I ended up bring home Emma a little treat today since I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home and it was a big success!! We had our first taste of pears today and LOVED them! She ate half the jar in the first sitting and probably could have kept going if I let her! So it looks like pears were a success! I also brought home some bananas and peaches so in a few days, we might try some more.

5 Months & Rolling!!

Hi Everyone! It has been a while since our last blog update but as you can imagine, Emma has been keeping us very busy! Since it has been so long, I am sure I am forgetting things to update but here goes!

Emma just turned 5 months old this past weekend (on Friday actually) and on that day, she decided it was FINALLY time to roll over! Ha! She is so laid back, she just wanted to take her time and finally rolled from her tummy to her back on Friday, November 27th! It was a big weekend because on that same day, she discovered she has feet ha! So diaper changing is about to get really interesting haha.

We had a great Thanksgiving and Emma even had her first taste of Mashed Potatoes and she was not a fan! The face was absolutely priceless but I'm not sure we can say much seeing that she gives that exact same face for her first bite of cereal everyday (like she hasn't been eating it for a few weeks now) haha. She is doing much better with her cereal (still makes a giant mess) but we are starting to slowly introduce her to some fruit as well.

Emma is now old enough to not only recognize Mommy and Daddy but also recognize who ISN'T Mommy or Daddy and doesn't like it! She isn't quite as easy to pass around to family members now because she doesn't "know" a lot of people yet and has gotten very clingy to Mommy especially (which is okay because I secretly LOVE it haha). She is a very cuddly baby but also wants her own time where she can stretch and yell and kick on the floor all by herself!

Emma and Mimi and I went shopping the day before Thanksgiving and she was such a good baby! We carted her all around this weekend from the mall, to Thanksgiving, to back to Mimi's house on Friday, then off to Costco on the weekend then down to Uncle Brian and Aunt Mary's house to celebrate her cousin Robert's 2nd Birthday. She had a great time playing with all the little ones and couldn't stop laughing at her big cousin Lauren and her friend as they were rolling a ball across the floor. She thought it was the funniest thing in the world!

Wes and I absolutely can't wait for the holidays, even though Emma won't remember a lick of Christmas and will probably sleep through most of it...but it just seems different this year.

A Little Holiday Cheer!

I have to admit that I do this EVERY year and it makes me laugh even more from year to year (I know...I have a ridiculous sense of humor). Wes and I are in the holiday mood already!!

Update: Since the video was taking FOREVER to load in the Blog, I decided to just post the link instead.

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/HnktiCffS6sUFAWa

Who knew Emma was such a good dancer!!

What A Difference...

A little comparison...this is Emma in her Little Lamb Swing a little over a week old.

July 6th - 2 days before her due date:

This is Emma in her Little Lamb Swing a little over 4 months old (November 5th):


No wonder we started calling her Tiny.

Cookie Exchange!

Hi Everyone! I thought I would take a few minutes to update everyone on how things are going with us...great! Emma is doing well and is almost 5 months old already. I absolutely can't believe how fast time is flying by. She is still working on rolling over thing haha but has been a little distracted lately because she is teething! That's right! 4.5 Months old and definitely teething! It's going to be an interesting few weeks!

We had a great weekend with some awesome weather. It reminded me of our wedding day when it was bright and sunny and 70 degrees in the middle of November! We ran some errands and did just some odds and ins on Saturday. I had to get ready for a cookie exchange on Sunday so I was baking away! I decided to make some Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter cookies and they turned out pretty good!



Sunday, it was off to the cookie exchange after a really productive morning! I was up-and-at-em and had my second batch of cookies finished, my 7-layer salad made and dinner in the crock-pot all before 9:00AM. Shew! That's probably why I was back in bed by 9:00PM that night haha! I ended up coming back with 25 different kinds of cookies and recipes for all! Yum! Between the new cookies and ones I made, I took about 10 bags (3 each) to give away to work, have two LARGE freezer bags full in the freezer, a frozen bag for my parents and a bag in the pantry for Wes and I to eat! We are in cookie overload! Needless to say I won't have to do much baking for the holidays!

Emma ended up taking one LONG nap on Sunday but just couldn't stay awake until bedtime, so about 5:30PM when I got home, I found this....

Tiny must have had a hard couple of hours of playing with Daddy because she was almost done for the night! Although I really had a great time at the cookie exchange, I couldn't wait to get home and this is exactly why. Nothing in the world compares to these snuggles. After a short nap on Mommy, Emma woke up and was completely content just snuggled in my arms, "chatting" with Mommy for the rest of the night. Even though she isn't even 5 months old yet, I can't imagine my life without her.

As I am sitting her tonight, listening to the baby monitor I can't help but think about my cousin who just went into the hospital about an hour ago ready to begin her new journey of mother-hood. Kim, you are in our thoughts and prayers tonight and I can't wait to come and get to meet Baby Girl for the first time!! Good luck!!

Some New Pics - Playing with Photoshop

I am still working on my photo editing and so far have just been playing with the free 30 day trial of Photoshop (lots of fun, and free so you can't beat that)! I told Wes that Photoshop Elements 8 was on my Birthday list for next year but being the great hubby that he is, he surprised me with it early, so I got it this weekend! I can't wait to get started and to learn some more tricks. Although the online tool is fun, there are a few missing tools that the full versions have... so I can't wait to learn! Of course this depends on how Tiny cooperates in the evenings haha.

Here are some more before and after pics...

Before (Straight Out Of the Camera (SOOC)):

After (Photoshop Free 30 Day Trial):

Before (Straight Out Of the Camera (SOOC))::

After (Photoshop Free 30 Day Trial):

I am also heading to the fabric store this weekend to buy a few yards of fabric for backdrops! This is such a fun hobby!! So far, Emma has been a great model and I think I have a few more months before she learns to crawl and things get really tricky!! Haha!! At least right now, she can't get away from me!

Celebrating 4 Years!!

Well, Thursday, November 5th was our 4 year wedding anniversary and since it was smack in the middle of the week, and Emma was running a fever from her shots the day before, we decided to wait and celebrate tonight! So we are heading to a restaurant called Pazo's and Mimi has offered to Babysit overnight for us, so we even get to sleep in a little tomorrow!! Woo hoo!!

I can't believe it has been 4 years already!! I am really looking forward to celebrating tonight and I can't wait to see what life brings us in the future!!

Doctor's Appointment & Cereal Time!

Hi Everyone! Emma had her four month doctors appointment yesterday (rescheduled from last week when she had the dreaded H1N1) and all is well! She now weighs 13 lbs 14 ounces, is 24 inches long with a head circumference of 15 and 3/4 inches. She is in between the 25th and 50th percentile for everything. It was kind of funny because when I told Wes what percentile she was in he was worried because he thought the ideal is 100%! I said HOLY COW! That would be one big baby!! Ha!! We asked Dr. P about her appetite because it seemed to drop off all the sudden and he checked her gums and thinks its because she is teething! WHAT?!? Yup, that's right, teething at four months. He could feel a bump on her lower gums and said that a tooth was probably moving up closer to the surface. You can't see any white yet so it won't be making its appearance tomorrow by any means, but he said that when a tooth moves up, it can hang out there for a while before poking through. Emma did pretty good with all her vaccines and boy did they put her to sleep! We got home at 3:30 yesterday afternoon and I had to wake her up at 6:30PM for some dinner. She was back to sleep after a bottle and some cereal at 7:30PM and slept until 6:00AM this morning. Add another hour nap while Mommy was getting ready for work and she slept for 14 hours in a 16 hour span haha. That's my little sleeper!!

She is running a low grade fever today most likely from her shots. I got a call from daycare this morning that she had a temperature of 100.5 and is a little fussy. So I am sure it will be a long day for both Tiny and her teachers.

We are getting a little better with the cereal too. Dr P said that when she masters the cereal, we can start introducing fruit little by little between now and her 6 month appointment. He told us to start with fruit as opposed to veggies as they can be a little harder to digest. He told a pretty funny story though about how previous generations would feed "solid" food to babies earlier and earlier and in his baby book, his mom wrote at 6 weeks of age that he wasn't a fan of pees. Haha!

We couldn't resist taking a picture of Emma during her first cereal experience. Usually, a spoonful goes in, half comes out. We recycle that and put that half back in, and half of that comes out, then repeat for about three more times. Then a new spoonful goes in and a spoonful and a half comes out. Wait a minute...how did that happen?!?! Although Tiny doesn't seem to see the humor in this process, Wes and I sure do.

What A Busy Weekend!!

Before I get into the busy weekend that Emma had, I HAVE to post a little video of her. It's not the best quality but she just started to really laugh over the weekend and we had to capture it (on our digital camera). The video is from Saturday night. After a LONG day, Emma took a really good nap on the way home and was in a great mood. This was the first time we got her really laughing! She was laughing so hard, you can actually see her get freaked out at the end like "WHOA...What was that?"

You will have to ignore me acting like a fool in the video though haha. For some reason, if I just bobbed my head and said the word "cereal"...she thought it was the best thing in the world! This was right before bedtime which is why it was so dark out! The microphone was also covered up for the first 27 seconds...so you will hear her better after that haha.



Friday was Emma's first day back at daycare after being sick and we were so happy that she was able to go back and not miss her Halloween parade!! It was really cute and Wes and I got to join her! She was a little bit fussy when we got there (she has been pretty picky eating lately) so she was hungry when it started. We tried to feed her while walking which was pretty challenging but needless to say we were all the way in the back of the parade playing catchup the whole time haha! Here are a few pictures from the parade...

This is Daddy and Emma getting ready to leave for the parade! Emma was all dressed up in her Poodle costume!

This is how we spent most of the parade. Emma is over 13 lbs now so this is no easy task!

It wasn't very crowded where we were but in front of us it sure was. We paraded through a shopping center and all the store owners come out and watch and give the little ones candy. It was really cute!

Before we left, we tried to get a picture of Ms. Holly and Emma but the little poodle wasn't cooperating haha.

Wes had a friend come up on Friday night which usually means that Mommy and Emma are stuck upstairs because its PlayStation night. This time, we decided to go visit Mimi and Pop and we had a great time, just relaxing at their house and playing. Tiny was super tired and slept all the way home and went right to bed!

Then it was Halloween!! Saturday morning it was off to our Alzheimer's Memory Walk with Daddy and Mimi and although the weather was a little questionable, it held out for the most part. Since Emma wore her Poodle costume in the parade, she decided to wear her Pumpkin costume to the walk. Although it was a short walk, we had a good time and we thought about Muzzy a lot. We were doing this for her, and I could absolutely feel that she was watching down over us and was proud!

This is Mommy and Emma all ready for the walk! Doesn't she look excited?!?!

We met up with a couple of my coworkers at the walk and one of them has a daughter, Olivia, about three weeks older then Emma. Emma and Olivia have met a few times and actually look very alike! Olivia's mom makes the cutest headbands and they are actually interchangeable with different color flowers! I have to admit that I am usually not a big fan of baby headbands but these are adorable and they were kind enough to make Emma some too! We can't wait to go show them off!

Here is Emma modeling one of her new headbands! We have to put something there to distract everyone from her bald head!!

After the memory walk, we decided to head down to southern Maryland with Mimi to watch Cousin Lauren and Dana's soccer games. We had a great time (minus one little fussy bout) and man those girls are good at soccer! Emma was a trooper and held out for a long time and finally just couldn't take any more since it had been a big day...so she spent the rest of the soccer game in her stroller frowning haha.

Saturday night was also the first time we introduced Emma to cereal (which probably helps explain the videos haha). She LOVED it! We started out small with just a little bit in a 2 ounce bottle and she drank that right down. So we went with another little bit in another 2 ounce bottle and that was gone before we knew it!

We also are getting a lot closer to rolling over! Tiny doesn't really like tummy time so once and a while she will just get really wiggly and try to roll over from her back to her front. She can get herself all the way on her side, but she just can't seem to get over that darn arm!!

One year ago today, we actually found out that we were expecting little Emma! It seems like it was just yesterday and I remember it so well! I can't believe it has been a year though since the day we found out our lives would never be the same!