B-day Party Sneak Preview

Okay, so I know Emily's birthday party is still 3 months away, but I have been searching for a theme and I finally decided on one. Have you ever heard of the book Pinkalicious? It's so cute. It's all about a little girl that can't resist pink cupcakes. She eats so many that she turns pink.  I decided to make that the theme of Emily's party. It will be an all pink party and we'll be serving lots of pink cupcakes. Can't wait to start planning!

9 Month Checkup

Shawn and I took Emily in to see Dr. G this morning for her 9 month checkup.  Here are her stats:

Weight - 16.2 lbs (10%)

Height - 26.3 in (25%)

Head - 17.3 in (50%)

She's definitely a little one.  Her weight % keeps dropping with every visit. But the dr. wasn't concerned at all.  She's just "petite" as he said.  Developmentally she's right on track.  There weren't any concerns there.  He wasn't worried about her lack of teeth either.  He said a lot of babies won't get them until they are a year old.  He did say we could try switching from Nutramigen to a less expensive "gentle" formula.  He thinks with her eating solid foods her "milk lactose" issues should be better.  So we'll see.  He also said to try taking her off the acid reflux medicine again.  I'm crossing my fingers that both transitions go well!  Overall, she did really well at the dr's office.  She did cry when he looked in her ears and when she got her shot, but it only lasted a few seconds.  I'm hoping for no more dr visits until her 1 year checkup!

Happy 9 Months!

Here's what's happening with Emily at 9 months:

- She's wearing 6-12 month clothes, but can still fit into several 3-6 month clothes.  She's still in size 2 diapers.

 - She's getting much better with napping in her crib.  She'll take 2 naps each day anywhere from an hour to 2.5 hours.  She goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:00 and sleeps until 6:30 or so. 

 - She repeats lots of syllables over and over again. . . "dada", "baba", "mama."  She's rarely quiet. 

 - She can wave.

 - She can go from laying down to sitting up all by herself.

 - She pulls up much more often and on anything that is the right height.

 - Still not crawling on her hands and knees. . .she's doing more of an "army crawl" where she just pulls herself without getting up on her knees.

 - Still no teeth.

 - She loves to pull hair and jewelry. I'm trying to teach her "no."

 - She's starting to be in a mommy and daddy stage and takes longer to warm up to new people. 

 - She likes to climb on Shawn and I.

 - She loves it when we play "chase."  Shawn will hold her and I'll run after them.  This always gets a big laugh.

 - She's very aware of when Lily is around.  She loves to pet her.

Emily and Lily

Lately, Emily has become very aware of Lily.  She notices whenever she is around and always wants to pet her.  Lily is so good with her.  Normally, Lily wants nothing to do with little kids and hides whenever we have any at our house.  But she's totally different around Emily.  She's let her come right up to her.  It's fun to watch Emily get so excited when she sees Lily.  As soon as she noticed Lily on the couch today, she had to get up to pet her.  .  .

Saturday

We had a busy, but fun Saturday morning.  We spent the morning with our friends the Terry's.  We started off by checking out the Farmer's Market in our downtown square.  We bought lots of good stuff.  Then we headed to Rudy's for some breakfast taquitos (some of Shawn's favorites).  After breakfast, we went back to the downtown area and did some shopping followed by a cupcake stop.  We headed home around lunchtime and Emily was exhausted.  She did so well being out as long as we were.  It's so nice to be able to make more trips with her. 

After feeding her lunch, we decided to put her down for a nap. . in her crib.  Normally, she screams her head off as soon as I leave her room.  This time she was totally quiet.  I just thought to myself, she must be really tired.  After about 10 minutes, I went back up to check on her and this is what I saw. . .

No wonder she was so quiet.  She was figuring out how to stand up in her crib.  She looked so proud of herself.  I'm just glad we lowered her crib when we did! 

Stranger Anxiety

Over the last several weeks, Emily has started to become very attached to Shawn and I.  If someone she doesn't see very often tries to hold her she immediately starts crying and reaching for Shawn or I.  She also wants Shawn and I to sit and play with her all the time.  If you get up, she starts fussing.  I know it's because she's now just putting it together that we are her parents, but it's hard to see her get upset.  And it's also hard not being able to get anything done.  Up until the last couple of days, she's always been very happy when I drop her off at daycare, but things have changed recently.  I usually put her down in front of the toy box when we get there.  Normally she loves to sit and just go through the box.  Well now, as soon as I put her down she starts crying and reaching out for me.  It makes it so hard for me to leave her!  Luckily she'll stop as soon as Ms. Ricky (her morning teacher) picks her up, but it doesn't make it easier on me.  I know this is a phase that she will grow out of and I should enjoy it now because one day I'm sure she will want nothing to do with me.  But it's still hard.

Who needs toys. . .

when you have a box you can play in. . .

Naptime Bootcamp

The day I have long feared, has arrived.  Emily's days of napping in her swing are pretty much non-existent.  When we put her in her swing, she immediately begins trying to escape.  She sits up and hangs over the edge.  Even though she's strapped in, I'm so scared she's going to fall out of it.  So, I've decided it was time to start operation "nap in her crib."  So far, it's gone better than I thought.  Today is the third day that she's taken a nap in her crib.  Now she does scream her head off for about 10 or 15 minutes when you first put her down, but she does eventually fall asleep and has slept anywhere from 1-2 hours.  I call that a HUGE success.  We still don't really have a "nap schedule" as I'm still trying to figure out what the best times are for her naps.  She really needs 2 naps still, but I know school is trying to get her down to 1 which is where my dilemma comes from.  But at least she's in her crib and that's all that matters.  We've also moved up her bedtime from 8:00 to 7:30.  She just seems so tired at night and it's been really hard to keep her up until 8:00 without her becoming super fussy.  I'm hoping this will help things as well. Here are a few pictures of her trying to escape from her swing.

Sick Baby

We once again have a sick baby on our hands.  I'm SO tired of one of us always being sick.  I feel like it's just an endless cycle!  Emily woke up Sunday morning not feeling well at all.   She had a fever all day and was just not like herself at all.  Normally when she gets sick, we still see a very happy baby.  Not this time.  She just wants to be held all day and is super sleepy.  We kept her on motrin all day, Sunday.  We knew after having a fever all day, we would be keeping her home from school today.  Shawn stayed home with her today.  Luckily, her fever broke and it has stayed down, medicine free, all day.  However, you can tell she still does not feel well.  Again, she just wanted to be held and cuddle all day.  This is not like her at all.  She started getting little red bumps on her hands and feet, so we were worried she had hand, foot and mouth.  So Shawn took her in to see the dr. today.  She told us Emily definitely has some kind of viral infection and could see red sores in her throat.  She said the rash is some other kind of infection that developed because of the viral infection.  She also seemed to think we shouldn't be surprised if her fever returns.   Unfortunately there wasn't any medicine she could give her, so we will just be waiting this one out.  Shawn plans to stay home with her tomorrow as well.  If need be, I'll take over on Wednesday.  While we've definitely had our share of illnesses, I've never seen Emily like this.  I miss my happy, smiley girl.  I just feel so helpless and sad seeing her like this.  I'm hoping for a quick recovery!!

Vote for Emily

Gerber is running a contest right now to find the next Gerber baby.  I entered Emily, so now here's how we need your help.  In addition to Gerber selecting their new star, they also have monthly winners based on the number of votes each baby receives.  So. . .we need you to go in and vote for Emily to help her be a monthly winner. Click this link http://www.gerber.com/photo/#/vote/ and select search photos.  Then just select Emily in Frisco.  She's in the "sitter" category.  You can vote once per day per email address.

Thanks for your help!  :)

The swing

As most of you know, Emily will not take a nap in her crib.  The only place she will nap well is in her swing.  I fear the day she outgrows this!  Well, recently Emily has become quite creative on how she positions herself to nap in her swing.  I don't know if the pillow is just too hot to lay on in the summer or she just can't get comfortable anymore.  But as long as she's still napping, that's all I care about.

Independence Day

We celebrated the 4th with our friends this year.  We enjoyed swimming and grilling out.  Emily did so great despite staying out a little past her bedtime.  We were sad that we didn't get to stay up for fireworks, but there was no way we could keep Emily up that late.  We would have definitely paid for it.  We'll just have to wait until next year to take her to see fireworks.

Parade and the park

We had a busy, but fun day today.  We started out this morning by going to the Fourth of July parade in Plano.  I used to go to this parade every year when I was little, so it was so much fun to take Emily this year.  Emily had a really good time watching the parade and I'm hoping we can make this a family tradition each year.

After lunch and short nap, we walked down to the park in our neighborhood to let Emily play on the playground and see the ducks.

We finished off our night by having one of Shawn's good friends from work over for dinner.  They have 2 month old twins (a boy and a girl).  It was fun to have tiny babies in the house. It's funny because it was only 6 months ago, but I can't even remember what it was like when Emily was 2 months old.  She just seemed so much bigger and grown up compared to them.  And yes, Emily is in a different outfit in this picture.  She had an unfortunate diaper incident. 

Four day weekend

Today was the start of a long four day weekend (at least for me, Shawn had to work today).  I took Emily to daycare still and my mom and I went to see Eclipse (the third movie in the Twilight series) this morning.  It was so good! It was nice to have some time to myself, even though I did feel a little bit guilty about taking Emily to daycare.  Although I did pick her up early afternoon and we had some fun mommy/daughter time. 

I really wanted Shawn to grill out tonight and even though he tried to convince me it wasn't a good idea because it was supposed to rain, he ended up caving because I was just sure it wouldn't.  Needless to say, about 10 minutes into grilling,  the skies opened up and it started pouring!  I felt bad (even though I was laughing on the outside  :) ), but he was a trooper and for the next 30 min. went back and forth in the rain to finish grilling our dinner.  I had to take a picture because I didn't think this was a common sight.