In Action

I am home with Emmy on a Sunday morning because she is sick. She has had the stomach bug all weekend. I heard it was going around. Hopefully the rest of us will stay well. Kevin and Jackson are at church and the house is quiet so I thought I would blog.

In the past and in the present whenever anyone has commented on who Jackson looks like it has always been unanimous- he looks just like Kevin! When it comes to Emmy there seems to be lots of opinions. Some say she looks like Kevin, some say she looks like me, a few people have even said she looks like my mom but a lot of people say she looks like Jackson. Some of her baby pictures look very similar to mine. I think she got a little of everyone in her. :)

I took some action shots of Emmy. She's still in her pajamas and her hair hasn't been brushed yet but she loves to stand up and play with her toy:

She also loves Pooh Bear. When she has something she really likes she will bury her face in it. It's really funny.


She loves a good game of pee-pie and especially likes it when we put a blanket over her face and then she pulls it off.



And she is crawling everywhere!

Some other fun things: She responds consistently to her name. She has started doing some waving. It isn't consistent yet but she definitely does it at appropriate times. She pulls up on everything! She has started "dancing" (moving her body up and down) when she hears music. She enjoys playing with her toys but mostly likes to find things that are new: the remote, my phone, a magazine, tupperware, etc. This is a really fun age!

Update on Emmy

About two weeks ago, I guess right around the time Emmy turned eight months, I put her down for her nap one day and a few minutes later I heard her in her room laughing and playing. This has NEVER happened as she always goes straight to sleep. I peeked into her room and she was SITTING UP in her bed and trying to PULL UP on the rails! Now, she's been sitting for awhile but I had never seen her go from lying completely flat to sitting up all on her own. Needless to say for the next few days she did not get good naps as she was "practicing" her new skills. She also quickly learned how to pull up to standing in her bed and so we lowered her mattress. Always a big milestone! :)


Everyday Emmy gets a little bit closer to crawling. She's been getting around using her two hands, one knee and one foot. Not quite a crawl but she managed to get where she wanted to go. But today was the breakthrough! She officially crawled across the room on both her hands and knees. I was very excited for her and she was excited to reach her destination on her own! Oh, this girl is growing up too fast!


Her two top teeth are still coming in. I don't think they are causing much pain but I think they are bothering her as she has continued to bite and gnaw on her bottom lip and now she has a raw spot above her chin.

And although this is an Emmy update I can't leave out my Jackson. He is going through a big transition as well- a transition that may last a few weeks or several months or maybe even a year. He isn't consistently taking a nap everyday. He doesn't even take a nap on most days. He will sometimes nap on the days he goes to school but only once in awhile takes a nap at home. "Nap time" is now "rest time".

It's been a hard transition for all of us as he gets very tired and cranky in the evening. For now we have pushed his bedtime to 6:30. Emmy still goes to bed at 6:30 as well. It's actually kind of nice having a little extra down time at night. We'll see how it goes...



And thanks to Brittani Bailey for the beautiful pictures!

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!

Catching up

My computer hasn't been working for the past three weeks- oh how I've missed it! I've been using Kevin's computer but haven't been able to blog because all my pictures are on my computer. So I have a lot of catching up to do.

Here's what we've been up to:

We've been doing lots of cheering for Auburn!

Touchdown Auburn!

Thanks Natalie for the super cute Auburn dress! :)

I promise Jackson is a happy boy! He was having so much fun with this chef hat and of course I turn on the camera and he quits smiling and laughing.


SEVEN MONTHS

Last week ended up being a big week for Emmy. She turned seven months and accomplished some new milestones! A couple of days before officially turning seven months she rolled from her back to her belly for the first time. She rolled from her belly to her back at four months but wouldn't go the other way until last week. Now she does it all the time and seems to tolerate being on her tummy a little better. Then later in the week I went into her room one morning and found her sleeping on her belly! I was shocked but glad to see it simply because she has hated being on her tummy so much. Now she can easily go back and forth from tummy to back and back to tummy with little effort.

Emmy at seven months:

Up until last week Emmy was still taking three naps a day. The day she turned seven months she decided she was done with her evening nap. I have been ready for her to give it up just because it makes it difficult to go out in the evening. But I put her in her bed just like always and she just didn't fall asleep. I decided to try again the next day just to be sure and again she didn't go to sleep. So she now officially takes two naps. Her morning nap is usually 1.5-2 hours and her afternoon nap is usually 1-1.5 hours. She goes to bed at 6:30 now that she dropped her evening nap and still sleeps until 7 and sometimes a little later. I'm hoping her afternoon nap will start stretching out a little longer and then her bedtime can move back to 7. Either way I'm not complaining because she is such a good sleeper.

And last week was Emmy's first time on a swing. Of course she loved it! Now that the weather has turned I'm excited to spend some time at the park. Jackson loves it and Emmy did so great in the swing!




And Jackson wanted in the baby swing because Emmy was:


I just think Emmy's face is so funny in this picture. Not sure what she's looking at:


So that's basically it. I think I'm all caught up!

War Eagle!

We were so excited about kicking off football season this weekend. So glad that Auburn won their first game- we weren't sure that was going to happen!


And the weather was beautiful! It ended up being a hot day but the early morning breeze made it so nice!

Love these pictures of Emmy:


Have you noticed how expensive game day attire can be? Pretty expensive...I was excited to be able to make this dress for Emmy for only a few dollars! :)