Spring Break!!

I've been taking a little blogging break this week because we've been jet setting, as we rarely do these days. We started the week of Easter with Emma's first Easter Egg Hunt at my good friend, Mary's house. We had a great time! Emma picked up a few eggs and had to be coerced into putting them into the basket, but she figured out the plan quickly enough. The basket was one that I got from Target after last year's Easter season. It was so fun to see her using the basket that I had envisioned her with last year when I was pregnant and anticipating my sweet baby girl's first Easter.

Making noises with Daddy's hand - a past time.

It was SO nice to have Brad home for the week. I will admit it, I'm spoiled. He often lets me sleep in on weekends and gets up and feeds Emma. It's so nice that she can actually eat "food" now and I'm not always required to be in the picture for every single meal. Brad has also confessed that he loves feeding her. They really bond as he makes airplane noises, wipes her mouth with goofy motions and voices, and cheers when she's "all finished." Emma thinks her Daddy's crazy!

Easter Sunday was great. We went to mass at Holy Cross and then had a nice Easter dinner with my parents. We had a great meal with Brad's family the night before. Lots of great food and great family. Emma loved her Easter basket! I decided to do something a little different with her basket. Well, technically, it's a bucket. I found a woman on etsy.com that decorates and sells galvanized buckets. I had her make one for Emma with her name on it. It's bright pink with lime green polka dots. Each year, the Easter Bunny will fill the same bucket. I used a paint pen and wrote the date of her first Easter on the bottom of the bucket. I really want to make lots of traditions for Emma and keepsakes at the same time. I hope that she will enjoy the bucket for years in the future.

Emma LOVES her new doll that the Easter bunny brought her - can you tell?! He must have seen her talking to it at Toys R Us the previous week....

Pretty girl in her Easter dress. Hard to believe it was in our backyard....Brad cut the grass/weeds the next day!

We spent 2 nights in Carrollton with our best friends, Amber and Jason, and their precious little boy, Seth. We met in Carrollton when we were in school together and lived there for a year after I graduated and taught while Brad finished up his senior year. It holds lots of great memories for us, and is also where our best friends are. It was SO great to spend a few days with them, but has us all wishing we were closer to them. It is so nice out in the country and really makes you long for the peace and quiet and simpler life that just can't be found in the "big city."

Emma loves her Aunt Amber!!

Seth LOVED Emma and she loved him. He wasn't quite sure how to play with her though. There were lots of head rubs and shoulder pats! Precious.

We got to have a little playdate with a friend's new little girl, Ella. She is about 3 months old. Emma loved her!

It's hard to tell, but can you see that their feet are about the same size?? My girl's got TINY feet!

Emma enjoyed her first "big girl" bath at Amber and Jason's house. She usually gets in the tub with Mama, but loved her big girl bath thanks to a bathtub ring borrowed from a friend!

Emma slept SO great the first night. From 8:30-8:00. The next night, well....it was a nightmare. She realized pretty quickly that as soon as she cried we were going to jump up and get her because we didn't want her to wake the rest of the house up. She milked it for all it was worth. We were literally up once an hour, if not every half hour. It was worth it though. By the time we got home, we were missing it. I have a feeling we're going to spend some more time there this summer, though we haven't been invited yet. ;)

We came back from Carrollton on Brad's 28th birthday. He's an old man! We spent the day trying to recover from not sleeping the night before. We also went to dinner at Pappadeaux with his family. Emma decided that she had had enough of the "being a good girl" thing. She started arching her back in the high chair, stiffening up and screaming UGLY screams when her food wasn't coming fast enough. We're starting to work on this because Mama's NOT going to have a rude little girl! She eventually stopped once she heard "no ma'am" a few times and the food stopped coming.

We spent Friday morning at Yellow River Game ranch with Mary and Jack (from the egg hunt!). We had a great time, though they were packed, pollen was everywhere, and we had to park down the street and walk! Gorgeous weather that day.

The child hates her stroller. She made me get her out shortly after we got there. SO I carried her and pushed the stroller. I missed Brad :(

She LOVED the goats! She fed this one carrots.

She got so tired! Unfortunately, she's not as light as she once was and my back was screaming at me after we walked through the rest of the park and all the way to the car.

She's such a big girl these days. She's eating a good bit of table food. This week alone she's tried deviled eggs, pimento cheese sandwich, cucumber, tomato, mushrooms, bread, cake, chicken, turkey, ham......I'm sure there's more. She loves trying new things, though she mostly wants to feed them to herself. She likes it when things are "her idea." Hmm....wonder where she gets THAT from???

She told me "mmmmmm" over and over today for "more" when she was eating puffs. She's making LOTS more noises and has started to imitate! I knew she would, but am relieved to see it. She makes the "b" noise, "d" noise, and "m." She makes others throughout the day, but those are the most often heard ones.

She wears size 12 month clothes. There are a few 9 month outfits that still fit, but most of them are 12 month. I had to break down and buy a couple of pairs of skorts from Target to go over onesies this summer. They had to be big and stretchy enough to fit over her diapers, as most clothes aren't cut that big anymore. They were size 24 months. But hey, at least they fit!

She's crawling SO perfectly these days. She's not racing with it yet, but it's coming. She's gotten into dog food, remote controls, phones....you name it. We're starting to baby-proof as we go along.

We're starting to un-swaddle. It's about time, but she really wasn't ready for it before now. We've been leaving one arm out of the swaddle and it only took her one nap to get comfortable with that. She's been like that for 2 days now. In fact, yesterday she slept with both arms out and only her legs swaddled for both naps. She showed us last night that we were moving a bit too fast though, so as I type this, she's got one arm out. We'll take it at her pace and see how it goes. Sure will be nice not to have to man-handle her into a swaddle blanket before nap times by myself!

Brad heads back to work tomorrow and is dreading it. I've gotten a lot done this week in terms of housework, but still really need to find the time to get into her closet and clear out the stuff that's too small, which is most of it. I cleaned out her drawers today and filled a rubbermaid box. The closet will make box 3 so far, and that's only her clothing newborn-6 months. Think she has enough clothes?? ;)

Emma's had a hard time with the pollen these last 2 days. A little runny nose off and on and she's just generally fussy. She doesn't seem to have a cold. It's just some sneezing and we have to wipe her little nose 2-3 times a day. Hope the pollen calms down soon. It's been well over 1000 today. I hope that she doesn't end up with her Mama's horrible allergies. Time will tell.