Bed, Bath, & Beyond

After 7 months in a pack 'n play, we finally got a crib for Emalyn!! Gabriela is still in hers, I just can't let her run wild all day! I never thought I'd own TWO cribs, but it is SO necessary. Emalyn loves her crib-so much more room to roll around and play.

So I got her routine on camera today, and she was pretty happy that I was sticking around while she was settling in, but when I left she was pretty mad. So, she skipped her short evening nap. Emalyn sucks on her middle two fingers, finds a corner of a blanket to pinch between her thumb & index finger, and then lays down and is ready for bed. It's so interesting to me how she comes up with this on her own. Gabriela HAD to start out swaddled every time she went to bed, so I guess they each have their "thing".

Emalyn is sporting this cute duck bath towel that a good friends of ours, Sarah Tuttle, made for her. After her baths, Ema sits around naked for a while to air out all her folds and crevices :)

Gabriela came in while I was taking pictures and wanted to give Emalyn a kiss because she was "so cute". I think this turned out beyond cute!!

What are little girls made of??

Not quite "sugar and spice"...but close.

Should tarantulas be grouped in with "everything nice"?? The girls sure thought so!

Happy Anniversary to us!

Yesterday was our 12th anniversary!! I was talking to a friend of ours in church and he asked if this was #12 for us, and I said, "no, it's our 11th". Later I said something to Danny along the lines of "wow, 11 years" and he turned around and asked me "what year is this?" I did the math in my head and realized I was off! I seem to be stuck in 2007-I've written that date on a check at least once a month :)
Anyway, thought I'd post a couple pictures of our beginning. The first was one of our engagement pictures. It's been a great 12 years so far, and I'm looking forward to many more years to come!

Swimmer

Gabriela started swimming independently last year, at 20 months, and I never got any video of it, and I wish I had. This summer she jumped back into it (literally) and just learned to get her breath on her own! She is all over the pool and has the energy to swim non-stop for an hour. Oh, and she can also tread water for about 15 seconds! I'll see if I can get that on video too at some point. I'm now trying to see if I can pull off swim time while Emalyn's asleep in the morning, so that Gabriela's extra tired and hopefully asking for a nap after lunch!

My little daredevil

Sorry the clip is sideways, I was trying to make sure I got everything in the clip, and it was done on my camera. Anyway, we were over at our friend's house and Gabriela immediately wanted to try the slide. She loved it and went on it over and over again; no exaggeration-at least 30 times! Later she went on the rock waterfall and jumped off the little cliff like all the big kids. Another of our friends caught it on camera, so hopefully I can get that on here. What a daredevil!

Utah vacation

I had enough frequent flyer miles for a free round trip ticket that was going to expire this year, so I took a trip to Utah to visit my sister, Cajsa. I took Emalyn and we had a great week! We started it off with massages and it was AWESOME! I wish I could afford it weekly...I didn't bring my pack 'n play because the airlines are now charging for a second bag ($25 each way-now $50!) so we made a bed on the floor next to my bed and Emalyn did pretty good. On the second day, I heard her crying on and off just a little, so I went in to get her from her nap (she usually talks when she wakes up from her nap-so I thought it was unusual) and this is what I found!! She brought her blanket and toy in there as well :)

Emalyn has never been on grass before and so we brought out the camera for her first experience. It was pretty funny, although, we kind of knew what to expect because my youngest sister, Lissa, had the same experience when she was almost the same age. We started with her just sitting on the grass and she tried as hard as possible to stay upright! She was just starting to sit up on her own a couple days before, and this sure helped that! She eventually fell over and FROZE! She did not move at all and just kind of whimpered for help after a minute or so-it was too cute.

After we got back home, I heard her crying just after I put her down for a nap. I came in and she got herself into sitting position and was stuck! I had to take a picture, then laid her back down and she was out. Oh, and that was the last time she slept in the bassinet part of the pack 'n play. I had no idea she could do that on her own!

Random

So Cajsa wanted any one of the kids to "draw" on her back and massage her head or play with her hair, and this is what she got! :) (She's also 3 mo. pregnant-thank goodness her baby's only 2 inches long at this point)
Emalyn got her 6 month immunizations (2 in each leg) and had a rough next couple of days. I felt so bad for her, but since she's such a good baby, her rough days are nothing compared to others. Mostly she woke up every 2-3 hours through the night to comfort feed and then actually fussed when she was hungry or tired during the day, instead of her usual cues. I'm glad we got the shots though, after hearing about the measles outbreak in Tucson and other places out west only a few months ago!

Isa's Baptism

Isa's great-grandfathers!


Danny's parents and grandparents.


A few weeks ago Isa was baptized, and we had a grand total of 16 people sleeping in my parent's house for the weekend!! Plus, when my older brother came over with his family, we added 6 more people to the count! I tried to take a picture of all our cars in front of the house and couldn't fit them all in one shot-there were 10!! It was a CRAZY weekend and week following with family in town, but we loved every minute of it. I can't even imagine what this house will look like when all my siblings are grown and have families of their own!!

This was the first time in a year and a half that we had everyone together and had to take a few pictures. Our goal is to take one massive formal family picture next Spring because we haven't had one like that since 4 years ago!

Food & Water

Little by little we've been introducing new things for Emalyn to eat and she's loving everything! We have to be careful with Gabriela, because she's so excited now that Ema has teeth to eat and tries to feed her EVERYTHING, even non-food items :)

For Emalyn's first vegetable, we tried peas! It was so funny watching all her reactions, from almost disgust to elation!! (You have to enlarge this picture-it's my favorite expression!)

After a few days of watching my mom watering her plants daily, Gabriela asked to help out. She watered the cars, brush, aloe plants, the wall, and then herself.