My Little Mommy

Emily is becoming a "Little Mommy" in effort to practice to be a big sister for the baby.  It seems over the past week Emily has shown off her imagination and ability to pretend lots.  She loves to play with her monkey and has found joy in pretending with her.  Emily can be caught feeding, reading, giving a ride in the stroller, buckling up, and giving her binky to her monkey.  It is so neat to see her mimic new things with her monkey each day.  She sure loves her monkey as shown in her frequent snuggles, kisses, and hugs.  I love watching my "Little Mommy."

Car Carts

Emily has had a few fun adventures while shopping lately.  Instead of riding in an ordinary cart, she has had the opportunity to ride in car carts.  While getting paint supplies to refurbish our dresser at Home Depot and look for bunk beds at Boulevard Home Furnishings,  Emily loved pretending to ride in a car around the store.  She was so much more content in there then the grocery store cart.  I am hoping they get some car carts too soon!

18 Months

For the past 18 months I have recorded Emily's sparkles of growth.  It has been amazing to see her change in the pictures I have taken and the words I have recorded.  Each day is a new day of learning and growing with Emily.  She seems to do a new trick everyday.  I am excited to continue to see her grow as I learn along with her.

• Emily took her first independent steps.  In fact I think she took of running more than walking.  
• Each day Emily expands her vocabulary.  She can say 20-30 words, including animals sounds.
• When Emily reads her lift flap animals books, she says the sounds of the animals when she points to them.  She knows the animals sounds of a monkey, elephant, walrus, dog, bird, snake, and koala ("kk).  It is so cute to see her read the books to me and anyone who will listen.
• Emily has been attending nursery at church.  She loves to play with the toys, sing songs, and be with the kids.  Mom has enjoyed being in nursery with her and excited to see her go by herself soon.
• As a "Little Mommy," Emily loves to mimic what I do with her monkey.  She pretends to get her monkey dressed, feed it, give it a binky, and take her for a walk.  I think Emily is practicing for the new baby.
• Emily loves to be outside and spends most of her day out there.  She loves to go for walks, play at the park, and explore.
• She is a great snuggle bug with me.  I love the way she walks towards me while playing to simply give me a hug.  So cute!!

My Little Outdoor Helper

We have been working on a few projects at our house: planting a garden & painting a dresser.

I found these pots in our neighboring apartments backyard.  The apartment is empty and the owner gave me permission to take them because she was just going to throw them away.  What a treasure they are!  We have planted tomatoes and peppers, hoping to use them to can salsa when the vegetables bloom.  Emily was a good digger, but I was too slow to take a picture - next time. 

 

I was lucky enough to capture a picture of Emily helping me sand her new dresser.  We bought some new furniture for our room, sold some of our old furniture, and have been refurbishing the chest of drawers.  Emily was a great helper!  I am excited to see the final product done!

 



A New Park

Emily loves to play at the park.  She loves to walk around the playground, climb the stairs, slide down the slides, and swing.  Today we explored a new park and Emily loved it.  She loved having a baby swing to do it all by herself.  I loved watching her walk around looking at all the plants and trees in the park.  She must have a green thumb!

First Steps - Alone

 

Last September when Jeff and Amber came to visit, Emily began to crawl after watching Ellie do it like a pro.  She had been on the verge of crawling, but timid to do it.  Ellie came to visit and Emily took off.  I was wondering if the same magic would happen when Emily watched Ellie walk, and it did!  For several weeks - months - Emily has shown signs of walking, but too timid to do it herself.  She would walk along anything, even the wall, and behind anything (garbage cans, toys, buckets, etc).  However, when it came time to talk off herself - no way.  Emily just seemed to need time to be sure of herself and build confidence.  

Well, yesterday morning Ellie and Will came for a play-date as they were in town for a Law Conference with Jeff.  We went to the park and Emily watched Ellie closely walk.  Magic!  By the afternoon while we played outside Emily took off on her own.  She walked around everywhere out in our front yard as if it was old news.  I was so excited to see her go off on her own!  I still treasure moments when she holds my hand walking outside as I know this won’t last forever.

Big Sister

 

    We had a special experience today as we went to receive a full ultrasound on the baby.  Last Friday at my checkup, Dr. Thompson did an ultrasound too.  He checked for the baby’s gender, but was not entirely sure.  Today we found out for sure it’s a girl!!  We are excited to add another bundle of joy to our family.  It will be fun for Emily to have a sister so close in age.  I know they will be good friends and learn so much from each other.  I am so grateful to be a mother and find such joy in my posterity as the temple blessing indicates.  I can’t wait to meet this little princess in a few months.

Picture Perfect

Most of our days lately have been spent outside to Emily's pleasure.  She is a girl after my heart with a love for being outside.  The other day Nelson asked if I was like Emily when I was little - always wanting to be outside.  I said I didn't know about when I was Emily's age because I couldn't remember that far; however, I do remember loving to be outside much of my childhood.  I loved playing sports, working in the yard, and getting dirty.  My siblings used to tease me and say I smelled like outside often.  I guess Emily inherited it from me! 

While we are outside Emily loves to sit on the rock in front of our house because it is like a little chair for her. 

She also loves to carry her wand around touching all the plants with it and jabbering to my guess a magical spell.  I guess you could say she has a "Golden Touch."

 Another favorite pastime outside is playing peekaboo around the pillar out front.  What a silly girl!

 

Popcorn Popping

Spring is here in St. George with popcorn popping on the trees and daffodils in bloom.  I love watching for the new signs of spring each day: color brightening, bird singing, and life renewing.

Crib Toss

A story has been told that when I was a little girl my siblings would play a game with me while I was in the crib.  They would toss a stuffed animal in the crib to which I would throw it back and giggle.

The other day, Emily wanted to get in her crib to play.  I put her inside and tossed some Little People animals inside.  She engaged in the tossing game and giggled.  We also played peek-a-boo over the rail.  I loved watching her hands reach under her bumper pads to say, "Boo."  I guess the crib makes for a good play pen.