Under the weather

All three Swains have been under the weather at some point these last three weeks, and not to mention the fact that the memory card in my camera is no longer working, so my attempts at blogging regularly were (temporarily) thrown off. I am so thankful that my mom could come visit last weekend (she only lives about 3 hours away) because Emma and Aaron had both started feeling really bad and she was able to help with housework and keep Emma for a while so we could just get out of the house. What a blessing!

On another note...
Friday marked the beginning of my favorite season of the year - Fall!
Here is a short list of things that i love about this time of the year:
10. Pumpkin Spice Lattes
9. Enjoying the fact that no one can see how pale my legs are for several months
8. Fall decorations
7. Wearing boots
6. Upcoming trip to the pumpkin patch (Emma's first!)
5. Upcoming trip to the Corn Maze (with the youth)
4. Sweaters
3. Celebrations (so many birthdays and holidays)
2. Fall smelling candles (pumpkin, cider, etc.)
1. Being outside without sweating

Hopefully the camera will be fixed soon and I can put up some pics of what Emma has been up to recently!

Favorite Blogs

Today at Kelly's Korner her "Show us your life" link up is about favorite blogs. Usually after Emma is in bed at night I like to sit down and read a few blogs. I have many that i love to read, especially my "real life" friends, but these are just a few that I never miss!

1. GirlTalk
I love reading the blog and articles that the Mahaney girls write about biblical womanhood. They are very encouraging and honest in their writing and have great resources too.

2. Big Mama and Boo Mama
These ladies are hilarious and I really enjoy reading their posts about their day to day lives. I have laughed so hard that I cried many times reading their blogs.

3. For decoration, diy ideas, etc. I love to check out tatertots and jello.
I just recently found this website but I love the step by step diys and the dollar store redos.

4. The Pioneer Woman will always be one of my favorites (if you can even call her website a blog anymore). She is so popular now and even has a show on the Food Network. I have loved keeping up with her blog for a while now. She has GREAT recipes and funny stories and I would absolutely recommend checking out her site.

Happy Weekend!

Walking!

Since her birthday party Emma has been taking steps here and there but in the last 2 weeks or so she has really taken off and almost given up crawling all together! Our camera is acting up, but I hope to put up a video soon!
Happy Friday!

Crockpotalooza/Diptacular!

I am linking up to Kelly's Korner and Boomama's blog to share some of my fav recipes. I have made these several times and can't remember the original sources because i just wrote down the recipes and eventually memorize them and adjust them to my family's liking, etc.

1. Chicken nacho dip
This is a crockpot dip that is probably a little bad for the hips, but o-so-delicious for parties, etc. The only negative is that you have to cook the chicken before hand.
-3-4 chicken breasts (cooked and shredded)
-1 pound velveeta (cut in cubes)
-taco seasoning
-1 can rotel (drained)
-1/2 c green onions
-1 jalapeno (diced)
-1/3 c sour cream
-1 c black beans (drained and rinsed)

Combine all ingredients except the beans in the crockpot for 1.5-2 hours on high (stirring occasionally) and add in the black beans for the last 20 minutes.
Serve with tortilla chips!

2. Crockpot chicken barbeque

-6 chicken breasts
-1 (12-16 oz) bottle of fav bbq sauce
-1/2 c Italian dressing
-1/3c brown sugar
-2 Tbs Worcestershire sauce

Cook on high 3-4 hours or low 6-8 and shred the chicken about an hour before done.
We love to serve this with green beans, potatoes, and texas toast.

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!!!

1 year!

I can't believe that it has been over a year since the day we first saw Emma face to face for the very first time! We celebrated Emma's first birthday on August 3rd! We had a great week celebrating her birthday with family. We stopped in Burgaw to celebrate with Aaron's family the weekend before her birthday. We had a cookout and Emma got to have cake for the very first time! I won't elaborate about that right now because I have plenty of pictures to put up this week, so that will be another post. From Burgaw, we traveled to Myrtle Beach, SC to spend the week with my parents. Ahh, vacation - how I miss you! We had such a great time relaxing and hanging out with my parents and, of course, Miss Emma received plenty of spoiling as well. She loves the beach, so I will be sure to put up some pics of that too.

So...what is Emma up to at 12 months?
-she is very close to walking, and even took her first two steps while we were in Burgaw at her birthday party! She is still cruising and crawling as fast as ever and can stand up on her on for a while.
-we have almost completely moved from baby food to "real" food. She loves bananas, cereal bars, green beans, chicken, and yogurt especially. She drinks water from a straw sippy cup at her meals.
-we will be working on weaning in the next few weeks and starting whole milk. Since she was about a month early, I am waiting to get the green light for this at her 12 month appointment.
-she says mama, dada, daby(baby), and I think dog. She babbles a lot, but those are the words I can make out so far.
-she can point. If you ask her where daddy is, she will point to him. She can also find the baby on her yogurt, haha. She loves looking at books and pointing to pictures and saying something.
-she has 6 teeth!! She only had 2 about a month ago and in the last several weeks her top 4 teeth have come in (causing several early mornings of discomfort as well).
-she has several "tricks" that she can do if someone prompts her by asking. She can kiss, blow kisses, wave bye-bye, clap, dance, play the drums, go night-night (lay her head down on something for about 2 seconds, haha), and love something (ie: when we tell her to love her baby, she grabs it and squeezes it tight).
-she still takes 2 naps a day and sleeps well most nights.
-she will be moving into her big car seat soon!!

Overall Emma is such a happy and content baby and brings so much joy to our lives! We are so grateful to the Lord for blessing us with such a wonderful gift!

-

Photoshoot with cousin Chloe