Emma's First Birthday

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Emma's first birthday was a big success. She only cried once! She wasn't so much into the whole present thing, but she did love the homemade chocolate cupcakes with homemade chocolate icing! And who wouldn't? She then enjoyed playing in the baby pool and her playhouse. My favorite story of the evening: Lydia and Avalyn went up to the window on the playhouse and were taking turns playing fast food. "Burger fries?" When I heard Bethany retelling this I almost fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard! Anyway, Emma was very thankful for all her new toys and books, and happily plays with them and eats them and bangs them together. Thank you all who were there for coming!

So I've been a bit of a slacker...

Wow. It's been a while since I have given any sort of meaningful update. Sorry about that! I guess saying we've been THAT busy for a month isn't quite true. I just haven't sat down to do this in a while.

Emma is doing great! She is getting so big and strong! Her one year birthday was last Friday, and she is looking so old. She has officially taken steps without assistance. The first time for that was last Saturday night at the Ree's home. She walked all over the place once everyone had left (of course.) Then the following Monday we went to visit Brian at work and she walked all over the place there. Thus making me think that she will only walk in the presence of a Ree. She babbles constantly. She talks nonstop mixing in some slightly intelligible words but mostly just baby babble. From the moment she wakes up to the second she goes to sleep she doesn't stop talking. She screams even louder now when she sees Leo, and she shows joy unbridled when she sees something that delights her. It truly is a joy to watch her learn. She has started to try to repeat what I say to her, though not every time and certainly not perfectly. She is getting so good at talking! She says dada, yeah, yes, nanana(still!), liya(lydia, I am telling you, she said it!), nonny, and every once in a while she will say mama, but not often enough!
Emma also started clapping today for the first time! We went to one of those water playgrounds and she got so excited she started to clap. Then she kept doing it over and over when something made her happy. She loved to play in the water so much there! She truly is a fish, and every chance she gets she loves to kick around in the water and splash. I cannot help but think that next summer she will just take off swimming all on her own!
Her hair has grown so much in the past year, and now it is covered in tight ringlets all along the back. My mom tells me my hair was wavy at this age(and still is), but no where near this curly. So it looks like my fiery red head will also be decked out in curls! Did I mention how much she has grown? Oh and this week will be time to move into size 4 diapers. She is so chubby! We found out for sure last week that she is allergic to rice, which I would have thought was impossible but evidently so is my Granny. Who knew. She also cannot eat bananas or too much yogurt and dairy in general. And since she has turned into a picky eater, meals are getting more and more difficult. I am getting great at being creative with meal planning. I know she needs all the nutrients she can get, so it's a balance between what she will eat and what is actually good for her. If left alone she would gladly eat goldfish for every meal!
I am certain there are things I am forgetting to say and I am sure they will all come to me when I am laying in bed tonight. But I think that was a good catch up for now.

Brian is doing great. He works full time for Andy during the day, and sometimes works part time for another company to learn some real estate law. His summer class is almost over, and all he has left is the exam this Wednesday. After that he is free as a bird until August 20, which will be wonderful. We plan to take advantage by going on some sort of weekend trip somewhere. No solid plans yet, but something. He will also be going back to Geneva this fall, so the whole crazy parade starts all over again! But I don't want to talk about that.

I am doing fine as well. We got my car all cleaned out today so we could get it inspected tomorrow. We turn it back in at the beginning of August and I am going to miss it. It was such a fun peppy car. Oh well. All leases must come to an end.
I am stunned that Emma was born over a year ago. All last week we would say "at this moment one year ago, I was this or that" and I just cannot believe it's been a year already! I look back on it with sweet fondness. Emma is so precious to us, and I do not remember what life was like before her. It seems all so long ago, yet not at all at the same time. Her labor was scary, but it had it's purposes, and her life has already held so much meaning. I look forward to many more years of play and learning and growing. My how the time flies!
On other notes, Thank you all for your various suggestions on weight loss and diets. I have this past week started a detox program and a very strict diet. But the point is not so much to "diet" as it is to reteach me how to eat. So I am trying to be much more careful about my calorie intake, but just in general what I eat. I have also started getting up and walking/jogging before Brian and Emma get up. That way it's still cool and I have time to shower and cool off before Emma wakes up. I have already lost 3-4 lbs, but I think a lot of that was simply extra junk laying around that the detox has helped with. We will see how this goes!

Well. I think this has been long enough. I leave you with some pictures of my sweetie. Thanks for reading my blog in spite of my slackerness!





Emma loves the playground at the mall. These are some of her enjoying herself!





Her ringlets!








Clapping for the music! She would have been dancing if she wasn't in her high chair!

A little help

I know I need to post a new update, but I don't have time right now. I need some help. I weaned Emma two weeks ago, and was expecting to lose a few pounds right off the bat like I did when she started on solids. Well, not only has that NOT happened, I have GAINED 5.5 pounds. That's right. I now weigh more than I did right after Emma was born. I have been exercising (though not as regularly as I should) and I have been really trying to watch what I eat. So now I am throwing my hands up in the air ready to shoot myself for being so fat and I really don't know what to do. I now have 25 pounds to lose to get back to where I was pre pregnancy and I am really worried it's not going to happen. I am really worried I won't even get close. I have also been feeling really sluggish and headachey, just overall unwell, and would like to do some sort of a detox program so if anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears. I just don't know what else to do. And no, I am not pregnant. Thanks for your help in advance!

Where did the time go?

Emma is officially done nursing! I am happy about this as it means I can finally lose the baby weight, but it's also sad too. It means she is growing up! She says yes now very clearly, and anytime someone talks to her, she responds with "Yess." She has been squeaking with delight at everything the past two days as well. I do mean EVERYTHING. It has been so precious! And last, but certainly not least, she took her first step yesterday! Granny, Mom, Emma, and I were at Mayfield Dairy yesterday for ice cream. She had just finished hers, then she stood up on top of the table and took a step. She repeated the performance again this morning for her "dada"(this time on the floor =)), and has several times done it again throughout the day. Where did the time go?! I am sorry to say I have no pictures to show at this point, but I will try to get some soon.

I must be dreaming..this is too good to be true!!!

Guess what Brian is going to have to forbid me from going anywhere near when* I get pregnant again...

*Am not pregnant now..is not an announcement

It was bound to happen eventually...

Emma was taking a bath tonight when I noticed she was a little gassy. I should have taken her out right then, but I thought "Nah, she has never pooped in the tub, and I am SURE she knows that she shouldn't, right?" Wrong. It got everywhere, and I was grabbing toys as fast as I could and then trying to get her out before she started putting things in her mouth not meant to be put back in her mouth. Needless to say, her tub is SPARKLING clean now. I think she just felt sorry for me, like I had missed a huge marker of motherhood by not having to clean up a poop in the tub. Ah the joys...
She thinks it's hilarious to dance whenever she hears music. Tonight in the car after a VERY bad dinner where she cried the whole time, she sat there with her thumb in her mouth staring at me while slightly bobbing up and down every time she heard a song she liked. It was adorable! She has started laughing when I laugh at something she does that's funny. She notices now that she is what's making me laugh, so she will repeat whatever it is multiple times laughing because it's making me laugh. I cannot believe how old she's getting!!!



Mr.Frog here was sitting on my chair at the pool. When I first saw him I thought he was a piece of cement. Imagine my surprise when the piece of cement was squishy and moved when I tried to push it off the chair. It was really funny.




This is a cute outfit Nonny gave Emma from the Gap Outlet. She wears it so well!! =)



Emma wearing an outfit from her Nana, about to eat a very unsuspecting Leo. She loves to chase him around, and it's a good thing for his sake that he has no tail!

The Zoo, among other things

Today Emma got to go to the Zoo for the first time. She liked it, I think, but she is still just a little too little to appreciate it yet. She really loves animal noises, so she most appreciates the animals she can hear, a la birds. She chirps too when she hears them. She also has a noise that she thinks is barking like Larry(my parent's dog), and she makes another specific noise when she sees our cat. She is fascinated with creatures, but I think a lot of them today were just too far away for her to pick out, and were also foreign to her. So we will try again later, and I am sure she will like it more the next time.

We also got to have our first experience swimming last week! She got a little freaked out in the float, but she loves the water so she enjoys splashing around in the shallow parts. Brian and I took her to the pool again on Monday and she had a blast, again disliking the float. I think she will like it a little better once it gets warmer outside. Emma has started saying real words as well. We can tell that she is now meaningfully saying Dada, Lele (our cat), Mama, Yeah (though not quite like that), and Nanana(which CLEARLY means food.) That last one is what we have decided was her first word. She started saying it two months ago when she was hungry and still does now that she realizes it gets results. I don't know why on earth she is so verbal! Don't know where that came from...

Anyway, life is just movin along for Brian and I. Nothing much to tell so I will leave you with some pictures of the past week or so.

My latest recipe rave

I already told you about the cookbook that I love, so I thought I would quickly give you one of the recipes. Let me start out by saying that I used to be terrified of whole chickens..but not anymore!

Stick a whole chicken in your crock pot. You can add whatever you want inside: celery, garlic, onion, carrots..you know the drill. I just put a whole bunch of garlic cloves since I have one million of them (I love costco!) Anyway, don't put any liquid in. Cook it on high for 4 hours (I was skeptical, but it was done) then take the chicken out (I used tongs and a spatula...it was pretty difficult though becuase it was falling apart) and let it cool. Also at this point drain out the broth and stick it in your fridge. Scrape off the fat when it cools and then use it when you need chicken broth. Now pick the chicken apart. That's pretty much the hardest part, by the way. It takes about 15 minutes to do. Then you take the meat (you can use half or all of it depending on how many you are feeding) and throw it in a skillet. Add a can of black beans undrained, some garlic powder, cumin, salt and pepper and there you go. Heat it up and throw it into a tortilla with salsa, sour cream, cheese...whatever your heart desires. And serve it with Publix yellow rice, and you have the most insanely cheap and tasty meal on the planet!

Let me just say that I do not like dark meat and neither does Brian, but when you cook it in the crock pot it's so tender that it really doesn't matter. Also, when you add it into that recipe you really cannot taste it. I LOVE this recipe, and I am so impressed with how cost effective it is and how GOOD it is! If you buy the chickens from costco, it's a phenomenally better deal than if you buy a whole chicken from a regular grocery store, so you're cutting costs all over the place! So anyway. I will stop ranting now, but you have to try this. It's so easy!!

What goes on right under my nose...

The bag my cat is sticking out of is food that he got really sick from eating. So I have been in a constant search to find something that won't make him sick. Apparently he doesn't like what I have chosen for him! =)

Brian is officially done with his first year of law school!!! He got a whopping three days off, and now he has started his summer semester. Thankfully that will be ending at the start of July, so he will get about a month off. Maybe we can finally go to the beach...hmmm..Anyway, he is thrilled to be done, and the one class he was sure he failed he did not, so he can proceed. (I never thought he had, I would just like to say for the record.) He has also started the deacon training classes, so he will be gone three nights a week again, but that's ok. At least he's home for dinner one of those nights.

Emma is doing ok. I thought we had kicked the ear infection, but I think now that we have not. Yesterday she woke up with a high fever that she maintained pretty much all day. She slept almost all day and then all night, and she didn't have any other symptoms at all but that fever. She woke up today with a slightly runny nose, but no fever, thankfully. So I am unsure how to proceed from here. I don't want to hurt her ears, but all the stuff I have heard about antibiotics make me very nervous, so I just don't know. For now, I think I will continue to give her vitamin c, cold and flu drops, and ear ache medication, all of which are homeopathic. I have also given her some more peroxide in her ears. I am praying we can beat this ourselves!!

I am doing well considering. It's been a very busy month, and I have recently taken to not sleeping at night, which I think is lovely. I think once I have had a few more days of calm maybe I will be able to sleep again. I also think I got myself a case of whiplash at six flags. All of the rides were fine except the scream machine, which Brian and I spent the whole ride saying "OUCH!!!!" at every bump. I recall thinking at the time that it was going to hurt later, and all day yesterday I had a pretty awful headache from it all. Oh well...that will be the last time I even so much as LOOK at that ride!! On a much lighter note, I have found a cookbook that I absolutely adore. It's called Healthy Foods by Leanne Ely, and the advice and recipes are great! She has a recipe called Rubber Chicken which gives you three days worth of food off of one baked chicken! I am very impressed with this book and would highly recommend it.

Well. That's that. I will leave you with a picture of my cutie pie from yesterday when her fever came down enough to play for a few minutes. Poor sick baby!!

Multivitamins

I am wondering if any of you use a multivitamin, or have you ever tried costco's multivitamin. I think I really ought to be taking something for just overall well-being, but I am unsure which to take. The one from Costco is a great price, I am just curious if anyone has used it and actually LIKES it. Any help on this matter would be great!

Worth a try

HAH!

My new reason for not having anymore children. Right.

And...I don't suppose I should be surprised, but this makes me so sad!

Poor Ems

Munchkin seems to have contracted an ear infection. I am betting the cause is allergies, both food and enviromental, so I am working on both areas. But I am curious what you have all done to cure such things for your kids. I am not ready to give her an antibiotic by any means. I have given her a few drops of garlic extract and put a hot pad on the ear. Any other ideas?

Our Life

So it's been a while. But I was also without internet until about a week ago, so it's not ALL my fault! We have been doing just fine around here. We chug along and are thankfully reaching the end of Brian's first year of law school!

Brian is loving his job with Andy. He really looks forward to going there, and is sad that it is currently only once a week, though that will be changing in about three weeks. He is learning a lot, and loving working in a christian atmosphere where there isn't competition. He is the most dressed up of the three of them, and Sarina and Andy make fun of him all the time for wearing a suit every day. (Andy MIGHT come in in jeans, which he tells me is a big step up from the sweatpants he used to wear all the time.) They are even joking about having a dress like Brian day. Ah, my overdressed sweetie. He has two exams to go, one of which is tonight, and then he is free for about two days. Then he starts his summer semester, but it will only be two nights a week, so that's NOTHING. Never again will we have a semester as bad as this has been. Four or five nights a week with him gone has been very nearly unbearable, but it's OVER now!!

Emma is doing great. Since her awful well baby visit I have grown more bold in trying new foods. She seems to have just passed the hump, and I can pretty much feed her anything. She eats mostly finger foods now, though I usually give her some form of baby food too just to be sure she is full and getting all that she needs. She can eat wheat with no problems at all, and she ate chick-fil-a with me yesterday! My life just got SOO much simpler! And since she is finally eating carbs, she is chunking up nicely. Brian was joking that they are going to chew me out at the doctor because Emma will have gained too much weight. Ah well, I can't ever make them happy, so I won't even try. My sister came to visit a few weeks back, and she was showing Emma how to work her push toy(which I had been trying to show her for a while, by the way). The next day at home, Emma crawled right up to ours and started using it perfectly. So now she pushes that around like crazy and walk/crawls all over the place. She is into EVERYTHING, and has also dropped the frequency of her naps. She says "nanananana" when she is hungry, and rubs her eyes to mean either tired or hungry (which is so much fun to guess which is which!), and says mamam and dadada. She doesn't QUITE get who those are aimed at yet, but she is so close. I could say a million and one things about how she is growing, but I cannot remember them all! She has five teeth fully in. She is so curious about everything and is so joyful! She just goes full tilt until she collapses for a nap. And lastly, we went to the park yesterday to celebrate Eden's 2nd birthday, and there was a fountain where tons of kids were playing. It never even occurred to me to bring a bathing suit for either of us, but I figured we could play anyway. She had a blast! She splashed the water all over us and thought it was hilarious. She would even start to reach for the water then anticipate the splash and pull back and giggle before she got wet. It was so adorable! We will be going back, but with bathing suits next time.

I am very well. I am so looking forward to summer with its swimming and cookouts and possible vacations. Just having Brian home more will be great! I just putter along and have quite a full plate between Bible study and watching Kate! I love to be busy, so it's right up my alley. I cannot think of anything more to say about me, so I will leave you with a million pictures since I am woefully behind!

So frustrated

Well. I have been without internet at home for nearly two weeks now. Brian hasn't been home to deal with it, and when he has tried, he has spent hours (literally) on hold to NO avail. So we are dumping earthlink, since this is the third time this has happened in as many months and we are tired of paying for internet that we don't have. And when we've tried to fire them, we are put back on hold. Sigh. Anyway, it will be at least another week until I have internet at home again, so I don't hate anyone, I just cannot get online at home!!!

On a side note, Emma said Mama this past Sunday, and she has also started waving byebye. She is growing so fast! Anyway. I am sure I will have much to say when I finally have my internet back, but until then, don't miss me too much! =)

So it's time for an update!

We had a very nice spring break this past week! Brian started his new second job working with Andy Ree, a PI lawyer who goes to our church, and he loved it! I didn't mind so much either, because he didn't have to go in until 10, so he could help me with Emma a little bit and spend some time with us before leaving. It was a very nice pace to keep, and we had a great time.

Emma is doing great. She is working on her 5th and 6th teeth at the moment, so she soon won't look like a vampire! The other day, we were at a mall and were sitting on a bench. There was a little boy sitting on the other side, and he was playing Peekaboo with Emma by bobbing up and down. So Emma started to copy him, and now anytime we say Peekaboo, she will go to the coffee table and do squats and grin every time she pops up. So now my child can play peekaboo! I cannot believe how much she understands already! When she is done eating, I ask "All done? Do you want to come see mommy?" and hold my hands out. If she is in fact done, she will get really excited and sit straight forward waiting for me to pick her up. When it's nap time, I ask her if she wants to nap and hand her her bear friend. If she's tired, she will rub her eyes on bear friend and lean toward the crib. It's so cute! And she even crawls to me or my mom if she needs a diaper change! I have just been really happy to see all of these things start to happen. She even has a noise for me that is sort of a "Nananana" that she does when she wants me and I am not right next to her. My little girl is getting old (relatively speaking, anyway)! Also, yesterday she was entertained completely by little bits of smoked turkey. Before yesterday, she would look at finger food with disdain because to put it in her mouth was CLEARLY my job, but this held her attention for a long while. She only stopped because we stopped giving it to her, but she was quite good at it. And lastly, my dad gave her some chocolate ice cream the other day, and though she was miss cranky, she immediately perked up and when my dad went to throw the carton away, she crawled after him. It was hilarious! And so it begins...

Brian is doing great, and loving his new job, like I said. It will be a really good thing for both him and Andy as their personalities are so different. This is a wonderful way to get his foot in the door to law! He has two more weeks left of classes and then exam time arrives, but after that we never have a semester as bad as this one has been. He has typically been gone 4 to 5 nights a week, but from now on he won't have to be down there anymore than 4, and that will be rare! So maybe things will be a little less crazy now!

I am doing just fine as well. I planted a tree this past week that I am HOPING won't die because of our freezing cold temperatures. I am also working on planting some flowers in the front yard, and just generally hoping to make the house look nicer from the outside. I have had the help of my neighbor that I watch in the afternoons. She has been a great help and joy to me because at only 8 years old, she loves to help with house work and yard work. I have been very impressed by her work ethic, and really admire her parents for caring so much where most parents don't. I have also started a mother's bible study, and put a bunch of stuff on ebay. Hopefully it will sell! So there you go. That's been the past several weeks in a nutshell.

Since there have been so few real pictures lately, here are several to keep you happy. To explain, Emma LOVES to tear up magazines, and doesn't always eat them anymore, so I am all about it if it keeps her distracted. The blue paper is from the DMV, and all things from the DMV should be drooled on or thrown away, so she's learning! The other pictures are of Emma stealing three peppermints and sucking on them through the wrapper. We were at mom and dad's the other day, and she found one she wasn't supposed to. There was no getting it away from her! So she found my stash this time around, and thought that three would be better than one. Her breath smelled like mint! I'm a great mom for letting her have all that sugar...

Score!!

Smoothie King is coming to the Mall of Georgia!!! If you have never been, you are in for the yummiest smoothies EVER. And they are WAY better than that smoothie place in the mall! SOOO excited!!! Anyway. Carry on with your day.