Our egg hunting adventures

We had a lot of fun hunting for Easter eggs in Nick and Jan's massive backyard. Emee was so funny, she would only pick up two eggs and then she wanted nothing to do with the rest of them. Her hands were full, and she was satisfied. That's just fine, she is one little girl that doesn't need any extra sugar in her life. She's sweet enough already!

Emee getting ready to hunt with her Uncle Josh.


Grammie Jo and Daddy trying to convince her to put her eggs in her basket.

Karyn and Darby, also on the hunt.

Emslee holding her two prized eggs. Grammie was so cute helping her find eggs.

Easter

We had such a great Easter! Nick and Janica were gracious enough to invite the whole crew to come to their house, watch conference, celebrate Easter and the April birthdays. So fun! My only complaint was the snow. Blah. But other than that, there was a fabulous time had by all.

Of course, I have to have at least one shot of Nick being weird. Yes, that is a boiled egg in his mouth.

Karyn, Emee, and I dyeing an egg blue. By the time we were done, Emee was also a pretty shade of blue.

All smiles. Emee just loves her Kare-Kare.

Grammie Jo and Dabs getting ready to dye an egg. These sweet girls sure enjoyed themselves.

Fishy! Fishy!

Emslee absolutely adores taking baths. But then, I've never met a child that didn't. I love shampooing her hair and then sculpting it into all sorts of random forms. We have such fun! I'm so glad my little girl was blessed with so much long beautiful hair!

Happy 1st Birthday!

For Emee's first birthday, we had a ladybug themed party. The invitations, her dress, the cake, the decorations - it was all ladybugs. It turned out so cute! In honor of our little lady, we decided to serve "little person food." This consisted of pigs in a blanket, mini pizzas, chicken nuggets, fruit and cheese kabobs, baby carrots and celery sticks, and PB&J's cut in the shape of a butterfly. We played a game entitled How Well Do You Know Emee Jo? Yep, we made it up ourselves. ;) Jason wrote up a bunch of questions about Emslee and we played to see who knew her the best. I honestly don't know who won, but we had fun playing.
Emslee was such a good sport. And she was spoiled rotten! I am going to have to figure out where to store all her new toys. It sure was fun to get together with everyone and to celebrate her first birthday. We were so grateful to everyone that came!


The Ladybug cake...Katie, these pics are for you. :)

Emee with her gigantic piece of birthday cake. She really didn't know what to do with it...


For her birthday, Emee got her very first baby doll. She's such a cute little lady! The very first thing she did was pick her up and give her a kiss. About a dozen kisses followed. Such a little mama already!

A few of her party decorations


Emee sure loved all the balloons that were all over the house for her celebration. She had a lot of fun chasing after them!
Happy First Birthday Emee Jo!

And this is what happens when Josh is in charge....

So I left Emslee with Josh for a mere five minutes, and this is what I found. Ah, those chocolate spots will be fun to get out of her onesie. ;)

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Emee celebrated St. Patrick's day for the first time, being stuck in the Albuquerque airport while we waited two hours for our delayed flight. Good times! At least she looked cute though!

Our little Chubaca

So I've mentioned on here a couple times Emee's Chubaca noise, and I finally got it on video. A special thanks to Josh for helping me get her to do it. Enjoy!

Happy 36 years!

I just wanted to give a little shout out to my parents. They are celebrating their 36th wedding anniversary this week. It's amazing that two people can still love and cherish each other after 36 years as much as my parents do. They are the epitomy of a hard-working, selfless, strong, and loving couple. Love you Mom and Dad! Here's to another 36 years!

Emslee turns 11 months!

This her new way of smiling for the camera - it involves closing her eyes. So cute!

She was doing the "So Big" move with her arms. She loves it!


Our little girl is growing like a weed! At eleven months, Emslee loves to climb up the stairs as fast as she can, she loves playing with her dad, and she adores her mom's chocolate chip cookies. She always feels that she needs to be the center of attention, and if even for a brief moment she feels you're not focused on her she will let you know she is not pleased.
Emslee has started making this noise that sounds surprisingly a lot like Chubaca from Star Wars. It is absolutely hilarious to hear. And of course, when you laugh at her, she does it more and more. She loves to dance, babble on and on, undress herself (uh-oh), and explore the world around her.
Emee took her first faltering, uncertain step on the 28th of February. She's not up and running yet, but she's getting there. Sooner than I'm ready for, I'm sure.
Emslee's favorite part of the day is around 6:15. That's when she gets to see her daddy, and you should see her face light up! She is completely enraptured with him. She also has a gigantic crush on her Uncle Josh. He always makes her laugh. Sadly, she has started to cry every time he has to leave for work.
Emslee is finally sleeping for 7-8 hours at a time at night - Thank goodness! Her favorite food is macaroni and cheese. Her favorite toy is her camera. Oh how we love our little girl!

Emslee's First Oreo

Before I had kids, I had all these lofty expectations for myself. I swore I wouldn't give my child any processed, refined sugars until they were at least a year old. I swore my child would NEVER sleep in my bed, I swore that my child would never make a scene in a restaurant or other public place.....ahh, the naivety of the inexperienced mother.
I honestly did think it would be fairly easy not to give Emslee sugar for at least a year. I mean, she didn't even start eating solids regularly until she was 8 months old. I only had four months to go. Not that difficult, right? Yeah, right. Each and every time any of us had a cookie, or candy, or soda, or anything that I didn't want her to have, that was the only thing she wanted. I finally relented and gave her an Oreo. She loved it! (and I was just grateful Jason was the one holding her when I gave it to her.) I'm such a cheater. :)

Happy Valentine's Day

This past weekend was Emslee's first Valentine's Day. It was so much fun to celebrate with her. I made her a Valentine's dress (I know, I'm sewing - shocking.) And on Saturday, Jason surprised us both with roses. He gave me a dozen red roses, and gave Emee a dozen pink roses. It was so sweet! I just love him!
We had a fabulous Valentine's day. And Emslee's dress sure turned out cute, if I do say so myself. :)

And it begins...

Thus far in Emslee's life, I have felt extremely grateful that she was not a child that was into absolutely everything. Life was pretty calm - I didn't have to worry about her exploring every little thing she could get her hands on.
Until yesterday....
I was having a super stressful day, trying to get caught up on bills, housework, and preparing for my visiting teachers and then my family to come visit. I turned my attention away from Emee for what seemed like just a moment and...


That's right! She found my makeup! Look closely. It is all over her! You can't even see all the spots on the carpet. It was EVERYWHERE! The best part was that Emee just started laughing and smiling. What a kid!

Her latest trick

Emslee has officially started crawling up the stairs. Scary! She's not perfect at it yet, but she's getting there. This photo was taken the other night when my family came to visit. We had to show her off, of course! She got so excited going up the stairs, I thought she might hyperventilate. She loves learning new things.

Happy 10 months!

I can't believe my little girl is already ten months old! I know, I say that every time I post. She's just grown up so fast, it's hard to believe it sometimes!
At ten months, Emslee is almost a stand-up comedian. She loves to make people laugh, and will do anything to get a reaction. She walks, albeit tentatively, while holding onto furniture and whatever else she can get a hold of. One of her favorite things to do is crawl over to mommy and pull herself up while holding onto my pant leg. However adorable this is, it can become frustrating when I'm trying to get things done. Emee loves to crawl, and is a speed demon! She gets excited every time we get in the car to "go find da-da," loves to eat at the table with the grown-ups, and loves to tease. Every time Jason attempts to change her diaper, she tries to run away and laughs the entire time. She also does this totally cute little thing with her mouth and fingers that sounds like a slobbery motorboat. She has now started trying to do the same thing on other peoples' mouths. It's hilarious!
Her favorite toy is, surprisingly, mama's makeup. She loves to play with it, chew on it, and make messes with it. I learned very quickly to keep it out of reach!
We sure love our little girl, and love watching her grow! Happy 10 months, Emslee!

Emslee's Christmas Dress

This year for Christmas I wanted to sew a dress for Emee. I, as most of you know, am simply not very good at sewing. I'm not very domesticated at all, but I am trying. I bought the pattern, fabric, buttons, and everything else necessary. Then I enlisted the help of my mom, who is an excellent seamstress. She helped me get Emslee's dress sewn and it turned out so pretty, if I do say so myself. Emee especially loved it, because she got to play with the flowers attached to the ribbon at the bottom.

The holidays

I know, I'm behind. I like to blame it on a sweet little girl that cries all night and whines all day. I thought for sure she had an ear infection so I took her to her pediatrician. But nope, she's perfectly healthy. So I guess she's crabby for no reason at all. Purrr-fect.

We had such a great time over the holidays. We got to spend a lot of time with family and friends. Katie and her crew drove up from New Mexico. I have missed them so much! We spent hours and hours playing games, visiting, and baking. Jason, Emslee and I spent as much time as possible during the break in Preston because I "needed" to see my sister. (That is a need, right?) Below are a few snapshots of our holidays. We had so much fun!

Katie and Sevannah, all festive in red.

Emee and Mommy.

The beautiful angels in our nativity on Christmas Eve. Oh and we can't forget the little wise man who tried to sneak his head in at the last second.

Emslee, styling in her new pj's made with love by Grammie Jo.

Grandpa Dave with Emee...she's trying to decide if he's a bad guy or a good guy...

Christmas morning. As you can tell, Jason was pretty tired. ;-)

Aunt Sarah holding Emslee. We were so glad they were able to come for Christmas this year!

Trevin had tigers on his new pajama pants, so he had his mom make a shirt to match. So cute!

Now that is how you open a present!

9 months old!

Emslee turned 9 months old on December 21st, which just happened to be the day we took her to see Santa. She, of course, had no idea why she was sitting on some strange old man's lap, but was such a good sport anyway! At nine months Emslee crawls all over the place, and explores everything she can find. She loves to clap her hands and squeal in delight. She laughs all the time, and now has 6 beautiful pearly white teeth, which she absolutely HATES for me to clean. She says Mama and Dada constantly, and Aunt Karyn is working hard on getting her to say Kare-Kare. All in good time, I'm sure. Emslee still loves her bathtime, the sound of crinkling paper, being tickled, and talking on the phone. I can't believe how grown up my little girl is! I love you Emee Jo!