Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Friday, September 17, 2010

Emma-isms

Emma is changing SO much and doing so many new things everyday, I thought I'd write about some of them so that I can remember them down the line. She's so precious!

Talking - She says.....

Mama
Dada
Lucy*
Love, Love (when she's being gentle)*
cracker
baby
cheese
animal sounds - dog, cat, duck, cow, sheep, rooster
She signs "more" and just started signing "finished."
She can touch her head if you ask her where it is. We're working on other body parts!

*(her version of it)

What she's up to...

She is running everywhere! She rarely crawls anymore.
She climbs all over the house - the couch, her chairs, etc.
She's a good sleeper - 12-13 hours a night without waking!
Her naps are crappy - 45 mins. - 1 hour, twice a day. She needs more!
She is headstrong and impatient, just like her mommy!
She's got quite the temper, but isn't hitting as much anymore. She understands that it's a "no no."
She HATES having her diaper changed!
She has 4 teeth - top 2 and bottom 2.
She LOVES Lucy.
She loves to brush her teeth.
She knows "If You're Happy and You Know It."
She LOVES Yo Gabba Gabba - it's maybe her favorite thing in the world.
She is a great dancer - she "drops it like it's hot!"
She loves the computer. Brad loves finding fun youtube videos of kid's songs for her.
She is STILL hunting the carpet for cat fur, lint, etc. to put in her mouth. Yuck!
One of her goals in life is to eat dog food. No clue why.
When she disappears in the house, she's likely trying to "stir the toilet" with something, or tossing things into the bathtub.
She adores her Daddy and will bring me the phone and say "dada" so that we can call him and talk to him on speakerphone.
She STILL doesn't have enough hair for a hairbow. Maybe one day....
She is almost 15 months old.
She is mostly weaned - just nursing right before bed.
She is finally drinking whole milk in a sippy cup - she used to hate it.
She LOVES sweet tea - it's her favorite drink.
She loves taking a bath and loves her liquid vitamins, but hates getting her diaper and clothes on afterwards.
She is still cloth diapered full-time. We love it!
Mommy is very proud to have nursed her for over a year now! My finest accomplishment, aside from giving birth!
She loves the antique rocking chair her Aunt Claire gave her - she's recently learned how to sit in it and rock herself!
She loves to pull books off of her bookshelf, but will rarely sit still long enough for a book to be read to her.

Favorite Foods

bananas
yogurt
meatloaf
spaghetti (anything with red sauce!)
lasagna
peas
corn
green beans!
grilled cheese sandwich
peanut butter and jelly sandwich (though it gets EVERYWHERE!)
goldfish crackers
apple cinnamon Cheerios
CHOCOLATE! Thank you, Grandpa!
Yogurt Melts - AKA, baby crack
She HATES most meat, with the exception of the occasional Chick-Fil-A nugget, or meatloaf.




Monday, September 13, 2010

The Candy Bucket

If I know one thing about my Dad, it's that he has a sweet-tooth. He always has. He LOVES candy! A few years ago I started a tradition. I bought him a Rubbermaid container and filled it with chocolate candy for his birthday. 3 Musketeers, Snickers, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Almond Joy, you name it - it's in there. Whenever his birthday, Christmas, Halloween, or any holiday that has great candy comes along, I re-stock the "candy bucket."

As soon as my Dad found out that I was pregnant, he started talking about "that baby." He couldn't WAIT until "that baby" was big enough for him to feed her candy. He said she'd go home from their house with her little fingers stuck together because of all of the goo-goo's and gaga's that he was going to give her. Well, the time has come.

Someone ELSE has discovered the candy bucket as well. Apparently, one night when Mom and Dad were watching Emma while Brad and I went to a movie, they shared a little secret that they didn't tell Mama. Emma had her first taste of candy! Yesterday, she hunted and hunted until she found it - the holy grail. She tried to pick it up and carry it herself, but it was too heavy, so she had a little help. Her Granddaddy was all too happy to help her bust into it. What ensued, was nothing, if not a photographic gem.


A fun-sized 3 Musketeers bar and a half of a Reese's peanut butter cup later, she still didn't think she was done. Needless to say, the candy bucket made a disappearing act. I really think that the fact that she's in nothing but a diaper and Dad's in his pajamas really adds to the "classiness" of the pictures. Don't you? ;)

Nana

Last weekend we had a nice visit from Brad's Nana from Illinois, his sister, and his Dad and step-mom. It was the first time that Emma got to meet her Nana, and she hadn't seen Brad's Dad since her Baptism, so it was a nice visit! Emma LOVED playing with them and we had a nice time too! Here are some of the best pictures that I took - there were tons, but these were the cream of the crop!


It was actually a very LONG Labor Day weekend. My Grandpa's funeral was on Saturday. It was a very emotional day, to say the least. It was a very beautiful funeral for a very well-loved Grandpa. Following the funeral, we had a reception at my house for a LOT of people! Brad's family came the following day, and then we spent Monday trying to recover!

Tuesday, Brad went back to work. When he got home, Emma was waiting for him and got to take a ride down to the mailbox. How sweet are these pictures????


Dad had his biopsy on Thursday and it went well. We won't know anything until tomorrow. He has an appointment with the thoracic surgeon to get the biopsy and CAT scan results, and then an appointment with his oncologist on Thursday to get a "plan of attack." This has been a really tough week for us all. I have a really hard time talking about it at length, but I'm able to give the "just the facts, ma'am" of what's going on so far. Any more than that, and I'm usually in tears, so I try to shy away from that! I'll keep everyone posted when we find out more information. Hoping and praying for some good news!!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Grandpa


Once again, I find myself playing catch up for a couple of blog-less weeks. A lot has been going on and I just haven't had a ton of time to sit down and update. Emma has been sick as a dog. She caught some sort of "virus" that included several days of a fever and then turned into the runny-nose-that-never-ends. She literally had a runny nose for 3 weeks straight. I decided that Gymboree might be partly to blame because the child has never really been sick before, so we opted out of the last 2 sessions. I'm glad I only paid half price for it!

Aside from her being sick, we had been having a good couple of weeks. All of that came crashing down on Saturday. We were at Brad's parents house having dinner and had just told them that we were leaving the following morning to go visit my Grandpa in Thomson. No sooner did we mention that, then I got a call from my mom, letting me know that my Grandpa had passed away. He wasn't feeling well and laid down for a nap, but didn't wake up. I was crushed.

I've always been very close to my grandparents. They lived next door to me for a majority of my life and I have so many good memories of times spent together. I'm so glad that I have those. I'm also glad that we have so many pictures and memories of taking Emma to see him. When I was pregnant with her, I was so afraid that he would never get to meet her and devastated that my Grandma never would. His health has been slowly declining over the last couple of years. When Emma was about 6 weeks old we put her in the car and drove the 2 hours to Thomson, with her screaming the entire way - she HATED the car. I'm so glad that we did that. My mom put Emma on my Grandpa's chest as he slept and he woke up to Emma snuggled up with him. I will never forget that moment. We went back to Thomson as often as we could - traveling with an infant is tough. Grandpa has a few pictures of Emma that my Aunt Claire took and had framed that he used to look at and talk about her all the time. I'm so glad that he got to know Emma a little bit and that she brought some sunshine into his life. She does that for all of us. My Grandpa was an amazing man and he will be missed terribly, though I know in my heart that he's right where he needs to be - with my Grandma holding his hand.



Just as we were mourning my Grandpa, we got some more bad news. My Dad went in for his annual PET scan that he gets yearly now that he has had cancer. He and my mom went yesterday to get the results. It wasn't great. There is another spot in his healthy lung, which is inoperable because of his diminished lung capacity because they removed 1/3 of his other lung previously. His adrenal gland, which had been swollen for some time (not sure why) is now lighting up as possibly cancerous. He also has a lymph node that wraps around his voice box that is lighting up. We're not exactly sure where we stand. He has to have a biopsy of his lung next week, and we should know more then. He also has to set up an appointment with an oncologist and talk about treatment. There has been talk of chemotherapy.

Needless to say, we're having a tough time. We're all trying to stay positive until we know more. He's beaten cancer once, though it took a huge toll on all of us as a family. We're trying to remain strong and hopeful that this can be taken care of and that he will be victorious again. I'll keep you all updated as soon as we know more.

Please keep us all in your prayers. This is a really tough time for us and we need God's grace to walk this road one step at a time.