11 Months

Well, somehow our baby girl is already 11 months old!  With every passing month, I think to myself it is impossible that she is already this big, but even more so now that her first birthday is only a few short weeks away.

The 11 month pictures were a bit of a challenge as she was not interested in sitting in her crib or wearing that sticker... but here's what we got.  She still looks cute!

She's pretty busy these days and can crawl really fast!  She's pulling up and cruising some along the furniture, but not trying to take any independent steps.  She started climbing the stairs this month too.  That is super scary, especially because she's super fast.  We can't let her out of our sight for a second!

This month she graduated from her infant car seat to a convertible seat and started preparing to move into the next class at school.  She loves her infant room teachers (so do we), so we are hoping her transition to the next class will be a smooth one. She's drinking her milk from a sippy cup now and is exclusively eating table food!  No more purees!

Here she is painting with an orange with her teacher's help

Even though she still only has 4 teeth, she eats pretty much everything we put in front of her.  She doesn't just eat it, she shovels it into her mouth.  Most nights she out eats Ethan!  She pretty much loves everything that's not green.  If we ignore her though and don't give her more of what she's whining for, she will eat the broccoli, peas or whatever green veggie is on her tray.  

 Such a little cutie!

Messy hair, don't care :)

Her hair is getting pretty long so I put it in a top knot most days.  She doesn't much like me putting it up (or taking it out) but she doesn't mess with it once it's done.  If its not pulled back, its either in her eyes or wild and unruly!

Her favorite things to do right now are crawl around and explore, play with her big brother's toys, bang things together, and chew on things.  She also enjoys being tickled and play outside.  And she is obsessed with pacifiers.  She mostly only has them at nap time or at night, but if she sees one laying around she will do everything in her power to get to it.  And when she wakes up, she typically has one in her mouth and one in each hand.  At school they tell us she tries to get they other babies' pacis if they are laying on the floor.  Crazy girl!

 Sick and still smiling!

Such a super sweet girl! Stay tuned for lots of birthday pictures coming later this month <3

All You Need Is Love

Just a couple of pictures of our little valentines today.  Emily has been sick with croup, a sinus infection, and the flu for the last week and a half, but today she only had a very low fever and was smiling a lot!  We got out to the park to feed the ducks and spent some time playing out in the backyard.  It turned out to be a beautiful day!

 Our sweet valentines

 This is Ethan keeping Emily from crawling off so we could get a picture :)

 Love these big smiles! XOXO

 Okay, this is real life y'all!  Ethan sets down candy heart, sister picks it up...

 Brother promptly takes it back...

"That's mine!"

After a little convincing he did let her play with it :)

10 Months (+)

Baby girl is 10 months old (plus about a week!)  And what a difference just a week makes!  On her 10 month birthday she wasn't pulling up yet and now she is.  In fact, I could not get her to sit next to her bunny for even a single picture.  She wanted to stand and she was very proud of herself for doing so :)

We finally have a ponytail too! :)

This has been a big month for her in terms of developmental milestones.  She started crawling and pulling up on things.  She's also learned to blow raspberries and thinks that is super fun!  I have lots of videos to share of her accomplishments this month...

Video: I wish I could crawl (1/3/2016)

Video: Belly crawl (1/5/2016)

Video: I can do it, look at me go! (1/13/2016)

Video: Raspberries!!! :)

I was trying to think of her favorite toy right now, but she doesn't really have one.  She is super easy going and content to play with whatever is nearby.  She does seem to gravitate to brother's toys though, which he isn't too keen on.  I tried to warn him when he used to take her toys, that his time was coming, but of course he didn't care.  She loves to play with balloons, enjoys rolling/catching a ball, and is very ticklish.  She also enjoys taking stuff out of containers and has lots of fun rummaging through my purse and make-up bag.  She still enjoys jumping in her jumperoo too.

 This balloon was her motivation to crawl

So much fun helping Mommy clean out her purse after nap time

Someone loves helping Mommy get ready in the morning!

I was fixing lunch one day when Ethan came to tell me (more like taddle) that sister was sleeping in her jumper when she's only supposed to sleep in her bed :)

She has 4 teeth now and is eating lots of new foods.  She pretty much eats whatever we eat for dinner, fish, meatloaf, pasta, chicken, rice, broccoli... she likes it all.  She even tried a pickle earlier this month and while the initial face was one of disgust, she kept going back for more and then got mad when we finally had to take it away.

 Yummm... pizza casserole

 And ravioli!

 Love/hate relationship with the pickle :)

Video: Dinner entertainment

And of course a few other random goodies from the month!

 We call this one "thug life"

Fun at school... little Picasso

Video: A super sweet moment swinging outside <3

Video: Doorstop discovery

That's all for now... and by all I really mean more than enough!  Just two short months until this princess turns ONE!  Look for party invites in the mail soon, we are planning for Saturday, March 19th.

Christmas Recap

Since we are almost an entire month into 2016, I figure I need to get these Christmas pics posted otherwise it'll never happen.  This is a very brief recap of Christmas 2015... Emily's FIRST Christmas!

Before Christmas we visited Troy's family in Spring for the Tomball German Festival and our first Christmas gathering.  The weather wasn't tremendously cooperative, but the kids had a great time at the carnival before the rain moved in.  After the festival on Saturday, we did our family Christmas on Sunday and Ethan got lots of games and dinosaurs and Emily some toys and cute clothes!  While Ethan loves all the dinosaurs, I think his favorite gifts were Hungry Hungry Hippos and Don't Break the Ice! :)

Christmas morning we opened gifts when we woke up, and later in the morning Gabby & Peepaw came by for brunch and a visit.  We had a nice cozy day at home playing with all the new toys.

Then, the next day we headed up to Dallas to celebrate Christmas with all of our family up there.  We enjoyed the day Saturday with Aunt Cindy, Memaw and Papaw and then Sunday we went to spend the afternoon with my Dad's side of the family.  Saturday evening was scary because there were multiple tornadoes up in the Dallas area and the sirens were blaring.  We were fortunate to be safe and unharmed, but many were not so lucky.  Despite another weekend of unpleasant weather, we had a nice time visiting with family and made it back home safe and sound.

Check-up Time

On Tuesday Emily went to the pediatrician for her 9 month well check.  Doctor said she was on the petite side but her height/weight ratio was exactly perfect. She weighed 17 lbs, 6.5 oz and was 27 inches long. Her development is right on track too, although her fine motor skills were ahead of her gross motor skills.  They told us to work on getting her to crawl, pull-up and cruise.  I wasn't in a big hurry for these things to happen, so hadn't really been pushing her much.  Well... don't you know Wednesday she started crawling on her own!  She was already doing a belly crawl, but this week she got up on her hands and knees and went right across the living room.  I'm so proud of her, but also a little sad.

For some reason I thought she was going to have to get shots at this appointment, but she did not!  That was a nice surprise, at least for everyone except for Ethan who for some reason wanted his baby sister to get shots.  Ever since I took him with me to get Emily's flu shot, he has been asking when she has to go get more shots.  I thought he just wanted to go back to the well-side of the doctor's office because they have a cool pop-up dragon book there that he loves, but when we found out Emily didn't need shots (after he had already seen the book) he still looked disappointed.  Poor sister!

 Yay!  No shots!

 This paper is FUN!

Happy girl for Dr. Travis!

 I said I want a picture of my cuties and Ethan said "She's a cutie!" :)

9 Months

Its hard to believe that Emily has been with us in the "outside world" just as long as she was in the womb.  It is almost unfathomable how much she has grown and developed from that first sonogram, to her birth, and then to now.  She is getting so big!

Emily at 12 weeks in-utero

 Emily on her BIRTH day

 And Emily at 9 months!

As of her 9 month "birthday" which was already two weeks ago, she had 2 teeth and started eating snacks (table food).  She likes baby puffs (and so does big bro), cheerios, toast, baked apples, baked sweet potato, and broccoli nuggets.  She is a good eater!  We have to be careful with her though because she will shovel every single piece of food on her tray into her mouth at once and the other evening she started choking.  I'm sure I lost a few years from that scare, but now we know to only give her a piece or two at a time, and make sure she has swallowed it before giving her more.

 Her very first tooth!

 Feeding herself baked potato cubes...

although she squished them all before getting them in her mouth :)

Video: Eating finger foods

 This girl loves meal time

She can say da-da-da and ma-ma-ma, and will click her tongue or shake her head to copy us.  She loves to play on the floor and will do a sort of army crawl to get to something she wants, but she still isn't up on hands and knees.  She likes to play with balls, balloons, the activity cube, and anything that crinkles.  And she likes to snatch cold things from the fridge if given the opportunity.

Video: Emily says "mama"

 Playing with Momma

If she could just keep her knees under her, she'd be off in a flash...

She is sleeping well again (for now) and loves to be in the child's pose.  I thought she was going to be a side sleeper, but this is definitely her preferred position.  As soon as we lay her down in her crib, she rolls over and assumes the position.  She still likes to have a pacifier when she's sleeping but she doesn't wake up crying if it falls out.  I try to leave a few in her crib for her in case she wakes up and needs it, because she can find it and put it in her mouth, but almost every morning I find them all scattered on the floor.  Not sure what transpires to make that happen, but its pretty consistent!

Just a few other 9 month pics...