First haircut!

Emily got her first haircut on Thursday!

Her mullet was getting a little out of control and it was time.  It would get caught in the snaps of her shirts and in the velcro of her bibs.  This is a before picture:

Although I enjoyed being able to put her hair in pigtails and ponytails this looks so cute!

My hairdresser, Lauren, was awesome and Emily did great (thanks the the distraction of the iPhone!) And Blaine was there being the photographer ;)

No one cried either! It's a little sad that she's growing up so fast but it's fun too. 

And don't worry we still have enough hair for those cute bows! Haha!

Poor baby was soooo very sleepy (I picked her up from school early and she usually falls asleep on the way home). She was also recovering from a bout of pink eye this week. :( All is well now though and she's ready for summer with her new short do!

11 months!

Once again, I'm tardy at posting. You'll see why in these pictures!

Emily turned 11 months old last week. Stop. Time. Now. PLEASE!!  I spend most of the day picking up after hurricane Emily since she is into everything. She's walking while pushing her little walker toy, the rocking chair, step stool, basically anything thats not too heavy for her. She's into every cabinet or drawer that she can open and is quite good at emptying them. 

She found her way into the guest room one day and I didn't know it until I heard the piano that she and her daddy sometimes play!  The door is now shut to that room!

I thought this was such a sweet picture. She loves to have a snack and basically begs everytime i'm in the kitchen. She eats ALL the time!

We had our first boo boo with blood at Blaine's parents house (she hit her lip on the end table) then while we were in Henderson at my mom's office earlier this month she got her first big shiner. You may not be able to see it but it bruised up pretty good. She lost her balance while holding on to a table and just bumped her head. She does that a lot but seems to recover quickly. This was the first to leave a mark!

And alas, the Wolfpack's dream of wining a national championship were shot in the first round of the NCAA tournament. But that'll never stop us for cheering for them!  Emily wore something Wolfpack for the first two games of the ACC tournament but not for the Miami game. With 40 seconds to go in the game I put her NC State diaper cover on her but it didn't help. Hey, its only weird if it doesn't work, right?!?  She also wasn't wearing anything NC State until the last minute of the NCAA tournament game, but hey, don't blame the baby!

One of her most favorite things to do is pull out all of the bibs that I keep behind her highchair. She also loves to play hide and seek with us after dinner around the chair. It's the perfect height for her to stand and walk around.

And this is our normal morning routine...Emily destroying the bathroom by taking everything out of the cabinet under the sink...just watch how it progresses!

We have actually had some spring like weather in the past month so Emily and I have been able to get outside and play a little. She really likes pulling the grass and handing it to me. But not before sampling some herself :)

Our big eater got to try spaghetti the other night and LOVED it. She loves everything though. Seriously she eats everything and hasn't turned anything down. She'll eat just as much as me sometimes I think. We just give her a little of whatever we're having usually and it's so very simple. We're very grateful that she's not a picky eater and has really taken to food.

We've been traveling a lot for CAbi show's and while we've been away the ever handy Blaine has been tackling some remodeling/redecorating at our house!  I'll post some pictures of that soon too, it's really coming along great! Big thank you to Terry and Nancy for helping out too!

Well, we have the worlds shortest napper (meaning she doesn't take long naps!) so I've got to go get the sleeping beauty.

Discovery Place Kids!

We took a little field trip today to Rockingham to check out the new Discovery Place Kids! We met my friend Marsha, and her girls: Anna, Stella and Greta. It was really a neat place and we had fun! I liked watching the big girls do the big kid stuff but there was also an area for infants where Emily and Greta could play. I'm sure they'll really love it when they can walk and run! There was also a water table with chairs for the little ones which was really neat. Emily thought she was in her high chair and kept trying to eat the water though! We'll definitely be going back!

10 months old!

Yesterday Emily turned 10 months old!  She's such a busy little bee I could hardly get her to sit still for a picture...(warning: LOTS of pictures and videos on this one)

 She's VERY mobile and its a matter of days probably before she's walking for real. YIKES!  She pulls up on EVERYTHING and has taken a few steps pushing her rocking chair or walking toy just this week.  We now have a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs because this is one of her favorite exercises!

She's saying "mama" finally! yay! and of course "dada" "nana" and "baba" although we don't know what those last two really mean!  She'll babble all day going through her alphabet and it's so sweet to hear, especially from the back seat of the car.

She loves to pull up into the refrigerator or freezer and can open the pantry door where she proceeds to pull out everything on the bottom shelf. I just let her explore...She's opening drawers too and pulling everything out but she can't figure out how to NOT mash her fingers.  Climbing into the dishwasher is also something she likes to do. I only let her do it when I'm unloading though...dirty dishes are gross!  She also loves to pull out the laundry from the basket and mess up what I've already folded. We do a lot of picking up after Hurricane Emily, that's for sure.

We love to make her laugh because she has the cutest little giggle. It really is my favorite thing to do.

She loves to play peek-a-boo!  This is an older video but still funny! Oh and she'll shred a tissue, napkin or magazine in no time!

School continues to be a great place for her to play and learn and I enjoy the break. Although we can't seem to figure out naps around school days but that's OK, summer will be here soon.  These are the valentine treats she took for her teachers and classmates.

Speaking of treats, this girl is quite the eater! She's nursing great still and loves most everything she's tried.  Lately she's been having chicken and we usually let her try whatever we're having. She's doing great with feeding herself. She's drinking water out of her sippy cup too but really loves this Camelbak water bottle i got her.  It says its for ages 3+ and Blaine doesn't even know how to drink out of it!  I love mine and she always wants a sip when I'm drinking it so she has her own now. Except she pulls it out of her mouth before she swallows so her shirt ends up soaking wet!

I've been doing a lot of consignment sale shopping and my mom was able to meet us for one sale. Here's Emily driving her car!

We've gone to the park and played on the swings too and she LOVES it. I want one in the backyard but we have such nice parks here that we should really just go to them.

Blaine is staying busy at work and we go a visit sometimes. Its nice too that he can come home for lunch and play for a little while with us. We love that part of our day!  I'm starting to have some CAbi shows and stay busy with that during nap times and in the evenings. When my samples arrived we snapped this picture of Emily (on the far right) and I sent it to my rep at CAbi and they featured it in the weekly newsletter last week! I was so excited!  Blaine is always such a good help with everything, especially schlepping my CAbi samples and I really appreciate all that he does.

Finally, this was the funniest video... I took it while we were shopping at Hobby Lobby one day...the end is the best (I think she thought she got caught!) We've laughed and laughed at this video!

Our baby is growing up...and its so fun to be a part of her life. We love our baby Emily to the moon and back!

Snow day!

We had a typical NC winter this past weekend! Friday it was 65 degrees and Saturday it snowed! Actual real (BIG) flakes fell all day long. It was too wet at first but then it started to stick to the grass and huge flakes were falling. It really was pretty. It snowed like that for most of the day then turned a little more wet and stopped sticking as the day went on. But it was still on the grass and roofs of houses and was pretty.  We took Emily out for a quick walk in it since it was her first snow.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love, Love, Love this little baby girl!
And her sweet daddy of course!

9 month update

Emily is 9 months old...her last month in the single digits! She's getting so big. She had her well baby dr's visit on last Monday and she weighs 18lbs 2oz which shes been hovering around for a while now. She's 26.5 inches long! We're all still a little sick right now with colds too.

What have we been up to? Crawling, pulling up to standing, talking, sleep training (more on that in another post), climbing up the stairs, and teething mostly! Emily loves to climb in the refrigerator since its a good height to pull up on. She's really good at crawling on all fours. She used to sometimes let her right leg stay straight while she's on her left knee, it's pretty funny to watch! She always wants to get in your lap if you're on the floor with her and treats you like a jungle gym! She loves standing up! Poor thing is also cut 4 top teeth at once too. One of the eye teeth have popped through and one front tooth, but you can see the others making their way down. Teething sucks! We've been freezing wet washcloths for her to suck on and they seem to help. So does Tylenol at bedtime. She's got a little runny nose and a pretty yucky cough too. She constantly has a paci or her fingers in her mouth but I try and keep it out so she'll talk more. I love listening to her babble. She's saying "dada" "ah da" "nananana", and sometimes "lalalala", all very cute. No "mama" yet though (sigh). She likes to open close her hand in a wave movement when saying "dada" and if you make that same movement she'll say it. So funny!

Since I was in San Diego at the CAbi Scoop, Blaine was on his own a couple of weekends ago! They did great! My mom and his mom helped out and everyone survived. I loved getting pictures and updates but I really missed being away that long. It was hard, but I managed to reconnect with my CAbi sisters and we had a wonderful time. And did I mention that while it was freezing and snowing here that it was 75 and sunny with no humidity in beautiful Southern California?!? We should move there! The fashion show to see the new Spring collection was fabulous and the clothes are to die for, my favorite so far! Let me know if you want to hear more about what I'm doing with CAbi!!

Emily is doing great at school and has so much fun everyday. I enjoy the break too. I spend a lot of my time now keeping her from pulling the lamp off the table, eating grass, climbing up the stairs to the bonus room, and going behind the toilets! It's fun to see her mobile though, and most of it happened over night it seems!