Look Who Just Turned 9 Months Old!!!

Someone told Micah a few weeks ago that you never realize how fast time flies until you have kids ~ and boy is that a TRUE statement! I can't believe that our little Emily just turned 9 months old yesterday! She is so fun and happy and we love having her in our lives to "spice things up" a bit!! She has gotten to be quite the little babbler lately. I love to hear her "talking" to herself when she wakes up in the mornings and from her naps! She really does have quite a lot to say (guess she takes after her mommy!!).

Here are some highlights from Emily's 9th Month:

~ She just went to her 9 month doctor's appointment today. And here are her stats:
* 25 3/4 inches tall (5th percentile)
* 15 lbs. 11 oz. (5th percentile)
* 45 cm head circumference (75th percentile....what can we say...she's got lots of brains in her head!!)

~ She also got 2 of her teeth this month, back to back (one came in on Sept. 24th and the other on Sept. 25th)....we have finally determined that they are her two upper teeth on both sides of her front teeth!!

~ Today (even though this is technically in her 10th month) she pulled up from sitting to standing for the first time all by herself!!)

~ She got to try a lemon this month and LOVED it!! (See the previous post for a video of that one!)

~ Since she got her teeth she also got to try Wagon Wheels and Biter Biscuits, both of which she LOVES!

~ Mainly Emily loves to have fun and smiles at whomever she meets! She loves to take strolls in her stroller and read books and she still LOVES to take her vitamins! She amazes us each and every day! We are so blessed to be her parents and to get to be a part of all of these special milestones with her! Heavenly Father has blessed us far more than we could have ever imagined with our little "Sweet P". We love her so much!

Now for a few adorable pictures of little Miss Emily Marie!!

Emily has come to love her morning bath times! She used to get baths before bed, but since she sleeps so long at night she usually leaks out of her diaper, so she gets a morning bath. That way she can be clean for the day!! I had a good time with her hair today, if you can't tell! She has a little bit of cradle cap and I was using her brush after I washed her hair to try to get rid of it and this was the result!!

Another shot of our happy little girl! She LOVES bath time!


Here's Emily once again with her little bear! She is really starting to love him!

She especially loves trying to eat him!

And talk to him!

Here's our routine shot by her dresser to see how much she is growing! She is almost able to stand by herself!

Just love her expression in this one!

She is admiring her Daddy's face in this shot!

Since it was a nice day yesterday, we decided to venture outside for a few photos! Emily LOVED being in the grass!

Mommy loves to snuggle with her Emily!

Emily was having SO MUCH FUN here! Couldn't leave this one out!!

Daddy smiling with his little princess as the sun goes down behind them!

Our Family shot by our ENORMOUS Butterfly Bush!

Emily Tries Some Different Foods!

Here are a couple videos that we took this week of Emily eating! She has become quite the adventurous one with her food selections! The first video is her first time having a Wagon Wheel, September 24th and the second one I believe was taken the same day while we went out to lunch with Mommers! After Emily ate all of her baby food we found out she enjoyed a yummy dessert of lemons!! She is amazing!! Enjoy the video clips!!

Our Little Bobble Head!!

Here's a cute little video that we wanted to share that we captured at dinner tonight! Emily had just woken up from her nap and was very energetic!!! What fun she is!! Enjoy the video!!

Emily meets her newest cousin, Colton, for the 1st time!!

Last night we were excited to get to have dinner at Mommers' and Dooders' house AND get to spend a little one on one time with their little baby boy, Colton! And it was extra special because we got to introduce him to Emily and Micah because neither of them had a chance to meet him yet!
Colton is such a precious new little baby! He was born at 7lbs 4oz. and is slowly climbing back up to that weight again....man, it is so hard to believe that Emily was even tinier than him when she was born!!
We had fun holding him, and getting to catch up with Mark and Danielle on how life as new parents is treating them. And from all that we gathered, they absolutely LOVE being Colton's parents, they just aren't too fond of his sleep schedule right now. He is still working on turning his nights and days around and in the mean time they are doing their best to make it through and stay awake at crucial moments! And I will have to say they are both doing an amazing job with their little son! Parenthood definitely fits them like a glove! Have Fun you guys......each day only gets better!

Here are a few pictures we snapped last night.....just a warning there are quite a few, because they were all so cute we had a hard time narrowing it down. Enjoy!

Emily waiting patiently in her high chair for all the action to begin!

"When is all the fun going to start, that you've been talking about Mommy?"

Precious little Colton Donald Mark all stretched out, snoozing away! Love how he has his little leg crossed!! Too precious!

Daddy is just admiring his little son! I asked him last night if he has gotten used to having him around and he said yes! He loves being a Daddy!

Another great plan that Mark and Danielle have worked out is that after Danielle feeds him, Mark will take him to burp. They make such a cute little trio!! We are so happy for them!

We finally introduced Emily and Colton. As you can tell Emily was very curious of this little bundle, but Colton wasn't as thrilled. It was too funny, he kept rolling to his opposite side when she would reach out to touch him!!

Pretty much like this!

And this! But Emily is pretty persistent so as you can see she didn't give up!

We decided to take a few supervised shots of her holding him! It went better than expected! LOVE the look on Colton's face!

She wanted to give him some love before she said good-bye!

Colton spent a few minutes bonding with his new relatives....however, we only got a picture of him and Dooders (for some reason), but I thought this was a good bonding moment for them!

Emily enjoying her 2nd favorite part of the evening. Once she was introduced to this carrot, she didn't part with it for the rest of the night. Until she dropped it in the driveway when we were almost to the car!

13 Weeks Pregnant and More!

Now I am actually 14 weeks pregnant, but I have been a little behind on blogging lately. I just wanted to post this picture along with another cute video of Emily while I had a minute and to report on our 2nd pregnancy!!

Things are moving along nicely. We were able to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time at our last doctor's appointment on September 3rd...earlier than when we were pregnant with Emily, so that was nice and it was also really cool because Emily got to come with us. Dr. Wolanski hadn't seen her since she was born and his staff were really anxious to meet her!! It was an amazing moment for me as I laid there and listened to our brand new baby's heart beating away and then I glanced over to Micah who was holding Emily and she was just as happy and active as always. It was so amazing for me to think that just last year we were in the same office hearing her heartbeat for the very first time and now she is here and we can hold her in our arms! It made me really excited to get to know our second baby over the next few months and know that I will be able to snuggle with him or her soon too! And we will all have many fun times together playing, reading, praying, singing, laughing and just learning to be a family of four!

We feel so blessed to be welcoming another child into our home, and although it seems a little overwhelming at times I know it will be an amazing experience that we will treasure for eternity. Parenthood, it's the hardest and best thing we have ever been able to be a part of!!!

Here I am out in front of our newly planted mums, 13 weeks pregnant!!

And here is a cute video that we just took last night of Emily as she was eating her dinner! She is so funny. We love how wide she opens her mouth when she knows food is coming! She definitely makes sure we don't miss the target!! Enjoy!!

Mini Vacation - Day 4 and More

I know it has taken me a while to get this post up here, but life has been pretty busy....if you can believe that?!?! Everyone is doing well though. The last day of our mini vacation we decided to make the trip up to Luray Caverns and not that it was a long trip for us, but it was quite expensive. Adult tickets are up to $21 a person now. As a matter of fact, we almost decided not to go because of the price, but we are so glad that we went ahead and went. It was so much fun! And seeing the caverns was worth every penny that we spent. It was breathtakingly beautiful and I was just amazed that two men discovered it pretty much accidentally! If you have never been, I definitely recommend making a day trip down there.

Emily even enjoyed it, once she got past the fact that she couldn't touch all the rocks!! She just layed back and enjoyed the views and listened to all of the conversations as they echoed through the caverns!! It was definitely a trip to remember!

And here are a few pictures that we took to document our trip together!!

Just before going inside. We wanted to take a family photo by the sign!!

Here we are at the very beginning of our tour. If you notice the headsets around our necks. They have started doing self-guided tours now and as you get to certain points in the caverns you just program in a number and you can hear a recording. It worked out really nicely for us!

I thought this was just a really cool picture of Micah and Emily! Notice in almost all of these pictures Emily is reaching out for the rocks!

After the Caverns we decided to have some fun in the gift shop and try on some cool hats!!
Micah was in heaven when we went to the car museum. Emily and I buzzed through there in about 10 minutes and it took him about 40. He LOVES old cars and had to check out everyone carefully!

Here I am standing beside a Rolls Royce for Micah to take a picture!!

Another first for Emily is that last night after dinner we decided to let her try one of those little wagon wheels! She really enjoyed it. She got her fingers all goey with it by the end, but she thought she was such a big girl as she gnawed on the wagon wheel with her toothless gums!! What a cute girl she is! We love her so much!

Another adorable shot of her excited look as she figures out how to manuver the wagon wheel!!

Family Vacation - Day 3- Carter's Mountain!

Yesterday was Labor Day and we were so happy not to be laboring that we decided to head to Carter's Mountain! It was so nice because Mommers and Dooders got to come along too!! Emily really enjoyed herself and we enjoyed picking lots of apples, we even made our own "home made" apple picker! And what an apple picker it was!

It was so neat to be at Carter's Mountain this year with Emily because I remember last year when we went that she was in my belly and I was dreaming about what this year would be like to have her with us! And it was even more fun than I had imagined!

She had a blast! For one thing, she LOVES to be in the front carrier and since we use her stroller a lot now she doesn't get to be in the carrier as much ~ so this was a special treat for her! And for another thing, she LOVES apples. She was in heaven after we let her pick her own apple. She sucked on it the WHOLE time. And then when I took a bit out of it and she got to taste the real juices she thought she was in heaven! She did not complain one time, even though it was HOT!

Here are a few cute pictures from our adventures up on Carter's Mountain this year....and don't forget to watch the HILARIOUS video at the bottom, trust us....you won't want to miss it!

Emily was all excited to be in her carrier!!

Dooders climbed up on a rock to pick the "perfect" apple!

And Emily FINALLY picked her very own apple!

Dooders gave up on the rocks and made his very own apple picker! And I must say that it worked very nicely! We got quite a few apples with that handy dandy gadget!!

Once Emily got her apple, this is how she spent the majority of her time at the orchard!

And this is how daddy spent the rest of his time at the orchard, getting his hand slobbered on!!

Here we are getting ready to leave the orchard. As you can see, Emily really wanted another apple!

Mom and Micah switched positions briefly so that Micah could go apple hunting!

Here's a little family shot just before leaving the orchard!

One more photo, just because we love pictures....and we love Mommers!!

Here is one of the most adorable videos I have ever seen! Emily usually doesn't laugh and giggle a whole lot, but something was definitely tickling her funny bone tonight!

Mini Family Vacation, Day 1 - A Trip to the Alpaca Farm!

Micah took off from work from Friday until Tuesday so we decided to plan a few day trips, that way it would be a fun time plus we could save some money by not having to pay for a hotel room. It has turned out to be a GREAT plan so far.
On Friday we just hung out at home and played around here and then went to a family dinner at Mommers and Dooders' house that evening. It was just us, them and Jacob and Tiffany and we had a great time! It is always nice to visit with family!
On Saturday we decided to go visit an Alpaca Farm. Why Alpacas, you may ask? Well a few months back we ran into this nice man while we were getting our car washed at Express Car Wash and started talking to him and turns out he owns an Alpaca Farm. He told us it was a lot of fun to visit and told us that Emily would LOVE it! So, that got us excited and when we decided to take this vacation and make day trips out of it, that was one of the first places on our list!
When we got there, I was a little disappointed though. We drove over an hour to get there and from the looks of things we would be there about 1o minutes. I was so wrong! At first we had Emily in her stroller and she was a bit freaked out, to say the least by all the alpacas gathering around her, but once we picked her up....I should say once Daddy picked her up (he can get her a few inches higher up, you know!!) she started doing better. And by the end of our trip she was actually reaching out to touch the Alpacas!! We had a blast! And here are some pictures that we took while we were there.

Apparently this little alpaca LOVES the ladies and he stayed by me the whole time we were down there. And he kept coming up and "kissing" me....and for alpacas that means they come up and touch their nose to your cheek, that is their way of getting to know you! It took a little while for me to get used to!!

He even got a little friendly with Micah too, but not nearly as much so! And as you can see here, Emily was starting to warm up a little to the Alpacas at this point!!
See what I mean! He wouldn't stop! But at least by the end, I was a little more used to it!!

I loved how Emily started to reach out her little hand to pat the Alpacas!

There we go, now she is definitely ready to be friends!

Eventhough it was a hot day, Emily was not side-tracked, once she felt a little more comfortable being there she was ready to play with the alpacas as if they were her toys!

Our little princess was even brave enough to pat his nose!

This was one of their most prized alpacas! Apparently he had won a lot of shows and he has really great fur!! Emily had to test it out for herself! And I think it passed her test!

Here is a cute little video we got of her trying to pat one of the female alpacas when we were almost ready to leave! What a brave little girl we have!!!