Merry Christmas

I will just say that Christmas is much more enjoyable with a 1 year old than a 4 day old. This was Emrie on Christmas when she was just an itty bitty thing.



it is incredible the difference a year makes.



We went home to Colleyville for Christmas this year and did Christmas with my family on December 19th. We had the whole Livingston clan there. Lauren, Cody and Delilah (their cute yorkie that Emrie loved! Can't say that Lilah felt the same). Taryn, Brad, Gage and Clara and of course my parents and us. Here is Emrie with her cousins on "Christmas" morning.



One gift that she really loved was her tent that she got from the Sharpe family. If she ever went missing we knew we could find her just sitting all by herself in it. The tent folds up which is great for storage but I had it folded up leaning against the wall with the opening facing out...can you see where I am going with this? Well I guess Emrie thought she could still crawl into it and went head first into the wall. Poor girl had no idea what hit her and all I could do was laugh.





Emrie also got to meet Santa twice and I can't say she was thrilled about either encounter. We took her to the Southlake Town Center on her birthday and she met Santa...no tears just a who are you and why are you holding me look. This was the first encounter.



Then we went to Grapevine Mills with her cousins Tyler and Hannah and got about the same expression. Secretly I was kind of hoping she would cry because I think those pictures are hilarious...alas I did not get my wish (boy I sound like a terrible mom).



We then spent Christmas Day with Kyle's family and Emrie had fun opening presents with her cousins Hannah and Tyler. Here is Tyler with his gifts.



And Hannah all dressed up.



Emrie made out with lots of great things like clothes, toys, a bracelet with her name on it, and lots of books...girl loves her some books.



Here is uncle Dan reading to Emrie and Tyler.



It was a great trip home and after a birthday party and Christmas Emrie made out with a ton of loot. We are so thankful for our friends and family and that most importantly we got to celebrate the Christ in Christmas!

How old is Emrie?

ONE!!! (Emrie's Pops...my dad...taught her this trick and I think this picture is pretty perfect)


So I figured I would cover Emrie's birthday before Christmas since that came first and I am bound and determined to keep them as separate as possible. If she has to grow up with a birthday 4 days before Christmas it is the least that I can do.

So we decided to have Emrie's party in Colleyville since we were going to be home celebrating Christmas with my family the weekend before Christmas and would have all our family in town the same day. All in all it went well and I found out that there is nothing more exhausting than a child's birthday party. Totally worth it though.

So I decided to have the party cupcake themed and designed this invitation for her (message me if you want me to do one for you) :).



We had a cupcake station where you can decorate your own cupcake.



Snacks...



A coloring station for the kiddos...



A guess how much candy is in the jar station and beautiful cupcake cookies that Emrie's Mimi K (Kyle's mom) slaved over for party favors...



I also got crafty and made her a birthday banner along with pictures of her from every month of her first year. Turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself.





Next up was the birthday cupcake and since she is her mother's daughter she was a huge fan and not shy at all about just digging in.







Next we were on to presents.



Emrie loves her some books!



Emrie was also one lucky girl to have all of her cousins at the party. Here she is with Gage, Clara and Hannah (Tyler was napping).



Plus one of my best friends from college came and brought her daughter...which was definitely a treat for me. Here we are with Lisa and Layla.



We all had a great time and we will just say that I am glad birthday's only come once a year. Here's to next year!

Games and tricks starring Emrie

So this blog is going to be chalk full of videos so bear with me. Emrie is just learning so many fun little tricks that make us laugh that the best way to share it is through video.

This first video is Emrie talking. She says the three wonderful words in her vocabulary. It is music to my ears. She can now say dog as well and and make some noise that is supposed to sound like woof woof. :)




This next video was taken over Thanksgiving. Emrie discovered that she could walk behind a fun little shopping cart that the Wardlaw's had at the house. It is too cute. We bought her a similar walker and she zooms around the house now. She is still not very good at steering and will often run into walls but we are getting there. She hasn't taken any steps on her own but I imagine it won't be long.




So my dad was in town one day and taught Emrie this cute little trick. It is kind of a family tradition as I remember my little sister Lauren doing it when she was little and now it is fun to pass it on to the next generation. Emrie will do it often and mostly to get some attention if we aren't paying attention to her.




We have no idea how she learned this one because we didn't exactly teach it to. She loves it so much that we keep a towel in a cabinet for her to go get any time she wants. It is so precious.




She is just learning so much that it is hard to keep up with everything and needless to say she is the smartest girl in the world. :)

October...Yes I know it is almost December

Yet again this blog is long overdue but better late than never. Anyway we started off the month with a fun weekend at Barton Creek Country Club with the whole Wardlaw clan. We took some family pictures which with three little ones was a bit of a challenge. Plus we didn't have anyone to take the pictures so I ghetto rigged my camera on top of a car with a self timer. Go go gadget like. Anyway despite all of that I think they turned out pretty good.





Emrie with her cousins Hannah and Tyler.



Emrie and Hannah in their matching outfits. Notice in most pictures Emrie is making the same face with her finger in her mouth...you will notice it in other pictures as well. No amount of jumping around will get her to make any other face. Oh well.

We also made a couple of visits to the pumpkin patch. We went with Emrie's Austin friends which was pretty funny when you try and get a picture of that many little ones. Note finger in the mouth again.



This is one of the best ones I got but this is what it took to get it.



Gotta love those crazy moms.

Emrie was a fairy princess for Halloween and got a lot of attention at the pumpkin patch...and you can see why. She was pretty stinkin cute.







For Halloween we went to our friends Jimmy and Jessica's house to hand out candy to trick or treaters. Emrie got to meet Gumby (our friend Nils) and she wasn't so sure what to think of him.









I mean that face says it all!

long overdue

Oh my goodness I don't even know where to start. I apologize for the break in blogging. It will be the first of many things that Emrie will be able to blame on her little brother or sister because baby #2 is just taking up all of my energy (which also won't be the first or last time that will happen).

Kyle and I have both expressed that we just feel that Emrie has all of a sudden grown up and is becoming more like a toddler than a baby. She has just had so many milestones in the last month that it is hard to know where to begin. So I guess I will start with her stats...she had her 10 month appointment last week and weighed in at 16lbs 15oz and is 27 inches long. The doctor commended her for moving up from the 5th percentile to between the 5th and the 10th. Atta girl!

Our first big milestone was clapping. She does it all the time now and often does it when she hears music or if we say "yea". I actually got a video of the first time that she did it.



She has also started waving (sorry no video). We have been working on baby sign language with her and she will often confuse the more sign with clapping and the all done sign with waving. In her defense they are very similar.

For those of you who have had kids since the invention of the snack trap will know that this is most definitely a milestone. Emrie would cry every time that I gave her the snack trap because she couldn't figure out how to get the snacks out. Eventually I just gave it to her and let her figure it out through tears and all...and she eventually got it.



Emrie is also pulling up on everything (sometimes on things she shouldn't) and can move around an object while holding on. Sometimes she will get brave and let go but so far that hasn't been too successful. She is also getting into everything including cabinets and the dish washer. Here she is caught red-handed.



I definitely have to keep an eye on her these days because she thinks anything on the floor is fair game to be eaten (edible or not). She often will try and eat it off the ground like a dog...no hands just mouth straight to the floor. She also got to experience her first bug. Don't worry I got the head out but unfortunately the body made it down. Good protein right?

Kyle has also created quite the daredevil in our daughter since she has been tossed around since birth. I like to tell him to not be surprised if Emrie at the age of 12 is asking to go skydiving. We do a lot of playing on the bed and one day she was sitting there and just threw her feet up and fell backwards (on purpose) and then started laughing and proceeded to do it multiple times. She did it once on the carpet floor and learned that this game is best saved for the bed or couch. She has also gotten into the habit of throwing herself back while being held by kyle or I to try and go upside down (which we usually oblige) but it is also a warning we must now give to anyone else who holds her. Emrie loves her swing that we hung in a tree out front but the only way we get a smile out of her is when we push her high (not too high I promise). I am afraid we may have lots of hospital visits with this one.

Lastly she is just making all sorts of noises these days. One being clicking of the tongue...it is she and Kyle's own little language. He can be in another room and start doing it and she will repeat it and start crawling to wherever he is. Too funny. For me she has hit one of the biggest milestones and that was her first word (outside of mama and dada of course). She can say ball...to you it may sound a little like ba but to her parents it is definitely ball. :) Anyway that is little Em in a nutshell. Next blog will hopefully be more pictures and less words.

Emrie's Big News

May 16th Emrie will be a big sister.

And we are mobile

So Emrie is 9 months now and is moving around all over the place. What started out as an Army crawl/inch worm...



Has now turned into a full out crawl. Time to baby proof.