Seven Months of Emery

   Last time we checked up with Emery I forgot to include her six month stats.  She was 15.8 pounds then and is 26 inches long.  I'm sure height-wise she hasn't changed much since then, but my arms say that my baby is at least sixteen pounds if not a little bigger.  Sunday it was just me and the girls, and Emery insists on being held standing up for the last two hours of church.  When we got home my arms were aching.  She is one chubby baby. By contrast Harper was 14 pounds at six months and Avery was just at 15 pounds.  Harper only made it to 17 pounds by the time she was one.  This baby is a very rude wake up call from my little feather weight Harper who is 25 pounds right now at three.  That's only nine pounds bigger than Emery.

  At any rate Emery continues to be a happy little girl and a joy to have around.  She is still toothless and not a sign of a tooth coming in either.  I feel like both Avery and Harper had teeth by now.  She loves eating even more now, and has cute back on the formula to make room for the solids.  She isn't up on her hands and knees yet, but she drags herself around for short distances.  She is roaming off the rug with increasing frequency.  I didn't catch her just the other day making some attempts to get up on her knees.

  Avery and Harper love Emery, and Emery loves Avery and Harper.  Whenever they are around she invariably has a smile for them and their antics.  Occasionally when I can't immediately make it to Emery's side to fulfill her baby needs I ask the girls to cheer up until I can come.  Harper will sing to her and tell her "baby you need to be happy".  Avery will tell her over and over again to, "baby don't cry" in which I can only describe as her Fat Albert voice.  It's pretty hilarious and it usually works because Emery loves her sisters.  

She played with the monkey for a good twenty minutes before she would leave it alone and let me take a picture.

Here's are girl at seven months today!

This was when she was experimenting with getting up on her knees.  I love the drool hanging off her chin.

A Ridiculous Amount of Preschool Art

   As ever Avery has been busily producing masterpieces both at home and in preschool.  So much that it is hard to keep up with.  I've have collected a smattering of her most important works since the beginning of the school year.  Notice her love of drawing flowers and her family.  

Avery and Harper holding  balloons together.

I don't know what this is, but she was really proud of it.

Avery thought the dining area could use some help and drew this lovely little flower on the wall.

I believe this is a snowman constructed out of marshmallows.

A family portrait.  From left to right top row: Mom and Dad.  Center row: Harper and Avery. The blob at the bottom of the page:  Emery.

Avery constructed this calendar the other day while I was gone.  I guess I really didn't need that notepad anyway.

A pumpkin whose eyes stare into your soul.

A self portrait.

So much stuff on her bedroom walls.

You can see with Avery more is more.

The artwork by Avery's top bunk.

A close up of one of the walls.  I really enjoyed the Halloween cat and the cat pumpkin.

She made a lot of gingerbread people at Christmas.

Happy Third Birthday Harper!

  Our Harper turned three today.  She was very excited about her birthday this morning and happily yelled to us that she was three today.  The day was pretty low key. The girls did a lot of art work, and had a tea to put on.  We had cake and presents just with us since various family are either out of town or else wise indisposed unfortunately.  We'll celebrate late with them.  Daryl did take the girls to a movie tonight where they both had their favorite snack:  popcorn.

  Harper is a very bright girl and is quite the chatter box.  She knows a lot of shapes, colors, numbers, and letters.  Her favorite television shows are Max and Ruby, Octonauts, and Little Einsteins. Harper's favorite color is green; something I only learned recently actually.  She likes to read in the mornings with Mom while Avery is at preschool, and she loves car rides.  Usually Harper is an excellent shopping buddy.  Harper has a lot of personality and is a fun addition to our family.

Harper was pretty sick for a couple days before her birthday.  Avery had declared if that Harper was sick on her birthday then her party would be ruined.  I too was worried that she wouldn't be feeling well on her birthday, but she was back to her normal self.  Unfortunately she passed her illness onto Emery though.

Avery wanted to take the cake to the table.  You can see I just made a little cake.  It was actually from the Weight Watcher's cookbook and was made with beets.  It was a pretty good chocolate cake.

Harper with her cake.

Harper really, really wanted to open her presents.  She was shaking them trying to see what was in there.

I love this picture.  It looks like it's tough to be three sometimes.  Also you can see the nice card Aunt Joanne sent with three dollars!

Harper's big gift was a balance bike.  She was really excited when she first saw it, but she only rode it for a short amount of time.  

Harper using her new crayons and coloring book.

Here's Harper coloring again.  Notice that she has finished with her piece of cake, but then insisted that she needed a cupcake(I made the rest of the cake batter into cupcakes obviously). 

Happy New Year!

   2013 was a pretty good year(new awesome baby, Avery was potty trained finally).  To celebrate New Years Eve we got the girls party hats and left them with Grandma and Grandpa while Daryl and I went out to eat with our friends Christie and Ben.  Happy New Year!

Emery at Six Months

  On December 28th Emery turned six months old.  Emery has learned a new helpful skill:  She can hold her own bottle now.  We were really excited about that since Harper was the laziest baby known to man, and never bothered to acquire that skill.  Emery is sometimes an enthusiastic eater and at other times apathetic.  She really likes bananas so far.  She is still pretty much all smiles, and rolls all over her domain, the family room rug.  On the occasions she makes it off the rug and onto the wood floor she seems really surprised at the new surface.  It doesn't look like crawling is on her agenda anytime soon.  There is also no sign of teeth.  They are taking their own sweet time.  On the other hand she doesn't have much of a bald spot and her head is nice and round.

Holding her own bottle.

Emery isn't really sitting up that well yet. 

She really wanted to eat the monkey.

Coming up for air after assaulting the monkey.

Here's your comparison shot.  She is definitely bigger than that monkey now.

Christmas Fun Part 2 2013

    Here's the second part of Christmas.  My sister Nellie and her husband Paul came with Reagan and they picked up Ashlyn on their way up from California.  My sister DeAnna flew in Christmas night, but I don't think I have a single picture of her.  Then my brother Adam and his wife Angie already live here, so they came of course.  We were only missing my brother Phil and his family, and my sister Alex and her family.  We missed having them with us.  It was really nice to see my niece Reagan again.  She is about eighteen months now, and she is little standoffish at times.  You have to really work at her to win her attention. Somehow I was able to pull that off and she followed me around whenever her mother wasn't around.  If my sister was around I usually didn't get the time of day from her. Harper and Reagan had quite the battle of wills over toys though.  Whatever Reagan had Harper wanted to have.  Christmas morning Harper was very uninterested in her presents.  She opened a few fun ones and was done.  I had to open up the rest of the boring gifts of clothes she got.  It was nice to see everyone and celebrate my sister Nellie's fortieth birthday after Christmas together.  I can't wait until we see everyone again!

Ashlyn doing what she does best.

Grandma and Avery making cinnamon rolls together.

Reagan and Grandpa

Daryl and I with Emery in her Christmas jammies.

The tree on Christmas morning.

Reagan opening gifts.

Avery left a letter for Santa on Christmas Eve asking for a Barbie with a cinnamon roll offering, and last year's picture of her and Harper visiting Santa.  This was all Avery's idea.

Opening Christmas gifts.

More gift fun.

Emery and Reagan having cousin fun.

Daryl also was accepted by Reagan.

Reagan wearing I think six pairs of Harper's underwear.

Christmas Fun Part 1 2103

   I had too many pictures to post about Christmas all at once, so it is going to be divided up.  The Sunday before Christmas we had Aimee, Karl, and Tyler come over for dinner, and we exchanged gifts that night.   Emery got her first taste of chocolate pie thanks to Karl and Aimee, and she could not get enough of that stuff.  As soon as I would get another forkful of the pie she would lean her little body as far as she could go to shovel more in her.  She liked the chocolate a lot.  We had a lot of fun that night, and we even got together the next night to go see the lights at Enchanted Village.  Unfortunately, the camera I brought that night was dead, so I have no pictures of that.  We also got together again the day after Christmas with Karl and Daryl's mom for breakfast, but again I have no pictures of that.  

Avery and Harper are holding the quilts that Aimee sewed for them.  Avery's is Disney princesses and Harper's is Minnie Mouse.  They love them and sleep with them every night now.

Harper, Avery, and Tyler playing Kinect party on the Xbox.

Emery being fabulous.

Karl was the best brother ever and got Daryl Deep Space Nine MicroMachines that are staying in the package.

Harper was super happy to get underwear for Christmas.