New Skills

I'm trying to capture some of Emily's new skills on video, but it's hard because everytime she sees a camera, she stops doing whatever she is doing, and lunges for it.

A few new developments:


Saying "hi". One of my favorite things lately is when I walk into the nursery in the morning, Emily gives me a big smile and says "Hi!" I don't have video of this because for some reason when I post videos from my cell phone on here, the sound is weird (sounds like there is dramatic background music or something) and I haven't figured out how to post video from our actual video camera. But trust me, it's cute.


Stair climbing. She's much better at this now, and racing up the stairs is about all she wants to do these days.

Self-feeding. Emily eats best when we let her get involved. After a couple days of frustration with spoon feeding, I started letting her try it. She was actually a lot better than I expected! (Especially with oatmeal, which doesn't fall off the spoon when she turns it upside down...)

Opening child-proof bottles. She's done this multiple times now, so either I'm really bad at putting tops on correctly, or she's really onto something. Haven't managed to get video evidence.

Andy!

Andy is such a good friend that when Alasdair & I moved to Philadelphia, he chose a nearby campaign to work on so that he could live with us for 6 months. During that time we played a lot of Settlers of Catan & foosball, and when Alasdair started seminary and couldn't play with us anymore, Andy got me hooked on LOST. We were so sad when he moved back to Berkeley... although we have to admit it was worth it to add his awesome wife and two kids to our circle.

Andy is also such a good friend, that he left said wife & kids for a couple days to fly all the way back East to visit us and meet Emily. (Ok, maybe said wife actually deserves the thanks for holding down the fort for the weekend -- thank you Jamie!!) Since Jamie met Emily last summer, and Alasdair met baby Rachel a couple weeks ago when he was in CA for a wedding, I'm the odd one out. I'm hoping we can make the journey out there sometime in the next year so I can remedy that. I hate that California is so far away!

All that to say, Andy was here for 48 hours and this is the only picture I managed to get of him with Emily. Aside from this trip to the playground, the rest of the time was mostly spent playing Ticket to Ride and watching baseball. Just like the good old days...

Oh, and here's a picture of Alasdair meeting Rachel earlier this month.

Studious

I came into Emily's room yesterday to find her studying hard....

Kissing Frogs

Sometimes I write posts & don't post them because I don't have a picture, and then I forget about them. Here's one from a couple weeks ago...

Emily's favorite book right now is Goodnight, Gorilla. She laughs and says "ya ya ya " when I pick it up, and gets especially happy when we get to the page with the lion. Out of the blue last week, she started leaning down and "kissing" (resting her face on) the lion. That's become part of the reading ritual. Sunday at church I kept Emily out of the nursery since she was a little sick. While she was looking at books on my lap, we came to the page in a book of wild animals with a picture of a frog, which she kissed repeatedly. No princes yet!

Stats

At Emily's checkup last Friday, she was
20lbs 8oz (65%ile)
29.75" (90)

Other numbers...
12 or 18mo clothes

3 teeth with one more coming in

630 wake up no matter when bedtime is (usually 7)

lots of smiles!

Women's Retreat

I had decided not to go on our church women's retreat this year, since it seemed like a lot of work to bring Emily. Alasdair is out of town again though, and I wasn't looking forward to a long weekend alone. I visited Amanda on Friday, and since her husband was going to be gone too, we we discussing whether one of us could put a baby down at the other's house... when we remembered that the women's retreat was this weekend (at the Jersey Shore), and it was going to be warm & sunny... and decided it was time for an adventure. We called and found out that there was still room, packed up my car and headed out in time for Emily & Madda's afternoon naps. While not the most relaxing beach trip(!), it was a success. Both girls slept most of both car rides (2-3 hours), Amanda & I were able to hear most of two of the large group sessions, and make it to the beach three times! (If Emily hadn't decided that 230-4am was a really fun time to play with Mommy, the trip would have been about perfect...)