I feel so special!

I figured I was pretty much rambling and bragging about my daughter all by myself over here, but as it turns out, Jana actually reads my blog and likes it! :) She actually gave me an award! For me, can you believe it?! Thanks, Jana, I feel honored! :)

So, I thought I should pass it on to some of my favorite bloggers. I love all the the blogs I read (see list on the right), but there are a few that sort of stand out right now. :)

First, I pass this award on to Kristy. She is a dear friend from college, who I have reconnected with via the world of blogging. She also has a little girl a couple months younger than Emmalyn and is expecting a baby in April....we still have a lot in common! I love reading about her precious Tabitha and feel like I know her through her precious pictures and anecdotes Kristy shares, even though I have never had the privilege of meeting her in person.

Second, I give this award to Jessica. Even though I think she should update soon ;), I appreciate the purpose behind her blog. She created it to share her heart through her journey with Treyson. And has continued to share with us her heart, including stories about her 3 precious children, telling us what God is doing in her life, and involving us in Treyson's Purpose. I love you, Jess!

Thirdly, I present this award to another friend with the same name, Jessica. She is a fairly new friend, who I have honestly not gotten to connect with as much as I might like. I would like to get to know her better, and enjoy reading her blog to get a glimpse of her heart and of her family. :) I look forward to getting to know you better in person, too, Jessica! :)

So, there you have it...I do love all of my blogging friends, and would have given this to you all if allowed. :) I love that blogging allows us to get to know each other better, and gives us all an opportunity to share photos, stories, and thoughts that we probably wouldn't see otherwise. :)

Thanks again, Jana, love ya!!!

Valentine's Day Pictures

When we went to Sear's, we also took a few photos on a Valentine's background. The first photo was a surprise for Daddy, so I didn't want to share it until after he received it. :) But here are a few other photos of Emmalyn's Valentine's Day, 2009.

And one of the many tricks we tried to get Emmalyn to cooperate that day..."See! Even Tasha wants to have her picture taken!" :) :) :)

Her Valentine's was great...she received some fun candy and cards from her grandma and great grandma, and a bean bag chair to match her new room from her mommy and daddy. Mommy also bought her some things she knew she needed... pajamas and a new Backyardigans video. (I think the video was a little more for my sanity...so tired of the same one all the time! But, I am already tired of the new one, too!)

And Kris and I had a lovely date, complete with the beautiful roses he bought me!

A Little Update

Well, it has been a couple of weeks now since we started the toddler bed transition, and I have had a few of you ask me how it is going. WELL....I almost hate to jinx it by saying this, but it is finally going really well! For almost a week now (wow!), Emmalyn is going down drowsy, but awake...with NO TEARS!! :) :) :) This is true for naps and bedtime. After about the 2 week mark, she just all of a sudden quit crying. It's like she just "got it" finally and understood that her new room was still a safe place, where Mommy or Daddy would still eventually come back for her. lol!

I am still sort of frustrated though... She is waking up 2 to 4 times in the night, and trying to leave her room. At first, she was leaving her room. If it was still really dark, she would just stand in her doorway and cry out for me. If light out, she would come to our door and try to come in there with us. (Our door is slightly jammed and hard to open, so she just makes a lot of noise.) One morning, she even came to the computer and opened a dozen windows, and somehow managed to change the desktop picture!!!!! I couldn't believe it!
Well, we decided it was not safe for her to be able to "roam the house," so we bought a latch and she is now locked in her room from the outside. I worried that she would get into something dangerous, and what if there was a fire, and we couldn't find her in the house to get out quickly?!
So, now she is safely latched in, but she still wakes up 2 to 4 times every night and bangs on her door. I have been going in there and laying her back down, and she seems to go back to sleep pretty easily. But I can't, and am losing a lot of sleep! Aren't I supposed to get to sleep through the night more often before the baby comes?! She is also waking up a good hour earlier than she used to...I miss that hour! Not to mention, her naps are for some reason about half an hour to an hour shorter. This is also leaving her more tired during the day, and we have seen an increase in tantrums and poor behavior due to crankiness! I think I might start ignoring her when she is at her door. Maybe she will learn to just get back in her bed and go back to sleep on her own.

SO...all in all...it is easier because I am not listening to my poor baby scream and cry anymore. I am very thankful that it only lasted a couple of weeks! But, as anyone who really knows me understands, I really enjoy and appreciate sleep, and the deprivation of it leaves me pretty cranky myself! Maybe this will work itself out... :) :) :)

btw...thank you for the comments, suggestions, and words of encouragement you gave me the last time I "vented" about this! :) I truly appreciate my fellow mommy friends (and friends without babies!:) )!!!!!

Landscaping makes such a difference!

Micah's post about her beautiful landscaping has inspired me to share my Christmas present from the in-laws...

Being married to man whose parents own a nursery/landscaping business, you would think our yard would look awesome, right? Well, we have owned this house for 4½ years, and this is the first time it has really looked good. I didn't take the true before picture...before all the old stuff was ripped out because, well, it was too embarrassing! It honestly looked like nobody lived here...the weeds had overgrown the previously planted "landscaping" so much that they covered the windows, and frequently, the doorway! It was awful! But now, I can proudly invite people into my home and not worry that they will be eaten by the weed monsters as they try to enter! :) Here is what the house looked like right before the guys got started:
And now...here is what my home looks like today.

It will all look beautiful as the plants get bigger and start blooming in the spring! On the far left, the red bushes are azaleas, with a single trunk crape myrtle. In the back right corner (by the door) and in the center of the circle in the front right are knock-out roses. There are also bottle brush bushes that will have really pretty red blossoms along the front wall. And the pygmy date palm that is front and center will look really cool as it matures! (I honestly don't remember exactly what all the other plants are.) I can't wait to see what it all looks like a couple months from now! :) I am so excited!

How hard can it be?

*Note...if you are not a fan of the cry-it-out method, you may not agree with my post today. I'm sorry if it is offensive. Feel free to stop reading right now. But it seems to be the only method, in my opinion, that works for Emmalyn (eventually), so that is what is best for my family.

Apparently, transitioning from a crib to a bed is proving to be more difficult than we first thought. The first 4 nights were practically perfect. But, ever since night 5, this change has given us all a lot more sorrow! She woke up as I was putting her in her bed on night 5, and proceeded to scream (off and on) for the next 2 hours until she finally gave up and fell asleep. I tried laying on the floor next to her, but she just wanted to play peek-a-boo with me. So after 30 minutes, I left. And she screamed. I tried the Ferber method I did when she was 5-6 months old...going in there at increasing intervals (5 min, 10 min, 15 min...). Each time, I just put her back in her bed and with a monotone voice told her it was time to go to sleep. (Thanks Jessica S. for that suggestion!) Finally, at about 10:25 (we started this process at 8:30), Kris went in and sat next to her for about 10 minutes, and she fell asleep. I guess she was too exhausted at this point to continue to play peek-a-boo!

Night 6 was fine...she fell asleep in my arms (in the rocking chair), and stayed asleep as I put her down.

Nights 7 and 8...VERY similar to night 5 described above. But Monday night I intentionally put her down awake b/c I think that is the problem. She needs to learn to put herself to sleep, right? If I always try to rock her to sleep...she will frequently not fall asleep or wake as I put her down...and she will never learn how to fall asleep on her own.

Last night (night 9), I put her down drowsy and she somehow managed not to fuss at all, and fell asleep! :) But, this was after a nap time routine that consisted of an hour and 20 minutes of crying to get to sleep. (I was in there periodically...lest you think I actually just let her cry by herself for that long.) And after all that, she only slept for about an hour, when her nap is usually 2 hours. She was exhausted all day yesterday. Oh...and she might have like the hum of the humidifier we put in her room last night. To make things worse, she seems to have a little cold.

As I write this, she is crying in her room and asking me to "stay." This is so hard! (I am only writing right now to try to focus on something other than my crying child.) Let's pray she learns to go to sleep on her own soon...for her sanity and my own! And stay asleep longer...I don't like that she gets out of her bed and can get out of her room, this makes me nervous. I need to get a doorknob cover for her side of the door...to keep her safely inside her room.

Oh, how I really wish I could just put her back in her crib! She was doing just fine going to sleep there. But I know going backwards will only add a lot more time to this process. And I certainly want to get this over with before the baby arrives. It will really frustrate me if she cries like this and wakes up a newborn! Not to mention...this would be a whole lot worse if I am sleep deprived from a newborn! I didn't even want to do this in the first place...I would have been perfectly content to keep her the "baby" in the crib a LOT longer! Please tell me this won't last too much longer! And I am open to any suggestions from my more experienced mommy friends!

***OH MY GOODNESS...as I finish this post, she is quiet! She has been quiet for about 8 minutes...after only 10 minutes of crying, and only having to go in there once to put her back in her bed! I hope I didn't just jinx the situation by telling you about it too soon! :) Let's just pray she sleeps for a while and actually takes a good nap! I will update next time! :)

Birthday Happenings

This weekend was Emmalyn's little birthday party, and a fun weekend with my best friend from Austin, Jen. The party was just immediate family and a few close friends, but it still seemed like a lot of people in my little house! :) It was a lot of fun! I think next year we will have to move to a bigger location!

We had a Backyardigans theme, and she was lovin' it! She asks to watch "Tasha" all the time, and was thrilled to see her whole house decorated with Tasha, Pablo, Uniqua, and the other yardigans! :) I didn't have as much luck taking pictures this time because I was busy, and she doesn't like to pose for pictures anymore! But here are the others I do have: Birthday Pictures

We also took her to Sears a few days before her birthday, and that was insane! She wouldn't pose or smile, and after about 30 or 45 minutes of trying, my mother in law and I gave up trying and rescheduled! ugh! So, she went back on Tuesday, and we finally got a few great pics. It was no small task! phew!

And we just had to get this one... it expressed just how "well" the day went! :)
More of the Sears Photo shoot HERE.

Movin' on up...

to a toddler bed!
She thinks she's hot stuff!

I can't believe my baby is two now, and she is in a new room, made especially for her! :) The old nursery needs to just stay a nursery, so the old office is now a very girly pink palace just right for her! Emmalyn absolutely loves it! Every time she walks by the room, she stops, gasps, and yells "pink!" excitedly. We have been telling her she will sleep in the big girl bed, and she has been nothing but excited about it for a couple of days.

So, she slept in the toddler bed for the first time Sunday night, and I think it went pretty well! I still rocked her to sleep (I just can't give that up yet...we BOTH love it!), and put her in her bed asleep. I know these times are limited, and I want to cherish what I have left. I checked our handy-dandy video monitor every couple of hours, and she was fine. But at 2:45a.m., she was curled up on the floor a few feet from the bed! So, I went in and put her back in her bed, and everything was fine from then on. She woke up crying at about 7:45...a little earlier than usual, but not by much. She never wakes up crying, but I think she just might have been confused as to where she was waking up. :) And last night was just as seamless...I hope it stays this way. I don't know why, but I have anxiety about her being in that bed, and I hope it passes quickly. She sure does look adorable in it! :)

My little Sleeping Beauty: