Seven Months...WOW!

I CANNOT believe this precious blessing has already been in our lives for 7 months! But then, I can't imagine life without her, either! Aside from her extreme contempt for sleep, she is a really good, really happy baby. We are so lucky!
She has been falling asleep pretty easily and staying asleep (at least at night time, I can't say the same for naps) for a while, until recently. For the last few nights, she has decided to wake up 2 or 3 times. Two nights ago, she awoke for the second time in a 2 hour period and I went in there frustrated and perplexed. I picked her up, and as usual, she quit crying immediately. I sat in my well loved glider in the nursery and began to rock her...all the while, thinking "Good grief!, Why won't this child just sleep?!" As I hummed Amazing Grace to her, I was hit with a sudden, overwhelming feeling of love for her. I was now thinking not about my frustrations, but about my indescribable gratefulness for this little being in my arms. As frustrating as the sleep problems are...how much time in the short span of my life will I get to hold this little princess? How long will she even be small enough to hold and rock? How long will she let me kiss her head over and over as I tell her how much I love her? God had calmed my spirit and given me the much needed perspective I needed. I then gladly rocked her for the next 10 to 15 minutes with tears in my eyes, a little sad to put her down once she was asleep. These moments are so fleeting and I pray I remember to cherish as many of them as I possibly can!
We have grown to really love the way her personality is "growing and glowing" as my aunt put it.
Here are some of the blessings we are counting this month:

* She can now sit up on her own, even if just for a minute or two, or until she gets too excited about your praises and knocks herself down. :)

* She is eating solids, not just breast milk anymore. (By the way, she is already very opinionated...she LOVES carrots, squash, and prunes, but HATES peas, and can take or leave the cereal.)

* She can find the pacifier (or "nu nu" as we like to call it), and get it back in her mouth on her own. This is a much bigger deal than it sounds! :)

* She reaches for the dogs and grins from ear to ear, all the while squealing, when they come close enough to pet.

* She can not only lie on her back, somewhat unattended (she would have NONE of this a month or so ago!), but she can roll over onto her tummy. She then lifts up and looks at you like "DID YOU SEE THAT? WAS THAT NOT AWESOME?!"...very cute!

* Even better, she can lie on her tummy now for more than 20 seconds without screaming her head off!

There are others, I am certain, but it is getting late, and my brain turns to moosh at about this time of night, and I shall return to the blog another day. I just needed to express how grateful I am. Have I mentioned how much I love being a mommy? How much Kris enjoys being a daddy? What an indescribable miracle!!!

Emmalyn's Happy Noises

Emmalyn loves to hear herself squeal a lot recently, and I managed to capture it with my camera yesterday...she is so funny! She is sitting in her high chair for one of the first times, and I think she gets a kick out of it! She seems to be getting so big!

Family is everything!

My dear sister got to visit with her 5 beautiful children last weekend, and we had a blast! I got all but one niece in a picture, I don't know how I missed her. Sorry, R! Emmalyn loved having all her cousins here to love on her and spoil her with attention! We also went to a birthday party for a good friend of mine, they seem to have fun. They all live about 4 hours away from me, and I so wish they were closer! My sister is 10 years older, and an experienced AWESOME mom, so I really wish I had her expertise around more often. :) I just wanted to share some great photos and tell the world how abundantly I am blessed with an amazing family. My sister is a generous, loving, intelligent, beautiful woman that I am not only lucky to call my sister, but my best friend! And the children she is raising are turning out to be just as incredible! I am one lucky aunt!

Posting Photos Online

I have been playing online today, trying to learn how to post photos on Picasa, an online photo sharing site. I think I have it figured out, and have posted some recent photos of Emmalyn there. Here is the link to the site: http://picasaweb.google.com/MammaSpell
Save it to your favorites...I will try to post photos there regularly! :)

Emmalyn's first swim

I figured out how to get a YouTube video directly on the blog!

We went to a birthday party this weekend, and we put Emmalyn in a baby pool to see how she would like it. It turned out, she had a blast! :) I apologize for the goofy commentary by me, but listen closely, the best part was her squealing. :)
She is really fun these days, lots of personality! How awesome is being a parent! :)

Welcome back

I know it has been forever...I think I had resigned the blogging idea, not to do it anymore. But, I have recently been so overwhelmed with how much Emmalyn is changing and growing...I want to share it. (Not to mention the friends and family that a badgering me.)

Emmalyn is now 6 months old...can you believe it?! Her "Half Birthday" was this past Tuesday. It kind of makes me sad. I was just getting used to the idea that I had a newborn...and she is longer considered that. I guess in my mind, I see babies that are 0 to 6 months and "tiny", and 6 to 12 months as big babies. I know it sounds silly, but I am a little sad to see the "tiny" days behind us. Gone are the day where she was just a little baby lump...not able to do ANYTHING for herself, relying on me for EVERYTHING. Now she can do a little for herself. She can grasp anything (and does, right out of your hands:) and hold onto it. She can sit up assisted very well. She can blow "raspberries" and squeal with the best of them. (That is REALLY cute!) She smiles a LOT. That litterally warms my heart every time...especially when she does it upon me or Kris entering a room! All of this is so exciting and I am so blessed to be able to stay at home to cherish every moment with her.

Speaking of moments with her...she is getting hungry. I will try to write more later, I promise.