Happy Birthday!

Just a quick HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my fellow Geminis, Noah, Anna and Courtney. All three are celebrating milestones. Anna and Courtney are celebrating the one year anniversary of their 29th birthday and Noah is now a one year old! Happy Birthday to you all, I wish you many more wonderful years!

Super Emory!

I've been wanting to get this for Emory but last night she showed me that there is no need for a pricey onsie when all you need is a bib. And yes, she still has food all over her face from dinner. We learned our lesson Saturday after letting her try a sippy cup instead of bottle after already cleaning up her lasagna mess.

Emory is generally very good with sippy cups, straws, even "grown up" cups (if a "grown up" holds it for her). However, she's not so good with "milk" in her cup. Now that she is getting a bottle just about everyday, she has started getting really excited when she sees a bottle, no matter who it belongs to. I was hoping to avoid having to wean her from nursing AND bottles. She only gets formula before bed so maybe the cleanup won't be that big of a deal if we continue with her cups. The cleanup can't get much worse! Especially since the only "grown up" foods she will eat are those with sauce of some kind. Her new favorite is lasagna. The child ate as much as I did! She loved it! I really didn't expect her to like it, boy was I wrong.

She is really starting to eat more (YAY!). The little chunk is starting to regain her nickname "Cheeks". She has gained a little over a pound since her 9 month checkup. I was so excited when I saw 18lbs 6oz on the scale! That puts her right around the 50th percentile. She has gained as much in the last three weeks as she did in the previous three months!

Emory's Competition

When you go to VOTE for Emory, go ahead and vote for Everett and Merrin as well. These kids need college money! Don't forget that you can "rate" (5 stars of course) AND "recommend" each picture of each child.

Vote for Emory!

I know I'm crazy but I just can't resist these contests. Vote for Emory in the Parents.com Cover Model Search. Just give her 5 stars in the stars just above the picture and then click on "Recommend". Thanks!

DON'T TOUCH THE CACTUS!

What a weekend! We finally reached an agreement with the owner of the house we were hoping to rent on Friday afternoon (a week and a half after we turned in the offer/application)! I'm getting excited about moving, call me CRAZY. We kept with the momentum and had a yard sale on Saturday. We were really hoping to sell the golf clubs, desk and stroller. Of course we didn't sell any of those things but did get rid of quite a bit of the small stuff. I listed the golf clubs and desk on craigslist and already sold the desk and have someone interested in the golf clubs. The only reason I wanted to sell the stroller was because Eric ran over it and now the back wheel is warped. We got so hot being outside all morning that we decided to go to the pool Saturday afternoon.

Sunday morning, Emory woke up with a rash all over her back, stomach and legs. She had had some patches on her upper back for about 2 months that I just assumed were eczema because they came and went but never really spread or got too big. Of course they were nonexistent the day of her 9month checkup so the pediatrician didn't see it but he also said that it was probably nothing. It got progressively worse last week and then Sunday morning it was EVERYWHERE! I tried to think of everything that we had done and everything that she had eaten and couldn't think of anything out of the norm. It was still there Monday morning so off we went to the pediatrician. When he saw it he said "Is that it? That looks like eczema and a heat rash. HaHa." I thought I was going to kill him. This is the child that has only had one cold in her life, she never gets sick (knock on wood), and all of a sudden she is covered in red patches. Is that normal? Is it an allergy? He said that most likely it is what it is and gave us a prescription cream and told me to keep her settled and cool. She is a 9 month old and we live in the desert. How am I supposed to keep her settled and cool? However, the cream seemed to really help because it looked so much better this morning.

In an attempt to keep her cool, we went to Noah's yesterday afternoon to play in his kiddie pool. Emory and Noah are future TROUBLE makers. Emory kept putting her face in the sprayer on the pool and just laughing. Everything was going great until, Noah grabbed the cactus. Poor thing (and poor Christa)! He grabbed the new growth of a prickly pear cactus. For all of you Southerners, that means the equivalent of TINY splinters that only go halfway in. She had to knock him out with benadryl and pick each one out with tweezers. The pediatrician (the same one that laughed at me) told Christa that if she couldn't get them all out, she needed to take him to the ER. Can you imagine the drama and trauma of taking a 12 month old to the ER for a TINY splinter?

In an attempt to keep Emory cool and out of trouble, her friend Rhonnie came over to play this morning. They do very well together and enjoy taking toys and sippy cups away from each other. It's funny to watch because if one of them has something, all of a sudden the other one thinks that he or she must also have it. I guess it's just the beginning of jealousy. We might be in for it when the terrible twos set in.

Since most of Emory's friends are just a little older than she is, they teach her new tricks. Currently she watches them walk (and run and climb). She is very close, but not quite brave enough to let go yet. I'm not sure I'm ready for her to walk just yet. The boys have turned into "toddlers" and she's still my "baby". I don't want her to grow up just yet, these past few months have gone way too quickly. Besides, it's hard enough to keep up with her crawling, I don't know what I'll do when she's walking.

Wow! I just kept going and going didn't I. Sorry for the neverending post, it feels like we had a neverending weekend.

A Day in the life of Emory.

How cute is that baby?! I just have to say that Emory is the prettiest, sweetest and funniest little girl, ever. Especially in such cute clothes. Grammy made this outfit for her and it matches her eyes perfectly.

Lately, Emory has not been the best eater. I know all babies go through phases and everything so its not THAT big of a deal. However, today for lunch she did very well! So well that I decided she needed to be rewarded by going to the park. We went with her friend Noah and they had lots of fun on the swings and slide. We got so hot playing that we decided to let the kiddos splash around a little. On previous adventures at the splash park, Emory would kind of stick her hands in, but not really go all out to get in the water. She went for it today! There's one little squirter that isn't very strong and Emory kept putting her face in the stream. She just laughed! She also realized that she could stop the water by covering the spout and she thought that was hilarious.
The only thing she was unsure of was crawling.

She wouldn't put her knees on the ground so she bear walked the whole time. She wore herself out! She was asleep before we were out of the parking lot.

Wish they all could be...

California girls! Wow! I would never have believed it if you told me two years ago that my daughter's first trip to the beach would be to the Pacific Ocean. (Or that I would have a daughter by now, but that's a different story.)

We took our first "family vacation" this past weekend. Eric had to go to Los Angeles for work and Emory and I decided to tag along. He had to work during the day on Thursday and Friday so Emory and I hung out near the hotel. We went to City Walk and Emory made friends with everyone she met. She decided to start waving to people on Thursday and hasn't stopped since. She waves to everyone she sees, except people with cameras, of course. We kept things pretty simple on the days that Eric had to work, although we did make it to the Hard Rock Cafe. It's the perfect place to take a baby because it is already so loud that nobody noticed her squeals, and there were plenty of things and people to keep her interested.

Friday afternoon we decided to drive through the Hollywood Hills on Mullholland Drive. That is one curvy road and those are by far the biggest houses I've ever seen! We saw Brittany Spears neighborhood, The Summit. There were a few paparazzi waiting just outside waiting on her to drive by, I don't know how they've managed not to get killed acting like that on such a dangerous road. BTW- We lived in The Summit in SC :)

We tried to cram everything into one day on Saturday. Thankfully, most everything we really wanted to see was fairly close together. We went to Hollywood Blvd. in the morning and saw Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Kodak theatre as well as the Walk of Fame. That area is really only one block in the middle of a giant city. It was kind of strange to be driving down the road and all of a sudden be right in the middle of things that you've seen in pictures thousands of times before. We drove down the Sunset Strip on the way to lunch and saw The Vipor Room.
I've been seeing a lot of celebrity (i.e. paparazzi) pictures at The Farmer's Market/The Grove recently, so of course I had to check that out. The Grove is your typical outdoor mall but The Farmer's Market was pretty cool. We decided to eat lunch there when we saw a BBQ stand. Wouldn't you know, we moved all the way across the country and still go for BBQ every time we see it. (I still haven't tasted any better than Daddy's) After lunch, we were off to Beverly Hills. I had to at least see Rodeo Drive and Robertson Blvd. And I absolutely had to have one of these cupcakes as my 29th birthday cake. Eric and I couldn't decide which ones we wanted so we split a red velvet and peanut butter chocolate chip. YUMMY!!!!

We finally drove over to Santa Monica on Saturday afternoon. I decided to stay at the beach for my birthday, Eric gave me several options including Orange County, San Diego and Palm Springs. Isn't he the best! As soon as we checked into our suite (the one perk to all his work trips are the great hotel upgrades) we headed to the beach. I've never seen anything like the Santa Monica Pier! There is an amusement park on the pier, as well as restaurants, gift shops and a museum. We took Emory down to the ocean and she wasn't sure what to think. She didn't care much for the waves and the water was a little too cold for swimming. She perked up when she saw the swings, however. We headed over to the Third Street Promenade for a little shopping and planned to stay for dinner. Emory, however, had plans to go back to the hotel and go straight to bed, so we ended up ordering room service.

As a birthday gift to Momma, Emory slept until 8am Sunday morning. This is normal at home, not so normal travelling. Then she gave me a new yoga bag and a big kiss. I couldn't ask for a better morning! She continued the day by sleeping almost the entire way home and still going to bed at 7pm.

I think this was such a good birthday that I'll stick with 29. Next year, we'll have the sequel instead of turning 30. Here's the link to the rest of our pictures.

To sum things up, here's a list of the things I learned about traveling with a baby while on this trip.
1.Drive during nap time.
2.Take lots of Cheerios.
3.Put the crib in the closet.
4.Take both a crib sheet, pack and play sheet and safety pins if you plan to use the hotel's crib. You never know what you'll end up with.
5.When someone runs over your big stroller, use this bib and toy links as a snack tray and sippy cup holder on the umbrella stroller.
6.Be flexible and order room service.