11 months late...

Back when I was pregnant with Emma one of my dear friends (who is a photographer) asked if she could do Emma's newborn photoshoot. She hadn't done much work with newborns because she isn't really into the whole big headbands that distract from the face, or the super awkward positions and poses. She's more into "lifestyle photography" and wanted to see how she liked doing a lifestyle newborn shoot, but needed a guinea pig. She wanted to try the style out on someone who would be very understanding if things didn't turn out quite the way she had in mind... and who am I to turn down a free photoshoot? 

Life got super busy and the editing of the pics got put on the bottom of her to-do list. Her computer eventually got replaced, her morning sickness went away, and her house was ready to sell and then I got the pictures! I've been looking through pictures of Emma for a few days, since her birthday is 3 weeks away and decided that I'd share some of the newborn pictures with you today!

And with that, Happy Weekend!

Pet Peeves

I have some driving pet peeves and feel the need to get them off my chest. This seems like the best place to do so.

1. When you get to a 4-way stop, don't try to "be nice" by letting someone go before you. If it is your turn, take it otherwise everyone just sits there wondering why you aren't going. Then people start trying to go out of turn. I've seen accidents happen because someone was "trying to be nice". Take your turn, that's the nice thing to do.

2. In a parking lot, when a row has a "one way only" arrow and parking spots are all slanted one way... if you drive down the row the wrong way, you shouldn't honk at the people driving the correct way just because they're in your way. Follow the signs. Nobody will get hurt.

3. The gas station at Sam's Club. OH MY GOSH. When it says "exit only, DO NOT ENTER" read the freaking sign. Don't face the wrong direction, and hit someone (seriously, I saw this happen this week) as you are pulling in/out of the gas station. Seriously. The nozzles have cords long enough to reach all around your car if you pull up to a pump that is on the wrong side of your car.

Okay. I feel better.

just like her mommy

Emma loves books. I know I've mentioned that before. Here we have her, on her tip toes, trying to get our stack of library books. She was going for a specific book, and didn't stop until she found it! Someone loves the Llama Llama books!

Even with some of her favorite toys out on the floor to play with, she still crawls over to the little book case and pulls out all of her books. Her favorites are still The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Doggies, but she pulls all the books out and flips through them.

This particular day I was in the kitchen working on dinner and all of a sudden Emma was quiet. I was wondering what sort of mischief she was getting into, assuming she found some sort of electronic device or cable (not a difficult thing to find) but instead she was looking through her books. 

And last but not least, she is now tall enough that she can reach the piano keys! This is one of those times that I am so grateful that I can turn off, or even unplug my piano. She can tap those keys all she wants, but unless I turn it on for her it doesn't make any noise! She was so proud of herself! Just for giggles, the day after this picture was taken I turned the piano on when I noticed her heading for it. She squealed when she touched the keys and they actually made noise! In Primary she also tries to reach up and touch the keys, always during the more reverent songs, and just starts plunking around! 

It is so much fun to watch Emma's personality come out, and to see just how much she really is like me and Chris! I can't believe she's 11 months old already! Just one more month til my little monkey turns ONE! Time goes so fast, I wish it would slow down just a little!

Emma loves...

to look at the pictures in our Gospel Art Book. This picture of The Savior seems to be her favorite. She flips through the book looking for it, then touches His face. The first few times we looked at it she even would bend over and kiss Him. 

Push toys!

Emma has been pulling herself up and standing a ton in the last two weeks or so. I was working on the laundry almost two weeks ago and Emma crawled over and started pulling herself up on the laundry basket. She ended up toppling over because it was too light, so I tossed a bottle of laundry detergent in it and let her try pushing it.

The next day she was at it again! This time I threw two big boxes of cereal into it and she took a few steps while pushing it.

This week was the big Here We Grow Again consignment sale, and I bought Emma a whole 12-18 month wardrobe, as well as some 18-24 month clothes. I picked up some toys for her birthday (or intended for them to wait for her birthday, but she found one and LOVES it) and also a push toy for her. Here she is standing on the wrong side of it playing with the spinning part. She LOVES her push toy! She's taken a few steps with it so far, but mostly stands and holds it and spins the different parts that spins. 

Hooded Towels

Hooded Towels. I love them. Emma has two of them, but she's getting to be too big for them. I spent a bunch of time looking around to see if I could buy bigger ones and then realized it would be much easier to just make my own. Emma now has two big hooded towels and with time she'll grow into them. The first one I made is the one on the right. I was mostly happy with how it turned out, just a few tiny complaints here and there, but not too bad. The second one I made... wow. It was kinda frustrating. I spent 15 minutes trying to change the needle in my machine because I needed to use a heavier-duty needle for this towel. I still don't know what I ended up doing differently, but after 15 long minutes I got it. Then it was super easy... except that some how my white thread went missing. A little swap for some gray thread and I called it close enough. The pink towel that I used (on the left) is actually a towel that I already had, that I think I used my freshman year at college. It's mostly just been sitting around, so I decided I would put it to use. 

Emma was sleeping, but I wanted to show a little about how it looks on an actual person. Turns out I'm too big for the towel, and it's hard to take a picture of yourself with a hooded towel on. 

Still not perfect, but hey... they are functional, and I did them all by myself!

PS, I followed the tutorial found HERE

And my next project is a dinosaur hooded towel for Emma's friend who turns three next week. We'll see how that one turns out...

Holding Hands

Emma has a few good friends who are boys, but Beck was the first to hold her hand! He also likes to tickle her toes and thinks it is super fun to say Emma. This picture was from story time today. Emma was so excited to see Beck and Harper and their mom when they got to story time! She crawled over to Courtney (Beck's mom) and pulled herself up. She started holding Courtney's hand to help stabilize her and then Beck wanted to hold her hand too. It was adorable!

Shout Hooray!

Chris had a birthday, shout hooray! He turned 29 yesterday, and we sure had a great day! He got to sleep in, spend lots of time playing with Emma, and some time playing his new-ish video game with some friends online! We went out to dinner at Red Lobster (his choice) where I willingly ate fish for the first time ever at a restaurant (that I remember at least). 

We were going to go see a movie, got as far as buying the tickets before we walked in and noticed that the only seats left that were together were in the front row, so we got a refund and came home early. We ended up watching something from Netflix and eating the candy that we had bought to take to the movies.

My Tilapia with steamed veggies

Chris's lobster lovers platter or something like that. The pasta was DELICIOUS

Emma helped hold a pen so I could write her name in a card, and then I let her do whatever she wanted in it. I think it's AWESOME, and Chris loved it. It was his favorite card (no offense to the others who sent him a card) and I caught him looking at it a few times throughout the day.

Goals Revisited

Now that we're 1/4 of the way through the year I thought it would be good to revisit my goals!

In 2014 I want to:

1. Read The Book of Mormon 

2. Make 12 pages for Emma's Quiet Book

3. Have 15 File Folder Games completed

4. Read 12 books for fun

5. Take Emma to Story Time regularly
6. Lose the rest of my pregnancy weight

7. Read to Emma every day

8. Do 5 sewing projects 

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

10. Participate in the challenge our RS Pres gave us recently to work on Personal Progress


So to check in...
1. I'm on track to finish around October 1st
2. I have 4 1/2 pages done. I'm working on 2 more as well!
3. I have 16 done!
4. I've read 13 books so far
5. Can't say I "regularly" go, but we just started going to story time at the library that is a 5 minute walk from our house. They added on a new childrens wing last summer and have a new children's librarian and it is FANTASTIC now. Emma is definitely young, but I want to expose her to books as much as possible!
6. I'm working on this. I have a new accountability partner that I text every day to tell her if I exercised that day, and check in on other goals we each have set. One of us is focusing on eating more veggies, the other is focusing on drinking only water. It's nice to know that Jenny is waiting to hear from me.
7. We read Doggies (by Sandra Boynton) and The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle) each several times a day. I also try to read other books too.
8. I've done bean bags, am working on hooded towels and also her I-spy bags.
9. Wouldn't ya know, right after I wrote my goals they changed my visiting teaching assignment, and now one of the sisters I am assigned to visit is making this goal so difficult for me! We are trying so hard with her, but I've decided that if she doesn't want us to visit her in person I'm still accomplishing my goal if I reach out to her.
10. Still working on this one too! I've figured out which value experiences I want to work on, and assigned myself one a month, and so far I'm working hard on it!

Quiet book

Over the last week or so I've spend some time working on Emma's Quiet Book. I'm using this book which has made it less difficult, and way cute! These are the pages I've been working on.

The Seasons Tree:

This tree was a BEAST to cut out. I accidentally cut one of the branches off, but decided you couldn't really tell so I didn't take the time to redo it. I'm just glad the tree didn't need to be sewn on, I can't imagine cutting that thing out and then having to sew it. You trace it onto wonder under, iron that onto felt, cut the felt out, peel off the paper backing of the wonder under, then iron the tree to the background (a heavy Pellon). Ironing is definitely the way to go! Eventually I'll finish the snaps. It will have flowers, autumn leaves, and spring leaves that can be snapped onto the tree. Those things are stored in the grass. 

The Pond Scene

When I first saw this page I KNEW I wanted to make it. I want a quiet book that has function, not just cute things... and this page was exactly what I wanted! The sun, cloud, bird, rabbit, tree, duck and fish all button on and off. This is the first page I did from start to finish on my own, and I am super happy with how it turned out, except that I sewed the birds button too high so the wing goes off the page. That will be a quick fix next time I have time to work on it.

I've been working on a few other pages as well-- a temple page (like this one) and a Memory Match Game. I'm waiting for my rotary cutter and mat to come from Amazon later this week before I finish the memory game... I know I couldn't cut the big rectangles out even enough and it would drive me nuts!

I'm super excited to see her quiet book come together now!

I also have been getting a few more "little things" to put into her I-spy bags, and will probably be finishing those up pretty soon! I LOVE pulling my craft stuff out now after Little Miss's bed time!