Happy Halloween!!!

This being Emma's first Halloween, we were intent on getting plenty of pictures of her in her costume, at the pumpkin patch and so much more...

Needless to say, dressing her up was so much fun! She went to Idyllwild on Saturday for trick-or-treating at the campsite with Grandpa, Granny Donna, Uncle Chad, Uncle Jayson, Aunt Amber and some of her cousins. She was adored by many and had a blast!

Sunday, we went to the pumpkin patch, took some pictures and then proceeded to buy a pumpkin to carve. We made sure it was big enough to fit Emma because, of course, we HAD to take pictures with her IN the pumpkin! So we spent Sunday night cleaning out the big pumpkin and "torturing" her by putting her in the pumpkin and taking pictures. She hated us ;) But, we got some great pictures and she ended up having fun with it.

Monday night, Halloween, we went to Auntie Pokie Jos house to trick or treat with all of the kids and she got to dress up in her costume again. And she was a good sport about it!

I had some concerns, with her being so young, and me being such a scardy cat, that she might get scared by some of the costumes, haunted houses, loud noises, etc... Nope! She gets a kick out of the masks. She laughs when she sees them. The only time she got scared is when we were looking at statues at the campsite when all of a sudden, this loud burst of noise came from what sounded like an air compressor releasing air, and mommy tucked Emma into her chest and ran. Yea. Mommy got scared. Then in effect, that scared Emma. Other than that, she seemed to really enjoy Halloween!

Here are some pics...Enjoy!!

That tongue...

Early on, Emma discovered her tongue. I have some pictures of her between 4 and 7 months with her tongue out. Recently, however, she has learned what this appendage can do and the various noises it can make. I have many recent pictures with her tongue as the guest appearance! Here is one as proof... 

And just because it shows her goofy personality... here is another ;) (I had her hair in pig tails earlier that day and she decided to take them out....but her hair chose to stay in place) 

As cute as this is in pictures... seeing her in action is MUCH more fun... here is a video of her having a "conversation" with her friend Sebastian. Grand-faaja and Daddy taught this to Emma a couple of months ago. She learned quickly, but didn't embrace it immediately. Now she thoroughly enjoys doing it...

I fear as she is crawling around, attempting her first steps, exploring the house, etc... that she will one day bite her tongue because it seems to be forever OUT of her mouth! But it makes for some cute pictures and some fun play time :) 

Just Jibberish!!

That moment that every parent competes for has finally come.... will she say "mama" or "dada" first?? A few months ago, Emma started the mamamamamamama dadadadadadada strings which only lasted a few days. Then mums the word and she was on to making her vowel sounds and other cute baby talk. Still to this day, she has conversations with her hands, her dolls, and her "little sky friends" (she tends to look up, usually at lighting fixtures, and mumbles away).

Well, a couple of weeks ago, as mommy was bathing her, I thought I would try some vocab with her. Naturally, I say "Emma, say 'mama'!". No response. Just splashes away and talks baby talk to her bath toys. I say it again. She gets bashful and goes to her belly to "swim" around (the inch deep water). So, I put my selfish desires aside, and I try another word. "Emma, say 'dada'...". Note, I wasn't as enthusiastic in that request ;) and sure enough... "da da"! Okay okay... I was so excited!!! And said it again... she kept saying it over and over.

So now that I have her interacting with me, let's try this again. "Say 'mama'". Emma, in all of her oh so precious personality, looks right at me, laughs and says "DA DA"! So I try again. And again I get laughed off and daddy gets the prize. "Da da" So, after some contemplation of if I want to show daddy that he won this one haha, I pick Emma up, put her in her towel, and I run downstairs to daddy to show him her first word. I ask her to say "dada" and complete silence. She looks up bashfully, and smiles, but no words. I continue to try to prove that I am not lying. No success. And of course, our flip video camera was downstairs when I was bathing her so I couldn't get it on video.

The next night, during bath time, I make sure to bring the flip up with us, I try to get her to repeat her vocab, and no luck! She was sick of performing I guess :)

Well, now daddy has heard her say "dada" and seen the little performance of laughing "mama" off. And luckily, Auntie Pokie Jo (aka baby sitter) got it on video. Enjoy!!

So that moment every parent competes for... daddy won this one. But don't tell him it's only because "Dada" is phonetically easier to say for babies. Nothing more to it. ;) Although, Emma is a daddy's girl by far.

She's on the move!!

So Matt and I decided we would make a trip to Babies R Us this weekend because Emma has outgrown her car seat. At her last appointment (9 month) she was 22 pounds and 31 inches long (the average size of a 16 month old I was told). We end up walking out with a deluxe car seat that is captain's chair style with a cup holder! I couldn't believe the luxury and style babies are offered these days. Emma tried it out today and she looked pretty comfy and seemed to enjoy it as she nodded right of to dream land!

In addition, we bought her this new walker toy. The ones where they hold on to the handle and push forward as they walk. She was doing this with her "walker" and it didn't seem too safe so we thought it a good idea to get her a toy intended for such activities. She took to it instantly and I wanted to share the video of one of her first attempts... (just a heads up, I was suffering from hiccups as I took the video so you may hear that in the background a couple times)

She has let go of the toy and turned to both Matt and me to stand and thought about taking a couple of independent steps. She ALMOST took her first step but not quite. It will only be a matter of days I think.

I think this girl may make it to Hollywood...

Yes, I am about to get some head shots and pictures taken of Emma and send them in to an agent... she LOVES the camera; photo and video! And she has the personality like no other. I know every parent thinks this of their child, however I have had complete strangers, yes, plural, tell me that she should be in commercials. So.... I guess I don't need to say that she doesn't have much stranger anxiety ;) Don't get me wrong, she has her moments of being shy, which I embrace because she holds on to me so tightly! But it doesn't last long...

I recently read that at this age (9.5 months), I should be prepared for her to become more social. This kind of scares me because I'm not sure how much more social she can get. Time will tell I guess. In addition, this article mentioned that in the next few weeks we will see the following developments; clapping, pointing, laughing at funny sounds/expressions, waving good bye and making loud noises to attract attention. All of which Emma has been doing over the past couple months! I don't know what it is about babies these days, but they are on fast forward for development; at least it seems that way for Emma. Just tonight she stood on her own for a solid 8 seconds. And she wasn't even about to fall. She was crouching down to crawl. Completely balanced. In no time she will be walking. Below is a video of her standing for a few seconds after the 8 second accomplishment (which of course didn't make it to video)

We are currently in the process of planning her first birthday. While this is an exciting time, I am also a little sad about it. I keep looking at her newborn pictures and I can't believe it's already been almost a year. A GREAT year. And to think, she'll be walking in the next few weeks! First it's walking, then it's driving!! Somewhat exaggerated but still ;)

Okay, back to current time. Because I have failed at keeping the blog updated regularly over the past month and a half, here are some more videos and some pictures....

Here is a video of her eating apples for the first time. The first few seconds are pretty funny, after about 30-45 seconds the video becomes uneventful but a good laugh nonetheless.

Here is a video of her eating cottage cheese for the first time. She was not a fan. But she doesn't mind it much now! Oh, and for those of you who saw the peas video... I gave her lentils and peas the other day and she LOVED them!!

Some recent pics... more to come.

My First Haircut!!

Okay, so after weeks of debate and struggling with this "milestone", we finally pulled the trigger and decided to cut Emma's hair for the first time last night. Her "newborn" hair was grown out to a point that it kept getting into her eyes and I would find myself brushing it out of her face constantly. As much as I wanted to hold out on cutting her hair because I look forward to the day her hair is long enough to put into a pony tail, or pig tails, or the "pebbles" look, I finally took the scissors to her hair. Here are some pictures; before, after and during.

Before the cut...

Having some fun before we chop it off...

Hard to cut her hair when she grabs for the sharp objects...

A more manageable mohawk ;)

And the end result!!

Naturally, we saved her first curl... it was about an inch and a half long :)

Some recent videos... crawling and laughing :)

So in my recent posts, I mentioned Emma was "creeping". Well, she is now starting to get on to her knees a little in more of a crawl form. It almost seems as if she knows to do it, but doesn't prefer to crawl in the traditional "on hands and knees" way. She'll start out on her hands and knees then she'll drop to her stomach and move, move,  move! And she is a quick one... I will be buying gates this weekend for the living room because I am having a hard time keeping up with her. She is the adventurous one, very active and into EVERYTHING. Anyways, here is a video of her "crawling" :)

Here's another video for entertainment. As I have mentioned, Yvette, a friend of ours, watches Emma during the day. She has two sons, Dylan and Sebastian. Dylan, being her youngest, with a personality like no other, has already asked for Emma's hand in marriage when he is 28 years old (he is currently 8 years old) which would make Emma about 21 at the time of their ceremony, hypothetically speaking of course! Too cute. Anyways, when Emma is crawling around, and if Dylan is around, she "runs" from him as if he's chasing her, laughing and giggling all along. She is a big flirt...not sure I've mentioned this before... so naturally, Dylan plays into it and will "chase" her, tickle her and lead her in anticipation by creeping up on her. Emma LOVES it! Here is a video that shows just a little bit of Dylan and Emma's interaction...

The boys are on summer break right now so she gets a lot of their attention during the day... I am not quite sure, though, who will be more sad when they go back to school; Emma or the boys... they both love her, fight over who gets to sit next to her on their car rides and take time out of their day to periodically entertain her. We may need to record their voices talking to Emma so Yvette can play it to her throughout the day ;)

The Clapper!

Okay.... as promised! More frequent blog posts...

Emma's most recent achievement is clapping! A couple of weeks ago she started banging her "stackables" together to make a "clanking" noise (her stackables are the equivalent of the plastic donuts that you slip onto the pole from biggest to smallest, only these don't have the pole). Anyways, she loves the noise that comes from banging them together so we have been working with her to clap her hands using the same motions. This morning, before I left for work, I sat on the bed with her and started clapping (as we do most days during play time) and she did it back to me, but wasn't quite coordinated enough to make any productive sound. I just received a picture from Aunt Alma who is watching her today in place of Auntie Pokie Jo that shows Emma clapping away! She may have mastered this for the weekend...

I wonder what's next....

On a side note, seems Auntie Alma was having a little bit of fun with Emma today...and thankfully Emma is a good sport...

This may force a new "after bath" ritual haha

Emma eating her peas for the first time....

Emma's creeping..........and soooo much more!!!

For those few of you who follow this, I do apologize for the delay since my last post. It has been quite hectic, and that's speaking conservatively!! ;)

Needless to say Emma is keeping us busy. She has this independent, do it all, get into anything and everything, curious and social butterfly personality so she is doing very well at keeping us on our toes every second of the day. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. She keeps us smiling, laughing and learning as each minute passes.

Most recently, Emma has started to "creep". It's like a little army crawl so it's about that time to child proof the entire house! Grammie bought her a walker and as most, she quickly learned to push herself back. However, in the past few days she has been walking forward....straight to the cabinets and chairs and she does not hesitate to reach out for them. Of course! haha Initially, in efforts to get her to crawl, I would place a toy at the end of her mat and see if she would make her way to the toy....well little did I know that this little girl is too smart for her own good. She grabbed the mat, pulled it towards her which essentially brought the toy closer to her until the toy was in arm's reach! She cracks us up...

To back track a bit... She started rolling very early on but mastered it around 4 months old. She began sitting unassisted around 5 months. She got her first two bottom teeth around 6 months. We started her on solids at 6 months and she is loving food! We, naturally, recorded a few of her first meals... so far she has had cereal, bananas, peaches, peas, sweet potatoes, and broccoli. Her first vegetable was peas....oh man was that a funny experience! She had me in tears I was laughing so hard... seems cruel but she was still eating the food, just making some faces that could easily be interpreted as not her favorite meal ;)

She loves broccoli, bananas were a hesitant start but she loves those now, she didn't care for peaches initially but has taken to them and sweet potatoes have been one of her favs so far...sooo I decided I would mix the sweet potatoes with the peas as disguise...tricked her cuz she loves it! :) Next on the menu for the coming week... potatoes, carrots, cantaloupe and pears...yummy! Oh, and yes, I am making her food for her... trying not to buy the jars... this is time consuming and I have experienced many a frustration over the puree blender but I think worth it. So she is probably experiencing more of the natural bitterness in some of the veggies than she would taste in the jarred foods...

Just as with everything else I have previously posted, she has adapted seamlessly to each transition. She is sooo easy going and almost eagerly anticipating the next "phase".Sometimes we feel like we cant keep up with her ever-changing schedule, consistently new developments and achievements and learning her cute little personality. One thing is for sure...she's a social butterfly to the definition!

Even though she can't walk yet, whenever we are around little kids she acts as if she wants to jump out of my arms and run to play with the kids around. When strangers stop in the grocery store or out and about anywhere, she just stares at them with this look of curiosity, not in any way scared and definitely no sign of "stranger anxiety" and given a few minutes, she'll end up "talking" to said strangers. She's always squealing at kids and animals. She is happy in anyone's arms... doesn't need to be in mommy's or daddy's. As long as you dance, sing, coo, play with her she is a happy camper! Sometimes, when I am leaving for work in the morning, I kiss her goodbye and wave as I walk out the door, expecting that one of these days she may fuss or cry cuz I am leaving....ha! That has yet to happen, she smiles and squeals just as she does when I pick her up every day after work. Miss independent.

Miss Independent already thinks she has outgrown her baby toys...you sit her down with all of the toys that have been bought for her and the things she'll go for are everything EXCEPT her toys...the remote control, our cell phones, magazines, the computer, the mouse, the legs to her jumper, keys, etc... are all much more interesting...especially if the object resides in one of our hands. Just the other day in the grocery store I had to give her the package of chow mein noodles to entertain her because she was over her elephant toy. So lesson? No more spending money on toys!! ;)


Amongst the craziness, it isn't difficult to take a deep breath, slow down for just a minute and appreciate this beautiful baby girl we are raising and learn everything she has to teach us. Just a simple glance, a smile, a hug, her reaching up for one of us to hold her just because she wants to cuddle, to walk her around the house as she focuses on and takes in everything from the backyard plants, the kaleidoscope, the flowers to inside pots, pans, pictures, and especially mirrors...she loves her reflection!! Each moment is easy to enjoy

Now, I know we need some updated pictures so here they are....  ;)

She is going to be 7 months on Monday, July 4th and I cannot believe it! Just five months for me to plan her first birthday....eeeeekkkk! That also means 5 more months til Christmas! Lots to plan for but I am looking forward to the holidays this year more than ever :)

Due to her growing soooo fast, I will do my VERY best to not wait so long til the next blog post... don't hold me to that but I promise to try! :)