8 Months old ( Oct 4)

Our baby girl is growing and changing everyday! She has been getting more chatty lately and although I wouldn't say she really says much that we understand, she does know how to say pu pu for puppy. She loves pu pu and gets really excited every time that she sees one. She has started doing this machine gun cry/fuss that makes us laugh. It's like she is upset but just a little, her cry just comes out in little bursts of grunts. She is also learning that she can be loud and likes to happy scream.

She is getting good at getting around. She likes to crawl fast to keep up with the big kids. She is still pulling up on everything and has gotten more adventurous with cruising around the furniture.

 

 

I didn't get very good pictures for her 8 month mark but I got a few while her and I were waiting in the car one day.

Emerson still loves to eat. We haven't really found anything that she doesn't like yet. She has been doing great with table foods and when we are eating something that she can have she just eats with us. She is also starting to use a sippy cup at meals and loves getting little sips of water out of my straw cup.

Sleeping is still going poorly! She usually goes to bed around 9:30 and will sleep in her crib until 1-2 on a good night. She then nurses and then comes to bed with us. I guess I am not pushing the issue of sleeping in her own bed because she is our last and she is so darn snuggly!

Daisy Scouts

This summer Abby and I attended a meeting about Girl Scouts. Abby seemed really interested in doing Daisy scouts ( Daisy's is what you are in Kindergarten and 1st grade) and at the time it seemed like a good idea to volunteer to be a troop leader. I figured how hard could it really be to come up with activities and crafts for a small group of girls 1-2x a month. HA little did I know I was in for it! To make a long story short I got paired with another mom who had agreed to help with Daisy's that also leads a junior troop. A very involved and active junior troop. So my idea of planning crafts 1-2x a month became a super involved thing. She is very by the book so I got a crash course in running a parent information meeting where I had to give information on registration, financial aide, girl scout programs, the uniform, patches, badges (they are not the same thing!) etc. I also had to open a troop checking account, ask parents for dues and then figure out the best way to spend other parents money. Needless to say it was WAY more than I bargained for. My 1-2x a month also was squashed by the fact that I happened to have a troop of 14 girls that regularly attend meetings and the parents and girls

were enjoying it so much they wanted more. I guess it means we were doing something right but I realized I was in over my head as far as time commitments went. Luckily another mom was wanting to step in a co lead which was great, but here is where the MOM DRAMA starts. Heather the original helper felt pushed out of the position (which I think she felt like her position was to boss me around but never really intend to help with much) Laura luckily was a little more on the same page as I was and we work together well even though I have to rein her in sometimes and remind her I am not willing to do a big Girl Scout activity every week.

 

I have enjoyed planning activities and crafts for the girls to do and if I didn't have to worry about money and collecting money and more or less our troops lack of money things would be more fun but all in all I enjoy the meetings and planning. The mom drama is what I do not enjoy nor do I understand. It seems to be present in anything that moms do and I don't understand why we feel the need to make our lives harder. I think I finally got through to Heather when I cut her off on the phone one day and had to rather rudely tell her I don't do DRAMA! I don't talk behind peoples backs and I don't back stab and I don't participate in mom drama so if that is what she wanted to do I didn't need her anymore. If you know me at all, this is very unlike me. I am a peace keeper and saying this took a lot of courage and a fair amount of anger but it seems to have gotten better since then.

This was the first Girl Scout sponsored program that my troop attended. It was a Mind, Body and Soul program. We did Yoga, made journals, tried new healthy food and got to meet a lot of other girls. It was a little hectic with 14 5 year olds but I think everyone had fun.

Abby said she had a good time and that is why I am doing this so I am counting this as a success.

11 Years Together

 

What a difference 11 years makes! It seems like yesterday we were high school sweethearts living carefree lives. Robb pointed out something the other day that really hit home. As we turned 32 he said we have now spent more time knowing each other than not knowing each. We have had a great 11 years and have been through so much together! We have learned and grown from all of our experiences together. Here's to many more great years together. I couldn't ask for anyone better to go on this crazy ride that is our life.

Back To Center

Life has seemed a bit out of control and crazy lately! We can't seem to keep up with the basics that we need to that keep our household running and we feel like we are overbooked with stuff that doesn't really matter, We needed a day to spend with family and bring us back to center. We went to East Campus to just hang out for the day. Caleb had just got a new skateboard and wanted to try it out and everyone needed some room to run around. We choose to ignore the No Skateboarding signs and let Caleb goof around on his skateboard and the rest of us walked around. We found this really cool old tree and Robb, being the giant kid that he is, decided to show the boys how good he was at climbing trees

Emmy loves riding in her stroller and the weather was beautiful.

Caleb practicing his skateboard moves.

I made the kids take a picture in front of the old pay phone. They didn't have any idea of what it was and were pretty confused when we tried to explain it. We told them that when we were little we didn't always have a phone with us, that a phone was just something you kept in your house. They looked at us like we told them we used to have dinosaurs as pets. They really thought we were old after the phone booth incident!

After a stressful couple months of starting school again, me working close to full time and having another child in our family it always feels good to just spend an afternoon as a family just being together, No expectations of how things are going to go because that never works out anyway just having fun being together,