Seven Months!

Is it just me, or does the end of the year fly by faster than any other time?  It seems like Emma just turned 6 months yesterday, and we were celebrating her half birthday. We love to extend birthday celebrations, so the following weekend we took cake, ice cream, and party hats over to Dave, Cynthia, Olivia, and Kailey's house and partied some more! It's always fun to spend time with them, and Emma loves watching the older girls play.

Each weekend, we've gone to Dan's school's football games to cheer on the team.  They had a great season, and won their division's championship for the second year in a row!  Emma enjoyed the lights and action, but she liked watching the cheerleaders much more than the football players. She's been practicing her high kicks, so maybe she'll be a mini cheerleader someday. She always gets lots of attention from Dan's high school students and staff.  When we're at one of his school functions, everyone says "Oh my gosh, she looks exactly like you, Mr. Jester!"  I took her to work on Halloween so she could dress up with my department, and everyone asked "Is that your baby?" Ha!  Clearly, Dan wins the gene battle. 

The biggest news for Emma this month is her awesome new bed!  She was starting to look pretty cramped and uncomfortable in the mini pack n' play she was sleeping in.  We were going to wait for Christmastime, but Nana and Papa (my parents) offered to buy a crib as an early Christmas gift for her.  We did some price and customer review comparisons and decided to go with an IKEA crib.  It's simple, but perfect for the small amount of space we have in our rental house.  Plus, the price was right!  Since we had purchased her dresser at IKEA, we were able to match the colors exactly.

Dan and I had another date day on Veteran's Day, which was a holiday at both our workplaces.  We dropped Emma off at Sue's that morning and then went to the movies for the first time since she was born! We watched "Ender's Game," which was good, but the book is so much better. I'd highly recommend it if you like young adult fantasy novels.  We went to a local movie theater we'd heard about that has big leather recliners instead of typical seats.  It was relaxing to kick your feet up like you were at home while enjoying the big screen and surround sound.  

In other news, we ran our first race as a family at the Shelter Island 5K.  My coworker, Janeece, and I have run it almost every year, because it's a flat, scenic course along the water, and there's a huge breakfast buffet at the end of it. If that's not a good reason to run a race, I don't know what is!  Dan pushed Emma in the jogging stroller and I tried my best to keep up with them. I'm pretty sure she won the 0-1 year old category! :) 

Some fun facts about Emma at 7 months:

• She's sitting up really well now, which we're all enjoying! She can entertain herself for pretty long periods of time without us supporting her to stay upright, but she hasn't learned how to scoot or crawl yet, so she stays where we place her.  It's the best of both worlds, in my opinion.
• She has two bottom teeth now, which makes her smile even cuter.
• Her favorite song is "Old MacDonald," which I sing at the top of my lungs in the car when I'm trying to keep her awake.  Over time, our farm has moved beyond the typical sheep, chickens, and cows to include snakes, seagulls, lions, bees, and monkeys.
• She's exploring her world in new ways. She continues to put all objects in her mouth primarily, but she's also begun to whack them with her hand, talk to them, pass them from one hand to another, and when she's done with them, throw them out of her stroller or high chair.  
• She loves seeing herself in the mirror, and I'm pretty sure she knows who she's looking at.
• She flinches and closes her eyes when she anticipates a loud noise, like when we're about to shut the car door. It's really cute. 
• She is finally sleeping through the night occasionally!  Praise the Lord!!  She's so much better at soothing herself back to sleep when she wakes up in the middle of the night. It doesn't happen all the time yet, but when it does, it feels amazing to get 6-7 hours of continuous sleep!
• Some of her favorite things are when you animate her stuffed animals, hearing and making funny sound effects, swinging in the bucket swing at the park, and being tossed in the air.

Here are some pictures from our fun times this month:

Partying it up for Emma's half birthday with Kailey and Olivia!

The princesses :) It'll be fun when Emma can dress up and dance around the house with the older girls.

With hard work and dedication, we managed to make our way through half of this amazing chocolate cake. Then we packed up the rest for Sue and her family.

Now that Emma is sitting up well, we just surround her with toys and let her play!

This is how we end every bath time - squirting water from the bottle directly into her mouth. She gets so excited every single time! It's the cutest thing!

She still hates tummy time. Personal Trainer Daddy makes her push through it, though.

She's been very helpful lately with the laundry

And cooking dinner

She's graduated to sitting in the shopping cart, and she loves that she can see everything going on around her. Before, we'd keep her in the car seat and put it in the cart, so her only views were up our noses and whatever was hanging from the ceiling.

We went to many CCA football games this season, which kept us all up past our bedtimes.

But we taught Emma the family secret for staying awake!

Here's a video of Emma and Dan cheering on the team at their last game of the year.

She was definitely outgrowing her mini pack n' play bed. One strong kick, and her head would end up crammed in the corner.

We went shopping for a new crib for her, and took naps on the mattresses to test them out.

Buying Emma's brand-new bed at IKEA

And the finished product!

(She is nowhere near pulling herself up, by the way. I propped her and she was able to hold the pose for a quick picture)

We've had beautiful weather for jogging and enjoying our neighborhood park

And we make sure to pick up our favorite lunch date at least once a week!

At the Shelter Island 5K with my coworker, Janeece

Emma and Ellie are still getting into mischief together!

They are playing with light sabers here. These little Jedis are growing up way too fast!

Oh, and Emma apparently had a young admirer who stayed at Sue's house one day. She looks appropriately shocked by the kiss, so Dan decided to let him live! :)

Costume Time!

Emma has been busy this Halloween!  Here are some pictures of the fun times we've had.

We joined some other moms and kids from our church at a local pumpkin patch. This was one of the only photos where I could get Emma to look at the camera.  She was too busy trying to pick up and eat the hay!

Emma and I

The moms of the other little babies - Leighann with Norma Jean on the left and Michelle with Josephine in the middle. It's funny that we all named our girls names from several generations ago. We basically went to hang out with everyone and get pictures of the girls with the pumpkins since they're not old enough to play or ride rides yet.

The whole group that came from church. Left to right: Cheryl with grandson Jason, Genelle with Greysen, Jerrica with baby Zach and older son Trevor, Michelle with Josephine, Me with Emma, and Leighann with Norma Jean. This is just a small representative of all the young kids and new babies at our church - we've experienced a baby boom recently!

Sue bought the cutest pumpkin outfits and hats for Ellie and Emma, and got some great photos of the two of them. 

She also dressed Emma in Ellie's "Ellie-phant" costume one day.

Dan calls Emma his "lady love bug," so we couldn't resist this pajama set when we saw it!

The wings on the back are too cute!

Speaking of wings, she also made a guest appearance at my work as Tinkerbell! My department dressed as the cast of Peter Pan, and she was the perfect addition.  Left to right: Doug (Peter Pan), my boss Ralph (Captain Hook), me (Wendy), Emma (Tinkerbell), and Fatima (Tiger Lily)

Peter, Wendy, and Tink

She's definitely added a fun new element to our October!

Six Months!

It's been an exciting month with lots of new developmental milestones and experiences for little Miss Emma! We can't believe how fast six months have gone by, but at the same time, it feels like she has been in our family for much longer. Her personality is really starting to show now, and you can see her thinking through things more than ever before.

Dan had a two-week fall break this month, which is a new perk since his school switched to a year-round schedule this year.  I still worked three days a week, and Dan kept Emma at home. Since he didn't have to get up early for work, we focused on sleep training - teaching her to soothe herself back to sleep on her own so she'll eventually sleep all night. We borrowed my cousin's book "The Sleep Lady's Good Night Sleep Tight" which has you sit beside the baby's bed and soothe her (without picking her up) the first few nights, and gradually move further away and soothe her less until she's okay on her own.  I don't think I could've handled the "shut the door and let her cry herself to sleep" method, but it was definitely harder not to pick her up when we were right next to her watching her cry. We kept the mantra "This is beneficial training, not torture," and now we're so glad we pushed her to learn how to get to sleep by herself!  I have to give Dan huge props - he did the majority of the ground work with her sleep schedule. After a week and a half, she would go down for a long nap three times a day with minimal or no crying, and she was sleeping 9-10 hours at night with only a couple of quick wake-ups!  That's pretty amazing, considering she used to cat nap all day long and we rocked her to sleep every single night, never knowing how long she'd sleep.

We did some fun things during fall break, too. Thanks to some gift certificates, we spent two nights in downtown San Diego right on the harbor and within walking distance of many of the touristy spots. We took long walks on the bay and along the downtown streets, took Emma to her first Padres baseball game, and went on a Sunday brunch harbor cruise.  It was fun to have so many great activities at our fingertips since we rarely spend time downtown. 

Dan and I scheduled a "date day," and dropped Emma off at her baby sitter's all day one Friday so we could do some fun things, sans baby.  We went shopping at the mall, took a 2-hour nap, rode our bikes along the beach, watched a movie, and went out to eat.  It was refreshing to not have to worry about carrying baby gear and stopping everything to feed/change/entertain her for a few hours.

We also got out of town with friends for a weekend. We stayed at a rental house on an apple orchard in Julian, CA with two families we're close to.  They each have young boys, and Emma loved watching them play. We all had tons of fun, and hopefully we'll do it again soon.  By this time next year, she'll be running around with those boys!

Some facts about Emma at 6 months old:

• She cut her first tooth!  A few days after she turned 5 months, she was chewing on Dan's knuckle and he could feel it just under the gum.  Now she has the cutest little tooth poking up from the bottom of her mouth.
• She's definitely sitting up on her own, although it's only a few minutes before she knocks herself off balance and topples over. It'll be nice when she's more stable, since she isn't happy playing on her back anymore, but she can't play sitting up independently yet. 
• She can now roll from her back to her belly! She'll often get one arm trapped underneath her, but we've seen her make the full roll a few times now. We put her on her side to sleep, and she'll often roll to her belly on her own as she's drifting off.
• She's becoming more socially aware. She used to smile at everyone and everything that entertained her, but now she gives the "What you lookin' at, Willis?" look to strangers until she warms up to them. She also notices as soon as we leave the room and will sometimes cry, even though she's having a great time playing with her toys. Also, I'll play videos of her or her baby friends, and she'll smile when she sees the video baby laughing.
• She rarely gets lost in her own little world, and is always craning her neck, trying to see what's going on around her.
• Tummy time doesn't seem to be so bad when she rolls herself onto her stomach, rather than us putting her there. She's starting to kick those legs and get on her knees, but she hasn't figured out how to use her arms to lift her upper body. So we'll see if she starts scooting or crawling soon!
• We've been inconsistent with feeding her solid food, since she gets constipated really quickly from almost everything we've tried. So we'll skip it for a few days until she's back to normal. So far her favorite is butternut squash.
• Sleep has been much better for the whole family! We can put her down for naps and count on her sleeping for at least an hour.  She still hasn't truly slept through the night, but it's so much more manageable now that we can just go in and check on her, and then let her soothe herself back to sleep. Dan and I get 7-8 hours of sleep most nights, so we're feeling almost human again.
• She grabs at everything now and wants to put things right into her mouth, so we really have to watch her! When she's in our arms, she could lunge in any direction toward something she sees, so we're learning to keep a tight grip on her.
• She's nowhere close to standing on her own, but she loves for us to help her stand up on tables or our laps.  She used to cry when we'd try it, but her legs have gotten much stronger from bouncing in her jumparoo toy. 
• She's becoming more vocal, which isn't saying too much since she's been a pretty quiet baby so far. But recently when we drive somewhere, Dan and I will be having a conversation in the front seat while we listen to her have a conversation with her toys in the back seat. It's really cute. :) 
• One of her favorite new things is when we "fly" her around the house with her belly resting on our forearms. She gets the biggest smile! It's modified tummy time for her and a great arm workout for us. :)

Happily kicking during a stroller ride. Dan is obsessed with how wide she can spread her toes.

Bundled up and contemplating life

Little diva in the California sun

She loves grabbing hair, so I look like a wild woman most of the time. Dan is lucky he only has a little chin hair that's almost impossible for her to yank, although she's gone after his leg hair and chest hair, too. Ouch! Side note: I hope I never forget how sweet her profile is. I love that button nose!

Sitting up on the table

A hilarious picture of her trying to grab and eat Dan's phone, but you can see her tooth poking through

The view of the San Diego harbor from our hotel room downtown during fall break.

We did lots of walking around that weekend

Petco Park, home of the Padres

First baseball game! It was cold, windy, and way past her bedtime, so Emma wasn't all that thrilled about it.

We had gorgeous weather for our brunch harbor cruise the next morning. You can see downtown San Diego behind us.

Enjoying the sunshine and beautiful sights from the deck of the cruise ship.

All that fun wore them out!

Our other fall break getaway with our friends in Julian. We spent most of our time at the house and apple orchard, but we drove into town one day to walk around and shop.  We got one picture of the whole gang.  (left to right) Ann, Eli, Paul, me, Emma, Dan, Chris, Owen, and Adessa.

Emma taking a big bite out of her freshly picked apple from the orchard we stayed on!

My little pumpkin :)

We spent one morning at a nearby park to let the boys run off some steam. Here's a picture of the dads swinging the kids.

Emma loved the swing!

She also got to go down her first slide at the park

We love this sweet girl so much! Time is flying and she's growing up before our eyes.  Happy half birthday, Emma!