Emmeline's Loves

Emmeline now has two beach balls and every time she wakes up from her naps or from the night, she immediately sees them and lunges for them while saying "ba" with this really cute groggy look that she always has when she wakes up. She has never gotten sick of them. As much as I don't want to, I really should take her to a playplace like McDonalds that has a whole room full of colored balls. I can probably think of a better alternative though!














Here is a little video of her jabbering about her two friends, the beach balls. Thanks again Devrie and Stacy for providing these!





She loves the swing, as many of you have already seen. This is her friend Julianna (Danna's little girl). I love how we can fit them both in there. They don't quite know what to do when they are back to back with with each other! We used to only go to the park for this one swing. Just this week Emmeline has started to like the slides. It has been fun to see her get excited about something new.



















I couldn't leave out one of Em's favorite loves....eating! Her smirkey smile comes out most when she eats! I love this pic.


















This is what Emmie's hair was doing when she woke up the other morning. The little front wave was pretty sweet. I kept it this way for the entire day!



















And of course she loves her daddy. It is cute to see their little relationship grow. She went through a time when she would swipe him in the face! Now she gives him "kisses" and wrestles with him on the bed. Whenever he wakes up in the morning she has this huge grin on her face and almost starts laughing in excitement because she knows he is going to pick her up, throw her on the bed or do something to surprise her. It is way cute. I'm not sure what they were both looking at in this pic but they look so much alike already and they are doing the same thing.


















She loves her mommy too. This is VERY true of Emmeline for any of you who want to hold her when I'm around. I enjoy it while she still wants me around! This darling little outfit is compliments of her cousin, Charlotte.

























Here she is! Our little star. You know how you have pivotal, bright spots in your life? (wedding day, graduating school, baby's delivery, birthdays, anniversaries, accomplishments, vacations, missions, baptism day, blessings, etc) It is so neat to have a baby because every day becomes that bright spot. It is not just a one time event that you work for, live through and then move on from. She is my forever bright spot! (Don't you love cheesy blogs?)

Twinners

Jon says this is my new twin. Somehow throughout my life I always seem to have a friend that is a lot like me. In Jr. High it was a friend named Karli Schvaneveldt. One time I went over to her house and her dad was outside working in the yard. He said, "Hi Karli." when I walked up the driveway. We would switch places in a couple of classes to see if the teacher would figure it out. I don't remember if that ever worked! My next twin was on my mission, Cynthia Hamilton. Of course it was even worse in Chile because they already think all Americans look alike! Cynthia even convinced me to cut my hair short like hers and that was pretty much a disaster for all you who saw me in pictures or when I got home! Now my twin is Dana Bowns. She is a good friend in my ward here in Salt Lake. She was actually the first person who came up to me at church and welcomed me to Relief Society. We both had really short hair when we met, we both got pregnant that year, and now we have twinner strollers, twinner hair and darling twinner girls! It makes me laugh when we walk our strollers together and this particular day we were wearing similar T-shirts and capris so I had to take a picture. Another funny thing is that Jon has mistaken Dana for me at church a couple of times (from behind of course!) Dana is such a great mom and I try to learn things from her all the time.

Swimming

My cute friend Jenn invited me to swim at her in-law's pool this summer. Her little boy Brooks is the sweetest, most content baby. It is fun to see her as a mommy!
















My sis Rach came with Charley Chew. I also love hanging with them and so does Emmie. We had some struggles getting our kids ready to swim (putting on a clean swim diaper and then 5 minutes later smelling something funky and realizing it is no longer clean!) But it was fun anyway!


















Little Emmers. I am so lucky to stay at home with this cute girl. I tell Jon how thankful I am every day for his hard work for our little fam.


















We also went swimming that week at Braylon's 1 yr. old birthday! Of course Emmeline loved his cake because it was a beach ball! I love when the babies aren't quite sure what the yummy smelling, gooey object is in front of them.

















Braylong didn't waste much time in finding out. This is my favorite when they smash it all over the place! I can't wait to see the Emmers go for it.


















My good friend Erica Pehrson was at the swimming party too. She is getting married in September and I am so excited for her. We roomed together up at Utah State and had the best times rollerskating (being towed behind bikes), country dancing (yes, I do admit to doing that...only in Logan!), eating macaroni and cheese, going on blind dates--some good and some horrible, and tracting from door to door to invite people to church (Okay I was straight home from the mission and Erica went along with all my ideas. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun....but I might be the only one who thinks that!) Good times. Now she is marrying the cutest boy, Nick Hart and they will live close to us in Sugarhouse. Nick said that Emmeline looked like "Pebbles" from the Flinstones that day of Brayon's birthday. These girls are both so photogenic!

The Aquarium

We went to the Living Aquarium in Sandy the other weekend. It was smaller than we expected, but we saw some really cool things. Thanks for taking the day off Jon (even though it was a Saturday! Lately he has had to work Saturdays and late nights so it was good to be together.) Emmeline was a little scared of the place. I think it was because it was dark and a neon fish came right up to the glass and stared at her. She wasn't really sure what to think.





















Check out this video of an octopus. It is so crazy how it breathes. it's hard to see what is going on. You can see his one eye in the middle of the screen and his head is where it keeps opening up to breath. Then the tentacles are everywhere else. Pretty cool!





I thought the seahorses were the funniest looking things. I don't think I would feel very comfortable at all if I knew these little creatures were swimming anywhere near me. Yew! Lots of people say they are cute but that is not a word I would use to describe them!



















They let us touch the sting ray! It was pretty cool but every time I went to touch it I scared myself thinking I would be the first one to be stung at that place! Their skin is very soft and rubbery like jello jigglers!

The blue banana stroller

I couldn't think of a name for this thing! I decided that it reminds me of those banana chairs we used to have. Anyway, Em loves this stroller and we take it everywhere. It was a hand me down from my friend Dana. The thing I love most is that the wheels are as big as the baby.

















Sometimes the wheels are bigger! This is my friend Darlene's little boy, Jack. He hangs out in the stroller while his mom does laundry. Emmeline does the same thing.

New Yorkers

I still call my brother Spen and his family the "New Yorkers" even though they recently moved to Texas. They came to visit for a week and we had all sorts of adventures with their four darling, wildly fun children. Here is Emmie and her cousin Owen on a blow up toy at this crazy Kangaroo place Rachael took us to. Was it called the Kangaroo Zoo? I can't remember. It was a place where you can let kids run wild and they don't get hurt because everything there is some sort of a blow up animal, toy or slide. Pretty cool. I just love the way Em is admiring Obie.











Just ask my nephew Shem.....he could have lived at this place! (see videos below!)

















My wonderful sister-in-law Diana and her sweet twins, Owen and Hudson. It was hilarious to watch these twins dart off in opposite directions. It was hard to keep up with them. Just ask Diana what it is like to be on a trampoline with them by yourself and trying to somehow keep them both within arm's reach. Pretty tricky!

















Marissa has such a fun sense of humor. She keeps me laughing. One time she told me..."I just love to grow. When I keep getting bigger, I can do so many more things. I love growing!" She loves to pull crazy faces and amazing poses!
















It took forever to get all 6 grandchildren in a picture. You can barely see Shem's head poking out behind Marissa's, but he is there. Emmeline just loved having all these kids around. Charley of course is her little second mom making sure she has her binky and also that she isn't taking any of Charley's toys! So cute.
















Spenie Honna himself. He has Texan written all over that pose, doesn't he?
















Cute Diana. I just love her! I made them pose for these pictures so I could make a book for Emmie with all of the aunts/uncles/cousins and then start teaching her their names. So far she can't even say Mommy or Daddy!


















Owen having fun in Grannie Jyl's backyard. They were fascinated by the Beagle dog, Daisy.


















Hudson laughing at the dog. Sorry I don't like taking pictures of the dog!!



















Shemmers on the slide



Rach having fun with the kiddies too!

10 Months Old!

Here is our little sweetie. I have a feeling this blog will be a bit sentimental....kids tend to do that to us! Today Em is 10 months old. She came into our family as fast as she could. Jon says he got his 2 girls at the same time! What a little angel she is. How the time flies, I have no idea. All I know is that there isn't a day that has gone by where Emmeline hasn't gotten me to smile, laugh and wonder how I got so lucky. One thing she does lately that melts my heart is snuggle her little head into my shoulder and then quickly jerk her head up with a HUGE grin and look at me for a few seconds. Those moments remind me that the greatest gift our kids give us is their love. I'm sure if you are still reading all this mushy stuff it is because you love Emmeline, Jon and maybe even me too! Thanks for all YOUR help in making the last 10 months a wonderful, exciting time for us. We couldn't have done it alone!









Okay, enough of that mushy talk. Here is a little girl "mushing" some banana bread. Besides playing with the bread and getting it all over the floor, she actually does eat some. She is the noisiest eater I have ever heard. She REALLY enjoys her food!

Life On The Lake

We went to Lake Powell with my family and my Uncle's family a couple of weeks ago. It was the greatest vacation. I thought it would be more work having to deal with Emmeline at a new place, sand everywhere and too much sun. Let me tell you why it was such an amazing vacation....















First of all, my cute cousin Olivia (6 yrs old) was Emmeline's little buddy. Talk about constant entertainment for Emmie! Emmeline always had a smile or laugh on her face. It was great. It worked both ways too. Olivia LOVES dolls and was having the time of her life dressing up, putting bows on and playing games with a "Real Doll!"


















Cousin Charley and Olivia. It was so cute because Charlotte would call Oliva "ee aa"


















If you can believe it or not, the second thing that made life easy at Lake Powell was a beach ball. That thing entertained her from the moment she woke up. Actually, it was her first word too! Thanks to her friend Max for giving her this ball at his beach party. She LOVES it. After only having it for a few days, she learned to say "ba"

















She also understands the word "clap." One of the first time she got it was looking at this picture book I have of a little girl putting her hands together. Em was trying to figure it out by looking at the girl in the picture. It was way cute. Babies are so smart!



















It was a little difficult to get a picture of all three girls with their sunglasses ON. Charley wasn't too happy about it! The red glasses on Em are killer!

















Fishie, Fishie who wants a fishie........YEW!!! My brothers and husband like to "spear" catfish at Lake Powell. It was a huge feat when anyone actually caught one. They would spend a long time hanging off the side of the houseboat waiting for a fish to approach them. Oh man, I'll never understand the mind of a boy!

















Too many cute pictures of these girls. I swear they could be sisters.


















Em liked this little floatie device for pretty much this picture only! She started getting nervous being so close to the water and having her feet dangling into the "unknown" below. I don't blame her!

















So precious.


















Olivia was a little fireball and made us all laugh. She is really good at impersonating people. The voice she imitated so well on this trip was from the Disney movie Wall-E. She would come up and say "Wall-E" or "EeeeeVaaa" in the robotic voice so perfectly. It was great!

















Thanks to Rachael, Emmeline had her own little "Lake" on the beach. It was perfect for her. We even gave the girls baths in it at night.

















What a hunk! Here's my honey "surfing" behind the boat. It is pretty crazy how they can use the wake of the skiboat to produce a wave to surf on. Again, gotta be the mind of a boy who came up with this one! It was fun to watch him because he got really good and could stay out for a long time. This was the perfect week for Jon. So really, to sum it up, Lake Powell made life easier for me because I had babysitters all around me (thanks guys!), Em loved the water, she could nap in an air-conditioned houseboat, she slept a TON I think because she was so over-stimulated, and Jon and I had some great times on the boat, swimming, relaxing and taking in all the gorgeous surroundings. I just made sure we didn't get too much sun. I think all three of us came back whiter than when we left. I like it that way!

Emmeline can crawl!!!

Emmeline took her first "all four baby steps" today! She has been prepping for this for about two weeks. We were with her "GraMare" today and she started going after some animal crackers. It was the cutest thing ever. Emmie and I both couldn't believe it was really happening. I'm sure in a few days I will be wishing it hadn't happened when she gets into the toilet, garbadge, etc., but for now I can just enjoy it! The thing I love about her crawl is how deliberate she is about every step and how determined she is to do it right. She has never scooted or dragged her feet behind her. I think she wanted to wait until she could do the crawl thing right.....and she did! Go Emmeline!! Oh and notice the object I get her to crawl to. Probably not a good thing to get her comfortable around.....woops!


These are just a couple random pictures I have taken of Emmeline lately. She is way into books now and it is fun to watch her look at them by herself (when I mean way into books I guess I mostly mean chewing them and ripping them apart....but it's a start!)













She sleeps like her daddy does!















Okay, so I don't know why I posted this today but I was laughing way hard when I came across this video of Em. I think she was about 4 months when we took the video, but I could be way off. The past 10 months are a blur and now I look at my little angel and can't believe how much she has changed. Every minute has made me laugh, cry, pray and smile at this miracle in my life!!