Sweet Kisses

This is an old picture of Emma when she would do this "kissy face" all of the time.
One of our favorite things is to get a kiss from our sweet girl! She is very generous with her hugs and kisses, but we also have a few tricks to get a hug and kiss too.

We play a little game I like to call "Nighty-night," haha, where you pretend to be sleeping and the only way to wake someone up is by giving them a kiss. So if we pretend to sleep she will almost always come up and give you a kiss and yell "Wake!"

I've also taught her the Barney I love you song, to my husband's chagrin (ha!), and whenever we sing the part about a great big hug and kiss she gives them both.

Other things she does right now that I don't want to forget:
Calls fish "shish"
When she wants to go outside she will sometimes say "grass?" instead of "ouside"
She LOVES to dance - which is running on her tip-toes and clapping around
She can clap to "If you're happy and you know it," and do some of the motions with "head, shoulders, knees, and toes"
I can also put her hair in pigtails - but she doesn't really sit still enough for me to get them in well.

18 months

On February 3rd, Emma turned 18 months old! I can't believe this means that she is now closer to 2 than she is to 1. I am loving this age right now, but I can't neglect the fact that I am a little sad that she is no longer a "baby" and is in full toddler mode now. She is so sweet and learning new things every day and she really keeps me on my toes. Here are some of her 18 month stats:
We will find out height and weight and her appointment next week, but I'm fairly certain she is still tall and skinny for her age, haha!
She can repeat almost any word we say, but some of her most recent favorite words to say are:
oh boy!
oh wow!
baby doll (no longer just baby)
animal names (she used to only say the animal sounds, but now she can say the name of the animal and its sound)
the numbers 3 and 5 are her favorites, haha
A,B,D, and P are the letters she likes to say
She can name most of the monsters on Sesame Street - we have lots of SS books, and she gets to watch Elmo's World most days
Are you? When she is looking for something she asks this. A recent example was when Aaron slipped some string cheese out of her hand and when she saw it wasn't there she looked all around saying, "Cheese...are you?" haha
She has started learning names well - she can tell you the names of about 10 people from church without prompting

It is so fun to be able to teach her things now that stick with her - she is a little sponge for sure.

Some of her favorite foods right now:
apples
blueberries
string cheese
pizza
mac and cheese
muffins
green beans
tomatoes
ice cream
In other news: Emma climbed out of her crib for the first time last week. The downside of having a baby that is a climber and a light-weight is that they can pull themselves over the top of their crib! This happened at 1:30 in the morning last week because she has been teething and woke up in the night because her teeth were bothering her. She is now sleeping in her pack-n-play until we can get the rail that converts her crib into a toddler bed.

Christmas Card photo...

Thanks to our friend Brian Fleming at BrianFlemingPhotography.com we have some great photos to choose from for our Christmas card this year, but I am thinking this may be the winner!

In other news:
-Emma is growing faster than ever it seems at times. She is so sweet and girly, but also so independent and silly. Her personality is really showing itself more and more and also her sinful heart, haha. She is starting to realize that she doesn't want to share as much as she used to, but also giving away kisses so freely that it melts this momma's heart. This age (16 months) presents many new parenting challenges (ie: power struggles, more discipline, etc.), but so many new fun adventures as well! I am so thankful for my sweet girl and the reminder of God's grace that she is in my life.
-We have had a really tough month and suffered loss, but God has been so good to us and we are grateful for the never-ending reminders of His grace in our lives.

To be continued...

I have a lot to catch up on...
But, for now, here is a quick pic of Emma at the State Fair from last weekend. We went with the Smiths and Emma and Cooper had a blast looking at all of the animals! This was one of my favorite moments of the day - we found some folk/bluegrass band concert behind the Village of Yesteryear (?) and since there was a little grassy area we let Emma run around for a little while. She started dancing (i wish we caught it on video - too cute!) and entertaining everyone around.

1st Birthday!

On July 30th, we celebrated Emma's 1st birthday with a party in Burgaw. We had a great time hanging out and celebrating with friends and family! Emma had a great time and especially enjoyed having some ice cream and her first cake!

The day after the party we traveled to North Myrtle Beach, SC to spend a week with my family and we celebrated Emma's birthday on Wednesday (which was her actual birthday) by going to the Aquarium, out to eat, to the pool, and finishing off with some more cake and ice cream!

We are so thankful to have had a week to go away to celebrate and relax with family! This year has truly flown by and we are so thankful that the Lord has seen fit to give us such a wonderful gift - we love you Emma!!!

Emma at 7 months

at 7 months Emma is doing so many new things so I wanted to document them on the blog:

-she has started doing the army crawl and can drag/roll herself across a room
-she smiles all the time now and loves to giggle an has even started squealing
-she babbled “mama” this month.
-she is eating stage 2 foods for 2-3 meals a day, and nurses about 5 times a day.
-most nights she sleeps between 10-12 hours with 2-3 naps every day
-she is wearing 6 month clothing, although she is long and skinny so not everything fits just right.
-she just had her first snack this week and is working on learning how to self-feed and take a sippy cup on occasion.
-she will be moving into size 2 diapers this week
-she had her first cold last month and her first ear infection this month ☹
-she loves to be active ad on the move
-I think bananas and yogurt are her favorite foods if I had to guess, but she eats everything so far

Overall we are just grateful to the Lord for the gift of this little girl! We are truly blessed! She is such a happy and easy (in my estimation) baby. We pray that one day she will be a wonderful older sister to future siblings and most of all that she would come to know and love Jesus!