September (in a nut shell)

I can't believe it's been a whole month since I've done a proper blog update!!! Sorry about that!! Life has been pretty busy for us, but all is well! Time really does fly when you're having fun!! Believe it or not, Miss Emmy is now 37 weeks (8 & 1/2 months) old!!

But seeing as the last time I posted Emmy was just 7 months, let's start there...

We'll start with the "nose scrunch"! We had Emmy's pictures taken at 7 months old, and this picture was our "sneak peek" from the photographer! We're still waiting to see the rest of the pictures, but our photographer said they'll be done soon, so I'm excited!!

Emmy seems to have picked pink baby as her first "favorite" toy! Wherever Emmy goes, pink baby goes! Some of you already know this, but I had my own "pink baby" when I was little, and it was my FAVORITE! So it's pretty cool that Emmy has formed a bond with her own pink baby. She literally looks for it first thing when we sit down to play toys, and anywhere she goes, she brings pink baby. Even when she's crawling-she holds pink baby in her hand and brings her with!! It's cute and funny to watch!

Emmy is getting stronger & stronger every day! She pulls herself up to stand on any & everything she can find!! She's also learned about falling, and is actually quite graceful now when lowering herself back to a seated position. Just today she was standing at her toy bin & pulled out two toys, and with one in each hand she stood without holding on to anything for just a second or two! It was quick, but still pretty exciting!!

Now that I'm back to work, cooking has become quite a challenge...And it doesn't help that now that she's mobile, Emmy isn't content to just sit & play with her toys while I attempt to cook, so I introduced her to the Tupperware cupboard! 

Emmy cheered the Lions on to their first (and only!) victory for the home opener, which happened to be on Grandparents day! Some might call this a "Hallmark holiday", but it was fun for us to have our parents over to hang out with Emmy! She is one lucky little girl to have four grandparents who love her more than anything!!

Since starting daycare, Emmy has been getting 2-3 bottles a day, and has done great with switching back & forth between nursing & bottles. I've cut back on pumping and she's now getting formula during the day, but still nursing first thing in the morning and before she goes to bed. As long as my supply stays up I think we can probably keep this up until she turns 1! I was hoping to avoid formula all together, but I wasn't bringing home enough milk when I started back to work, so we started introducing formula into her bottles. She's done great with the transition & hasn't had any reactions, so we're thankful for that!! Now we're working on getting her to hold her own bottle... however she much prefers for someone else to just hold it for her :-)

Now that Emmy is standing ALL the time, we brought out this fun activity table that Great Aunt Marilyn & Cousin Gina gave to her when she was born! It was a great idea for them to get her something like this to use later on, and it was nice to have something "new" to bring out for her! She loves standing at it & playing with all the "toys" on it!! She's also starting to learn to "dance" at this table! Her dancing consists of bouncing up & down while standing at the table, and is super cute!!

Speaking of bouncing up & down, Emmy really enjoys "jumping" in her jumper!! I put jumping in quotations because her feet don't really leave the ground, but she definitely get's some bouncing action going!!

8 months old!!

Can you believe how much she's grown & changed in 8 months??!!

It's amazing to think back to that tiny little bean we brought home from the hospital, and then to look at the big girl we have now! She is truly amazing!! Emmy is very chatty now! I'm thrilled to announce that her latest sound is "MAMA"!! We think she's used it to refer to me a couple of times too! "Gee gee" used to be the sound she made when she was upset, but it seems to have been replaced by "ya ya ya". She also does some conversational turn taking with what sounds like "hey"! Her chatter is an awesome sound to hear!

Family date night!

Out for Breakfast!

We've taken Emmy out to eat almost every weekend, and she's gotten to be a good little diner. She now sits in a "big girl" high chair at restaurants, and in the special "sassy seat" at OHOP! We've got it timed pretty much perfectly: We order drinks & sometimes an app, and Emmy plays with toys. We eat our app & order dinner, and feed Emmy her dinner. Our dinners arrive & Emmy gets puffs, or plays with toys. Works like a charm!

We've had lots of family time over the past month. My Great Aunt Josie & Uncle Brian were in town from Winnipeg, and we enjoyed having them over. Just last summer they happened to be here for the bbq where we told my family we we're expecting! And now this year they got to meet Emmy! :-) We also recently celebrated Dan's Grandpa Sampson's 75th Birthday! It was a fun celebration with the whole family, which you can see below! :-)

Do you see pink baby? She's in there somewhere!!

I absolutely love this picture of Emmy in the tub! It is just pure bliss!!

Looks like she needs a few more toys...

Emmy loves playing with her toys! Everyday we put a blanket out on the floor for her & basically dump out her bin of toys! She's really enjoying shaking and banging toys together lately. She's also become more interested in some of her "toddler" toys, as opposed to the "infant" toys. She understands that she can push on parts of toys to make things happen, and she definitely has object permanence (when you hide a toy underneath something, she looks for it)!

Although Emmy is getting better & stronger at standing, she's also doing quite a bit of falling, and with falling comes bumps & bruises. You can see her latest bruise on her cheek in this picture :-( Unfortunately it happened with mommy only 3 feet away, in our kitchen. She was trying to stand on the kitchen cupboards, and when she fell she caught her cheek on the bread drawer knob. She's a tough little cookie though, and gives new meaning to the saying "Fall 9 times, get back up 10"!

Fun at Booth Park!

Today the weather was so nice, and I decided we needed to take advantage of these beautiful days before they're all gone! So after work Emmy & I stopped at Booth Park in Birmingham. Even though we live in Royal Oak, we're logistically closer to Birmingham, and I"ve heard how nice Booth Park is, so we went to check it out. Emmy's not quite old enough to play at the park yet, she pretty much just tried to put wood chips in her mouth every chance she got. But she did enjoy the tunnel, the swing and even the slide! She also enjoyed watching the other kids at the park. We'll give it a try again next spring, when she's walking (and probably running) all over the place!!