Happy Birthday Sweet Emerson!!!

Hard to believe, our girl is a year old today! I'm a lot more comfortable right now than I was this time last year... It's amazing how it seems like a lifetime ago that we didn't have her but it also seems like just yesterday. Here's a look back at November 20, 2007...

Shopping Girl

Last week I thought it was time to get Emerson out of the "bucket" during our grocery shopping. My mom (and Ryan for that matter) thought I was high maintenance for having the grocery cart cover thing. I believe she said, "How did you kids ever survive????" The very next day on the Today Show they did a survey of the dirtiest place kids are exposed to and shopping carts was on top of the list. They said 89% of the grocery carts they swabbed in Iowa had E Coli on them and that the carts were dirtier than public toilets!!!!! Needless to say I showed the Today Show bit to Ryan and he doesn't think I'm so crazy anymore. We went to Price Chopper yesterday I believe it went something like, hey, do you have that cover thing??? Man, it's a good thing our kids have us moms...

Fun Fall Pics

Our sweet girl turns a year old next Thursday- so hard to believe! She's growing like a weed and crawling, waving, pointing and doing new cute things every day!



Luckly we only have one more "month" picture to take because unlike when she was a newborn and just sat there, they are getting increasingly harder to take as you can see!

We had a little photoshoot outside... We took her "real" one year pics on Tuesday and I think we got some really good ones.

Emerson had had it with Sunday Night Dinner...

Baby's First Halloween!

We had a busy couple of weeks getting ready for Halloween. Since we skipped it last year completely (pregnancy will do that to you) it was fun to decorate the house again and get Emerson all dressed up. A couple of weeks ago my BF Frannie had a kids halloween party. It was a beautiful Sunday and the kids loved it.

I know, I know- the pig wasn't one of the options up for "voting" but my mom ordered it for us and I was hardly going to turn down a pink pig costume! It's her signature color!

That's Frannie's daughter Ava (Dorothy!) next to Emerson. There were so many cute costumes!

Isn't that an onrey grin???

Will went as a "Sorm-trooper" and he came across Darth Vader. The two boys were using their light sabers (sp?) to fight it out. Hilarious.

I love it that when she looked down you could only see the pig face...

We decided to have our Halloween party again this year- Emerson stayed at my mom's and slept 12 hours. She did great and it was nice to have an adults only night!

Elsa, Katy and Aaron. Katy's Prego. Get it!!!???

I was a 60's chick- that's my dad's Lamoni High School letterman jacket. Go deamons! Do you get what Chad is? That's a noose around his neck... Think presidential election snafu in Florida in '04... Oh- and Jen's a hottie cop.
Ryan enjoys showing off his legs entirely too much.

Jen brought her friend Jody and she was excited to have a real life Toto! It was adorable. Phoebe was a rock star that night- she hadn't had that much attention since November 19th, 2007. (Emerson came on the 20th...)
Jodi and her "ho."

There are a couple of closed eyes but a good pic nonetheless... That's Elsa's real wedding dress BTW! Her makeup was awesome.
My three favorite pregnant women!!! This spring is going to be so fun!!!

When It Rains...

... it pours! I wasn't in any hurry for Emerson to start crawling but she started a couple of weeks ago and we've had more and more firsts- first tooth (it's barely poking through- Ryan thinks I'm lying because he can't/hasn't seen it), started crawling and now she's pulling up on everything on her own and "cruising" also. We went from an immobile baby to a mover and a shaker! So we've been frantically baby proofing our house and after tirelessly blocking her head from the coffee table, we just moved it out of the room completely. It's a much nicer space for her to crawl around- we just have to worry about the fireplace now. I've got the spongy things to stick on the edges- very classy. I guess we passed classy when my breast pump became a permanent fixture in our living room...

Exploring the living room.






You should really click on this picture to enlarge it. Let's just say I can't tell whose tongue it is... Ugh.




Sitting like such a big girl!


Playing on grandma's deck during last week's nice weather.


A couple of weeks ago, I got together with two girls I work with at Smokehouse. They both have little boys who are 9 months old- one of whose names is Emerson! It was so fun watching these three little babies playing together. Later that day at my mom's house is when my Emerson crawled for the first time- I guess she was tired of seeing other kids being able to move around!

Some Random Pics

Here are just a few cute pictures from the past couple of weeks.

We've really lucked out in the food department- she eats everything we've given her (except avacados, which I kind of understand.) One of her staples is cottage cheese...


Having some pizza and cheering on Nebraska in her cheerleading outfit!


I swear I didn't pose her like this! My little dancer!


I emptied out this drawer in the pantry and it's "her drawer" so I can get dinner made, do dishes, drink wine, etc... ;) She loves going through all my old tupperware and things.


Looking at the ducks at the park- I love this shot of her curls...


Helping dad wash the car.




This is how I find her waiting for me nowadays...