuggling.

are you awake yet? are you awake yet?

...and my two favorite people in my favorite place in Rochester.

Things She's Learning

2012-01-17T15:38:00.011-06:00

How to climb How to look like you are just watching daddy make a sandwich
... and then steal it when his back is turned
How to also steal his glass when he leaves the dinner table
How to color
How to read upside down
How to find "your" toy at the mall and stiff-arm anyone who tries to play with it
How to put your feet up at the end of a long day
How to stir your own scrambled eggs (we thought we'd catch up on what we're supposed to be teaching her)
How to look cute and innocent after you've just been banging on the window with your friend
and how to say "mama!" (finally happened last thursday.)

What a girl.

14 months today!

ups and downs

2012-01-16T09:53:00.005-06:00

You win some

Miss Wisconsin wins Miss USA

you lose some.

Packers lose in the playoffs

Or so we found out this weekend. We were all feeling the sadness over the last one.
I was totally counting my chickens for the super bowl by like, game 5 this year. I had a menu planned for the party we were going to have. And when Miss WI won Miss USA, I thought this was totally Wisconsin's year. Sigh. Oh well, at least we had one darn cute cheerleader who got some wear out of her uniform.
Nate couldn't bear to change her out of it last night. Here she is this morning.Maybe I don't want to be a sports fan after all. I can't take the downs.

Is it just me?

2012-01-09T13:22:00.007-06:00

There is a "follow-along program" here where the public health department has you fill out questionnaires about what your baby is doing and they send you ideas for activities to help them in each stage. The idea is to see if your kid is on-track developmentally, which apparently, mine is not. These were their suggestions for her age bracket (12- 16 months):

Your baby can help do small jobs such as wiping the table with a sponge, stirring pancake mix (with your help), or sweeping up a little dirt with a small broom. He will enjoy doing something special for you. Be sure to praise him for helping.
Take baby to supermarket with you so baby can "help". Talk about all of the colors and smells. Let the baby hold something, such as a small can or lemon. At the checkout, let baby "pay" the cashier. What a good helper!
Hold up one of baby's shoes or a sock. Ask baby, "Where's the other one just like this?" Help baby make the match. "Yes, these two are the same".

Now, maybe I am the only one here whose baby isn't re-upholstering furniture and memorizing the Declaration of Independence between naps, but I would bet that I'm not. Despite this hunch, I was feeling a little bit bad about myself as a mother when I read this. I doubt that by 16 months she will be paying the cashier or stirring the pancake batter (with or without my help). I guess I was hoping it would read a little more like this:

Try to get your baby to "come here" when you call them, and watch as she runs in the other direction.
Say "mama" to your baby 5 million times/ day in the hopes that it will be her first real word, but get no such gratification.
Try to find your baby when she refuses to stay with you and ends up under the church pews/ on top of a picnic table/ leaving with a strange family.
Force hugs and kisses on your baby, even if she is unwilling to such a degree that an onlooker would think you had abducted someone else's baby.

Because we do all THAT stuff on a regular basis.

How will you know?

2012-01-02T23:00:00.010-06:00

I had decided to tone it down a bit with the updates on little miss and do them every few months instead of every single month now that she's a big one year old, but I can't help myself. I only made it 6 weeks. How else will you all know that she switched from a high chair to a booster?

there had been a little too much of this going on.

How will you know that her hair curls a little in the back now?
How will you know about matching Sundays, wherein Nate insists on wearing the same color as her every week?

this pink tie gets a real workout

How will you know that the little pipsqueak still fits in the same shirt she was wearing LAST FEBRUARY??

not ridiculously big then, not ridiculously small now.

How will you know that she pushed her stroller all around the Mall of America and we got the funniest looks...
and one nice(ish) family picture?
Or how she slept like this with her bear one night?
Or how excited she was about her pretty new hat from Jill friend?
Or how she plays "where's Emmy" by covering herself with a blanket, trying to run out of the room (but bumping into everything along the way because she's blind), running back in and throwing the blanket off? How would you know that she does this in the rear view mirror when I am driving, too, and it is very distracting?

How would you know that she is 1000% in love with this video, and smiles instantly when she sees Will.i.am's face?

You wouldn't. So I had to tell you about it.

2011 book review

2011-12-29T23:28:00.003-06:00

when i was young, i loved reading. but once i got beyond the level of babysitter's club, sweet valley high, boxcar kids... reading and i kind of had a falling out. all the required reading for school turned me off to it. even if i was enjoying a book i was reading for school, it became less desirable to me because of the obligation. i wouldn't even read for pleasure during all those years because i figured if i was reading something, it should probably be my school stuff (although often this did not even happen). i have revealed to you two of my less-pleasing qualities: rebelliousness and poor scholarliness(<--- not even a word. see how bad it is?)

so in 2008 i graduated from BYU and tore my ACL the next month. after my surgery for that, my mom sent me a care package which contained a book (my sister's keeper by jodi picoult). driven to madness by my boredom, i picked it up, and thus began my reading renaissance. i started off slowly, not wanting to startle myself lest i get scared away. i decided that if i didn't like a book by about page 20, i would stop reading it because, hey, i could. i was done with school and no one could make me. embarrassing, i know, but this little rule paved my way back into reading. (i have since increased my patience, by the way.)

after moving to rochester my friend sarah invited me to a book club and i LOVED it. a few months later i joined a second. these book clubs are some of my very favorite things. it may have something to do with a woman's need to say like 10,000 words per day but i also discovered i love love love talking about books! my clubs contain people from many walks of life, and such interesting discussions have been generated from the books we have read. people will recommend things i would never have picked out on my own, and this has broadened my horizons extraordinarily. this year alone i have read about japanese internment camps, hmong history (which is especially cool because there is a pretty substantial hmong population in my home town), the american medical system, sharecropping, the plight of the homeless, traditional judaism, afghanistan, the pacific side of WWII, and mao's regime in communist china. nate jokingly calls it my foreign film club. it has been such an awesome way to open my mind and i fall deeper in love with books all the time.

it is in this spirit that i decided to make a goal to read 20 books this year. and i did it! here is my list:

nothing to do but stay (young)
wild swans (chang)
bossypants (fey)
the greatest thing since sliced bread (robertson)
the hunger games (collins)
major pettigrew's last stand (simonson)
unbroken (hillenbrand)
the kite runner (hosseini)
my name is asher lev (potok)
the glass castle (walls)
the help (stockett)
the book thief (zusak)
jane eyre (bronte)
christy (marshall)
outliers (gladwell)
gift from the sea (lindbergh)
same kind of different as me (hall, moore, vincent)
the spirit catches you and you fall down (fadiman)
maus (spiegelman)
hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet (ford)

these are some of my favorites:

jane eyre by charlotte bronte

i think this one currently holds the title of favorite book for me. this year wasn't the first time i had read it, so nate doesn't think i should declare it my favorite book of the year, but i am torn since i have never discussed it on this blog so i think it deserves recognition. jane eyre is the story of an orphaned child who rises above difficult circumstances. this story has it all: suspense, romance, and a moral backbone. but i think what i like most about it is the language. the words are so beautifully eloquent they are almost melodic and it is an absolute pleasure to read. it is the perfect difficulty level so as to make me pay attention the whole time, but not become tedious. if you haven't read it, you must.

the glass castle by jeannette walls

this book was another memoir. the author's alcoholic father and extremely eccentric mother moved the family all over the country and the children endured some extreme conditions, but they had a strange kind of closeness as well. the kids were incredibly resilient and the parents were at once despicable and (once in a while) endearing. the book really spoke of the complexity of family relationships. it was hard to read at some points, but completely enthralling. i can't wait to read the story of walls' grandmother, in half broke horses.

unbroken by laura hillenbrand

this book is yet another non-fiction and yet another WWII story. it is about louis zamperini, an olympian who becomes a bombardier and is stranded at sea for 6 weeks and then captured by the japanese and held in POW camps for over two years. it tells of the atrocities he endured there, as well as his struggle to deal with those experiences after being rescued at the war's end. another incredible story of survival against all odds, this book takes a surprising turn and has a deeply moving, spiritual ending. i also learned a lot about the pacific side of the war.

it's been a great year-- here's to lots more reading in 2012!

wonderful christmas

2011-12-29T05:49:00.003-06:00

this was a really great christmas for us. as i mentioned previously, i have been super into the buildup this year, and the actual christmas climax didn't let me down.

i'll start with the one thing that was actually not great. the roads were bad almost the whole drive there, but we made it ALMOST all the way without incident-- coming off the exit to my mom's house we slid into the curb pretty hard and ended up having to get the rim replaced. $220 and a carless weekend later, we were at least able to leave on time so nate could be back for work the next day. what is with all the wisconsin car trouble?

now with that out of the way, lets get to the fun stuff. we got there on the 23 and just relaxed with my family and watched home alone 2: lost in new york that first night. the next day we met up with my grandma secor for a little christmas eve brunch in heaven.
as you can see, it was really bright. it's always nice to see her. grandmas make you feel like such a rock star. oh, and i just happened to dress emmy in the very same thing she wore last time we visited my grandma in september. betcha she gives me new baby clothes next christmas.that night, we did our traditional homemade pizza- making. we go all out now and make our own dough, roll it out and have about 10 toppings to choose from. alex struggled a little bit. notice the expression.
then we played family charades (wherein we all imitated each other) and sang some christmas songs around the piano.

the christmas duet

which became a trio

which became a quartet

then we watched a christmas story, and i made a bargain with my mom that if she prepped all the food for the next day, i would wrap all her presents. i think that deal worked out nicely for both of us.and of course, nate insisted on wearing his old torn jingle bills shirt.
since christmas day was sunday, we headed to church first. i wish i had gotten a pic of the whole family looking nice, but all i have is this one of tyler and emmy, neither looking too pleased to be there.
oh, and this one of nate and me.my mom played a flute duet of gesu bambino, in what was my first time ever hearing her perform publicly. i am proud of her for rediscovering an old talent like that. it sounded great. i love the musical sacrament meeting. in my opinion, that is the only way to go on christmas day. it was great seeing old friends in my home ward.

then we came home and had a delicious breakfast of gingerbread waffles, bacon, sausage and quiche. i think that menu is becoming another christmas tradition. soooo delicious.

natural born griller

since everyone teased me the night before in family charades about my self portraits, i made sure to take one with everyone.
then, the highlight of everyone's day was when santa paid us a visit.

then we (finally) opened presents! i didn't get too many pics of this, but we all had some nice giving and receiving moments. especially emmy lou, who got the most gifts by far. that girl is going to be spoiled rotten. she didn't really get into tearing the paper off her presents but she did get excited when we showed her her toys. here she is trying out her new hat and mittens.
and here she is modeling the hooded towel i made her.then we had a fruit ninja tournament with alex's new kinect.
a little while later we all played a couple rounds of zack's new buzz word game, and nate and i won both times. just for the record. the rest of our time there was spent similarly, and it was a perfectly relaxing and fun time, including a lunch with craig and sara. i sure love my home and family, and am grateful for this chapter of our lives where we have lived (relatively) close to them and can spend time with them often. it has been really sweet for me.

i know this pic is blurry, but i love it.

merry christmas!

2011-12-24T21:58:00.000-06:00

let your heart be light

2011-12-21T20:58:00.005-06:00

oh how i love christmas. this season has been full of all the classic favorites-- parties, baking, cards, holiday movies, listening to christmas tunes, gifts... can't get enough of it. i mean, i love all of that stuff every year, but this year i am on some kind of super hyper christmas high. the colors seem brighter, the songs seem more fun and meaningful, and my heart is more full. maybe it is motherhood. it is so fun to share all of the merriment with my little christmas goose. and come on, who wouldn't be filled with christmas cheer at the sight of these sweet candy cane jammies?would you like to see them modeled again?
here are nate and emmy enjoying some charlie brown christmas.
and here are my two favorite new (to me) christmas songs this year. enjoy!

love mariah carey's christmas music. i can just picture another incredible synchronized dance to this one, right jill, katie, katie, kate, shelley and co.?

well, we are off to wisconsin in a couple of days-- over the river and through the woods to emmy's grandmother's house we go, a-listening to the best christmas pageant ever on cd. i hope your christmas is just as merry and bright as that.

three whole years

2011-12-19T13:54:00.002-06:00

...ago today I had the greatest wedding. I don't think I have documented some of my favorite things about that day so here goes:

There was a blizzard, so i got to wear a Beauty and the Beast- style cape. Although the snow made travel that day more complicated, it also made for a really magical memory for us. I didn't even feel cold when I came out of the temple in my short-sleeved dress (pre-cape) because I was so happy and in love.
I won a photo booth at the bridal fair! As I walked around there with my cousin Eryn, we both decided it was our favorite thing we had seen. It looked so fun but was way too expensive (I think about $1,000). Luckily, I won it in a drawing! Score! It was great to have that little activity for people to do, and they got to keep a copy and so did we-- there was someone manning the booth who put together a memory book that we were able to take away with us that night. We loved looking over it on our honeymoon and love having it in our home now.
I also won my wedding cake at the Bridal Fair, doing a backwards over-the-head bouquet toss into a trash can. I usually never win anything, that day was like magic!
I had the most helpful and beautiful bridesmaids. They made me look about 4 feet tall, but I forgive them because look how good they looked!
Almost all the people I loved were there. Despite the weather which caused some crazy travel experiences, and despite the fact that it was the week before Christmas, almost my whole family and lots of friends came from out of state to be there on our special day. It meant so much to us and I will never forget walking into the sealing room and seeing them all there in the same place.
We had a table of ancestor wedding photos going back 4 generations, which was really lovely and meaningful.
We had a lot of help from talented family on things that made the day that much more personal and special: my cousin Julie did all the flowers (a TON of work-- and she was 7 months pregnant!) AND our wedding video/slide show, my sister-in-law Alicia and Aunt Rachel played the piano at my reception,my uncle Paul did a ring ceremony for us at our luncheon, friends Violet and Keaira did my (and everyone else's!) hair and makeup,Nate's uncle Jeff did all our photography and invitations,

Katie made our guest book,and of course both our moms put in endless hours of work, planning a perfect day for us.
Of course the best thing about that day was the person I married. Look how handsome he is: He is truly unlike anyone I have ever met. He is so smart and funny and kind, and from the first week I knew him it was clear we would click in a really special way. It was a (relatively) long and somewhat odd road to marriage (maybe someday I will write about that), but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I am so happy to be married to my best friend, and to see his face every morning when I wake up. It's kind of like one long, awesome sleepover. I am so glad he is my daughter's father and I look forward to having more kids with him. I am so grateful I can be with them forever.

Happy anniversary Nate!

a true lady

2011-12-14T11:00:00.005-06:00

...always carries a purse.

whether going out
or staying in.
for funor business.she is always looking stylish and runway-ready.
I put this on her shoulder ONE TIME and it was love-- since then she has carried it around with her whenever she finds it.

But I try to get her to say "mama" about 1,000 times/ day-- no dice.

What a girl.

thanksgiving

2011-11-29T16:06:00.010-06:00

we went to my mom's in wisconsin for thanksgiving this year. she was moving to a bigger place, so we went early to help with that and ended up staying for 9 days. here are some of our shenanigans:

emmy's birthday party pt. III

japanese quiz game with zack
dinner with old friends
R & R
plenty of playtime
dance party

the Y in YMCA

and lots of love from the uncles, as usual
thanksgiving day

wearing my festive treat

there was also plenty of moving, trips to scray's cheese and seroogy's, lots of good food and some post- TG christmas decorating.

welcome, christmas season!

birthday bash

2011-11-28T17:34:00.003-06:00

first of all, here is our little babe's progression of growth in her first year. we diligently took these photos on the 17th of every month and i am so glad we did. no matter how many kids i end up having, i don't think it will ever cease to amaze me how much they change in that first year!

and of course, some outtakes:Emmaline had not one, not two, but three birthday celebrations! the first was with her family in utah the sunday before her birthday (mentioned previously). the second was on her actual birthday. i put some streamers and balloons around the apartment for her to wake up to (which she did notice, for the record). she tried to hold as many balloons in her hands as possible. then we opened presents from mom & dad (a couple of books, an outfit, a stuffed dog and the lion king DVD).
i think that part will be a lot more fun when she knows what's going on. next we put the lion king on f0r her and she was WAY into the opening scene/ song and fairly into the rest of it. nate had spent the morning working from home so he could be a part of all this, but then he had to go into work. we didn't do much birthday stuff while he was gone, except i let her have her binky as long as she wanted (she usually only sleeps with it)-- it was her special day, after all. as i mentioned before, i was pretty sentimental, remembering the events of that day last year. when daddy got home we took her to petco for a birthday activity so she could see all the little animals. she loved it and we loved watching her love it. it was the perfect little treat for her. i failed to get any REALLY good pics of her experiencing the joy but trust me, she did.we hadn't planned to have a party for her here in minnesota since she was scheduled to celebrate with both our families within a week of her big day (how many parties does a 1-year-old need?), but some friends invited us over for dinner so we decided to just have some cupcakes and sing to her anyway. that was really fun and she was a little more familiar with the cupcake thing this time.

it's not every baby that gets venison on her first birthday!

the ladies hard at work

first ponytail! i didn't want to try it until she turned one because i didn't want her to look too old. nate didn't like it. he said he likes "the way she usually wears it" better

baby race

the third celebration was with my family in wisconsin the saturday after her birthday. we did presents and cake and by this time, she knew how to attack the cake. it was hilarious. three parties made for a lot of cake for one little girl, but i didn't mind since we are trying to beef her up anyway.

sad baby in the tub. maybe just one cake next year?

our one year old

2011-11-17T13:17:00.002-06:00

happy birthday to our sweet baby girl. i can't believe it has been a whole year! all day yesterday i was thinking about where i was last year as i started labor early in the morning and progressed throughout the day, and finally went to the hospital around 10 at night to have our lives changed forever. how unbelievable it is to see her now and think about how different she was then. now she sees, processes, reacts, interacts, laughs, walks, dances, plays, feeds herself and has turned into quite the little miss personality! here is a little then-and-now.

this is what she looked like when i first saw her. all wrapped up. i am still on the operating table here.

this is nate's favorite picture. she is looking up at him like, "daddy, help me through this life".

although newborns all just look kind of newborn-y, i can totally see her in this pic. especially the mouth.

crazy wet hair

our little jack sparrow

i am surprised how emotional i have been about it all. i know we are so blessed to have this sweet, perfect, beautiful girl in our family. you truly can't stop the hands of time. if i could i would, right now. i know we have lots of trials and struggles and some sassiness ahead of us, but not right now. right now emmaline is just pure joy. here is a profile of her at 1 year old.

superb at walking, even kind of runs sometimes.
on that note, loves to be chased, and no one does it better than her daddy. giggles and squeals just like a little girl should
L.O.V.E.s dogs and other furry creatures. i know i have mentioned this before, but WOW. we can just show her a picture of a dog on the computer and she giggles. she will sit and watch a movie, complete with snuggling, if it has animals in it. she watched 101 dalmations AND homeward bound on her grandma's lap while we were in utah (and she still loves Rio). she even sat forward, clapping and and laughing and bouncing up and down at the end of homeward bound when the animals are reunited with the kids! it was the craziest thing, like she totally knew what was going on! she loves stuffed animals too. i think they are her favorite kind of toy. her vanity plate would read: ANIMLVR. she gets that from her dad.
waves hi and bye
still dances instantly when music comes on. one of my favorites :)
i can tell she understands more and more all the time, because she reacts to what i say, or she looks at the thing i am talking about. she doesn't really say words yet though.
she has 12 teeth now. i don't even know when some of them came in.
still very active. plays tirelessly.
has enough hair now that she gets some pretty good bed head.
we get lots of comments about how tiny yet good at walking she is, how blonde her hair is, how independent she is, and how long her eyelashes are.

i couldn't have asked for more. we love you, sweet emmy lou!

more to come on the birthday bash!

updated 12/9/2011
Dr's appointment yesterday ( a few weeks late) -- these are the stats:
height: 29 inches (42nd percentile)
weight: 18 lbs 10 oz (10th percentile)
head: 17.3 inches (19th percentile)

healthy girl!

another trip to utah

2011-11-16T08:28:00.000-06:00

every year nate goes to a byu home game with his dad, and this year emmy and i decided to tag along for a long weekend. ironically enough, alan wasn't actually able to go this year because he had to have shoulder surgery, but we decided to still make the trip-- nate went with his brother brian to the game, and we spent some good time relaxing at home with alan while he recovered. my favorite was watching the food network with him, particularly bobby flay's thanksgiving throwdown with the pioneer woman.

we also visited nate's best cousin mark & his family, who taught us to ride a segway. it was SO FUN! i picked up on it faster than i thought i would, as a person with little to no coordination. nate did too.
we visited my mother-in-law's classroom (she teaches 5th grade). the kids loved emmy, and the feeling was mutual. she lined right up with them like a little duckling and filed into the classroom. she thinks she is such a big girl! while the kids were at lunch she just took off exploring almost every square foot of the building. she sure knows how to take things in. it was fun seeing tere's students and her classroom. i can tell she is such a good teacher, just by the way she talks about it. i would love to be a fly on the wall while she is actually teaching, but i'm pretty sure my daughter would be too much of a distraction.

little big girl, running free in the halls

we visited a couple of our favorite utah restaurants, including a pork salad at cafe rio for me. i hate to be so cliche, but that would be my last meal. i LOVE it! here is emmy's first taste.
we stopped by nate's friend grant's wedding reception, but we were in a hurry so we didn't get any pics. there was a cute old movie theme though, which i liked. then we went down to alpine for a little get together with my family. i just love sitting around and talking with them. it's the best.
the next day i had wanted to go shoot a gun with my bro-in-law brian, since i had never done that before, but the weather was bad so we will have to do that one next time. that night was the game, and brian and nate sat in the box seats with their uncle's family and had a great time. byu won! the little lady and i met up with my friends in salt lake for dinner at bucca di beppo. i had always wanted to try that place and it was really fun! i loooooooove seeing my girlfriends and dishing on everyone's lives. i miss living close to them!
emmy was a dream-- she sat there for like 2 1/2 hours and let me talk. at one point i got a little loose and let her play around on the table, so that helped. there was no one sitting near us though, so i didn't think it was rude.
then we had a family get together on nate's side. brian and alicia and their families came over for sunday dinner and we spent time playing and chatting with them.

hmmm, nice boots aunt alicia

we sang happy birthday to emmy and gave her her first cupcake! here is what she thought:
mostly smashing with very little eating, and straight to the tub after it was over.
a highlight from that day (and the whole trip, really) for me was watching tere read the five little ducklings to emmy and maris. they both love that book. see?
what a good grandma. alan is a very adoring grandpa too, and it broke his heart that he wasn't able to pick emmy up because of his shoulder. she wandered over and gave his leg a reassuring pat from time to time, though. i think she could feel how much he loves her.

emmy still loves all things maris and was carrying around maris' backpack, clothes, toys, etc and following her around.apparently she didn't care to be picked up though.
such a fun trip and always a pleasure to be with our friends and family in the beehive state. we will be back soon!

the rest of the apple season

2011-11-02T13:34:00.014-05:00

i would say we made good use of our season pass to apple ridge. i think we went 4 times. once with just our little family (that we already blogged about), once with my mom and alex for fall fest 2011,

don't they look alike?

top model

and here's what that looked like from the side

"pick that one for me, grandma"

"thank you"

"yessssss"

she likes grapes almost as much as she likes apples

making their scary ghost faces

nice face, emmaline

once with friends,

and another time with just our little fam (this past saturday):

she needed some help reaching the high branches

scrunchy bunchy strikes again

sharing with mama

and lady & the tramp-ing it

once again, i love apple ridge orchard and will miss it. it has been one of my very favorite parts of living here. it is just so beautiful and picturesque and there are so many fun things to do there. if i had a dollar for every picture i have of emmy going after an apple like a rabid wolverine, i could afford to recreate the apple ridge experience wherever we live next!

a very scary halloween indeed

2011-10-31T21:47:00.009-05:00

so... baby girl's first halloween was NOT so cool. she was fine yesterday and suddenly when i was putting her to bed she was really unhappy and had a weird- sounding cough. she finally went to sleep but woke up early in the morning feverish with super raspy and labored breathing. the poor girl just laid in bed with us, alternating between crying and lethargy for a while until the dr's office opened and i called. i described her symptoms and they wanted to see her within the hour. the nurse said she could hear her breathing through the phone, and i wasn't even holding her.

so we went to the doctor's office, checked in, and proceeded to wait for 45 minutes, which in itself isn't the hugest deal in the world, except that everyone else kept coming and going... after they had told us to come in right away. so i went up and asked and they were like, "oops, your doctor is downstairs today". i was a little on the surly side. ugh. so anyway, the doctor said her throat was super red (so red that she ordered a strep test, which ended up coming back negative) and that she for sure had croup. they gave her a breathing treatment but she fought really hard against the mask so we had to just kind of blow it toward her. it had the strangest effect on her. she went into a sort of trance and just stared at me, stark still. i think it really made her feel better. too bad we couldn't take that thing home with us because they said since croup is viral all we can do to help her is keep her room humidified until it runs its course. so we went home and for the rest of the afternoon i held her as she drifted between sleeping, waking up and remembering she can't breathe, freaking out and crying which makes it worse, and falling back asleep. even when she was awake and not crying she just laid on my lap and didn't move. poor girl. she has also had a pretty severe diaper rash that, despite my best efforts, i haven't been able to get rid of in like 3 weeks. we were at the doctor for that one on friday. sigh.

this evening has actually been much better and she is up walking around again. i loved the extra snuggles but it is just so not her to sit on my lap like that. i can't wait for her to get better... on both ends.

i had to set her down this afternoon and she just laid like this for a long time until she fell asleep.

sick snuggles with daddy, who had stomach flu earlier this week as well. what the heck!!

earlier in the week, giving her bum some air in the empty bathtub. she spent a lot of time like this and is trying to escape.

we did manage to get some pre-halloween, pre-sickness fun in though! we carved pumpkins at the coburns'...

our pumpkin with a little hairbow and a toothy grin

played candy poker with the tuckers & co. (not pictured but super fun-- let's just say i rediscovered the joy of halloween candy in a big way),

dressed emmy up as a lil' panda,

the panda eating her fish

and went to our ward party.

we brought these sweet rice krispie treat pumpkins

i made nate dress up as a zookeeper. i was supposed to be the mama panda.

we chased our little panda around, trying to keep her from getting knocked over on the dance floor. she was one of the first ones out there, bobbing up and down. cutest thing i have ever seen.

tuckered out.

happy halloween to you, and here's to a better one for us next year!

weirs fall visit

2011-10-27T13:53:00.007-05:00

the day after my awesome NY trip, the fun continued as nate's parents paid us a visit. we always enjoy their company and were so glad to see them. we wished it could have lasted longer. they brought some bday gifts for emmy and some early christmas presents for us, and we got to open a few of them. emmy got a little "my first pets" barn with a cat, a dog, a rabbit and a bird that make noise and she LOVED it. she carries that little thing around all day, and tries to carry all the little animals at once. after many failed attempts to get them all in her little hands, she learned to use her mouth.
they also got us all matching BYU t-shirts for this year, and we wore them while we watched the game together, which they won.one night emmy was just so in love with the formerly- scary walker toy that we had to get some pics. she stuck with it for a LONG time, trying to pry it loose and re-orient when it got stuck. it seemed more like work than play, but i love my determined baby.
we took a trip to oxbow zoo, where we enjoyed watching emmy ditch us to walk all over the place and chase other families. she even climbed the fence.
thank goodness for good, loving grandparents who come visit us often. i love how sweet they are with emmy and how kind they are to us.

treat yo self 2011! (NYC)

2011-10-23T23:24:00.001-05:00

little emmy lou and i just came back from new york city and we had the best time. i am lucky enough to have two of my best friends (rebecca and jill) living there right now, so i couldn't really pass up the chance. PLUS, it is the tenth anniversary of our meeting freshman year of college. hollaaaaa!

we spend most of the week with jill and co. on staten island. her two precious littles were so sweet and so fun to get to know. i swear, emmylou had the time of her life following them around. if i wanted to see her i had to chase her down. all-in-all, this was not a sightseeing trip, as i have been to the big apple quite a few times before. so really it was kind of low-key. here is the play-by-play:

wednesday: arrived there, met mr. calvin, spent a SUPER long time driving through the city in rush-hour traffic, settled in.

thursday: made the trip to target for supplies. somewhat hectic. we had planned to make a bunch of fun recipes together but it was taking a long time to find all the ingredients and kids were melting down, so we left with only some of the things we needed. we went home, put the babies down for naps and then headed back out to another grocery store. we couldn't find everything there either, so we decided to take it down a couple notches and preserve the fun by getting some easier food. i am super pleased with our choice. that night we had a 10th anniversary week kickoff party! woohoo! we had lots of fun treats, a cake with candles, presents and commemorative t shirts! my wonderful friend alissa helped me come up with a logo for them. many thanks go to her. here is what she helped me create:front

back

i can't believe i didn't get one good picture with everyone in their t shirts but here are some of us kind of standing around wearing them.

no one was ever so excited to eat a cake

then we put the kids down and us girls stayed up late talking-- laughing, crying, all the good stuff. it was chicken soup for my soul talking to those dear friends of mine. here are some of the gifts:

jill made emmy this skirt (poor view but it is super cute)

candy crayons from me to daphne

jill opening my present to her (scarf)

friday: i can't remember what we did on this day. we must have just hung around the house and played.

saturday: john had the day off and we took the whole caravan into manhattan.

waiting at the bus stop on our way out

you can't really tell, but she is indeed buckled in.

the first stop was at madison sq park for a fall fest kids' activity. it was SUPER crowded. jill took a really good pic of me standing in front of the playground with like, a million kids in it. i will have to ask her for it. we wandered around there for a bit and then i wanted to try the famed shake shack. the line was RIDICULOUSLY long, but i really liked the food. here is my gal pal and me.then we met up with rebecca at dylan's candy store. WOW. that place was like willy wonka and the chocolate factory. ok not quite, but it was a child's wonderland of bright colors, happy music and candy as far as the eye could see. we sat in their little courtyard and enjoyed us some treats.
by then, it was already time to head back to staten island to get the kids fed and in bed (travel time was two hours each way, with the walk, then the subway, then the ferry, then the bus, then the walk back to their house). here are some pics from the ferry:

on the way into the city:

statue of liberty

on the way back:the three blonde girls

cute cuddly mama's boy

everyone did surprisingly well that day, with all the craziness and the traveling and the crowds. carrying the strollers up the subway stairs was an adventure in itself. i wish i had a picture of that. my arms were straight up over my head and i could hardly even see where i was going! so once we got back, just the girls headed out for a ladies' night. we decided we were too tired to do a trip back to manhattan, so we went to dinner at carabba's and talked again until they closed. sooooooo nice. rebecca slept over that night.

sunday: church. was. crazy. my daughter does NOT like to sit still, especially since she has become proficient in walking. there was snack- dumping, running around, and general craziness. here we are lounging and recuping afterward.

here rebecca is wearing the gift i made for calvin-- a bowtie

that night we had jill's neighbors over for a lovely dinner of steak, potatoes, salad and carrots. katlyn even said we should take a picture of it, because it was just beautiful to behold. note to self-- if you get a good cut of meat, you don't have to do that much to it. it just tastes good.

monday: we crafted some hair clips and garlands, took some nice pics of the kids (which jill also has-- i will have to post later) and i enjoyed my last day with jill and her family. their little boy calvin had a cleft palate, and his second major surgery was the next day so we spent some time getting ready for jill's mom to come, getting his stuff for the hospital together and just snuggling that sweet little boy. he is so endearing. we joke a lot about him and emmy getting married someday, but i seriously kind of want them to. and from the looks of it, their personalities will be very compatible. where she is super independent, he is loving and snuggly. where she is pretty temperate (most of the time), he wears his emotions on his sleeve. she is girly and he is manly, right down to their movements and the sounds they make. it is so funny. but anyway, jill's mom came to town that night and rebecca stayed overnight again. we all had a nice dinner of ribs (again, with the good cuts of meat...) and enjoyed each other's company. we said our goodbyes to the haggertys as they had to leave for surgery early in the morning.

tuesday: rebecca and i got all my stuff together and took it on the road. i decided to stay with her for my last night in ny rather than trespass on the hospitality of jill and john under the circumstances. to cut down on travel time, we took all my stuff on the road with us to hoboken, new jersey so we could see the famous carlo's bakery from the show cake boss!

rebecca wearing the scarf i made her

chic baby

this is how we traveled for half the day-- with ALL my stuff!

no jokin'

although the way they handle the crowds there was kind of lame, and i was a little sad no to see anyone from the show (mauro? cousin anthony? mary?) it was so cool and totally worth the trip to see it and be inside and eat their delicious food! should your path ever lead you there, i HIGHLY recommend the lobster tails. i wish i would have gotten 10 of them. as it was, we each got three things and tried each other's. it was heavenly. then we got some pizza for lunch and headed back to manhattan, where rebecca lives. we (finally) dropped off my suitcase, stroller and carseat and headed back out to spend some time in central park, which is only a couple of blocks away. SO cool. we sat across the water from belvidere castle and let emmy run around, since she had been confined for so long. sweet rebecca didn't want her to get snatched, so she followed her around.

i included my foot so all 3 of us could be in the picture

this bag was jill's gift to me. she made it!

we wandered a few more blocks to find a place to eat a nice dinner, and by the time we were done with that we headed home, put emmy to bed and watched troop beverly hills, in honor of her new assignment as stake cub scout matriarch. well, i sort of watched it. i fell asleep about halfway through. guess i was exhausted from all the fun.

wednesday: fun's over. time to go home. i had a LOOOOONG day of travel with miss i-don't-want-to-be-held, but we finally made it back and fell into bed. it was so good to see nate again. we didn't talk very much while i was gone, since he spent the weekend on the other side of the country (oregon) at a byu game with his friends phil, jess, and jonny. i really missed him.

additional thoughts on my trip:
1- there were some hectic moments with the kids which made us wonder if we should start just doing girls' weekends from now on. it would be so nice not to have to divide our attention and just focus on being together. that being said, it was really priceless to watch our kids play together (pretty sure calvin taught emmy how to clap) and to get to know each others' families better.
i have a newfound understanding and love for daphne's fun free-spiritedness (i love remembering all the funny things she said while i was there, and the way her little lips pucker when she talks)and calvin's sweetness-- i think i got more snuggles out of him than my own daughter. special thoughts and prayers go out to our little buddy as he recovers from his surgery.2- in the same vein, i can't express enough appreciation to jill's husband john for letting us stay. through a series of events, emmy ended up even sleeping in their bedroom for about half of the week. he handled all of it graciously and was, as ever, fun to be around. i have always super enjoyed his personality and we had some good conversations. john, if you are reading this, thank you so much!3-jill and john tried QUITE hard to convince me to watch battlestar galactica. it gave me a good chuckle.
4- LOTS of cute tub moments occurred.

notice the glee in emmy's face. this is how she was all week!

5- a couple of emmy's funny travel moments:
6- i fell in love with goat cheese on this trip. i had never had it before and it was delish!
7- a word on new yorkers: they get a bad rap, but i think they are really nice. if i had a dollar for every time someone called my baby beautiful, offered to help me carry something up the subway stairs or gave their seat to another person, i would have practically been able to pay for my trip. spread the word-- new yorkers are great!
8- our other dear friend katie was not able to be with us, as originally planned, and we missed her!
9- finally, a note on good friends. i mean the really good kind. there is just nothing like them and i can't express how grateful i am that their paths have crossed mine and we have been able to keep in touch all these years and have really meaningful friendships, even with all the different things our lives have brought. the longer i live the more i realize how special and rare these kinds of friends really are.

it was a GREAT week and i miss my friends already! can't someone move NY and MN closer on the map, please??

eleven months

2011-10-17T07:57:00.002-05:00

modeling a bowtie i had made for a friend's baby

i love this-- it's a total baby bigfoot picture

here's the buzz on emmy this month:

she walks! i posted last month that she had taken her first steps, but now she is seriously walking. she is still unsteady but works on it quite a bit, and is starting to use walking as her primary form of transportation. this vid was actually taken a couple of weeks ago.

and sometimes she gets tired and frustrated after lots and lots of tries and it ends up looking like this. (maybe i'm mean but i think this is funny):

she dropped down to one nap a couple of weeks ago. i tried to deny it for a while, but she was going that direction and there was no stopping her. aaaahhhh, i will miss those days. i know it will be a loooooong time until i have that much free time again. so now she sleeps from like 12:30- 2:30.
she is MUCH easier to leave now. when i drop her off at the gym daycare she cries for a minute and then plays happily. most of the time.
she loves opening and closing things and pulling things out. it seems like she has suddenly found everything she isn't supposed to have. i am finally going to have to move my cleaning products to higher ground, even though she has been mobile for a while.
she also loves to turn book pages. sometimes i speed read to keep up with her page turning. i don't know why, it's not like she knows the difference.
Laughs at furry animals
i think she recognizes the following words: emmy, mama, dada, bottle, binky, bye bye, no and book
she will repeat "dow" when we ask her if she wants to get down. pretty sure she doesn't know what it means though. she also says mama sometimes when she is angry and crying, but i'm not entirely sure she is doing it on purpose or that she means me. she has been doing this for a couple of months
she has overcome her fear of the walker toy! woohoo!
it is pretty difficult to change her, as she does NOT like to sit/ lay still. i have to pull a lot of tricks out of my hat to get through a diaper change.
she has backed herself up into me a few times to sit on my lap. this warms my heart, especially since she is a busy girl who usually doesn't have TIME for snuggles.
she is big into digging in the dirt when we are outside. and crawling faaaar away from us (see baby bigfoot photo above).
she has already won the hearts of a couple of the little boys in our ward. here she is with one of them, her friend Daniel.

tubby time

2011-10-10T19:35:00.005-05:00

picking apples

2011-09-30T22:10:00.002-05:00

i love apple ridge orchard. we got a season pass and i hope to use it a lot. who knows where we will be next fall, so we have to make it count! our first visit of the season was last weekend and it was wonderful. here is the count:

people who mistook emmy for a boy (that we know of): 4 (i forgot her bow, ok?)
people we asked to take our picture: 5

families from our ward we saw there: 3
apples we ate in the orchard: 4
wins i had in our hit-that-tree-with-the-rotten-apple game: 0
times more comfortable i was this year compared to last year : 1,000

2010

2011

things i got to check off my fall bucket list: 4 (apple picking, hay ride, corn maze, pumpkin patch)
better fall days i have had with my little family: 0

you know what though? someone's baby needs a lesson in picture-taking cooperation.i love this intense-apple-eating photo montage:

no, dad, it's soooo good

baby bite marks

not now, mom

ten months

2011-09-17T16:40:00.003-05:00

another month of our babe's first year gone by, and her little personality just continues to emerge. i love it! tere called her "driven", and i think that is very accurate. when she wants something she will do whatever it takes to get it. i have a feeling i am in for some trouble. examples:

she wanted to get to her binky, no matter the cost

2. wanted to turn around and stand up in the shopping cart, but was strapped in, so she ended up spending the rest of our shopping trip in this full squat position. maybe she thought she would be safer rear-facing, like in the car seat.other news:

lately all she wants to to is have us walk her around. when we put her down, she will kind of lean back against our legs so that we can't walk away before she has a chance to grab our fingers. and then when she does, she is steering the ship.

and it must have paid off for her because she took her first steps 2 days ago! it was more of a lunge-fall but she did take 3 steps from dad to mom and the look of pure exhilaration and pride on her little face was completely priceless. i hope i never forget it.
in the last 2-3 days or so she has really started standing on her own a lot. as in, often but for short periods, like 10 seconds tops
getting better about being left with other people
hates baths right now. she is scared to sit down so she kind of hangs over the edge and creates a watery mess.
getting pretty good at crosswords and word searches
experimenting with new noises (kissy sounds, clicking her tongue)
loves this tigger toy from her uncle zack. when we squeeze his ear to make the music start, she rocks on it.
we got her a walking toy to practice with, but she is terrified of it and won't go near it. maybe this first experience with it was traumatizing. you can kind of see the traumatization (word?) taking place in this video.
so, she has had a cold this week and we have been sleeping her in her car seat on the floor to help her breathe. a couple of days ago, i put her down for a nap in there and got in the shower. a few minutes later, nate asked me, "is emmy supposed to be out here?". she had wriggled herself out of the car seat, opened her door (which was just cracked), and come right out. she did the same thing yesterday morning when she woke up-- just crawled into our room like "hey mom and dad!" it was so funny having her come get us, and not the other way around.
follows us around and if she can't play with us, she plays near us. i love this shot of her playing under the table while nate works, and just pleased as can be about it.

i found her like this during a nap one day.
and here she is playing with the phone (one of her favorite things). i love the caught-red-handed look on her face.
what a girl. we are so blessed.

changing seasons

2011-09-16T10:11:00.002-05:00

"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each."---Henry David Thoreau

i think we really did that this summer. we got to have great weather, go lots of fun places, do lots of fun new things, have some visitors... i really caught minnesota fever this year and wanted to go try everything we haven't done yet (which it turns out was/ still is kind of a lot). we made some good progress on our list but there is still a lot more waiting for us! among the things we did that have not been discussed on this blog are:

our trip to the covered bridge park in zumbrota. very cute and quaint. i love stuff like that.

a couple of trips down to thursdays on first-- a local summertime market. i think i like the idea of this one more than the reality because it is always so crowded.
first (!) trip to oxbow zoo! can't believe we had never done that before.
ward temple trip
read a lot. sounds more like a winter thing, i know, but i did it and loved it!
more raspberry picking and eating

took countless walks. my very favorite thing about taking walks with nate is the chance we get to talk. we have better talks when we are out walking than any other time-- big talks about life decisions, our past, our futures, dream jobs, dream house, dreams for our kids, and also a whole lot of nothing at all. i love it. and also, check out this tree in our neighborhood! i have never seen a siamese twin tree like this!

one thing i LOVE about midwest summers is the green. i love the extreme lush greenness all around. so beautiful.

so goodbye, sweet summertime. we have loved you while you were here but are super excited to welcome our favorite season of all-- fall!

labor day weekend

2011-09-11T22:14:00.000-05:00

we took it on the road to WI for labor day weekend. it's always good to see the fam and experience some hometown nostalgia. this time we:

got ice cream from hansen's (the BEST)
got candy from seroogy's (the other BEST)
got some spoon roasts from festival foods (triple BEST)
went to the farmer's market with my mom and they even had zhen zhus there (tapioca pearl drinks i used to have on my mission)! biggest surprise ever! i have only seen those a few times in the states and NEVER at a farmer's market in green bay.
did a photo shoot with my mom. very successful...
tried to go to bay beach but it rained, so we went to a bowling alley instead, which was closed for the holiday weekend. finally we found one that was open and we were the ONLY ones there, but i think that made it more fun. we ran the jukebox and knocked a few pins down and had us a good time. my mom won both times. way to go, mom!

visited my grandma secor, and she had a collection of stuffed animals in her living room to be donated to the salvation army, but in the meantime emmy was having the time of her life rolling around in them. maybe we should buy her some more toys.

i organized a big shelf of food storage for my mom. yes, i took a pic because i was proud of it!

other gems from the weekend:

playing uncle's guitar

alex messing up my self portrait

oops

alex looking good again

zack looking good too, as always

tyler looking sleepy

we couldn't believe how long she sat with him like this. he has some kind of power over her.

love from daddy

two against one

2011-09-06T19:12:00.000-05:00

i guess this is how we smile now.

mischief of one kind and another

2011-08-25T21:09:00.004-05:00

(name that book)

emmy placed her first phone call the other day, unbeknownst to her mother. congratulations, grandma hill! she chose you!

also, this is why my hair looks bad lately:emmy has become obsessed with my brushes. for some reason i wound up owning two identical red brushes and she just can't get enough of them. she crawls around the house, going about her business with one in each hand and i find them abandoned in strange places.

...which behavior led us to immediately suspect her when our camera fell missing. (also red-- maybe she is drawn to red things?). we were searching high and low last night for it and i found nate crawling around. i asked what he was doing and he said he was retracing emmy's footsteps.

this is what emmy wore yesterday.

august 24th, 2011

what's that you say? you've seen that outfit before?

April 6th, 2011

why, yes you have. if she has to be so small, at least we get a lot of mileage out of her clothes.

when we went raspberry picking last week emmy just straight up crawled around eating dirt. maybe i should be a little more vigilant about stuff like that but i guess i figure kids have been eating dirt since the dawn of time, so it's probably fine. anyway, she was COVERED in mud and raspberries and was thrilled about it. her face looked like she had dunked it in a bucket of melted chocolate. here she is about to have her bath. (i had cleaned her up a little before this so you can't quite see the extent of her filth).
and just for fun, here is one of emmy and talya. we babysat her last week and nate pulled them around the apartment on a blanket (baby magic carpet ride-- a current favorite). he was having more fun than it looks like.
cute girls, right?

nine months

2011-08-17T10:02:00.001-05:00

we are crazy about this sweet and spicy little girl. not sure what her measurements are, but we go to the doctor on friday so i will update this post then. i am kind of dying to know, because we haven't been for 3 months and according to our scale she isn't gaining any weight. she sure seems healthy and active though (apart from the cold she has had this week) so i don't *think* i need to be worried.

**update**
weight: 15.75 lbs (6th percentile)
height: 27 inches (29th percentile)
although her percentile ranking keeps dropping on the weight, the doctor isn't concerned because her actual weight is going up, she seems healthy and especially active, and he says a lot of babies kind of level off when they start moving a lot. good! kind of confirmed what i had thought.

lately she:

dances when music comes on! (kind of bobs up and down)
8/2- started walking along furniture!
does a sort of fake coughing noise a lot
kicks her legs really hard when she's happy
loves to play crawl-and-go-seek
has 6 teeth and may be working on #7
as previously mentioned, is experimenting with standing on her own
likes to try to crawl around with a toy in each hand
gets mad when i take things away, but only for a couple seconds
is starting to show real attachment to her daddy-- wants him to hold her, cries when he leaves... pretty sure he loves it
is becoming VERY difficult to feed/ change-- squirmy and acrobatic
sometimes clingy, and follows me around crying at my feet
starting to remember where things are and look for them there

niagara cave

2011-08-14T19:40:00.005-05:00

tyler was here this weekend and we took him to niagara cave, which is about an hour south of here. i had heard it was cool and i read that it was rated one of the top ten caves in the country, but i was still a bit skeptical considering the area where it's located it straight farmland. like down home, heartland farms. cows, barns, silos, rolling hills... but i thought what the heck, might as well check it out. imagine my surprise when it turned out to be AWESOME. like, really cool. there is even a little wedding chapel down there and a bunch of couples get married there every year. i don't know that i get a romantic vibe from the whole thing, but maybe if you are a geologist?? i guess a farmer lost some pigs and found them down there and that's how it was discovered. i can't imagine stumbling on a whole other world like that. none of my photos turned out because it was too dark, so here are some that i snatched from the internet. they don't even do it justice but they give you an idea.
here are the couple pics that i managed to get:
one of my favorite parts of the whole experience was when nate made up a song called "stalactite" to the tune of "satellite" by dave matthews band. it might even rival my current favorite of his parodies-- "pepperoni" to the tune of lady gaga's "paparazzi".

who knew, minnesota? turns out you have some pretty good tricks up your sleeve!

weirs here 2011

2011-08-12T16:54:00.001-05:00

we had a delightful time with the weirs this year on their summer visit. we tried some new things, i.e. visiting lake city. all we really did here was sit on a blanket at a park and watch the mississippi river roll by. emmy wasn't really interested in sticking her feet in.
she was, however, interested in being extremely cute in her colonial baby 2.0 hat. we lost the original.

we also tried out the nelson cheese factory, which was AWESOME. it doesn't look like much from the outside, but the inside was a cheesy wonderland. i told nate that an awesome gift idea would be to take me to that cheese factory and let me sample all the kinds i wanted. sigh...
we bought cheese curds (which nate was crazy for), a block of baby swiss for alan, and some ice cream cones. they had a positively charming little courtyard where we ate our cones and chatted. emmy got a nice taste of the good stuff, which she may not have thought was so good.
and here is tere, a non-cheese lover, eating a token cheese curd.
then i wanted to go back in and browse some more, and after a pretty thorough look around i decided i wanted to try the cranberry white cheddar and some cheese fudge. here was our cheese platter that we created when we got home. i did not like the cheese fudge, liked the swiss and LOVED the cranberry cheddar.
the next day we headed the other direction (south) to visit an amish community in harmony, mn. we rented a cd from the depot and did a back roads tour in our car. i find the amish so interesting and on this tour they took us right to the farms of the families, and the cd would say, "this is the home of mr. and mrs. so-and-so" and talk about what their specific family did. this wasn't really quite what i was expecting but i really liked it. most of the farms had little shops right on-site where you could buy produce, baskets, small furniture, crafts, jams, baked goods... it was really cool. i bought red potatoes and peach jam and tere got a basket for her classroom, some jam and i feel like there was something else i am forgetting. we talked to the nicest lady in one of the shops. i had scared tere (and myself a little bit, too) with a "surprise box" that had a little fake mouse jump out of it, and she laughed and laughed with us. the amish don't like pictures taken of them because they believe it is creating a graven image, so we didn't get any pictures of the tour but it was beautiful countryside. very quaint. afterward we had a picnic in the park and i took about 1,000 pictures to make up for it.
then we visited that pie shop in wahlan that we had tried on our bike trip, which was nice because the road to get there took us on a lovely scenic byway. very scenic indeed. the pie shop however was not as good as the first time-- they didn't have the raspberry cream we loved so much-- in fact, they only had about 4 kinds, whereas last time they had at least 10. we hadn't really considered the fact that it was a weekday and not a saturday. despite the limited selection, most of us liked what we got and the one who didn't got to do tradesies.

then on the last day they were here i took them to the plummer house (more on this place in a future post). we had a really nice time walking around the grounds although we didn't get to go inside because we went on the wrong day. oops. i am really curious to see the inside.
other than that, we played a lot of dominion, walked like son-of-a-guns, cooked and ate delicious food together (including alan's famous cookies and a trip to newt's), read books and played on the floor with baby and were all smitten with her charms. especially during mealtimes when she just smiled away in her high chair and made her signature happy noises. she was a little leery of them the first day they were here but warmed up more and more each day. it's a shame they had to leave right when she got used to them! we are so glad they came to visit and loved spending time with them, as always. can't wait til next time!

extra treat: a photo of some asiago crisps we made. very good.

nate's best friend's wedding

2011-08-07T20:46:00.009-05:00

we returned last night from a super quick trip to seattle to marry off nate's buddy todd. standby went well, we made all the flights we wanted to and even got to sit together. emmy was full of... shall we say... zest for life and it was kind of exhausting wrestling with her. but we put that poor baby through the ringer dragging her all over the place like we did and while she was rambunctious, she was really a champ. she is such a good girl. and get this-- she stood on her own for like 7 seconds at the hotel there! i guess traveling makes her want to hit milestones (first tooth- wi, crawled- ut, stood on her own- wa).

so we got in on wed night late, and on thursday nate actually had to work from the hotel all day because the trip fell on when the month close was. so emmy and i kind of hung out in the room. that night we went to a bbq in the couple's honor and we finally got to meet stephanie. they had a lot of mingling to do so we didn't get to talk to her all that much, but through some email correspondence we've had she seems like a lovely girl and we couldn't be happier for our friend todd. he and nate go way back to high school and he has been a really important part of his life. they were joined at the hip in high school, roommates in college, he helped nate buy my ring and orchestrate his proposal to me, he came and stayed with us a couple years ago in virginia, and has been a really good friend to both of us. the way he and nate laugh when they are together is a rare jewel in life, i am coming to find out more and more the older i get. it just feels so good to see your besties marry salt of the earth people, and it looks like todd did. can't wait to get to know

steph better in preparation for when we live next door to them on our dream street :)

their wedding was wonderful and while i wasn't expecting to be able to go in because i would be watching emmy, a series of events led me to be able to go in after all at the last minute. it was great! and so touching to be reminded that when we make temple covenants we are able to be with our families forever.

afterward we had some time to kill so we had us a little photo shoot.

and then our camera died.

the luncheon was at a cute italian restaurant and we ended up sitting by the couple. hello head table. one of steph's family traditions is to reveal the quilts their families have made for them at the luncheon. one of them was totally out of this world, and had a bunch of stuff on it to represent each of their separate lives and then their lives together. we were all too pleased to see that a high point in our history of friendship was represented: lumberjack saturday. see the flannel shirt?

on LJS (which took place about a week before nate and i started dating) a bunch of us had flapjacks, wore flannel, acquired an ax, and set out to fell a tree. we ended up not felling any trees but instead driving around surveying and taking pictures. here are some of them.

more time to kill after the luncheon led us to see the movie crazy stupid love which we both actually kind of liked. and it's rare for me not to be disappointed by movies these days.

the reception was fun, and we got to know a lot of fun people. delicious food, candy bar, dancing... life can't get better. emmy was a real cutie giggling on the dance floor. too bad we killed our camera battery.

the next day we headed back to ol' minnesota. we had another good flight day. as per tyler's request, here is another vid.

emmy made friends with a baby boy during our layover in minneapolis. they crawled around together and were really cute.

it was a fun time had by all. i love going to weddings and remembering what it felt like to be there. they are such joyful occasions, so full of romance hope. we wish all the best for our friends todd and steph!

i want to ride my bicycle, i want to ride my bike

2011-08-01T09:23:00.003-05:00

on saturday we went down to lanesboro with some friends and had a bunch of fun. it is a cute little town with a lot of scenic places and it was in full summertime splendor.
this isn't my picture, but it is of lanesboro

we rented bikes from a little general store and did some trail riding. nate and i decided to try a tandem bike. something our friends told us AFTER we had rented it was that they heard those things are the quickest way to divorce. i can now safely say i understand the expression. those things are h.a.r.d. to maneuver and take some serious teamwork. it took us a good while to even get off the ground, and each of us thought it was the other's fault because it feels like the other one is pulling the bike down onto the ground, even though they are really trying. you have to push off at the exact same moment. once we got going it wasn't so hard, but i couldn't see at all with him in front of me, and that was weird/scary when we picked up speed. it was hard to totally trust him. especially when he rode us up into a gazebo for fun (eye roll). all i know is, the next time we are called on to give a talk or lesson about marriage, we have our metaphor all set. i was glad we did it once just so we could say we did, and it actually turned out to be a really fun adventure and will be a good memory. here we are with our sweet wheels.
so anyway, what i could see of the ride was beautiful. there were flowers, a river, and pretty woods.
the next town over had famous pie, so we had to try some, even though it was only like 10:30 in the morning. we shared a piece of raspberry cream, and let me tell you, it was not the least bit over-rated. nate has mentioned it no less than three times since we left there, and i'd be lying if i said it hadn't crossed my mind as well.after pie, we rode back to lanesboro. it was then that emmy decided she had had enough of the bike trailer and poor colten had to pull one screaming baby for about 15 minutes until she got their baby going as well, and then it was two. they finally wore themselves out.
when we got back we had ourselves a picnic lunch at the park. it was hot and tiring and fun and i am really glad we did it. we will have to try it again in the fall when the leaves are turning. i bet it will be gorgeous then.

in other biking news (i can't believe i haven't mentioned this), nate has become something of a cyclist himself. a couple of months ago he acquired a schwinn from a friend of my mom's, and has been riding it to work most days. he has the best time using the gps on his phone to track exactly how far he goes, how fast, what the elevation change is, what his averages are, and so on and so on and so on. in fact, he wanted me to be sure to link to the report from our ride on saturday.

and here is the traveler.
so i guess we're bikers now. we bike. next stop: tour de france.

thoughts?

2011-07-27T10:36:00.002-05:00

ok, here's one for all the wise mothers i know. emmy has had a VERY hard time lately when i leave her at the gym childcare center. we have been going there for like 6 months but starting just lately she will basically cry for the whole hour i'm gone. like really high pitched scream-squeals and everyone in the gym can hear it. it's very distressing, cause not only do i hate hearing my baby cry like that, but i feel bad for the workers and all the people trying to exercise. i'm sure they all roll their eyes when they see us coming in the door. i know separation anxiety is a normal part of baby/ childhood, but is there anything you would recommend to speed the process of getting over it along? should i leave her for shorter amounts of time? more often? it is really tempting to just keep her with me and not go, because at home she is a ridiculously easy baby but a) i really need to hit to the gym and b) i don't want to foster her being afraid of people. i also don't want to traumatize her, which if you could hear the way she screams, you would swear i was doing.

can i hear some opinions on this?

2 weeks of arex

2011-07-20T14:15:00.005-05:00

my brother alex stayed with us for two weeks. admittedly, it can be a struggle as a 28 year old girl to find many similar interests with a 15 year old boy. but a few days into it, i realized that that is ok and we fell into a pretty good rhythm of doing some things together and some things separately. things we did together:

read. this is one we did a lot of during emmy's nap times. alex read a book for school and i read the book thief and the help. both awesome books that i whole-heartedly recommend.
went to the park several times.

played rummikub. i taught him, he caught on fast, and i think we ended up tied in the final tally of games
saw movies. i took him to zookeeper and nate took him to harry potter.
picked raspberries

went bowling. this one nate actually did with him and they got 3 games in in about 45 min.
another thing he did with nate was go to boy scouts with him both weeks and help him out.
played a lot with the baby girl. turns out alex is the king of peek a boo. she doesn't always get into this game when nate and i play it with her but for some reason alex's particular variety won her over. he even used it to get her to stop crying on multiple occasions which i'm pretty sure has never happened with me.

here she is with the mr. happy toy he made for her.

volunteered. he helped me with my meals on wheels deliveries twice. once was during quite a downpour. thanks for that one, arex.
played guitar hero. this was probably my favorite memory of the trip--especially livin on a prayer. the whole family got into it. even emmy.

it was nice having him here. good memories with my bro.

eight months

2011-07-17T16:18:00.003-05:00

this has absolutely been my favorite month so far. it is the month our little big girl really started to move around on her own. as i mentioned, a few days after she turned 7 months she started crawling, and just a few days after that she started pulling herself up to stand. now that is all she wants to do! i was really surprised by how quickly this all happened. i thought she would crawl for a couple of months before she figured out the pulling up thing. not sure i am ready for this! by now she is pretty adept at going from laying to sitting to crawling to kneeling to standing and everything in between. she also is perfecting the ability to bend her knees and lower herself slowly to the ground instead of simply letting go and free falling. this is a welcome relief to all of us, as she has had some tough days. i'm glad she learned that one fast. she will follow me around the house and just as she gets to me i am usually moving on to the next thing. if she can catch me before that she will pull herself up on my legs and look up at me with those baby blues. how can i resist this?? i usually can't and i end up stopping what i am doing to pick her up and play. she has really become my little buddy. i give her about a thousand kisses a day and it still doesn't feel like enough. i miss her by the end of her nap and find myself going back over and over again to see if she is up yet. the other day i found her asleep like this:some more things:
- my bro has been staying with us the last couple weeks, so we wheel her crib into our room and give him her room. my favorite is waking up in the morning, looking down to the foot of our bed and seeing her standing up in her crib with her little nose poking up over the rail, waiting to be noticed.
- similarly, it is so fun to see her little blond head poke up from behind the ottoman, chairs, the couch, or whatever she is pulling up on.
- she now has 2 teeth on top and 2 on bottom
- i'm not sure what her height and weight is because we haven't had a dr. appointment in a couple of months but she is still kind of small. she still wears a lot of her 3-6 month clothes.
- she has just recently started eating little bits of some of the things we eat. she has tried rice, noodles, corn, toast, peas, and eggs, among other things. kind of clumsy with the pincer grasp but she usually gets it done. here she is with my empty corn cob (shout out to our little DC buddy mason who used to love doing this!)- she loves books and slaps all the pages as i read to her. it makes it difficult to turn them but i like her enthusiasm. she also slaps her high chair tray a lot. she is really into slapping things.
- still making the scrunchy bunchy face (we love those high chair pics):- crawls straight off the blanket when we bring her outside and tries to eat the grass, leaves, sticks, and other delights of nature.
- she has become a master back archer and changing her diaper is not so easy as it once was. i'm just glad it's summer so there are less clothes to wrestle off and on her. on that note, she hates having her clothes changed.
- she is still SO social. she plays very "aggressively"with other babies, crawling right up on to them and grabbing at their faces. she is, of course, filled with glee as she does this. the other babies are not always so happy about it. last week at church she scared a baby twice her size and made her cry. we gotta work on that one. this week she paid multiple visits to the 4 families in our vicinity during sacrament meeting.
- i hate having to fish mystery objects out of her mouth. except when i pinch her cheeks together to make her mouth open and she laughs because she thinks i am playing with her. that is pretty cute.
as i write this i am reminded again of how blessed we are that she is healthy and happy and she is ours forever. this is what life is all about.

independence weekend

2011-07-07T09:15:00.006-05:00

the mom and bros came out and we had a very nice 4th of july weekend together. we spent some time at the park each day and there was lovely lovely weather.

little big girl crawled directly off the blanket and started pulling up the grass.

and chewing on it. she loved finding helicopters (i don't even know what those are called for real).
and had her first bike ride. excuse the blur, they were whizzing by.

and on the actual 4th, we got some more mileage out of the flag dress

tyler offered emmy some burger

and she got some double lovin' from mom & dad.

i made some new decorations for the occasion

and also some patriotic foods. the trifle looked good,

the star-spangled pie got a little bit toasty on top.

i am really grateful to live in this country and had a lot of fun celebrating it with my family.

efforts

2011-07-05T23:27:00.009-05:00

#1: you may have noticed a lovely new header on my blog. it was done by my dear friend jill and i love it! doesn't she do beautiful work? thanks friend!

#2: you may also have noticed a fun new title font. it was the result of hours of correctional work done by my husband to rectify my failed attempt at it.

***i cannot recommend trying to change your blog font. it is quite complicated and life is too short***

that said, i sure like it now that i have it. thank you nate, my internet hero!

#3: and finally, if you follow this link and scroll about 4/5 of the way down, you may find something you have seen before on this little blog of mine.

***in the interest of full disclosure, i'm pretty sure everyone that submits a photo gets "featured"***

that said, it is real fun to see something you made on someone else's website! yay! i am famous!!

utah part 2: the wedding & beyond

2011-06-28T10:16:00.004-05:00

thursday was the wedding day! alicia looked beautiful and the gardens at eldredge manor, although hot, were a lovely setting. here we are in the bridal room right before it started.
nate looked so handsome in his suit.

after the wedding there was a nice luncheon where we sat with brian and brandy and their family. the more i get to know them the more i really enjoy them. they are great people and their kids are so fun. we spent our down time that afternoon watching the natural with them back at the house. the air conditioning wasn't working and the temp was in the 90's so we all grouped together in the basement and it was actually really nice bonding time talking and laughing. then we headed to the church for the pictures (much to brian and nate's chagrin) and the reception. more time spent talking and enjoying friends and family.and after all the sweets at the reception, we decided to balance it out with some "real" food at in-n-out. it was a beautiful day with no major mishaps, and the bride and groom looked very happy and in love. also, emmylou's 3rd tooth finally poked through on this day.

friday we spent some down time back at the house. we played stratego and nate came up with what he thinks is the ultimate strategy that i will never be able to beat. whatever. but after all that running around all week it was nice to just relax. nate spent a lot of time helping his mom out with her new website on that day as well. we also took a lovely walk around the neighborhood. i can't say enough about how beautiful the weather was while we were there. the mountains were all green, the flowers were in bloom and the weather was warm and NOT humid!
saturday was our last day in utah and we spent it with my family that lives in utah. specifically, my uncle roger and his family, my uncle kevin and his family, my uncle craig, my grandpa and step-grandma (who recently moved there from wisconsin) and my cousin julie and her family. roger just moved to a new house and we gathered there to grill out and spend time together. we also celebrated my grandpa's birthday a couple of days early. emmy met a lot more second cousins there and was, again, VERY excited about it. this video is a must-watch. i love poor little baby annabelle on the floor wondering what the heck is going on.

emmy kind of beat up poor anna because she was too excited and kept grabbing at her, and i am not used to running interference since she hasn't really been bigger than many babies that she has met. sorry about that julie!
i always love the time that i spend with my extended family. it is one of my favorite things in the whole world and i really love how nate has found his niche within our group.

sunday morning early we traveled back to minnesota and when we got home that night, emmy pulled herself up to standing for the first time! WHAT? i feel like we brought home a different baby. she just gets cuter and cuter and more and more fun. i love that she can crawl because it is an insight into her mind. before we just had to guess what she wanted and she had to wait to be acted upon. now when she wants something she can go for it and it is fun to see what she goes for. also, while we were there she developed her hiiiiiigh-pitched squeal. it got higher and higher. happy, sad, it's all different versions of a high pitched squeal. yikes.

every time we go to utah we feel like we don't have enough time to see everyone we want to see and do everything we want to do. this time we did a pretty good job of fitting it all in, but emmy had to put up with being dragged all around with no semblance of a regular schedule and she met all kinds of new people, when her days are normally spent mostly at home with me and nate. she did a great job though and for the most part was VERY adaptable and tolerant of all that mayhem. just for fun, here are a few documented exceptions.
i think she had to sleep off some residual exhaustion. the first day home she slept in til 10 and then again from noon-3.

we had such a fun trip and didn't want to come back to reality! thank you, weirs, for hosting us!

utah part 1

2011-06-28T10:06:00.001-05:00

as i said in the last post, we just returned from a trip out to nate's homeland of utah. it was an action-packed and VERY fun trip. we got there on thursday, june 16th and after a quick trip to the store for diapers, baby food, etc, we went out to pei wei with nate's parents to celebrate my birthday. here is one of emmy that first day eating her baby food in her dad's high chair.
friday morning i worked on stenciling a welcome mat for alicia's wedding (which was the purpose of our trip) outside. the weather was GORGEOUS the whole time we were there. nate, alan and emmy were nice enough to join me out on the lawn while i worked. tere was in a class. here is emmy in her jammies and sun bonnet.
then i went down to american fork to meet up with my cousin julie for manicures and lunch at cafe rio! it is always so fun to be with her. she is so easy to talk to and i even got to see her beautiful new baby annabelle. thanks again for the fun mani's, cuz!

then i headed back up to kaysville for about an hour to collect my baby and regroup and i headed back down to salt lake to meet up with my mission friends brittany and sarah jane at a chinese restaurant. the stretches of time between our meetings is becoming longer and longer, and it is so nice to see them when i can. sometimes i feel like my mission never really happened and it was all just a dream. it is nice to relive the good times with my dear former companions that i shared them with and see where they are now. i guess on this day i hadn't hit my picture-taking stride yet. dang it!

saturday i did better with pictures (but still not great) when we had a bbq with our friends phil & angela and jonny, celeste & matthew at philangela's house. we spent the whole afternoon there just eating and talking and it was great. i like all of them more and more every time i see them. emmy enjoyed meeting her future suitor matthew. the hand holding was NOT staged.
it didn't take long for their first lover's quarrel to occur though.
that evening nate stayed and spent more time with his friends and i headed down to provo to meet up with some former roommate favorites of mine (katie, angela and celeste) for a hot seat dinner. we used to have these periodically and give each person a turn in the hot seat to find out the juicy details of their lives (read: boys). we saw each other through some real highs and lows that year and i am so grateful that we remained friends. i could have stayed and talked all night but emmy wasn't having it anymore near the end. she had had a long day.
sunday was father's day. we headed to church in nate's home ward and then had a family gathering where we saw grandma hodges, nate's bro brian, his wife brandy, their kids camden & maris, nate's sister alicia and met erik (her fiance). we had a nice steak dinner with them and just spent time together. one of the cutest things i have seen in a while and one of my favorite memories of the trip was when emmaline met maris, who is 4 years old. she L.O.V.E.D her cousin and was squealing and giggling and grabbing at her like she had never seen anything so thrilling in her whole life. and maris was so sweet with her. here is a really fun video we got of it.

here she is meeting her other cousin camden.
we sure love those kids. they bring so much life and fun to our family events. father's day was great and our whole family is so thankful for alan who has set such a wonderful example of fatherhood. we loved being able to be with him on that day. he and nate have a very special bond and it is always sweet to see how nate is an even better husband and father when he is around his dad. we are so grateful for nate too, and for all that he does as the father in our family. he is every bit as loving and sweet to our little girl as i thought he would be. here he is incarcerating her in snuggle prison for some misdeed. she doesn't look too repentant to me.
and here she is with her grandparents.
and with erik and alicia.
monday was nate's birthday (i told you, this trip was quite the extravaganza). during emmy's afternoon nap we snuck away while his parents watched her and we got shakes and walked around the park just the two of us. we reminisced about our dating days and it was really fun to be with just my husband. as much as we love our girl, i think we need to make a better effort to get out more as a couple because it was great. that evening alan and tere took us out to costa vida for dinner, which is a utah favorite of nate's. brian is the general manager there and came out to spend a few minutes with us. here we are out on the lawn.
and then the men headed back to the house and tere, alicia and i headed out to antelope island for a last-minute bridal shoot at sunset. i had a really great time watching and helping out with it. alicia looked beautiful and it was fun to have some time for girl talk in the car.
after we were done with that we had some birthday cake with the birthday boy.tuesday was the bridal shower and i spent much of the day baking and decorating cakes for the shower and the picnic that followed. tere, her sister julie and alicia helped me out and here are the fruits of our labors.
the shower was really nice. alicia got a lot of great things and emmy met more of her relatives.
my shower gift was a sort of all-purpose burlap wreath that i made. it had a whole bunch of attachable fabric rosettes so she can change it for all the holidays/ seasons. after that we headed to the park for a picnic with their whole extended family. it was absolutely beautiful outside. also, on this day emmy crawled! she has been thinking about it for a while, and tere worked and worked on it with her and she did it! now she is starting to really take off!

wednesday was the eve of the wedding, so we went out and got pedicures and did some last-minute errand running. nate, emmy and i were also able to meet up with my friend kate for lunch at cafe rio (again! i have to fit as many trips in as i can). we missed her wedding in november due to its proximity to the birth of our child, so it was our first time seeing her as a married woman, and her first time meeting emmaline. she is another one that it is so good to see and talk to. she is one of the sweetest, most sincere people i know and i am grateful to have her as a friend. that evening we went to the church to check out the progress on the wedding reception setup and had a late-night manicure session at home.

first plane ride

2011-06-27T12:40:00.005-05:00

we just returned last night from a 10-day trip to UT, and this little one was a good traveler. i think she was a little apprehensive about it at first though. here she is in the car on the way to the airport.
but i explained that it was statistically safer to ride in an airplane than a car, and she soon was back to her friendly self. she even checked herself in at the gate.i was a little nervous about flying standby with a baby because it is so unpredictable and we often end up not making it on flights and then changing our plans several times to fly through odd places in order to reach our destination. sometimes we end up spending the night in some weird place like atlanta (en route from ut to wi) or vegas (en route from ut to mn), and this is possibility was not something i was ready to address with a baby. so i swore that once we had kids we would buy tickets. but then as it came up, it was just SO much cheaper than buying regular tickets, and since we have two weddings to attend this summer and i want to take another trip in the fall as well, i agonized over it and finally decided i would try standby once and see how it went. when it was all said and done we missed a couple of flights and did have to do a little re-routing, but made it to our destination relatively easily and emmy traveled pretty well.

here she is reading her in-flight magazine.
sitting by daddy
riding on the moving walkway
tuckered out during the layover in detroit
even riding the goose in the rochester airport.
oh how i love this face.

seven months

2011-06-17T09:09:00.000-05:00

weight: 15.5 lbs

our emmy continues to be the cutest. she is gaining some serious independence. the wild wiggles have set in and at church we have to just set her on the floor and let her roll around. she pushes up on her hands and knees ALL the time and almost has the crawling thing figured out. any day now. she actually can kind of move her knees forward but the hands have come a little more slowly. she has even managed to sit up from a laying position a couple times now.
this is pretty much what she has spent her month looking like.

also:
- she has eaten (in this order) sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, peas and apples. she eats cereal and baby food twice a day and makes a weird face at the first bite every time, but eats as much as i will give her. she has improved a ton in the mess-making category too. most of it actually goes down the hatchet.
- much to our chagrin, separation anxiety has begun to set in. although i have been taking her to the same gym daycare center since she was 2 months, she has begun to really pitch a fit when i leave her there. sometimes she doesn't even like to be left with nate (although she loves him and lights up when he comes home, like she knows it's playtime). i hope this passes quickly.
- babbling has turned into full-blown happy yelling. she loves to let her little voice be heard.
- she raises her arms high up in the air and hits everything she can get her hands on.
- her 3rd tooth (top right middle) is about to break through any day now.
- gives me what i think might be open mouth kisses on my face.
- still scratches things. this is one of my favorite quirks of hers.
- has jumpy jumpy legs.

TGIRS- thank goodness it's romper season, so i can see these limbs more often.

i gave us mommy & me pedis the other day

i love this little two-toothed grin.

and finally, this girl loves her daddy.

and now we are off to utah! we are so excited to see our friends and family there and to go to alicia's wedding.

it's my biiiiiirthdaaaaaaaaay

2011-06-11T23:37:00.004-05:00

i spent my b-day with my two favorites.
we woke up and opened my presents. i got a nice copy of one of my favorite books,
a cake turntable and tip holder,
and a craft store gift certificate, food processor and rice maker (not pictured). and my mom also gave us a Book of Mormon for LDS families. we somehow never got one of those for our wedding and i have been wanting one. it is so cool. i loved all of it!!

then we set out for the mall of america for the second time that week. i had so much fun when we went there with tyler that i wanted to do it again. we got there at lunchtime and ate at soul daddy, which won america's next great restaurant. we watched that show with my bro zack and always planned to go to the one they would open in minneapolis. we got different stuff and tried each other's to figure out what we liked and it was fun. then we shopped for a long time, i got some new clothes (!) and nate was so patient and accomodating. he took emmy all over and let me look around as much as i wanted and was the perfect companion. emmy had the blowout of her life and he even took care of it without murmuring. and it was BAD. when she had had enough, we got a caramel apple at rocky mountain chocolate factory (my favorite) and headed back. we ate dinner at culver's and got me an ice cream cake from there -- note to self: you loved it, do it again next year-- and rented two redbox movies. it was the perfect low key birthday with the ones i love. and my favorite part is that everyone calls you and you get to talk to all the people you love in the same day. thanks for all the love, friends and family!

the day after, we had nate open his gifts early since we will be in ut for his actual big day. he got a universal remote (for father's day, technically) and a bunch of new shirts. emmy just wanted to play with the wrapping paper. seriously, why buy toys??

mallrats

2011-06-09T12:07:00.006-05:00

uncle tyler was here visiting again so we took the little baby on her first trip up to the mall of america. it was great and i wondered why i haven't taken her up there sooner. they both did really well despite the length of the excursion. tyler carried her ALL OVER that huge mall. i kept telling him he didn't have to do that but he insisted. she is such a princess-- her little bum didn't even touch the stroller. it served as more of a shopping cart.i loved this sign. haha.

tyler and emmy enjoying a break in the mother's room at carter's.

GB pride

this one of e punching biebs was especially pleasing to tyler. i, for one, think he is a cutie.

first cardboard cutout head pic. nice grimace, emmaline.

a stop at the love sac store.

caaaaaaaandy

dip in the fountain

quick stop to admire herself in the mirror

no more pictures, please

memorial day

2011-06-09T11:15:00.004-05:00

i love that my family is only 4 1/2 hours away. we get to see them a lot. my mom and alex came for memorial day. i got to go shopping with my mom and we had a picnic at the park and got our fris(bee) on. frisbee is not something i am good at but it was fun to get a first taste of summer with a little one. get a load of little miss american pie.

performing a patriotic medley for us

after my mom and alex went home, we decided to go to the mall to get nate's tux measurements but they were closed early for the holiday. so he suggested we go see a movie and hope for the best with emmy. well, the best is what we got. we saw rio (nate served his mission in brazil so we thought it would be fun) and she LOVED it. all the bright bright colors and flying sequences on the huge screen... she was totally wide eyed and riveted, smiling and squealing with glee. it was really cute to see-- i swear we had as much fun watching her as she did watching the movie. we aren't big movie buyers but i think we will have to get that one just for the memory. then we came home and crashed. great weekend!

cakes cakes cakes

2011-06-01T13:57:00.003-05:00

look out buddy valastro, there is a new cake boss in town. i recently finished a 6 week cake decorating class through the community ed program. i have been baking and decorating like a crazed woman, endlessly begging to bring a treat to parties and functions so i can practice. here are a few that i have done. this one was my first attempt at a vertical layer cake, and as you can see my technique could use some perfecting because it kind of sunk in on the one side.
when you do this vertical layering it actually makes two cakes, so here is the other half of it. it looked cool when it was cut into, at least!and nate asked me to do this for one of his scouts, who is also named nate.
here is my teacher. she was the nicest lady and always made treats for us. i learned some good tips and techniques from her. and below that is my class on graduation day/ the day we made doll cakes. i think they looked kind of freaky and mine ended up looking a little pregnant too, but still fun to do. there were a couple people missing the day that we took this picture, but my class actually had more guys than girls!
and here is one my teacher took of me, hard at work, and gave to me on the last day of class.
and here, as you can see, is my very official certificate of course completion, signed by master cake decorator margaret a. lex. please note the seal which reads "excellence". so i think i am basically ready to go into business. who wants to hire me for your next event??

uncle love

2011-05-27T19:55:00.000-05:00

my brothers LOVE emmaline. like, they are over the moon for her. i shall proceed to demonstrate. my brother alex who is 15 made her this toy.mr. happy

yes, he SEWED it. like with a needle and thread. so cute, right? i didn't even know he knew how to sew! i guess he had a home ec class in school. i kind of don't want to let her even play with it for fear that she will rip it. here are alex & emmy playing on the "big toy" at the playground.

tyler, who is 20, also has a very tender place in his heart for our girl. one day he asked me who would get her if something happened to us and we said we hadn't decided yet but were accepting resumes if he wanted to be considered. so he went ahead and spent countless hours making us this video resume. this is the abridged version, too. the real one is 20 minutes long and he just revealed it to us while visiting a few days ago. i love it, i think it is so funny and cute.

and here is another fun one of them together on monday night.

zack, my 22 year old brother loves her too. here they are enjoying a moment together during our mother's day visit to WI.
my mom and i have both expressed our surprise at how they have all taken to her so well. i guess since they act like such tough guys, i didn't expect them to be quite so twitterpated with a baby girl, but they really are. i guess their hearts are very tender. who knew? they fight over who gets to play with her, and even when she cries, they don't just give her back to me right away. they will walk her around and work with her, change her diaper, help get her dressed, whatever. it really is touching to me. and she has two more uncles, two aunts AND two cousins she gets to meet next month! dang, how lucky can one girl be?

living room reveal

2011-05-24T23:14:00.007-05:00

about a month ago our living room looked like this (sorry, i had to scrounge these pictures up and they're not great).
i decided it was time for a change, so we did a bit of a remodel. nothing pleases me so much as getting cute stuff for free or cheap, so i was delighted to get some great deals in the process. i got these two lovely pieces for free from an email list i am on called rochestermama, where people give away/ sell stuff, give each other recommendations and advice on everything under the sun, etc. i love it.i got this frame from my grandparents who recently moved to utah, and this candle holder (can't see it in the pics, but it is on the wall to the right of the curtains) from goodwill a while ago. i originally planned on painting them both, but i decided i like them gold for now. oh and i wound some jute around a bottle there on the right of the frame too (nate doesn't get that one). i made these pillows (first time with zippers!)
and i made this table runner using some lovely doilies (another one nate doesn't get)i took a rug we already had and moved it to the living room and then painted it using a stencil.
and i took a garland and and wound it into this wreath and added some little flowers.
the finished product:
i still have a couple of things i might change but overall i really like it! and special thanks to my ever-patient husband for understanding that this type of thing keeps me sane when i spend much of my time cooped up in a little apartment. i feel like we have a totally new room now-- yes!

six months

2011-05-17T13:29:00.007-05:00

length: 25 in. (27%)

weight: 14.5 lbs (24%)
head: 16.1 in. (14%)

wow! holy cow. half a year has gone by already. this baby thing is like a high speed train. some things about our little cutie right now:

-started rice cereal a few days ago.
-likes to be holding something in her hand while she sleeps (usually her left)
-doing lots of babbling with consonant sounds now. baba dada mama
-sits without assistance for a couple of minutes (4, last i counted)
-really likes to scratch things. not sure if she likes the sound or the feeling or if it is comforting, but it sure is cute
-bites. and those little teeth are sharp!
-squeezes me around the neck sometimes when i pick her up. i like to think of it as a hug.
-has started shaking her head (not meaningfully)
-likes to stand on our balcony and watch cars go by. she hears them coming, turns to look and then follows them down the road with her eyes
-still very social and needs to be part of whatever we are doing. also loves looking at other babies & kids
-likes to ride on dad's shoulders and play peek a boo
-starting to not like it when i leave the room
-the drooling and spitting up has dropped way down. thank goodness.

enjoy this little montage made by the proud dad to commemorate 6 months of emmy lou. it's crazy how much she has changed! she has brought so much joy into our lives.