Mama

Emily started making repetitive noises about a month and a half ago. She would say dadadada while we changed her diaper and crawl around saying mamamamama. Last week while she was walking along the couch holding on for dear life and very discriminate "Mama!" distress call came from her. She waiting and after I didn't say anything she said it again. Since then Mama has become her favorite word. While she tries to climb up my legs when I am cutting up her dinner...mama,  mama. When she is overtired and goes down for a nap she screams Mama. It appears that she only likes to use her first word when she is sad or in need of something but I will take it! We are looking forward to her discovering more and more words.

Baby showers and Birthdays Oh My!

The weekend of April 8,9, and 10 we had an extremely busy weekend planned. On Friday night we enjoyed a lovely "family" dinner with our good friends the Martin's. Their daughter is almost a year older than Emily and they have so much fun playing together. Plus Taetam has introduced Emily into Chugginton. It is a great show for toddlers.

Then on Saturday Emily and I were off on a road trip to Port Washington to help shower my cousin Mandy with baby goodness. She is due with her first bundle in June. Emily had a great time charming the family with her smiles and laughter. She tried to keep up with the big kids--which is difficult when you can't walk and they can. She loves other kids. She gets so excited and just wants to play!! The nice thing was my cousin Ryan's wife Amanda was in town from California with her son Lucas who is 3 months younger than Emily. The two of them spent some time playing with each other. It is going to be so great to watch them grow up together!

After spending the night at Grandma and Grampa Mixdorf's house, Emily and I continued our road trip to Germantown. It was our niece (Em's cousin) Brielle's 7th birthday party. There are lots of little kids on that side of the family (most of them girls) and it is so cute to watch them all interact with each other. Em is the youngest but you can tell in a year or so those girls will have a great time running around and playing with each other.

We feel so blessed to have the family we do. It is great that Emily has so many fun people to play with and so many people out there who love her.

Playing with Lucas, Great Grandma, and Grandma.

Having fun with Rylie and the activity seat. I think Rylie was looking for some buckels!

Sitting with Great Grandma Wille after a long day. Great Grandma was doing her best to calm Em down.

Growing Up

Emily is almost 9 months. Which I find very hard to believe. She is definitely leaving her babyhood as quickly as possible. She is crawling all over the place investigating our house. She likes to kneel and play with her toys. She is even pulling her self up on some of the furniture. She is itching to walk. It is like she almost can't move fast enough. It is fun to watch.

Also Emily loves food. Thanks to the wonderful daycare staff at Tanya's she has been exposed to all sorts of great finger foods. The ones she absolutely loves are soy butter and jelly sandwiches (its a peanut free environment so the soy is like peanut butter.) and pasta with Alfredo sauce. She will eat just about anything put in front of her as long as everything is mixed together. If you serve her things separately she won't touch them. Em is also babbling away these days. She grunts in excitement especially at other kids and shrieks with delight while playing with her toys. She has even started to say mama and dada. I don't count these as first words quite yet because I don't think she realizes that we are mama and dada. She is a ball of energy who doesn't always want to stop to nap. I just love this stage!!

Practicing standing on my own at my activity table!

Reaching for my toys

Playing with my blocks

Too cute

My big eater

Yummy!

Bathtime is becomong a nightly ritual since I put all of my food in my hair!

Having fun playing with Dada

Infections

After picking Emily up from daycare on Thursday it was clear that she was not feeling well. Firstly when I got to daycare she was in the swing. The swing was only our friend for about 3 weeks when she was 2 months old. Once I brought her home I decided to call the nurse. To make a long story short I took her in on Friday, ear infection and probably a sinus infection. Our first round of antibiotics. Man do those things work fast. Thank goodness because we were in Grafton over the weekend to help Beth celebrate her 40th. Emily is back to her normal self. A normal self I haven't seen in at least 4 weeks. It is so great to have my happy smiley baby back.

Our sick little babe

Stomach Virus and Teething

We have just ended our second round with the stomach bug. Frankly I hope we never have to deal with it again. Emily seems to recover very very slowly from stomach viruses. Meaning she continues to get sick for several days after initially being sick. So far we have made it a whole day and hopefully are on the upswing.

In addition to being sick Emily is still teething. A process one of my girlfriends said never ends. She has two teeth on the bottom and the top ones are slowly descending. It seems that my daughter finds relief from teething pain by chewing on our coffee table. I have found several bite marks along the bottom rung. We have put blankets and pillows around the bottom of the coffee table to try and make her stop. However she always manages to dig past these. Em is not a fan of any of the traditional teething relief methods. She hates cold teething rings from the fridge and doesn't like chewing on a washcloth. Oh well I guess we will just have to live with the bite marks on our tables.

Other than that Emily's 7th month has been uneventful. We have spent a lot of time at home and are looking forward to the warmer weather and influx of family gatherings that are coming up. We are also having fun making summer plans. .



Practicing sitting on our own



She loves smiling. Especially when Mommy brings out the camera!



7 Months!

Today Emily has been out of the womb for 7 months! Pretty crazy if you ask me. I can't believe that my baby is now investigating the world around us. Em is so close to taking over our house it is scary. She has her army crawl down and continues to rock back and forth on all fours. She is doing a lot of "push ups" and attempting to propel herself forward by pushing her feet into the ground.  Forget about all of the toys and teething rings we have. She loves lamp cords, the TV stand, and gnawing on the coffee table. She is definitely full of personality.

Yesterday we found out that our daycare is doing a little restructuring due to the influx of babies. Instead of moving to the toddler room around a year old, Emily will be moving to the toddler room around 9 months. So in two short months my baby will be in the toddler room. I know that she is not longer an infant. I am reminded of that every day when I pick her up and I see the 9 week old baby doing tummy time on the floor. It is just another reminder at how quickly she is growing and how fast the time goes.

Happy 7 months my love!

A Few Pictures

I finally found my camera cord. Here are a couple of pictures. I will post more soon!

Emily's First Christmas!



I've got 2 teeth now!