Halloween 2011

Yesterday we enjoyed the fall festival at a local church in our neighborhood. They put on a great fall festival with so many games that Jackson can enjoy. He had so much fun. I get so much joy watching him having so much fun, running from game to game and collecting candy.

My little Buzz Lightyear and my ballerina:

8 Months

Emmy is eight months today. I just love this little girl. Her little personality is starting to come out. She definitely has her opinion about things but she is still just a happy baby the majority of the time. She is definitely a mama's girl. She wants to be by my side every minute and expects me to sit and play with her every minute she's awake. So I've started doing some 'independent play time'. We did this with Jackson and it was really good. She definitely doesn't like it at first but then she will play on her own for about 15-20 minutes.

She now has 4 teeth. Her two at the top are both peeking through. Her two bottom one's came through at the same time and it looks like the two top ones will too. The top teeth haven't seemed to cause near the trouble as the bottom two did. She's a very good eater too. She now eats a large variety of fruits and vegetables but definitely loves the rice cereal and oatmeal the best.

She's not crawling yet but I still think it will be soon. She tries really hard but somehow only manages to scoot backwards instead of crawl forward. She is starting to try to pull up on things but really only makes it up to her knees. If I'm sitting next to her she's usually trying to climb all over me. She LOVES to grab my hands and stand up. This makes her really happy!

So I've started giving her some puffs which she loves. I remember when we first gave Jackson puffs and he would try to grab them with his palm and then stick his whole hand in his mouth. It was pretty funny to watch. I expected Emmy to do the same but she picks them up with the neatest little pincer grasp. She mastered that skill quickly! It's so fun to see how different Jackson and Emmy are.

Some actions shots:



I like this picture because you can see some of her teeth:

To the patch

This past Saturday we decided to set out for the pumpkin patch. We got Jackson all excited about it and he behaved all morning in order to go and pick out ANY PUMPKIN HE WANTED! To my three year old this is a big deal! So we load up and drive to the church near our house that always does a pumpkin patch- except for this year apparently. Jackson was listening as we began discussing going back home and looking up a pumpkin patch on the internet and then going the next day. This was devastation for little Jackson. He was so upset! So we began driving aimlessly around looking for a pumpkin patch. We drove by all the little (and big) churches that we knew of that were somewhat in the vicinity of our house- no luck! As we were just about to give up we drove by a somewhat small but established produce hut (not a stand but not quite a store) and what do we see but a pumpkin patch. It wasn't very big but it was cute with plenty of pumpkins to choose from and it satisfied Jackson's need for pumpkins. He had a blast! He would try so hard to pick up these huge pumpkins only to give up muttering to himself, "nope, too big..." and then move on the next.



Emmy on the other hand sat where we placed her and bounced up and down and squealed and laughed as she watched Jackson "reorganize" the pumpkins.


This is the only one I could get of the two of them:

While the Cat's Away the Mice will Play

This past weekend Kevin was out of town. I was a little (or very) apprehensive about having the kids all by myself for an entire weekend with no help. It was hard but not quite as scary as I thought. We stayed busy!

Jackson and I did lots of cooking! We made cookies:



And banana bread:

We played outside a lot and did some cheering for Auburn:


It turned out to be a fun weekend but we are glad to have Daddy back home!

And to top it all off Emmy started babbling!!!

Sweet Boy and Big Girl

I think that Jackson is starting to like his sister more. Not that he's ever really been mean to her but he hasn't really shown a big interest in her- until lately.

Now that Emmy is sitting and playing Jackson likes to sit down with her and play with her toys. I think because they are new to him but it's a great time to encourage him to share and interact with Emmy. Another thing I've started doing is letting them have book time before their afternoon nap. Emmy and Jackson sit on Jackson's bed and look at books together. The other day before naptime Jackson was reading on his bed and I was holding Emmy and Jackson told me he wanted Emmy to sit on his bed and read books too. How sweet!

This morning I took Jackson (very early) to Children's Hospital to get one of his tubes taken out of his ear. I loaded him up in his carseat and then went and got in the driver seat. Jackson looked over at Emmy's seat and said, "Hey Mommy, what about baby Emmy?" I told him that Emmy was staying home with Daddy and that she was still sleeping. He said, "Awwww! I want baby Emmy to come with me." Oh, it melted my heart!

And this afternoon, out of nowhere, Jackson ran over and gave Emmy three kisses on her cheek. I'm pretty sure that is the first time he's kissed her without prompting from Mommy or Daddy. :)


And Emmy is getting to be such a big girl! I can hardly believe it. She rocks back and forth a lot, gets down on her hands and reaches really far forward for something she wants. Maybe she'll crawl soon?



A couple of weeks ago I gave Emmy a sippy cup. I gave it to her several times and she would hold onto it and put it up to her mouth and then not really know what to do with it. I hadn't given it to her in a couple of weeks- I just kept forgetting to. So today I brought it out and she drank water from her cup like she had been doing it for weeks! I couldn't believe it. She got a good amount of water even with the stopper inside the cup!