I am so thankful to have such fun neighbors! Emma got to enjoy her first pool experience with this sweet family of four children. Their youngest is just two months older than Emma and a sweet friend of hers.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Baby girl in huipil
When I was still expecting Emma, many friends and family from Mexico showered me with huipiles and other Mexican outfits for her to wear. She was born at the end of August, and by the time she was large enough to fit into any of them, it was too cold for her to wear them.
So I patiently waited for the weather to be warm again. End of April came around and it was finally time for her to sport them.
These pictures were taken this morning at a park where her and a few other little friends gathered for a picnic together.
Daddy date
One of the things Byron has been looking forward to the most as the daddy of a girl is to be able to "date" her. On Emma's 8 month birthday, daddy got to take her out on their first daddy-daughter date. They went to a frozen yogurt shop. Daddy got his usual frozen yogurt piled high with goodies, while Emma's cup was filled with cheerios and orange slices.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Emma learns to crawl
I am back! I've been too busy reading The Hunger Games to record much of life as of late. But what a week it's been in the Morris household. Emma decided she would finally give crawling a try. It's still more of an army crawl, but a crawl none the less.
Her most favorite thing to crawl to is the cell phone or the computer screen (*sigh*), not necessarily her mama.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
8 months old
Y'all, my baby girl is 8 months old!
Saturday, April 21, 2012
I think she thinks she is a queen at a parade or something. She loves to wave. She'll be in the buggy at the grocery store and spend her entire time there waving at everyone.
She is still waking up once during the night. I am going to give her one more month before we put an end to it (aka, boot camp part 2). Night time waking is not something I necessarily hate. I actually enjoy it. It just has to end at some point. I love spending sweet cuddle time with her at that hour of the night.
Nursing five times a day. Much, much, MUCH better than just a month ago when she was still nursing 7 - 8 times a day.
Bath in the kitchen sink
Out of convenience, we've recently been giving Emma her baths in the kitchen sink. Is it just me, or does my baby girl just look like the sweetest thing ever? Love her <3
Friday, April 20, 2012
Sandwich bread
I have had this odd desire to be able to make my own sandwich bread for well over a year. I must have tried at least a dozen times before I was able to come up with this:
I was so proud and happy with myself, I danced in the kitchen for about 10 minutes.
I did not reach this point all by myself. There are a few friends who helped me along the way with a number of tips and recipes. And then most recently, my dear neighbor friend (also named) Lauren walked me through the process of kneading by hand, rising the dough, etc.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Emma's little friend
We enjoyed having our friends Chris, Julie and son Charlie over for dinner last night. It was fun watching our two children, only 6 weeks apart, enjoy each other's company.
Byron did instruct Emma that if Charlie came too close to her, she could bite his nose.
On a side note, on Sundays, when Emma is all dolled up for church, Byron always goes over the names of all the boys she is not allowed to play with at church, Charlie being one of them :p
Byron did instruct Emma that if Charlie came too close to her, she could bite his nose.
On a side note, on Sundays, when Emma is all dolled up for church, Byron always goes over the names of all the boys she is not allowed to play with at church, Charlie being one of them :p
For my mom
My mom wanted me to take a pic of Emma in this dress -- the same dress my mom wore at her age. She is also wearing a ring Emma's great grandmother wore when she was a baby. I am hoping to get a nicer pictures with this outfit sometime soon. In the meantime, this one will have to do.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Giggles & mess
We have come a long way since we last posted a video of Emma eating.
She is still somewhat of a picky eater, but loves bananas, oatmeal with apple sauce, and Cheerios.
There are a lot of things that I love from this video: 1. It shows her newest trick - spitting. 2. How dirty her bib is (and how she loves to suck on it... gross!). 3. Her giggle.
She is still somewhat of a picky eater, but loves bananas, oatmeal with apple sauce, and Cheerios.
There are a lot of things that I love from this video: 1. It shows her newest trick - spitting. 2. How dirty her bib is (and how she loves to suck on it... gross!). 3. Her giggle.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Easter 2012
Celebrating Easter with family.
Thankful that Emma got to spend her first Easter with all three of her grandparents. After church, we had lunch at Memma and Poppa's house, then had an Easter egg hunt.
Thankful that Emma got to spend her first Easter with all three of her grandparents. After church, we had lunch at Memma and Poppa's house, then had an Easter egg hunt.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Oma is in town!
Y'all -- my mama is in town -- from Mexico!!!
She decided last week she missed her Emma girl too much to not use her vacation time to come see her. So she hopped on a plane and here she is! So thankful...
Alison and Rob drove into Augusta last weekend to see her. We had fun going out on walks and seeing wedding pictures. Emma enjoyed being the center of attention.
And fun feeding her...
Emma has had particular fun tricking Oma to hold her so that she can pull her glasses off. Naughty, naughty!
Emma playing with Oma's glasses --
She decided last week she missed her Emma girl too much to not use her vacation time to come see her. So she hopped on a plane and here she is! So thankful...
Alison and Rob drove into Augusta last weekend to see her. We had fun going out on walks and seeing wedding pictures. Emma enjoyed being the center of attention.
And fun feeding her...
Emma has had particular fun tricking Oma to hold her so that she can pull her glasses off. Naughty, naughty!Emma playing with Oma's glasses --
Ping pong with daddy
Playing ping pong with daddy at Memma and Poppa's home.
She was more interested in chewing the paddle than hitting the ball. Oh well...
She was more interested in chewing the paddle than hitting the ball. Oh well...
Thursday, April 05, 2012
End of fridge challenge
As mentioned on a previous post, in preparation for Masters week I wanted to clear my fridge and freezer. Not knowing if we were going to rent this year made it hard to get motivated, especially when Land O Lakes butter was on sale for $1.99/lb at Kroger (hmm... yes, I did purchase 5 lbs of it and they are now nicely stacked in our freezer for our guests to wonder whether we are somehow related to Paula Deen).
BUT, I did do a lot of meal planning based on what we already had in the fridge/freezer to help clear it out.
Before...
After...
I must note that I did cheat some in doing this challenge, since I ended up giving much of our food away to help clear it out faster. Still... I am quite proud of my clean fridge/freezer.
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Mama's boot camp
A happy baby girl in the morning, flipped on her belly facing the door, waiting for her mommy and daddy to pick her from her crib.
Note: What you are about to read is something both Byron and I decided to do together as parents. I ask that you would respect this choice and keep all negative comments to yourself if you don't agree with what we did. Thank you!
Those who are friends with me through facebook already know that Emma has been going through "boot camp" for a full week now. This means that I have been working on training her to sleep through the night.
Emma turned 7 months and was continuing to wake up at least twice during the nights. Many nights she would wake up more than that. Her desire to be nursed several times during the evening, in addition to her not wanting to eat solids, were literally sucking the life out of me. She was more than 7 months old, practically exclusively breastfed. There were days when she would nurse 7 times through out the day. *Yikes*
So after talking to a few friends, and checking with her doctor, Byron and I decided to go "cold turkey" with it. Her regular hours to wake up during the night were around 1 am and then again at around 5 am. We decided to drop the 1 am feeding. (At that point we had also already started feeding her three times a day. Still wasn't eating much, but something was something, right?)
First night was way too hard. She woke up at around 11 pm (earlier than normal) and cried for a good 20 minutes until I went in to feed her. Fail! I convinced myself that I would stick to my plan better the next night.
Next night she woke up at 1ish and cried and cried for about 40 minutes. Then she was quiet! Checked in on her to make sure her blanket was on her, and headed back to sleep.
Next day she cried for longer. On and off for about 3 hours. So hard! Then 4:30 am rolled around, I got out of bed and nursed her (btw, 4:30 am is the earliest I will go in and feed her).
Third night woke up as normal, cried a little, then fell back asleep.
Fifth night came around... NOTHING! Did not hear a sound come out of her until 5 am.
And later nights have continued the same, mostly sleeping through the night. She'll still wake up and cry, but it's normally because she hears thunder or gets stuck between crib mattress and bumper (yes, we've removed it since then). Byron may go in and console her when these things happen, but otherwise I will not go in to her room unless it's at least 4:30 am.
I guess I just kept hoping that she would naturally adjust to sleeping through the night. I really did not want to have to do this. But she didn't! She kept waking up. I knew of babies her age and younger who were already sleeping long hours at night, so I decided I would do it. And I did!
Besides, this is not the first time I am going to have to make Emma do something she does not like, right?
*sigh* The joys of parenting... :)
Emma turned 7 months and was continuing to wake up at least twice during the nights. Many nights she would wake up more than that. Her desire to be nursed several times during the evening, in addition to her not wanting to eat solids, were literally sucking the life out of me. She was more than 7 months old, practically exclusively breastfed. There were days when she would nurse 7 times through out the day. *Yikes*
So after talking to a few friends, and checking with her doctor, Byron and I decided to go "cold turkey" with it. Her regular hours to wake up during the night were around 1 am and then again at around 5 am. We decided to drop the 1 am feeding. (At that point we had also already started feeding her three times a day. Still wasn't eating much, but something was something, right?)
First night was way too hard. She woke up at around 11 pm (earlier than normal) and cried for a good 20 minutes until I went in to feed her. Fail! I convinced myself that I would stick to my plan better the next night.
Next night she woke up at 1ish and cried and cried for about 40 minutes. Then she was quiet! Checked in on her to make sure her blanket was on her, and headed back to sleep.
Next day she cried for longer. On and off for about 3 hours. So hard! Then 4:30 am rolled around, I got out of bed and nursed her (btw, 4:30 am is the earliest I will go in and feed her).
Third night woke up as normal, cried a little, then fell back asleep.
Fifth night came around... NOTHING! Did not hear a sound come out of her until 5 am.
And later nights have continued the same, mostly sleeping through the night. She'll still wake up and cry, but it's normally because she hears thunder or gets stuck between crib mattress and bumper (yes, we've removed it since then). Byron may go in and console her when these things happen, but otherwise I will not go in to her room unless it's at least 4:30 am.
I guess I just kept hoping that she would naturally adjust to sleeping through the night. I really did not want to have to do this. But she didn't! She kept waking up. I knew of babies her age and younger who were already sleeping long hours at night, so I decided I would do it. And I did!
Besides, this is not the first time I am going to have to make Emma do something she does not like, right?
*sigh* The joys of parenting... :)