A First Birthday Eve

I know I have been pretty MIA from the blog these last few months, and actually I feel pretty sad about it. Between trying to be a good wife, the best mom I can be {um which is a full time, awesome, job in itself let me tell you}, human to my loved ones and graduate school and running (quite a lot with my superwoman friends) now starting a little business and my responsibilities being over the activities at my church and just whatever else life always seems to throw at you I just have not felt like I have had enough hours in a day.

But today everything else can wait because today/tonight.. I just tucked my sweet angel baby 11 month old into bed for the last time.
Tomorrow morning.. (ya know, technically at like 10 tomorrow night-but I'm going to try to not be bitter and let the fact that our sweet girl didn't want to show up ALL DAY slide and celebrate come 12 am) we are going to have a one year old.

Talk about the both happiest and sad thing in the world. I could not have imagined before the love and happiness and completeness my life has experienced this last year (and lets be honest the exhaustion and on call hard work 24 hours a day, but oh man it's so worth it)

When that little girl says, "mom" and gives me her big nose crunching smile like we are sharing the best secret and sweetly leans in to give me kisses just because I can tell she is trying to make me happy and when she smiles so big when I call her and comes toddle running or crawling as fast as she can to me (I could go on and on) my heart feels this happiness and love and gratitude for this little girl and my Heavenly Father and anything I did to bring me to this wonderful moment in my life.

Emery is such a special spirit. She is SO full of life and energy.. oh my gosh.. even when we are around other babies her age I still can't believe how much energy that little human being has. But she is so funny and playful-she loves tickling (she has a little body book she loves that you tickle a little boys feet and so she laughs and loves tickling everyone's feet).
And above everything I am so impressed with with her she is so loving and sweet.. it's amazing to me. She really never is bothered when other kids play with/take her toys (unless she is playing with my phone, then you've crossed about her only line) she really is so quick to give hugs and kisses and blow kisses and giggle and clap. I love her and love that about her.
She has a little baby doll that already if you bring it to her she can say "ba-bee" and she will hug and kiss and pat her back.
(Also, I love that she pats our back when we are holding her. I think it is so funny because I didn't even realize I did it to her until she started doing it to me.)

Anyway I could go on and on about her... and probably do all the time. It's so hard with how fast they are learning and growing you just want to be able to pause and save everything that is happening and it seems like time is just flying and some of these memories are slipping through my fingers (and memory).

And tonight while I was holding my sweet girl I thought my time with my baby Emery is almost over forever. And even though I love all of her new stages, I already am so excited to be my one year old Emery's mom but for some reason tonight I feel both a little proud and excited for the future and a little sad because a fun wonderful special chapter in my life (and Emery's) seems like it's closing.

Blake's cousin, Missy is actually in labor right at this very second so we are at their house and are so happy that we get to be a part of this fun experience but (I don't have very many pictures) and between all of the busyness of getting everyone into bed I only got to squeeze my Emery for a minute and I'm feeling like this year is going to end about the same way that it has passed- too darn fast.

So hopefully during this Christmas break I can catch up on the blog and save a few important memories from our lightening speed fast wonderful first year of being parents but for now I think I'm going to need to go hold and kiss and stare at my beautiful baby girl before my heart breaks a little in a couple of hours and she is not a "something month old" anymore.

I'll let you know what it's like on the other side of one year old motherhood tomorrow. Wish me luck. :)

Oh The Weepies

There are a handful of things in this blog post that might just be able to be entitled The Weepies.. quite literally.
Weepies as in I have the Weepies, we saw The Weepies, I WANT to be Weepie.. etc.

Lately I have been taking all of my pictures on my iPhone..um because it's easy and you get more pictures, right? Wrong.. wrong I tell you!

Blake was trying to be nice and fix one of my apps and decided to restore my phone and =
 ALL of my pictures from the last couple of months are gone.
I am so sick about it I can not begin to even explain.. I could probably allow myself to be pretty solidly depressed for at least a month. at least.

But seriously it's no ones fault.. my restore/back up on my phone really dropped the ball for me..
So I'm trying to not think about it.. we will just ignore the fact that my next few blogs will be pretty sparse on pictures
 (and the fact that I will probably be crying because of this while I am writing them) and move on.

If only I was on top of my blogging.. I would have had all of those pictures, right?

Anyway can we go back and address the surreal fact that we SAW the Weepies!
This was huge for us.. we literally started saving our pennies when we found out they were going to be in Austin (and by we I mean, I was sneakily saving our pennies so I could surprise Blake with the tickets at Easter time so we had a few months to be excited)

When Blake and I first met we were definitely bonded over our music and the fact that we liked similar things that weren't super common.. and one of our all time favorite long standing bands to listen to together (if not just our favorite) is still the Weepies!

So let me just repeat.. this was big for us.

My heart still drops at these pictures (thank goodness I took a few with our big camera) it was incredible.

 It was actually my first real concert and it really did feel pretty magical since I had been listening to some of the songs they were singing for the past probably 8 years.. and there they were!
In front of me, giving me goose bumps and (thanks to one of our sweet friends watching Emery) I was able to just sit and relax and be grateful for where we were in our life at that moment.

Now you may not believe that I was actually there due to lack of photographical evidence.. and I may not blame you.
But I assure you somewhere in the realms of space it existed at some point.. and so did many more[probably better pictures] than these.

And Blake is really fortunate that last minute I decided to snap this picture of his cute beardless face so that we will at least have proof that he existed here.
& Lets be honest.. he probably is a little indifferent about his picture being taken here.. but I'm grateful we captured at least something.

And even though this is a short little blurb with sparse pictures of a band you may not recognize.. this marks maybe our 3rd date night without our little Emery girl and a really special night for us.

It's so funny where life ends up taking you, and how it may not be where you would have thought in a million years- but on nights like these
 {when I'm picturing how happy my 17 year old self would be if she could see what I was doing now}

 I just have so much gratitude and am so thankful for what a blessing these experiences are and I wouldn't change a thing.
 

Our Happy Place

I just keep thinking I'm pretty sure my happy place is just anywhere I can be with these two..

I have been feeling so much gratitude and love for them lately, even when we are just lounging around playing together at home.

 BUT I have to say in this little family, the Zoo definitely doesn't hurt.

There is something so fun about spending our Saturday mornings there when we get a chance and being around all of the animals.

Now if I could have just gotten my pet fish to show this much enthusiasm about breakfast time maybe we would be, very entry level fish owning, pet owners today.

They were absolutely crazy jumping all over each other.. 

& Somehow I think that I might have been enjoying the wild fish commotion as much as they were enjoying being fed.

It's so fun watching Emery gradually be more and more excited and aware of what's going on..

I'm not sure if she was more excited about the hippo or her picture being taken (or maybe it was those beautiful colored fish in there with the hippo) but either way we were loving the enthusiasm.

And if you can spot the bear in this picture I think that you too have had some zoo practice, it took us a minute to find him but I was laughing. It's the best when the animals are out and climbing around.

We also saw a baby monkey hanging from it's momma's tail, and I realized that no matter what species you are being a mom is work. & of course I took several pictures of it and then later realized I had forgotten to put the memory card in our camera! Thank goodness for iPhone pictures.

And in this picture you can experience our poor sweet little interested in touching/grabbing everything Emery learning her first little lesson on personal space..

If you can't tell by the fact that this bird looks like he has been battling other birds previously,

 he took his food very seriously.

Our poor baby girl just isn't used to everyone not absolutely loving on her.. bless her little heart.

He didn't hurt her I think it just surprised her, but lesson learned for all of us..

Emery probably just isn't quite ready to be a zoo keeper yet.

We will keep working on it though, and for now we are just hoping the zoo and family time is filling the void in our little Emery's animal loving life left by not having a real live pet in our home.

5 Month Old Emery

Oh this girl.

  

I like her so much.

And if I was to make a bet, I would say that Blake was pretty fond of her too.

She really is our absolute light of our lives.

I am a little bit behind.. but 5 months was when I remember life starting to get a little easier.

Emery started being able to sit up on her own, of course you had to prop her into sitting position, but then she could stay sitting for about as long as she wanted and it was awesome.

She's also always really loved standing and even could hold herself standing on the couch starting this month if you stood behind her. 

& She started scooting around (kind of like an inch worm), and with rolling and scooting combined seemed to basically get where ever she wanted to towards the end of her fifth month.

This was her last month in the carrier while we shopped.. definitely bittersweet.

And her first month with solids..

{oh boy solids. everyone seems to have quite an opion with solids.. but we eventually gave in to our doctor suggesting we start them and she was definitely ready, never spit her food out and with the exception of green beans seemed really happy with it}

This girl really started making us laugh, this is the probably the month that she became a lot more interactive and her personality seemed even stronger.

 Emery and I started doing yoga together (alot less relaxing, but oh so cute) and story and singing classes and other fun things and she really still is so much fun for me,

 Emery is definitely my little sidekick and makes me love love love being mom.

 

 5 month Emery, even though she never has been a very good napper, really was a joy.

And even though every stage has fun things about it, it's so fun when they start to really experience the world and enjoy things and interact with you.

We are so blessed to have this perfect wonderful little girl in our lives

(please note her rings caught between her toes-those sweet toes kill me)

Blake and I sure love our Emery girl to the moon and back,

(besides sleep through the night) I don't know what we ever did without her.



And Guess Who is Finally Back!

I would take a couple of guesses here as correct seeing as we have been a little MIA for a while..

So I am back.. taking a little breather from this crazy life to catch up a little bit.. I've noticed that my last blog was very closely correlated with the time in our lives right before Emery got pretty quick at moving. She has been keeping me on my toes to say the least! But we are FINALLY getting the hang of this napping business so we will see if that helps me be a little better at preserving/sharing life.

 (and rested.. oh how I have taken sleep for granted in my life)

But anyway the real answer and purpose of my being here today documenting is.. 

MY BROTHER!

[please insert some cheering and jumping and clapping and fist pumping]

 

Mitch has been in Argentina serving a mission for our church for the past a little over two years and holy smokes I can't tell you how proud I've been of him, but boy we have missed this guy!

 

And I can't tell you what a blessing it was to be able to make it to New Mexico in time for Mitch to get here..

Besides for the fact that survival of traveling 15 hours with a newborn seems to be a miracle all in itself, schedules while trying to become a grown up seem to be crazy and kind of hard ot coordinate.

But Blake is awesome and negotiated this week with his job before he took it,

So here we are after a few minor hiccups with my favorite people.

After we just about had everything ready to go to the airport and were starting to get ready to go

Mitch called and his first flight had run late so he'd missed his connecting flight into our home town...  

So Emery, and all of our hearts, had to wait a little bit longer, seeing as plan B seemed to be a trip in what just about was the middle of no where..

 

And in the middle of no where existed what I'm sure had to be the smallest public airport in human existence.

Seriously in these two pictures you can see the entire airport.

And after we waited and waited all by ourselves we were taking bets on if Mitch was going to show up by himself on a crop duster.

{I mean possibly even flying the crop duster, judging from how many people seemed to be wanting to end up in this airport!}

So we couldn't believe our eyes when there was our missionary coming off of a real live Airplane.. and HOME.. {sort of} haha

 

 

And even though I definitely think it took some adjusting back to America for him,

There is no where in the world I would have rather been than there hearing about all of his adventures and just getting to be able to enjoy hearing my brother's voice again.

And even though it felt like a quick little trip- I think some time with these guys was probably just what the doctor ordered.

{Oh Those Cheeks. I pray I will never forget those kissable wonderful soft squishy cheeks.}

 

We spent the week catching up on a little R & R believe it or not..

Got to be in New Mexico to celebrate my Dad's 50th Birthday..

 

{can I just re insert the believe it or not.. how is time flying so fast.}

 

 

And spent time with the people that I love.

 

Family is a pretty wonderful thing.