Quick Pics Before Bed

So I feel like we have come a long way in this last month.  Emma will be seven months old in a couple of days and she has been growing fast.  Here is what we have been up to lately...

We had a picnic in the backyard for dinner tonight.  Emma loves being outside and playing in the grass.  We were given a backpack carrier for Emma and she loves hanging out in it.  We have gone for many walks in it and it is also a favorite of Gramma and Grampa Hunter.

As you can see she is growing well.  I think I said that she was over 17lbs at her six month check up.  Lately she has felt heavier.  I was talking to my coworker Mandi and she described this phase as being dense and that is the best way to describe it and it seemed to have happened over a weekend.  On Friday it was easy just to sweep her up into our arms, now there seems to be a bit more resistance.  

Have I mentioned she loves being outside?  We went for a walk to a local park and she went down the slide with Poppa and we played in the grass for a while.

Easter was fun and she looked too cute for words.  Thanks to G-ma Calhoun for the dress.  Emma and cousin Kayla had matching dresses.  Who would have thought you could find the same dress in a size 12month and 7.

So, we don't like carrots... or sweet potatoes.  But we like avocado and bananas.  Go figure.

Well, that's it for now.  It is way past my bedtime that is for sure.  Until next time!

My Name is Emma and I'm 6 Months Old

We've made it!  6 months old and everyone is still alive and we are all happy.  Last Saturday we were playing with Emma on our bed wishing we were still sleeping.  With a sly smile Jeff said "I don't think I have slept in in six months".  With an even slyer smile I said "I don't think I have slept through the night in six months..."  Hee hee hee, I win!  I win the pleasure of seeing Emma multiple times in the dead of night.  It is a fabulous prize.  Definitely a motherhood prize.  Yeah for phases!

 Emma is really active and so wonderful.  People ask me how she is doing all the time and the answer is always "She is wonderful".  She is rolling over and sitting up by herself.  We have had a couple of good head bonks but nothing serious.  I finally started sticking her in a laundry basket with a blanket and some toys while we are doing chores just to make sure she doesn't launch her self to the floor.

I have been back to work since mid January and it is going pretty well.  We are truly blessed to have a group of folks taking care of Emma which makes it way easier on me.  It was a little bit of a transition but I know Emma thoroughly enjoys her new friends and the chance to get out of the house.  We have successfully beat our first ear infection and I think we are on the way to seeing some teeth soon.  

We have officially started rice cereal and she gobbles it up.  These are pictures of our first foray into solid food.  We will be trying some new flavors after our 6 month check up.  We have let her suck on a cucumber and apple and she got very excited about it so I think introducing solids will be full of fun and laughter.  Until next time!

Our Growing Girl!

Our little girl is getting so big.  Looking at these pictures I am reminded how fast she is changing and that two months is far too long to not have posted anything and for that you have my sincere apologies.  Right now Emma is over 16 pounds and just around 25 inches long.  She is doing well holding her head up when on her belly and we are fine tuning our ability to sit up by herself.  Her newest enjoyment is getting mommy squeezes.  When I leave for the day I pick her up and give her some quick hugs while saying "squeeeeeeeze, squeeeeezy, squeeeeeeze!"  She just laughs and smiles.  

She has quite the personality for such a little body.  She is getting very vocal and you just can't teach a 4 1/2 month old the difference between our outside voices and indoor voices.  She laughed for the first time when we were out at Camp of the Cascades with our high schoolers.  We got some of it on video and I might be able to persuade my wonderful hubbin to help me post it for you all.  Until next time!

First Bath at Gramma H's

Emma has had a number of first this week.  This is her first bath at Gramma Hunter's.  The other day I was home alone with Emma and needed to give her a bath so I decided to try and see if she would tolerate going into the bathtub by herself.  So I put a small amount of water in the tub and went for it.  By the end of the bath she was so happy and was able to lay in the tub and the water only came up to her ears which worked beautifully.  We tried it again this time and I think we have a winner.

Emma has started wanting to stand all the time.  And when I say stand I really do mean stand.  All you really have to do is help her balance and she does the rest.  She tried standing in the tub and as you can imagine slipped all around. 

Look at all that hair!  You can fully appreciate the amount of hair this child has when it is wet.  When she lays in the water it floats out from her head like a halo.  Right now it is light brown with beautiful red and gold highlights.

This is how our bath times end.  You would think this is how they would start or something but no, when we pull her out of the tub she is always disappointed.  It doesn't matter if the bathroom is warm or if we have a towel waiting to dry her off she always looses it when bath time is over.  Perhaps we have a swimmer on our hands...

Emma's First Ferry Ride

Emma has now officially ridden the ferry.  Yesterday we went to Seattle with Jeff's mom, dad, big bro Jeremy, and sister-in-law Lindsley.  We had a wonderful time and wore Emma out in the process.  She has been very sleepy all day today.

We entertained ourselves on the ferry ride taking photos of Emma.  She was very obliging and we had quite a few giggles out of her.

Computer Geeks

Okay, so I guess we are starting a little early but Emma loves anything with a screen. She has been having some tummy troubles and feels better when she is on her belly. After I fed her Jeff took her off my hands but I still wanted his help to figure out some file issues on my computer before he left for a meeting at church. He took care of both at the same time. When I turned around I about died laughing because Emma was totally into what Poppa was doing. Yesterday I found out that she loves black and white movies and can "see" them from much farther away than anything else.

It is pretty comical because she will pick out a screen (computer, tv etc) anywhere in the room. A couple weeks ago we were at the Hunter parent's home and we started iChatting with Jeff's bro Jeremy. We showed Emma to him and she was mesmerized by him. They sat for a while making faces at each other.

As a side note, Emma is now 12.5 pounds and 23.5 inches. My little girl is getting so big!

Emma's First Christmas Tree

Our house is almost completely decorated for Christmas. There are a few things that won't go up this year but I am happy just to have the tree up and decorated. Emma was pretty happy to hang out with Poppa in her front pack.

This is the first year that we have the tree in front of a window that you can see from the street so we decorated it all the way around. I always thought we had a lot of ornaments and we do if you are only decorating one side. I will be hitting the after Christmas sales for some fun ornaments this year to make sure we have enough for next year. I like to put tinsel on the tree as well but that may have to wait until next year. As you can see fun was had by all. ")

Happy Play Mat

Jeff's mom Linda bought Emma the Little Einstein's play mat and gave it to her over the Thanksgiving vacation. It comes with a star that plays music and lights. Every time we have put her under that little star she starts giggling and laughing with out fail. I don't know what it is about it but she loves it.

Vacuum Cleaner Possessed

So, we borrowed a robotic vacuum cleaner from Jeff's parents to see how it would do on our floors.  We set it up and haven't had the time to program it and such so it is hanging out in between our entertainment cabinet and the closet.  I went to pull out the yoga mat and blanket that we use to play on the floor with Emma and left the closet door open.  Our cat Calvin went in to investigate and on her way out hopped on the start button for the vacuum.  I was feeding Emma in our chair and could only watch in amusement as the robo-vac made its way around the little bit of floor that was available to clean.  It bumped into everything, the cabinet, the walls, the basket, everything.  Finally it got caught up on the blanket and sat there munching on the blanket then beeping for help and I couldn't do a thing about it.  It finally gave up and powered down.  It's kind of hard to see in this picture but the vacuum is the round dark gray disk that is eating the upper right corner of the pink blanket on the floor.  You can just see the closet door that is open in the left corner and the chair I was sitting in with Emma in the right.  The cat hung around ready to attack it for a while but then lost interest.  And there is our tree that only has lights on it right now but we will be decorating it tonight, yeah!  Then I can move the decorating boxes back up to the attic.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Every year we tell ourselves that we will get our tree early in the season and never do.  This year we finally managed it.  We went with Jeff's family and had a blast.  One of the funny things that seems to be becoming a tradition is tree hunting in the dark.  This has been I think the third year that we have gone tree hunting in the late afternoon and haven't gotten done until after the sun went down and the colors had faded from the sky with only the moon and stars to watch us.  And we have done this regardless of who seems to be with us.  So, if we ever ask you to go tree hunting with us in the future know that this is what you are getting yourself into.  We were very successful though and left the tree farm with four trees, one for us, one for Jeff's parents, one for the little bro, and a small one for the cousins.  This is certainly a tradition that we treasure.  I was just looking at our tree as I sit here and was thinking that next year Emma will be much more mobile and that is a crazy thought!  For now I will enjoy her being my little reindeer because it won't last for long.  

Poppa and Emma 

Our favorite little reindeer!

Our tree

What fabulous memories!  Emma really did quite well in the front pack the whole time.  This was during the cutting of the tree and we dropped the binky.

Little Bro's tree.  The tree farm folks said it was a "junk tree" and gave him a deal on it.  I believe it ended up taking up residence in Jono's extra bathroom toilet until he could get a stand for it.  I hear the room mates and their girlfriends were quite surprised.  This is his first christmas tree for his own place.  

See, I told you she did just fine.  :)

Hunting in the dark.  This was the last tree that we found which was for the cousins.  There was a friendly older gentleman who followed us around helping us.  I think it was more to get us out of there so they could go home than anything but he was very helpful if not a bit pushy in an old man sort of way.  But very cheerful.  

Some Mommy Time

Yesterday was my first outing by myself.  When I say by myself I really mean by myself.  I left Emma at home with Jeff and treated myself to a haircut at Gene Juarez, lunch, and a little bit of shopping.  I only had one moment where I envisioned myself tearing out of a store, jumping in the car and speeding home to make sure Emma was okay.  That didn't happen, it was only a fleeting moment.  As you can see Poppa did just fine and this was the picture I got home and saw.  

~Momma H

Sleeping Milestones

Well, it has finally happened... i think.  Emma is starting to sleep through the night!  At first I thought it was just a fluke and we had worn her out during the day but now I am starting to think it is for reals.  So, nine weeks old and sleeping for more than five hours at night in a chunk.  We put her to bed at 10:30 last night and she didn't wake up until 5:30 this morning.  Amazing!!!  I will let y'all know if it was indeed a fluke.

~Mamma H

I Loves My Poppa!

Does this even need words of explanation?

Blocks of Mass Destruction

We have found a new game!!! Emma has a set of soft blocks that make different noises and have different textures and such. She likes the blue and red blocks the most because they have a soft jingle that she likes. Today Jeff was playing on the floor with Emma and dropping blocks on her tummy and making an exploding sound. The first time he did it all I heard was "blocks from heaven! " followed by explosions and happy Emma noises. It seems like this may be an Emma and Poppa game that will be around for a while.

Cheesecake Factory

Our friend Nic celebrates his birthday in November and we often meet at The Cheesecake Factory for a celebratory dinner. We all eat too much, Nic orders a fruity drink that we all make fun of and we leave looking forward to meeting again. We hve found that ordering and feeding Emma at the same time can be difficult but as you can see Jeff is handlng it in a creativ way. It has been a real treat lately as we have been able to find times to hang out more often lately. This group of friends has been together since high school and we live all over the Sound so getting together can be tricky.

Enjoy!
~ Mama H

Bumbo Adventures

Emma is officially strong enough to sit in her Bumbo chair!  The instructions say that your baby should be able to hold their head up before using the chair.  They say that should be around 3 months or so but our little Emma has had really good control of her head since she was born but it is really good now.  I just remembered about the chair when I saw a commercial on PBS and a baby was sitting in one.  So, here is our first adventure with the Bumbo.  As you can see, she's not quite sure what to think about it.  But we think it's pretty magical.  Our less than two month old is sitting up on her own.  It makes Jeff think that we should feed her something solid. just because a baby sitting up on her own looks like she needs something to munch.

Lead Now Conference

Our church was involved in the Lead Now conference to talk about leading the 20 - 30 somethings in our communities.  Our little family had a full day at church that started at 5 am and didn't end until we got home around 5 pm that evening.  We, being the cool parents we are, didn't follow one of the golden rules of having a baby which is sleep when the baby sleeps.  We decided instead to watch Home Alone.  It was almost to the end and I turned to jeff and said "are we really that dumb?".  The answer is "yes, I think so".  This photo is from Sunday night, after yet another long day, and Emma and I were just plumb tuckered out.

~  Momma H

The Documented Smile

Having a beautiful daughter and an incredibly talented photographer for a wife is a fantastic thing.  

Emma has been sneaking in smiles over the last week or so, but during Emma's happy morning time, Kristen was able to snap some incredible candids of the little girl having a blast and loving life.  

I hereby present to you the first documented Emma smile.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

~Poppa

Pumpkin Patch

So, we have made our first trip to the pumpkin patch with Emma.  We went with our two families and had a great time.  Yesterday our church had their annual Pumpkin Patch party and we went as Mr & Mrs Claus and one tiny reindeer.  There will never be a time when we have eight tiny reindeer.  We will leave that to others and joyfully settle for our one tiny reindeer.  The unexpected result of going as the Claus family is that it proved very confusing for a number of the children that attended the party.  Our Youth did a Trunk-r-treat and our small groups each decorated a trunk.  Many were the wide eyed children that couldn't believe Santa would come at Halloween.  One such child dressed as a lizzard backed away from us after getting his candy from Santa shaking his head saying "not right, not right".  He was about four or five years old.  I had a couple of parents jokingly chastise us for confusing the children which I turned right around and blamed on corporate America.  If Fred Meyer hadn't put out their children's Christmas clothing before Halloween then Jeff wouldn't have seen the reindeer jumper, complete with reindeer antlers on the hood and booties, and thought it was the coolest thing and wanted to get it.  I wasn't so excited about it and after talking with my small group girls we agreed that he should get it only if he promised to be santa for the party.  Of course I couldn't let them go with out Mrs. Claus so there you have it.  We don't have any pictures of it ourselves but I will try and snag one and post it soon.

~Mamma H

2 Week Check Up

We have had a successful two week check up.  Emma has grown an inch and is now at 8lbs 14 oz.  When we left the hospital she was 8.2 and the doctors like to see that new born babies get back to their birth weight by their two week check up.  Emma is an over achiever already surpassing her birth weight.  We had to go down to the lab and complete Emma's second PKU test (this entails poking her heal and filling a card with five circles with blood).  She was a trooper.  She fell asleep while we were in the waiting room and fussed a bit when they poked her heal then seemed to decide that she wasn't going to make the nurse stop and calmed down.  All in all it went very well.  Next appointment will be her 6 week check up complete with shots.  Our doctor made sure to mention the shots so we could be emotionally prepared for the trauma.  

Emma is still a big sleeper however she is starting to have more alert time between sleeps.  Here is a photo of her waking up process.  We have to unwrap her from her blankets and then she starts her stretchy dance and then wakes up.  We are pretty amused by it.  Enjoy!

~ Momma H