The best part of the day...

Emery wakes up in the happiest mood every single day. How could you not just love the huge smile, messy hair and slightly swollen eyes first thing in the morning?PS (don't mind the totally mis-matched jammies please)

Emery's First Word

I'm not sure if you can exactly call it a word since she doesn't really realize what she is saying, but she started saying "ma, ma" today. She actually starts out by just moving her mouth with no noise coming out, but eventually, the sounds come out too. I swear, her Auntie Silv can teach her anything and everything she knows so far was taught by Auntie Silv.

In the last couple of weeks Emery has begun to:

• talk :)
• crawl
• pull herself to a standing position
• get into a sitting position from laying down
• clap
• wave bye-bye
• throw tantrums when you take away a toy or set her down from standing

Where or where does the time go? I cannot believe my little baby is growing up so quickly. I now understand why people have so many babies. It is such an amazing experience to see them grow up, try new things and develop their own little personalities.

Emery's 9 Month Pictures

I don't even feel like I need to say anything :)

Our World is Changing Forever!

The first picture is what Emery accomplished by herself Friday afternoon while I was vacuuming the living room. I knew that we were soon in for trouble ...


Today while vacuuming, this is what she did - again, all by herself.


She has been pulling herself up in her pack-n-play for a few weeks now, but here she is pulling herself up onto the couch. I don't know if I'm ready for a baby who is completely mobile all by herself.

She also wants to be standing all of the time. If we are sitting down playing with her, she will reach over and grab one thumb with each hand and pull herself up and hang out standing. She has even gone as far as to grab a toy (a pretty heavy one at that) and stand while holding it with one hand.

Any tips from anyone out there?

Jackson Hole, WY Baby!

Ivan and most of his friends are turning 30 this year. We made a 24 hour trip to Jackson Hole this weekend with Sam and Meagan to celebrate Sam's 30th birthday. We had a really good time like we always do with Sam and Meagan. We enjoyed a couple of good meals and went River Rafting. Meagan and I had never been and were terrified. Once I found out that we were only going to be on the water for a little over an hour I was okay, I figured that I could survive that long if I hated it. We ended up having a blast and when the guide guided us to the "dock" I looked back at Ivan and said, "it's over already". Our boat got the wettest out of any of the boats that went in our time slot. Meagan also got pulled into the water completely by her lovely husband Sam.


We stayed at these cute cabins at Cowboy Village. Thanks to Meagan for putting it all together and for inviting us along!






These next photos are the best we could get. It was late, dark and me being so bright, asked the oldest men around to take our picture. Ooh well, what do you do?




Some pictures of the scenery on the drive back to Utah.



We also had old fashioned pictures taken. I will have to wait for Meagan to send me the pictures online, but I will be sure to post them too. They turned out so cute and I can't wait for Sam and Meagan to use them for their Christmas Card this year!

Where does the time go?

I've been friends with Lindsey since High School. We just had our 10 year reunion this summer, so it's been a while. I've been friends with Jodi for about 8 years or so. As time goes by, we all know friendships are challenged with time constraints from everyday life. I don't see or talk to Lindsey or Jodi often these days, although I think about both of them often. I had the pleasure of driving 1 hr with Jodi to Lindsey's baby shower last weekend. It was great to catch up on our days and compare baby stores - Jodi's youngest, Saige, is 2 weeks older than Emery.

Here are some photos that I stole from Jodi's blog from the baby shower and some of our girl trips. Boy how I miss the girl trips.




The last one is from a cruise we took back in 2001. We all look so young .. it will be so quick now that our daughters will grow up and be taking girl trips as well. I can only hope that they grow up to have such good friends as I have had.

Family

We've had several family members in town over the weekend. Here are just a few pictures to enjoy..

Emery and her cousin Brandon who is 11 weeks old
The girls ... myself, Makayla, Tasha, Shannon and Emery

Myself and Emery with Brenda and Brandon


Okay, we had a lot of family in town for 4 days. I really need to get better with taking pictures. If only I had a better camera (hint, hint Ivan ... )

Emery has TEETH!

Emery has been working on getting her two bottom teeth for a few weeks now. She is very shy about it though and we usually only get to see them when she is eating and opens wide for a mouthful of food. I finally captured the teeth in a picture..

You need to click on the pictures to enlarge them to actually see the pearly whites though.

Happy 8th Birthday Makayla!

We had Makayla's 8th birthday party at Boondock's last night. It was a blast - when we got there, Makayla said, " please wake me up, I think I'm dreaming". We were there from 7p until midnight when the place closed. We had pizza, cake, played mini-golf, rode the go-carts, played video games, you name it. We all had a great time, but were exhausted by the time we left. A special thank you to Grandma Phyllis for putting on such a wonderful birthday for Makayla!

The girl wrapped tickets around Makayla as we sang happy birthday. If she was wrapped in them all by the time we finished singing, she got all 200 tickets. And, she earned them all.

Misc Events

Our annual trip to the zoo...


I was reading People magazine the other night and Emery wanted to join in on the fun ...
Makayla and Emery at the Children's Museum at Gateway. Makayla was a little old for the museum, but if you have children between the ages of 3-5, I would definitely recommend it.

Recent Pictures

Ivan and Emery on the 4th of July
Makayla is in town - yeah! Her and Emery playing..
We took Makayla to Hollywood Connection last Sunday since we couldn't find anything else open. Emery wasn't too amused, she went to sleep in her stroller.
Emery really does smile a lot. But, she refuses to for the camera most days. If you notice, she has the exact same expression in both pictures below. The last one is her 8 month picture. Time goes by way too quick.

Emery Goes Swimming

My Mom and I took Emery to the pool 2 weeks ago for the first time. She really wasn't too sure about it at first but I think it's because the water was a little cold. We went again on Wednesday and she loves to "jump" into the pool. We will sit her on the side of the pool and she will lean in to get in the pool when she's ready. She can only stand being out in the heat for about an hour and a half, but we still enjoy it while we're there.

Emery, Emery, Emery..

Just about every post is about Emery, but I guess that is expected since we are first time parents, right? Below are a few pictures of the last month or so.

Emery and Carter spending quality time together ..


I told you we are swaddle free .. this was a rare occasion, now Emery is a belly sleeper and it is the cutest thing. I go in every night before I go to sleep to check on her and see what her sleeping position is like.

Emery finally held her sippy cup for the first time. She doesn't get much water out of it, but we keep on trying
I was being silly with her new bathing suit
She finally cuddled with one of us. Emery is very active, which is expected at this age. She doesn't like to be held all of the time and sure as heck doesn't like to be cuddled. After a few tries of putting her to sleep, Ivan brought Emery into our room to hang out and watch TV. I grabbed her and started stroking the side of her face. She laid still for about 10 minutes and then I put her in bed and she was out. It was such a rare occasion that I kept checking to make sure she was still breathing :)

We are finally swaddle free!

Yes, we were still swaddling Emery at 7 months old. The baby just wouldn't sleep well unless she was swaddled nice and tight. At around 4 months old, I finally had to have a friend of mine make bigger swaddling blankets. And then it got to the point where Ivan had to swaddle her because she would break out of my swaddles in no time flat.

Well, now that we are finally having summer like weather, the only blankets I've had to swaddle Emery with are 2 sided flannel - way too hot these days. So, I decided we're done with the swaddling. We started 100% swaddle free on Friday night. Emery was up every 2 hours or so just to give her the binky. Last night she slept through the night swaddle free. Such a nice feeling! I feel the binky is going soon too. We'll see how tough that one is to give up.