10 Months Sure Has Gone Fast!

Emily turned the ripe old age of 10 Months yesterday at 10:15am! So in honor of her 10 month birthday we did our monthly photo shoot when Daddy got home from work! We had a blast doing it, as usual and got some really cute shots too!

But first, we wanted to share a little about what has been happening with Emily in her 10th Month:

~ She now has 6 Teeth! Her first one came in on September 24th and her most recent one just popped through yesterday!! She has been a trooper through it all though!

~ She has learned to crawl and loves to "Go" everywhere now! We have been watching her to see what all we need to baby proof and I must say she is doing a great job of baby-proofing! Today she even learned how to take the cover off of the electrical outlet!! A little scary for mommy!

~ She loves to eat "Big People Food" now. Some of her favorites are bananas, cheerios, mashed potatoes, but her all time favorite is home made Macaroni and Cheese!! She is definitely her mommy's daughter!

~ She has also learned to stand up in her crib and is doing that almost every morning when I go to get her and after her naps too! Good thing we lowered her bed a little while ago, hopefully she doesn't learn to crawl out any time soon:)

~ She loves to play with papers and books! Sometimes when I give her a paper or a book I will find her just quietly sitting there reading it, like she is absorbing every word!! It is absolutely adorable!

I think this covers the adventures of Emily's 10th Month in a nutshell. Overall, she is a very happy baby, who loves her Mommy and Daddy, her bottle, her sippy cup and her bed!! We love her and are grateful for the way she lights up our hearts every day!!

Here are a few pictures from last night's photo shoot......................

Emily LOVES her bear!

"No, that's okay, I got this!"

She was ready for the next activity!!

Here she is trying her best to get away!

Look how tall she is getting! I think these photos are her favorites!

Outside with my princess on a beautiful Fall afternoon!

Gotta get my Emily kisses!!

Emily sure loves her Daddy....isn't the look on her face just precious!!

Our 1o Month Family Photo (although not taken from the best angle!!)

Here is a cute little video that I took of her on Monday as she was going through my coupons! It's a little routine that we have started on Monday mornings. After I go through and get all the coupons out I let her play with all the extra paper and she LOVES it!

Family Home Evening Halloween Fun!

Last night our Family Home Evening consisted of raking some leaves in our front yard while Emily played in her new blow up gym and then we came inside and carved our pumpkin! It was a fun night. Emily was so excited about having a pumpkin she could hardly stand herself! She was pulling up everywhere to try to get to it! She is such a fun little girl! We love having her in our family, she brings us so much joy!

And you know us Grays, we can't have a fun activity like Pumpkin Carving without busting out our camera for some pictures and last night was no exception! Here are some of the still shots from our adventures last night! Enjoy!

Everyone had a job to do last night....Emily's was to talk to us about what kind of new recipes she was cooking up in the kitchen:)

Mine was to make Chocolate Chip Cookies for dessert! They were quite yummy and since we worked up quite an appetite carving our pumpkin they hit the spot!


And Micah's job was to trace a face and carve out our pumpkin! And he did an excellent job! (I forgot to add that my second job was to gut out the pumpkin...wonder why there are no pictures of that lovely process!)

When Emily saw Daddy carving she had to help out as best as she could!! (Don't get too worried, Daddy jammed that knife into the pumpkin really hard before he brought her over to it!!)

Man, we thought she enjoyed the pumpkin when we first brought it in the house....that was nothing compared to the excitement she had after we were all done and the pumpkin had a face!!

Mommy had to get a picture taken with her cute little pumpkin who now has 5 teeth!!

Our Family shot with the newest addition(although only temporary)!!

Here's a video we got of Emily last night shortly after we brought her inside from raking leaves. She wanted to pull up so bad, but having her snow suit on made it a little more difficult! But in the end, that proved to be NO CHALLENGE for our little "Sweet P"!

Another Fun Trip to Northern VA!

Since we have had our little sweet Emily our trips to Northern Virginia have become a little less and farther between, just for the simple fact that it is HARD to travel with a baby. But we still do enjoy the trips we do get to make so much!

This time it was to celebrate Uncle Jacob's birthday and to do a little babysitting swap with Nathan and Sarah so that us and them could all attend the temple. I am so grateful for the family that I married into. Lots of people, lots of personalities, lots of little kiddos and lots and lots of fun!

We celebrated Jacob's birthday Friday night at Mummis' house. She served Cashew Nut Casserole (one of Jacob's favorites) and Pecan Pie for dinner! It was really yummy, but the best part for me was (in between feeding Emily) getting to watch and listen to everyone as we gathered around the table chit chatting with one another about all kinds of different things! I loved watching the interactions with everyone and watching Emily's face as she was taking it all in and seeing the joy in her face as she participated in many a staring contest with her Uncle Matt, and watching the excitement in her eyes knowing that one day soon she will get to talk with all of her cousins too! Such a tender moment for this mommy and I am so grateful to a Heavenly Father who blesses us with those tender mercies, just when we need them most!!

Jacob surrounded by nieces and a nephew as he looks at his birthday cards!

Everyone was so eager to reminisce about what they had written inside for him! And excited as he asked them questions about different parts of the cards!

The next morning we went to Nathan and Sarah's house to watch all of the kiddos while they ran away to the temple for a couple of hours. We had lots of fun playing with all 6 kiddos! Everyone got along so well! And took such good care of each other!

Here is Abigail and Emily together, she loved helping her stand!

Lydia enjoyed sitting in this little chair and reading books most of the morning!

She even didn't mind sharing her books with her youngest cousin, too much:)

She was getting a little tired of being interrupted for pictures at this point, but Hannah is so precious that we had to snap another one!

Here's Joseph as he reads on the couch! He had to have a picture with his "crazy eyes"!

Speaking of Crazy Eyes! We sure love Hannah! She is always so happy and full of excitement and energy!

Abigail and Emily were ready for another picture together, both looking just as cute as ever!!

When Abigail was outside helping Uncle Micah carry mulch to the backyard she found this rose and enjoyed smelling it, at least until it was torn apart later during a game of "Capture Micah".

She was so eager to let everyone smell her rose, but Lydia wasn't so sure about it!

After Nathan and Sarah returned from the temple, Micah and I got to go. We had a great time, as we always do each time we get to be together inside of the temple. There is such a peace there. I am glad we are able to go so often. It truly is a blessing to have family living so close that we can swap babysitting with almost on a monthly basis!

When we got back from the temple, Sarah had Emily ready to go and we headed for home. But we made a pit stop at the Olive Garden, since we had a gift card to use we thought it would be a shame not to stop! All 3 of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was the first time Emily had gotten to sit in one of the high chairs at the restaurant and she liked it A LOT! She was so happy and loved eating her food and talking to us almost the whole time! And you know us, we had to get the camera out again and snap a few more photos!

Here she is as she begins her dinner!

Looking up at Daddy after she realizes her snack is all gone!

We were able to snap a little video too! You can see how much fun she was having! We couldn't pass it up!

New Side Shelves in Our Kitchen!

I can not begin to express just how impressed I am with Micah and his carpentry skills! He is AMAZING! About 2 weeks ago we were talking about how to cut down on the clutter in our house and also how to keep my cookbooks in the kitchen, but also have them out of reach of our little crawler/climber! A trick, I know.

Then Micah came up with the idea of building three corner shelves for my cookbooks. Not only did he come up with the idea, but he came up with the design and plan of how to do it! And with a little time and the right motivation he was able to finish those shelves on Thursday night around 11:35pm!!

And I must say, after a few kinks in his plan and several trips to Lowe's (which thankfully is only about 5 minutes down the road from us now!) we have beautiful shelves in our kitchen now that can display my cookbooks!

Words can not adequately describe how proud I am of Micah for all of his diligence, commitment and hard work to make these kitchen shelves a reality for me!!
And with out further ado....here are a few pictures!!

My Man with a Plan!
Tightening the screws on the final shelf!!

Here he is at about 11:35pm Thursday night posing by his newly finished shelves!! What a trooper ~ #1 to finish the shelves even when it was so late and #2 to pose for a picture afterwards!! I love you Micah Cordon!

She's Just So Fun!

Emily is just turning into such an active and fun little girl! I can't help but want to take pictures of everything she does. Her personality is coming out in full force and she is just a ray of sunshine in our lives. She loves to be on the move, although I don't think crawling is her favorite mode of transportation, I truly believe she is going to be much more excited about walking.

She also enjoys seeing being, both people she knows and people she has never met before. And the only times she is really clinging is when she is really tired. But Micah and I don't mind those times either, because it is always fun to snuggle with our girl!

Here are a few photos that we took throughout last week of her having fun and just enjoying life!! Enjoy!!

We got this little purple play gym from our next door neighbor and we just wanted to give it one try before we told them it wouldn't work out for us! But Emily ABSOLUTELY LOVES IT!! We were shocked!! She played forever in here, and we got lots of leaves raked up...looks like it will be a keeper!

There she is again, keeping a close eye on her Daddy!

Oh she found a ball, seriously it doesn't get much better than this!

Love this picture!! (And if you enlarge it you can see her two little teeth budding through!)

It's cold in VA, which means it's hat season for Emily once again!

One day last week I went in to get her out of bed in the morning and this is how I found her! Just sitting on the side of the crib ready to bust out of the bars!

She is a happy little captive though:)

This is her "seriously, it's time to get me out of here" look!

Lastly, here is a cute little video we snapped of her in her purple play gym outside!! Just too cute to pass up! We sure our grateful for this amazing miracle in our lives! We are truly blessed!

A Little Trip to Radford College and Beyond!

This past Saturday we got the opportunity to take another Family Road Trip. We have a good friend, Jordan, you just started her freshman year at Radford University and she invited us down for the day to visit and get a personal tour of the campus!! It was about 6 hours of driving (total), but the trip was definitely worth it!

We got to see Jordan's dorm room. And as you can tell Emily made herself comfortable on her nice purple bed!!

During our tour of the campus we got to sit on "Jordan's Bench". This is a spot that she found shortly after coming to Radford and she spends many mornings out here catching up on school and talking and texting! Emily and I also thought "her spot" was quite cozy!! Right in front of us there is also a beautiful water fountain and the leaves are spectacular this time of year too!

After a yummy lunch and one of Jordan's favorite restaurants on campus, Salsaritas, we bundled up and headed to Virginia Tech to watch our first ever Quidditch Game! Jordan's Institute Activities Committee put it together and I will say it was quite entertaining to watch! They had hoops, brooms, a quaffle, and also special appearances from Professor Snape and Madame Hooch!

Another Shot of the Game Action!!

It was such a popular game that they had other students from around campus who wanted to join in the fun too! Needless to say, even though this was the first Quidditch Game I am sure it will not be the last!

This is how Emily enjoyed most of her Quidditch experience.....cuddled up with Jordan trying to stay as toasty as possible!! (Even though Emily looks a little sad in this picture, she did end up "warming up" a bit and enjoyed watching the game eventually!)

An amazing view of Autumn Time on the Virginia Tech Campus!

After we left Radford, we decided to pay a little visit to Grandpa Gray since we were so close already! We always have a nice time when we visit. He had ice cream and cookies waiting for us when we got there. It was nice to catch up on how life is going with everyone! And it was an especially nice for him because Nathan and Sarah and their family had just came to visit the day before!

Here is a cute picture of Emily with her Great Grandpa Gray. You can tell they both enjoyed each other's company!! Love those smiles!

Here's another cute one of Daddy getting some kisses from his little "Sweet P"!

One more shot of the 3 of them together!!

Our day was a lot of fun! Saturdays that are filled with family and friends always make for happy times!! Thanks again Jordan, for giving us this opportunity!!