Sickies

We've had a few sick days at our house recently. Chris had a few things going on earlier in the month, mostly allergies we think. Emma came down with a cold. Then she got some virus and a day of vomit and diarrhea was not so fun. Tuesday morning she took 2 baths between 7 & 8 am. We went in to see the doctor to make sure she didn't have anything too serious. I love when you talk to the nurses and they make it sound like your child has the plague or something. But hey, we ran into good friends in the waiting room and that was great, even if they had taken the last available appointment with our pediatrician.

Emma shared the germs with me next, and I'm still working on getting over it. Being sick is never fun, but I'm pretty sure it's worse when you have a baby who can crawl and likes to get into things she shouldn't.

Despite the germs we've had, I feel like I've made good progress in January on my goals...

I did my visiting teaching (well, because of the germs we did some phone visits, we didn't want to share)

I've finished 4 books, am 1/3 done with another and 1/2 done with another. I have 2 more on my nightstand to start later. I like having options! I also like a good series (did you know that The Giver was the first in a quartet of books? It felt more like books 1 &4 went together and 2&3 were separate, but similar enough).

I colored/cut 9 or 10 file folder games and hope to laminate them next month!

I sewed those bean bags.

I've made good progress in The Book of Mormon

 Started a personal progress thing, but you have to do it for 3 weeks, so it's not done yet

And after being sick I'm probably closer to my pre-pregnancy weight, although this was not the way I had intended to lose weight.

I've got great hopes for February--with 2 new sisters to visit teach and my companion finally being back in town we can hopefully go meet these new sisters. I want to get those ffg's all done and tucked away in Emma's closet. I want to finish the 2 books I'm currently reading. And maybe make some progress on the quiet book. But then again, February is the shortest month... and Sea World does reopen and I want to go see the sea lions and take Emma to see the fishies!

Once I did a sewing project...

Naptime today was rather successful.  First off, Emma took two naps (hallelujah!) that were of decent length. A few nights ago I had cut out the squares I needed to make bean bags, a project that I decided was a good "first sewing project", and also something that could be fun for Emma to play with in the future (or maybe now??).  Today after she fell asleep and I had breakfast and started laundry I started sewing. First I had some issues with threading my machine, but after a minute reading the manual I realized the stupid mistake I made and I was quickly done sewing, turning squares right-side out, and getting them ready to fill.  Then Emma woke up from that nap. I stuck her in her high chair for a few minutes with her lunch and sat next to her, sewing three of my bean bags shut. Then it was time to go visiting teaching, and when we got home it was playtime for a few minutes then naptime again! During this nap I switched laundry up, ate lunch, and finished the rest of my bean bags. They may not be perfect, but I think they're pretty darn awesome!  

I feel like I'm making some good progress on my 2014 goals. I've finished a book (Wonder), started about 4 more (I like having options when it's time to read), completed a sewing project, figured out which library has the best baby time (I asked a bunch of friends, I didn't want to waste time going to the bad ones) ,  and have made 9 file folder games. I need to just laminate them, cut them out and attach Velcro. I've done some things for personal progress (and hello, sewing these bean bags was part of a personal progress experience)), and I've done half of my visiting teaching for the month! I'm hopeful that I'll be able to keep up the enthusiasm with my goals. I think that having goals that I really want to do (sewing projects/quiet book/file folder games/reading) really helps me want to use my "spare time" to work on those things.

I'm trying to be more selective about how much time I spend on my different devices and making sure I am really getting things done. It's been nice to step back and reevaluate my priorities. 

On to my next sewing project soon... I think I'll finish up those I-spy pouches!

8 months

Today my baby girl is 8 months old! I cannot believe how fast time is flying by! At 8 months Emma is figuring out the whole crawling thing, although she hasn't figured out exactly how to get her knees involved in the process. She gets quicker every day! Just today she crawled halfway across the house until she found Daddy's desk that had all sorts of cables hanging down from it.

Emma has 2 teeth

She LOVES her stuffed animals (monkey/giraffe/penguin, she loves them all)

She's starting to get back in the routine of sleeping at night instead of waking up every couple of hours. That darn ear infection she got in November that lasted a month, teething, traveling, and then her cold really messed up her sleep habits.

She can wave. Sometimes she'll even wave without being prompted. My favorite was last Sunday we sat down at church and she saw her friend John sitting behind us and waved to him. He was pretty excited that she waved before he did! John graduated from law school several months ago and is living at home while he's finishing some other degree (accounting?) and looking for jobs. He and Emma are pretty much bffs.

Emma loves to smile at the cute baby in the mirror. She waves and smiles at herself, it is so stinkin cute!

She loves applesauce, avacado (sometimes), banana (as long as it's the perfect banana), pasta, cheese (again, just sometimes... don't know what the deal is with that one), and her Gerber Graduate Puff snacks.

She gets really excited when daddy comes home, and still LOVES bathtime.

I find myself needing to sweep and mop the floors a lot more now that she's more mobile and now that she really does try to put everything in her mouth.

We sure do love our Emma girl!

two new favorites

We are loving this new salad dressing that we discovered at the very end of December. It has way less sodium than a lot of other dressings we looked at, and the flavor is AMAZING! It's more expensive than we normally are willing to pay for salad dressing, but it makes eating salad fun so it's worth it in my book! 

My sewing machine was an early Christmas gift--we bought it on Black Friday, and I was well aware of the purchase because Chris was debating between a few that he thought looked good but he quickly admitted he had no clue if the features advertised were important or not. So far I haven't done any projects, I've been playing around with scrap fabric figuring out lots of the stitches really look like. I've also been winding bobbins so that I'll be ready to start a project soon! As part of my New Years Resolutions I want to work on Emma's quiet book which will require some sewing, I want to finish up the I-Spy pouches that Mom & I started at Christmas, and a whole long list of other projects. Pinterest has given me way too many ideas. Today I decided I wanted to make some bean bags, and if Emma wasn't asleep right now I would probably hop in the car and go to Walmart so I could buy some fabric and beans and whip up some bean bags... but Emma is FINALLY taking a nap so I better wait. 

I want to make this sunglass case.

I want to make this rice heating pad (or something very similar)

I want to make this hooded towel, since the baby ones Emma has are getting a little small.

I want to finish making these I-Spy pouches, although I don't think we followed her directions exactly, and I know we didn't use the same type of material she recommended. When I have mine done I'll show pictures, but I'm pretty sure mine are cuter. It helps that they are themed, and the fabric goes with the theme. 

2014 Goals

I've been thinking for the past few days about what I want my goals to be for 2014. My list is kind of scattered and all over the place, but here are the things that I THINK are going to be my "New Years Resolutions" though I give myself the power to change them whenever I want. :)

In 2014 I want to:

-Read The Book of Mormon 

-Make 12 pages for Emma's Quiet Book

-Have 15 File Folder Games completed

-Read 12 books for fun

-Take Emma to Story Time (either at the library or at Barnes & Noble) somewhat regularly
-Lose the rest of my pregnancy weight

-Read to Emma every day

-Do 5 sewing projects (did I mention yet that I got a sewing machine on Black Friday?) 

-Be a better Visiting Teacher and actually visit my sisters instead of phone calls/letters

-Participate in the challenge our RS Pres gave us recently to work on Personal Progress (I'm planning on looking through the PP book/website tomorrow after church to figure out which goals I want to work on, I know that reading The Book of Mormon counts for the Virtue project) but do it at the pace that fits my current stage in life better

Yeah... I'm thinking ahead and want to make things now that will help Emma be quiet at church/wherever, because she won't really be using the quiet book or file folder games during 2014.

To be fair, I have 2 pages for the quiet book already done, and a third that is just waiting for me to make the finger puppets that go with it. I have something like 7 file folder games completely done (which means colored/cut/laminated/cut again/velcro attached) and a few others that are ready to be laminated).

Tomorrow we start 9:00 church. I'm interested to see how that plays out with Emma, she normally takes a nap sometime between 9-12, we'll see if she'll sleep at church. It also will be nice to have time after church, although I know that Chris will have presidency meeting (at least I'm assuming they won't have it before church), and visits, and then his own home teaching assignment. I'd like to think that maybe we'll get to enjoy more time together as a family, and maybe Chris and I will get to make dinner together sometimes. I am excited for the extra time we'll have for making dinner. We did crock pot meals a lot on Sundays so we could get home from church around 4:30 and eat fairly soon after.

End of December

December was a real doozy. Since Emma took a while to get over her ear infection we didn't get a whole lot of sleep.

December 19th we woke up to see a tiny little tooth poking through her gums! Perfect timing, as later that afternoon we hopped on an airplane to go see my parents for Christmas!

Long story short, Emma LOVED spending time with Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Brad. Brad taught her that the instant she dropped anything he would pick it up and give it back to her, which was pretty funny to watch. When she was in her high chair he would hand her the cup/spoon/toy/whatever and then she would immediately look over the edge at the ground and drop it again. That Uncle Brad knows how to have a good time :)

Since we had opened most of our gifts before going out of town, Christmas day was pretty relaxing. Emma got to play with the wrapping paper after people opened their gifts and she loved it. She also enjoyed trying the snacks that Santa brought her.

We had a great time in Nauvoo--playing lots of games, watching some movies, and playing more games. Chris helped mom and dad and some of the neighbors fix problems with their internet, and now FaceTime is a lot smoother with them! After being there a couple of days Emma cut her second tooth. We had many nearly sleepless nights--some nights I was up with her 6 times. It was nice to have extra people who were willing to play with her after she woke up so that I could finally get a few hours of sleep.

We got home a few days ago, and tried getting back into the swing of things. We had lots of cleaning, shopping, and returns that we needed to do.

We spent New Years Eve with some friends who are getting ready to move up to Utah. We are going to miss them a lot! I met them at some dinner at BYU the day after Chris and I got engaged and learned that we would all be in the same ward down in Texas, it was nice to at least kind of know somebody when we got down here. Jessica and I were the ones without kids for a while down here and used to get together to watch movies/shows or do crafts, or just go run errands together often. Brad was our home teacher for a while in our last ward, and we'd get together for game or movie nights with them. We enjoyed playing games, eating snacks, and watching the fireworks that their neighbors did!

And now it's January! Chris went back to work today, after 2 weeks off. I'm pretty sure he slept through his alarm today, but he still left at a mostly decent time.

And if you read that you get some pictures. Although I don't have anything from December on my computer yet... I'll need to get the cable from Chris so I can upload those images.

Emma loves her new little hoodie. Also, this princess quilt from Grandma Cindy (don't know if you still check my blog Cindy, but she looooves it!)