Christmas

Emmy had a good first Christmas this year! We all had a good time, it was just busy! My sister, my parents, and grandmother all arrived on the 23rd, just in time to baby-sit while Charles and I had a rehearsal for Christmas Eve. It's always a great service, but a three hour rehearsal two days before Christmas is tiring.

Christmas Eve morning we all had our usual Christmas Morning breakfast together. Yes, a day early since we were having an earlier lunch on Christmas Day. Meredith and Mom and I worked in the kitchen prepping for Christmas Day as well as getting dinner ready for Christmas Eve.

Our friends Nate and Amy and their baby Ryan joined us for Christmas Eve dinner. We had lasagna! Not traditional, I know, but I was able to make it before my family arrived and spend less time in the kitchen. We had a good time together! Emmy went to bed at her usual hour, then we woke her up to take her with us to church at 9:00. She was NOT happy with me for waking her up. Then when we got to church, she was like "hey I had a nap, let's play!" We had to warm up and rehearse, and then I checked back on her around 10:30 when the concert started. (Our church has a service of 9 Lessons and Carols that is at 11:00 p.m. with a half hour concert that is part of our Concert with a Cause series that starts at 10:30 which is mostly solos, ensemble, and chamber music). She was NOT happy and was having a hard time falling asleep, so I spent time trying to get her to sleep. By ten til 11, I had to go, so I laid her down in the crib. Fortunately, the nursery worker said she fell asleep quickly then.

The service is always so beautiful, if I do say so myself as a part of the choir. After church, Emmy woke up again, ready to play! We took her home and Mom put her back to bed while we went to Jim and Jamie's for soup and champagne. I was reminded that this is a tradition not meant for those of us while small children because I was SO TIRED! Waking up Christmas morning at 8 am was rough!

We woke up to a happy baby, and happy news that our friend Chase was an uncle. His sister, Nicole, gave birth to their baby girl, Amelia, at 7:37 on Christmas morning. She was three weeks early, so she was a surprise Christmas gift! Here is a photo Mom took of Chase and "Lia" a couple of days after Christmas.

Emmy sat up by herself for the first time Christmas morning, which was a nice surprise! She helped tear paper off her presents and proceeded to shove whatever paper, tissue, or ribbon she could in her mouth. It was a lot of fun! Here she is with Grandma after we were all done unwrapping gifts and showered for the day.

We had a big dinner midday with Mary Ann, Joel, and Mary Ann's parents, Larry "Bear" and Marilyn. I was a bit ambitious this year and made a crown roast of pork with apple pecan stuffing and mashed rutabagas and it turned out well, I think! Joel had smoked a turkey and they also brought mashed potatoes and two types of green beans so we had a TON of food! It was delicious and we all ate too much.

By the time we were cleaning up the dishes, I was exhausted. I had to stop for a while. My parents and grandmother left around 4 and shortly after I was asleep on the floor. Ha! Emmy and I then went back and took a nap on the bed for a while. Meredith stayed Friday night with us so we had some sister time. She left Saturday morning as we prepared to hit the road for Rome to see Charles' folks.

It was a quick trip to Rome but we had a good time. We had not traveled in a while so we didn't know how Emmy would do, but she did pretty well. She didn't nap well in the car, so we put her down for a late nap at the hotel. She woke up just before 6 and we went to get dinner, but we should have probably just let her sleep because she was not the happiest of campers at dinner. After dinner we took her back for her bath and let her play and open presents from her grandparents, and of course eat more tissue paper. She slept pretty well in her pack-n-play and since she went down later, she slept until 6. I love this photo I took of her sitting in our bed before we put her in her dress for church. So cute!

After church and lunch, we headed back home. Charles had to work Monday and we had to unpack and repack for our next adventure! We hope that all our "readers" had a wonderful Christmas holiday season.

LOTS more photos are in the December Picasa Album. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Emmy hopes that all her loved ones have had a very Merry Christmas.

Emmy's first starring role

It is tradition at our church that the youngest baby in the church is Baby Jesus in the "Birthday Party for Jesus" Christmas Pageant every year. Now, before you get illusions of grandeur, keep in mind this is mostly an impromptu performance done by the children's choirs. Sure, they rehearse their lines, but the itty bitty's in the Wesley Choir who play the angels sing one song alone and then several members of the junior choir have solos during The Friendly Beasts but mostly the whole audience is singing along with the kids. They play all the different members of the nativity and the mother and father of the "Baby Jesus" play Mary and Joseph.

As you can probably assume now, Emmy is the youngest baby at St. John, so this year she was Baby Jesus. That's right folks, we all three starred as the Holy Family. I was, as my friend Mary Ann pointed out, the Blessed Virgin Marion. Um, sure! I was extremely nervous about Emmy's acting debut for 2 reasons: it was close to bed time (and there had been an earlier and shorter than usual afternoon nap) and for goodness sake, she's 7 months old, hardly a newborn. It was a very unpredictable event.

Fortunately, Emmy was perfect! She started to get fussy right before we walked out, so I handed her to Charles because he can often get her to settle down better when she's tired, so Joseph carried Baby Jesus this time. She snuggled up with him, looked around a good bit the first few minutes, quietly "sang" through the first song, then about halfway through, she fell asleep! She was also really interested in the "animals" when they came up to do their solos, and then knelt by the manger. I caught her staring at Corey-the-cow a good bit. Watch out, Corey!

Here we are with the little Wesley choir singing their song. Note that Lucy on the far left couldn't stop looking at Emmy and grinning at the baby, Lucy on the right was clearly not happy to be up there. Something happened just before they went up to sing and it upset her. And allegedly Sam (tallest in the center) had an incident just before the performance and his halo fell in the toilet. Erika (one of the Moms/helpers) had taken him to the bathroom and she told him "Well, everyone's halo falls in the toilet sometimes," so that's our new motto.

Finally, here's the sleeping Baby Jesus.

Acrobat or Monkey? You decide.

As I mentioned in a previous post one of Emmy's new tricks is to push herself off your lap to flip herself over backwards and hang upside down. Here's a picture of her the other morning performing one of her tricks. Don't mind me in the background.


I know that we should let her watch TV yet, and usually we have the TV off. When it is on, it certainly does catch her attention, especially when there's music involved. Saturday morning Charles was looking at some clips on YouTube of musical groups, and she was fascinated!


Emmy is also fascinated with her hands lately. I'll often catch her looking at them. It was hard to snap a photo, but Charles did get one of her on her changing table the other day. I've also caught her looking at my mouth when I'm singing different songs and she'll move her mouth like she's trying to figure out how to form different words. So cute! Today I was sitting in front of her singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and she was entranced by the hand movements. It's so funny to see what catches her eye. Music is seeming to be one of her favorites lately and we'll have to see about starting Kindermusik in the Spring!

Here she is today so cute in her new "Baby Legs." I admit when I saw these before I was pregnant I thought "leg warmers for babies, what?" Now that I have a baby I think "these are brilliant." Emmy has some cute onesies (like the super cute fish one she's wearing here that Mary Ann gave her) that would be fun for her to wear but I worry about it being a bit cold. But, pants or tights are just a pain, especially when we're just hanging around the house. The Baby Legs are cute, and they don't have to come off for a diaper change. Woohoo! Now that I've tried one pair, I want more! I can see her wearing them instead of tights under casual dresses.

7th Months Old!

Emmy is 7 months old today! It's so hard for us to believe. She has come so far from the little peanut she was on May 8th!

I took Emmy to the doctor yesterday just to confirm if she had Hand, Foot and Mouth. Dr. J believed that yes, indeed she does, she just has atypical presentation of symptoms. Fortunately, today the bumps on her fanny are gone and the ones near her mouth are almost gone. When we went into the doctor's office yesterday one had appeared on her hand, but other than that, she's not showing any new symptoms. Her fever is gone, too, I think. She's continually been her usual happy self, so hopefully we evaded the worst of it this time.

She is so happy and smiley and when she laughs, you can't help but laugh with her. She loves music and she loves to be sung to. If she's getting fussy, usually a song will get her laughing again, if only for a minute. Of course it makes us happy that she likes music so much.

Her favorite new "trick" is trying to flip herself upside down while she's in your lap. Seriously, she likes to be upside down. She'll just hang there for a minute, and if you don't hold on, she'll push herself off your lap! Crazy girl.

Today she started moving backwards in her walker. She's moved around a tiny bit, but today was the first day she really covered some ground. Charles said she seemed frustrated she couldn't move forward, but she'll figure it out! The walker is just, great, though because she can sit up and see and play with her toys. Currently she enjoys pitching the pieces of her wooden nativity set on the floor. She also swings her rings back and forth. We wised up and attached them to the slide on the walker itself so they don't fall off.

She's just so much fun and we love watching her grow!

What's been goin' on

On Tuesday Emmy had her check-up with the developmental clinic at the hospital where she was born. We met with an occupational therapist and a speech therapist, and then their findings were given to a neonatologist who met with us. Essentially, they took a check list of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and social skills she should have at different ages and just played with her and marked them off. They were looking for her to meet all of the skills she should have for her adjusted age (they were using 4 1/2 months adjusted, 6 months actual although she's really more like 5 months adjusted 6 1/2 months actual). She is doing everything she should be doing for her adjusted age, and is doing somethings in the 5 and 6 month categories. Emmy is completely caught up in the social category (no surprise) as she is quite the happy, laughing, smiley, "talkative" baby and she follows objects, etc. so that's good. She's farthest "behind" her actual in gross motor skills. But they said that's always the last to catch up, and of course at this point there is no concern. They will have us come back in 8 months to evaluate her once more.

One of the items she was listed as just "emerging" in was rolling from her back to her front. She'd done it only once and when she was angry in her crib so they couldn't check it off, but they listed it as emerging. Well, the next day, it emerged. Charles went to get her about 7:15 when we heard her talking in her crib, and she was on her stomach. Later in the morning I put her down on the floor for tummy time and she rolled from her stomach to her back, and then to her stomach again, and she's just kept on! She's on the roll! You can tell she's quite proud of herself.

She's also pushing herself up completely on her arms (also something that was just emerging on Tuesday) and while tummy time was becoming better and better, now she's wanting to be there! This means she's also rolling over to sleep on her tummy, and that's created a bit of a problem. It must not be as comfy as she'd like because now she'll cry when she can't get comfy. We'd just gotten into this great routine where she didn't want to be rocked, really, so we'd put her down and she might fuss a bit, but she'd be asleep within 10 minutes. Now it's taking longer, she's waking up more, ugh. I hope this passes quickly!

Unfortunately the last week she's finally weaned herself from nursing. She was just getting too frustrated with nursing, I guess because she wasn't getting much, and she'd cry for the bottle after just a second. I know I have done the best I can and in some ways I'm relived, in others I'm sad. It just was never the great experience I'd dreamed of and I feel a bit guilty, but I don't regret pushing through to this point. I'm still trying to pump, but I'm getting less and less, so I don't know how long I can keep it up. I'd like to keep giving her that little bit of extra immune support, especially through this nasty cold and flu season, but that may not be in the cards. We'll see! I'm pleased we made it this far and certainly this summer I had my doubts!

Emmy's little friend Timothy has Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. No fun! Poor baby has had a nasty fever and been so miserable this week. Of course he probably picked it up at church, which has had me worried for Emmy. And then yesterday a low grade fever emerged. But, she has no other symptoms; she's eating fine, she's happy as usual and there don't appear to be any sores in her mouth and no rash on her hands or feet. She's got three little bumps by her mouth, though, and a rash on her bottom, so I'm worried she may have a case of it, too. I'm planning to take her to the doctor tomorrow if they can fit us in just to confirm either way. If it is indeed HFMD, there's nothing they can give her, just Tylenol or ibuprofen to help with the fever and any pain (the mouth sores are supposed to be painful). Of course I'm supposed to entertain spouses from Charles' unit on Tuesday night so I'm anxious to find out if it's a good idea for me to still have them over. Adults rarely get it, but they can carry it and I don't want to infect anyone else. Argh, miserable timing, but as Charles pointed out it's better this week than last week!

Here's Emmy "hanging" her "Emmy's 1st Christmas" ornament and a photo of her with a present from some friends at church for her baptism. It plays "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and she loves it

Emmy's Baptism

I know, I know, it's been a week and no post. But most of you who actually read this blog were here for her baptism, so I figured you weren't chomping at the bit for me to give you a run down of the weekend's activities. Plus, I was tired after Thanksgiving plus Baptism plus decorating the house and I concentrated my efforts on doing as little as possible and then doing a bunch of Christmas shopping that had been pushed to the back burner.

It was a good weekend! After an exhausting day of cooking Thursday after and exhausting day of cooking Wednesday we went to bed early on Thursday and woke up Friday morning and went and picked out our Christmas tree. I have never bought my tree that early and I think we may have been their first customer since the masses were all shopping for Black Friday sales. It was home and in the stand by lunchtime and falling out nicely awaiting lights and I was up to my neck in pulling out decorations when my parents arrived Friday afternoon. After a quick trip to church to drop off the cake, soups, poinsettias for the tables, and other essentials I wanted out of my dining room and kitchen, we spent the rest of the evening decorating, frying turkeys, and eating at Rhinehart's. Meredith got in just after we came home from dinner and in time to kiss Emmy goodnight before we put her to bed.

Saturday we got up and decorated the tree. Emmy loves the lights and we have had her walker positioned near the tree most of the time since we put it up so she can see it while she's playing. Charles' parents had gotten to their hotel late Friday so they came over around lunchtime Saturday. While Meredith and I did a last minute store run and picked up lunch, the rest of the family started arriving! Saturday afternoon was spent with family in and out, watching Clemson Carolina, attempting to get Emmy to nap with our loud families in the house, and doing last minute preparations for Sunday's lunch, like carving up turkeys and arranging food on platters.

Saturday night 20 of us had dinner at the French Market Grill as a group. It was good, just hard to visit with everyone. Of course, dinner time is way to close to bed time, so before we could even order dessert (you must have peanut butter pie at the French Market) it was evident it was time to go home, so Charles and I got our dessert to go and headed home to put Emmy to bed. Aunt Priscilla and my cousin Michael came back with my parents, sister, and grandmother so we could see Michael's wedding photos from earlier this fall and they visited while I finished putting family baby pictures in frames for the tables. Finally, it we bed time!

Sunday was a lovely day. In some ways it's a blur. There were so many people who came to the service and I feel like I didn't get to really visit enough with everyone! Emmy did so great during the service. She was just a cute little thing, though her hands were up in her mouth all the time, but then that's par for the course these days! Our pastor, Gary, is wonderful and we're so glad he baptized her. As I took her out to the nursery when the baptism was done, she sang a happy little high pitched "song" as we walked out the door, which made everyone giggle.

Lunch was delightful, thanks in large part to my dear friends who helped cook and make everything go so smoothly. There were I think 55 of us for lunch, so it was quite a crowd, but we had plenty of food. I mean, have you met my family? I don't know how to NOT have enough food!

We were just overwhelmed by the number of people who were able to travel to be with us to celebrate. It's been such a year for us and what a way to rejoice in how blessed we are, and how appropriate over Thanksgiving weekend and at the start of Advent.

I'm not going to even attempt to put up a representation of the weekend in photos here because it would take to many photos and that's more decision making than I can do right now! So, there's a family shot of the three of us and one of Emmy with Gary, and MANY more (273, I think) can be found in Picasa.

P.S. The cross she wore for her baptism was Emmy's great-great-grandmother's, my grandmother's mother. Grandma gave it to her the night before. What a special gift!