9 months

These last 9 months have flown by. I can't believe my little baby is getting so big. It is surreal. 

Emerson continues to be the sweetest, most wonderful baby I could have ever asked for. I don't deserve to be her mom, and I am so thankful and humbled daily for this job. 

 She weighs 17 pounds which is 30%ile and 28 inches tall which is 78%ile. Tall like her siblings!

 4 teeth and on the move. She army crawls everywhere. She is our most vocal baby and loves to talk to us. Giggles just a little but gives us big smiles all the time.

She is a great eater. Still nursing and eating 2-3 meals a day of baby cereal, puffs, yogurt melts (her favorite), banana, strawberries, sweet potatoes, cheerios, and any other solid food that we are eating and can share with her. She also has baby food occasionally as well.

This month has been a little more difficult with sleep. She has had a cold (and showed up to her 9-month appointment with an ear infection) and teething so her sleep has been restless.  She wakes up a lot and sometimes wants to be up for the day at 2am, and it takes a while to get her back to sleep. We are frustrated and tired, but know its a phase. We have lucked out with her so this short period is, just that, short.

We love her more and more every day.

Christmas Time

It's a Christmas miracle, I blogged!!!

The weekend after Thanksgiving we did what most everyone else in the US did. We decorated for Christmas. Jason and Gavin went out and found us a second tree and we had a great day decorating.

 We took a break Saturday night and went to help my parents decorate their tree and eat dinner.

 Gavin found this Santa hat when we were going through our decorations and didn't want to take it off!

Baby loves being one of the big kids, and really loves that she can crawl and get where she wants to be. Our first Christmas movie of the year.

 The following weekend we went to the OP arboretum for the luminary walk. I loved it and think this will be such a great tradition! Hot cider by the bonfire singing Christmas Carols.

 Baby was there, she was asleep in the carrier.

 There's the baby. Still sleeping

 We finished decorating on Sunday

My favorite part of the tree is that on the bottom half, all the decorations are facing the tree. All the super heroes, princesses, santa's, everything are looking in towards the tree. I've thought about turning them around, but I can't bring myself to do it. I love them being backwards!

catch-up

Sweet Emerson now sits, plays and is starting to crawl like a big baby. She's growing so fast and just keeps getting sweeter and sweeter. 

 Gavin is completely obsessed with Spider-man. The Halloween costume was perfect for him and he now wears the costume any chance he gets.

 For his birthday last year he got this large stick-on for his bedroom wall. Right over his bed. Again, he loves it.

 This baby loves doing what the big kids do and that includes swinging at the park.

 Big sister decided it hair salon day and little brother was the recipient.

Sunday evenings Reegan goes to Awana at our church. Before daylight savings Jason and I would take these silly kids to the park. Nows its too dark, so we go grocery shopping, not nearly as fun but necessary.

 Emerson loves looking at herself in this mirror after diaper changes

We spent a beautiful fall afternoon at the zoo, the fresh air was needed and the running around made for an early bedtime.

My special helper! Reegan usually wants to do exactly what I am doing and loves to help. Emerson is a glad participant.

8 months!

Little miss Emerson is 8 months old! She's getting more and more personality every day and is STILL just the happiest baby ever!

 One of our favorite things she does is smile so big her nose scrunches up. It's seriously the cutest.

 We have been bringing out some more "adventurous" toys for her lately including the walker (mostly because it makes noise) and the doorway jumper.

 While Emerson is not crawling - not really even attempting to crawl - she is definitely mobile. She rolls all over the place and we are getting to the point where we're deciding if the need for baby gates exists already.

 She's also trying more and more new foods. She loves cereal, yogurt melts, puffs, sweet potato, squash, and any other orange veggie. Green veggies haven't gone over as well just yet but we're working on it! We're also doing some baby-led weaning with her and she'll feed herself some bites of soft veggies and bananas.

 We continue to find ourselves saying "she's really the best baby ever" several times each day it seems.  And she is!  I mean, look at that grin! It's the best!

Days

With Reegan being in half day kindergarten and Gavin in Preschool two mornings a week, our days are becoming full quicker and I have found that I need to be more intentional with time. It used to be that some mornings would drag on and I couldn't wait until lunch time and nap time. Not anymore, instead I find myself being shocked that its already 11:00 and just about time to pick up one or both kid from school. The afternoons fly by and many of my well intended behaviors/activities/chores are pushed off for another day. I feel like I am always saying it, but we are settling into our new normal...for now

These two are becoming best buds. Gavin has picked up the role of big brother and loves being my helper. He has taken on the job of reading to Emerson and shows her this color book everyday, sometimes shirtless!

I love wearing my babies and I think that Em likes it too.

I got to have a special one-on-one with this boy at his preschool fall festival. We ate hot dogs, hammered nails into a pumpkin and played other silly games. I love giving this guy special attention, because he deserves it all!

Lunch date with my babies (Photo by Reegan).

Trying to convince this guy to write his letters has been difficult. Reegan has always loved school and always asked me if she could practice, but this one, not so much. He loves to learn at school, but apparently thinks home is not for learning, only playing.

Sweet little Emerson has started eating food. She loves avocado and sweet potato in sticks that she can feed herself. She also loves puffs and yogurt melts. Right now she can pick them up in her hand but can't figure out how to get them to her mouth.We're working on it.

Painting pumpkins

Fall has been so nice, so we are trying to soak it in while we can.

Emerson is growing and learning every day.

I think she just figured out that we have dogs. We're now very interested and reaching out to touch them.

Emerson is such a happy baby. I can't believe how lucky we got with her.