Emerson Update: 10 Months

Our little boy is loving all the lights and decorations of Christmas. He is getting so big and so much personality is coming out each day. He is into everything and loves causing trouble.

At 10 months Emerson:
-is starting to give kisses on his own accord
-is starting to give hugs
-can win any staring contest
-goes and goes and goes
-is a great napper
-loves frozen blueberries, bananas, and pears
-has started pointing at things he wants
-can drink from a sippy cup on his own
-has little curls on the back of his head
-has 6 teeth
-loves getting into everything and making a mess
-is on the verge of walking...just a couple more months!
-is the biggest social butterfly

Emerson Update: 9 Months

Emerson Emerson Emerson. He is turning into quite the little boy!

 

At 9 months, Emerson:
- can growl like a tiger
- loves climbing
- can open cupboards and drawers by himself
- loves crawling in tunnels
- still hates being in his carseat
- bear crawls on hard floors and normal crawls on carpet
- head bangs for no apparent reason
- is so vocal and friendly to everyone
- won't sit still for a picture (as evident above)
- favorite book is "Is Your Mamma a Llama?" but generally loves books
- loves playing with other littles
- is very good at putting himself to sleep (thanks goodness!)
- loves music and knows a few tunes by heart (just a couple are Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, All About That Bass, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Theme Song)
- is not very snuggly, but is working on "kisses" with mommy and daddy

This little boy brings us so much joy. He is our little sweetie and just loves life. We have moved into our new apartment, which he loves exploring! He seems to be doing well with the adjustment, thankfully. We are really excited for the holidays coming up and can't wait to start our own family traditions!

Also, I have to put in a quick note about the Gerber Baby competition. So last month I found out that Gerber was having a competition to find the new Gerber Baby. Well I just had to send in a picture of Emerson!! So they have 6 age groups. The people vote for each age group and the winner of each age group gets $5,000, but official judges vote for the overall cutest baby, from all 6 groups and that winner gets like $50,000 and a year supply of Gerber food. Anyway, I thought it would be fun just to participate in it, but it has really taken off and Em has been getting a ton of votes! We don't know any official numbers, but I'm crossing my fingers for lots and lots of votes!!

Happy Halloweeney!

Jordan and I have been together for almost 4 years and during a majority of that time we have not really been big into all the holiday stuff and the traditions. Now that we have Emerson we are tying to be better about making family traditions and really making the holidays magical for him. Well Halloween day was an epic failure on our part, but I suppose he is still little so we always have next year to do trick and treating and such. We did go and do a couple different little fun things, so I'll share those.

We went to the Fall Festival that our church put on. There was a bounce house and carnival games and such, but we mostly walked around watching all the other little kids and played in the grass. Then a few days later we went to Nana's Fall Festival put on by her office and 3 or 4 surrounding offices! Emerson had so much fun watching all the other kids in their costumes and he, or course, got a TON of compliments on how stinking cute he was!! We did go to Uncle Mike and Aunt Kylie's house on Halloween with the intent to go trick-or-treating, but after dinner and playing and such it was a little too late for him to stay out, so we opted for candy Daddy brought home from the office. ;)

Delicious Recipes

Okay ya'll, here are a few divine recipes that need to be tried at your earliest convenience. These are not in any way healthy, they are purely enjoyment calories...here goes!

We had this recipe for Jordan's birthday breakfast: Blender French Toast with Coconut Syrup

We had this recipe for my birthday cake: Chocolate Coconut Cake

And here are a few dinner delicious recipes that are forever on favorites:
Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce
American-Italian all'Amatriciana (it sounds difficult, but it is seriously so awesome!)

And I gotta resurrect this fave: Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana

GO AND EAT!

Pumpkin Patch

 Last week we went over to Celina and went to this super cute pumpkin patch/petting zoo! This was the first time in quite a few years that I had visited a pumpkin patch and it was so fun! We didn't ride the hay ride because Emerson was a little grumpy towards the end, but overall he had so much fun too.

These guys would line up and wait for you to come feed them! There were times where they were climbing over each other just to get the nibble of food in our hands, it was a riot!

Oh my gosh! This kid owns my heart!

He likes to crawl in the grass, but for some reason he doesn't like his knees to touch the grass so he bear crawls it. No big deal! ;)

I know I'm not really one for telling stories, mostly because I'm terrible at it. I'm either too long winded or I don't give enough details, so sorry for the lack of story telling...you just have to settle for a story told with pictures. Sorry I'm not sorry!

Emerson Update: 8 Months Old

My sweet Emerson just turned 8 months old! 8 months! I swear, I have literally stepped into a time machine! It seems like yesterday my little baby was actually little, hah!

At 8 months, Emerson:
-is a speed demon when crawling
-walks around furniture
-pulls himself up with ease
-is working on saying "hello" and waving
-loves dumping over trash cans
-loves wrestling with Mommy
-loves playing chase with Mommy and Daddy
-love loves when Nana and Papa play with him
-is eating more table foods, he loves any food that HE can pick up and put in his mouth
-can charm any person that sees him
-is nearly always happy
-loves listening to the LDS Children's Hymnbook in the car
-enjoys playing on the trampoline and swinging in swings
-is a wiggle worm and is always go go going!

This little boy brings us so much joy and happiness! He always makes us laugh and truly is the light in our life. He brings such a special spirit into our home and I cannot imagine my life without this precious person!

Washington Vacation

This year for our vacation we decided to go up to Washington and visit my home and my family. It had been two years (whaa?!) since I had been back and for some reason I was a little nervous, but I was also really really excited! Because of everyone's schedules it was hard to get to see everyone we wanted, which was a huge bummer, but we spent a lot of time with family and went and made some extremely nostalgic day trips, which completely made it all worth it! Well folks, here it is!

Emerson was such a champion during the flight! We got SO lucky on the way to Washington because we had a free seat next to us. Em was able to stretch out and have a seat of his own! Yahoo! Not only did we get lucky with the seats, but the flight attendants were AWESOME! They introduced themselves and asked Em's name, they would stop and chat with him each time they walked by, AND they gave him one of those little pair of wings along with printout of our flight path! How cool!

He finally found his toes after 6 months of life! :) I just had to share!

These may not look like anything special, but this was Emerson's very first time exploring in the supple, soft, Washington grass. Ya see, down here in the south, we have nasty little critters like chiggers and fire ants that make life pretty terrible if ya get bit and seeins how Em has precious lil baby skin, we say no to crawling in the grass down here. At first, he wasn't quite sure what to do with the sea of green around him, but in the end, as you will see, he loved it!

These girls absolutely adored this little boy and spoiled him with toys and lovins!

We went exploring at the local farmer's market and found watermelons bigger than our baby!

 

First time swingin in a "big boy" swing. He loved it and could have stayed there for hours!

Playin in the yard with this old rascal! For some reason, this dog is so camera shy, but I captured him on camera....haha!

Going to the beach was probably my favorite part about our whole trip! I can't tell you how many beach day trips we went on when I was younger...probably 1,000! While we were there I was completely at peace and felt so close to heaven! Gah, thinking about it now makes me teary. The pounding and constant waves, the deafening wind, the rough sand on my feet...that is my solace and I didn't realize how much I missed it until I went back. 

This is one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip! Three people that mean the most to me in a place that is very special to me..can't get better than that!

Love all of these babies!

We tried to steal the recipes, but settled for a picture with the sign. ;)

These two...I love them so much!

Diving board jump by the Aryan Prince.

Even though this is a silly picture, I cannot express how deep my love runs for this man. He means so much to me and proves over and over that he is so right for me!

Paddleboarding at its best!

He could not get enough of the water! He would kick his legs and squeal with pure joy in the water and cry when he wasn't in it. My little water baby!

PNW beauty at its core.

 

For never picking blackberries, Jordan sure was a great blackberry bush finder!

 

 

Of course Emerson was my fabulous berry picking assistant!

 

Jam and syrup in the making.

 

Can't wait to taste me some of that "jamming awesomeness" as my mom says !!

And in the end, Emerson loved crawling and playing in the lovely soft grass!

I was able to get a lot of pictures, mostly of Emerson ;) , but there were lots of things I wasn't able to capture in JPEG format, like sitting in the living room late at night talking for hours about everything, the divine meals, the walks around town, the joy of being with family, and the laughs and remembered memories of long ago.

Our trip to Washington was not just a vacation, it was a much needed reminder of who I am and where I came from. In the almost 5 years (!!!) it's been since I've lived in Washington I've become a much better and much stronger person. I left a little broken, I left a little hurt, but all of those sad, bad, and negative things have washed away with time and all that is left are my happy childhood memories. I'm grateful we finally decided to go back for a visit, it was just the slice of perspective I needed.