June family visit

I spent last week in California and it was so great to have that time with family. It ended up being probably the worst week for Bry at work in terms of how many hours he worked - he worked about 75-80 hours fit in Monday-Friday. He took out a couple hours on Monday to get Emma and I to the airport and through security (I didn't count those in the total hours worked). So...I was glad to be away visiting family since I hardly would have seen him anyway.

Enjoying some ice cream sandwich shared by Ah-me. 

Crazy hair, blue eyes. That's my girl.

Sophie's inconspicuous "I notice you have a camera, I'll just lie down riiiiight here."

She does not love swings.

Swings are a little better if you're sitting on someone else and have cute cousins swinging next to you.

She DOES love slides.

We took a trip to the Ice Creamery. Yum.

Aiden. Too bad this is the only picture I got of him. Ha.

Great-grandma shared this empty cup and Emma loved it.

Grandpa helped Landon with his milkshake. I'd say he liked it.

A car show happened to be going on that day and this parked right next to the Creamery. Pretty spiffy.

Playing at great-grandma's house.

We made a trip down to Happy Hollow in San Jose where Aiden had been for a field trip with his kindergarten class. It was a new experience for all of us. Emma tried the carousel a couple times, once on a bench (photographed below) and a second time on a moving animal. The first time she seemed to enjoy mostly, the second time she went between this-is-cool-I-can-do-this and mom-GET-ME-OFF!-SAVE-ME! So... better than her first ride on a carousel back in March, anyway.

Emma seemed to get a bit more nervous as it went on, whereas Landon clearly loved it.

Happy Hollow is part amusement park with kids' rides and part zoo with animals!

Emma and Charlotte on a Dragon ride.

Memorial Day in Portland, OR

Bry, Emma and I drove down to Portland Saturday morning and stayed with the Plasters. Emma was a good passenger and only started fussing much about the last half hour. We enjoyed a good couple days there.

We went to the park Saturday afternoon and Emma mostly enjoyed running along the paths.

She had a couple attempts at the slide. Allison held her going down the first time and she pretty much had no reaction and just walked off afterwards.

Gotta love that hair.

 The second time down the slide her daddy took her and she decided she liked it after all.

Look at those smiles. 

On Monday we went down to Salem to visit the Corkrans.

The girls. Emma - ever distracted by a cat.

Diana wanted to join Emma.

Cute girls!

It was determined on this trip that Emma LOVES cats.

I think she's trying to eat the couch.... She was having fun.

Belated Mother's Day pictures

Today is a day of realizing I forgot to put some pictures on my blog, I guess. Here are our attempts at family photos, taken on Mother's Day.

Beautiful girl

Here are some pictures I took a few weeks ago of Emma in our backyard.

16 months

She seems to have learned a lot the past few weeks. Now Emma knows where her head, hair, belly and toes are and she can find my nose and ears.

Belly.

Head.

She can look for, identify and pick up the  toys below when asked to find them. Most of the time. Pooh bear every time, usually good with the fox and yellow cat puzzle piece. Sometimes the yellow dog puzzle piece. I think her favorite color might be yellow since most of her favorite objects are yellow. Emma also knows what "socks" and "shoes" are and has attempted to say both words more than once. I'm fairly convinced she can say "socks" sometimes.

"Yellow cat," "yellow dog," "Pooh bear" (refers to either), "fox"

When asked to "snuggle" she will either pull the blanket or stuffed animal against her face and lean into it or (more likely) will lie down on top of it with one side of her head resting on it. She will also usually hug a Winnie the Pooh if you ask her to.

A not-great picture of her holding it to the side of her face and leaning into it.

She hasn't learned to say more any words reliably in the past month (still knows da-DEE, mom, happy, apple, hi, yeah), but she sometimes seems to say "cat" when holding that puzzle piece and says "what" occasionally though I don't think she understands it. She can typically be found at home dragging around one of her two Pooh bears. 

Being the food lover she is, she readily says "please" in sign language when we ask her to before sharing food. She'll also sign "please" when she wants things other than food, such as for us to move the gate so she can sit on the stairs. And occasionally she signs it for reasons I don't know. 

Her new happy sound is "dee-DAH" which is pretty dang cute; the "dah" part comes out either high-pitched or emphatic. She has learned how to climb onto the couch and the big blue chair, and how to sit on the bottom step of the stairs (as seen in most of this blog's photos since that's where Emma wanted to be when I was taking pictures today).

Sometimes she pulls a blanket over her head and walks around - surprisingly without bumping into much.

15 months old

At Emma's appointment last week she weighed in at 24 lbs (75th percentile), measured at 31 inches tall (65th percentile) and measured inches around her head (97th percentile!!). She continues to be a big girl. She is a very happy walker, continues to eat well and is growing more teeth! Her bottom first molars have made good progress and her top first molars are coming in. Her second bottom lateral incisor doesn't seem to want to make it's appearance anytime soon so she's got just three bottom front teeth.

Her latest tricks involving oral comprehension include being able to point to "mommy's nose", being able to pat her belly when asked "where's your belly?" and grabbing her toes if they're mentioned. She can blow kisses enthusiastically when asked to and sometimes does it spontaneously. She understands where to go if we ask "do you want water?", "are you hungry?", "do you want to go upstairs?", and "do you want a cracker?" Sometimes she gets "are you ready to go?" and heads for the garage. Typically she will obey when I ask her to "look at mommy" or "come here". 

When Bry gets home from work she likes to be in on our conversations and sometimes tries to talk over us or get one or the other's attention to remind us that she's there too. She loves to have her motions mimicked to show we're paying attention. 

Emma's favorite words to say include: "da-DEE," "happy," "apple," "mom." She can say "bubbles" sometimes along with other words and a whole lot of gibberish. =)

Her brain is definitely making more and more connections between things and she's figuring out a lot. It is a lot of fun to see her learn and do new things. 

Crazy curls. 

Emma is our sweet angel. 

I love Aiden's imagination

Here is a short gem from his time here Easter weekend:

Mom (my mom): Are you a nut?
Aiden: No, I'm inside a nut.

Long gem, because kids have the best imaginations:
Background-- Aiden was talking about the house being full of water and how we were on "boats", aka couches and such. Later in the day the water apparently froze over.
Aiden, informatively: "The sharks are frozen. (pause) Be careful not to run into statues."

Adult (I can't remember which of us): "Why would we run into statues?"

Aiden: "Because you don't know where you're going."

Bry: "Why wouldn't you know where you were going?"
Aiden: "Because you get lost and you didn't bring a map."
Bry: "Well, wouldn't you see the statues?"
Aiden: "No because you have a map on front of your face so you don't see it."

(Yes, so now you do have a map.)

I don't remember how exactly after that but the story transformed into you holding up a map while walking backwards in your sleep... what? It just cracked me up. That boy.