DaDa

Emmy's starting to say dada. She's picking up on a lot of things lately. She reaches her arms out for us to pick her up and knows what baba means. She's also starting to make clicking noises with her tongue. Smart little cookie!! :)

Such A Cutie!

On The Move

We have a crawler in our house! She became mobile last Sunday. She likes to play with the balls from one of her toys. When she crawls to go get them...she'll reach out to get the ball, but then knocks it farther away when she goes to grab one.

She sits by herself pretty well now and loves to sit by me when I put my make-up on.

The other day I was changing her on her changing table. She wasn't sitting still very well. Emmy likes to move around a lot and loves to kick her legs all over the place. It was getting difficult & frustrating trying to get her pants on. So I held her legs down for a few seconds. As I did this, she sat right up on her own. Talk about some great upper body strength for a little girl!

1st Valentine's Day

We started the day by taking a drive to the Mall of America. The traffic near the mall was rediculous. I'm not sure what was going on, but the parking ramps were full and people were parking in the overflow lots across the street. We decided it was best if we just didn't even attempt to go there.

Since we were in the area...I decided that I needed a few things at IKEA. I'm not sure if going there was any better. Brad said he was never going there again. It was pretty busy inside, but I've seen it worse. We were only there for about an hour.
After IKEA, we went to the Cheesecake Factory at the Southdale Mall in Edina. It was very busy here too. We circled the parking lot many times and then decided that I would just get out with Emmy at the front door of the Cheesecake Factory. When I was getting the stroller out of the car, this woman came up to me and asked me how I liked my Envoy. I said, I loved it and she said that it used to be hers and she recognized the license plate!!! We bought the truck at a dealership about an hour south of the twin cities...How ironic to run into the previous owner in the middle of the cities!!!
The Cheesecake Factory is where Brad took me on our first date. We got there at about 4:00 and the wait to get a table was about 60-80 minutes. We took a walk through the mall for about an hour and then our table was ready. We had a nice dinner and the food was very good. However, their portions are so large, we had tons of food left over for lunch the next day. By the time we were leaving dinner that night the wait to get a table was 3 1/2 hours long.

After dinner, we met Sarah, Richard, and Max in Richfield for a night of bowling. Brad's thinking about getting his own bowling ball now. We really don't bowl that much, so I don't know why he wants his own ball...he thinks he bowls better with Richard's nice ball, I guess. The airport bowl was a nice pick by Sarah & Richard. It has this small town bowling alley feel to it and it was not crowded at all.

A Wee One, But Not So Wee

I took Emmy to her 6 month check up last Friday. She weighs 15 lbs 10 oz and is 25 1/2 inches in length. She gained almost 3 lbs since her last check up. Her head is a bit bigger than the rest of her body. She is in the 25-50 percentile for height & weight, but her head is in the 75 %ile. We have to stretch the necks on all of her shirts to fit them over her head. She got four shots on Friday and one oral vaccine. She only cried when the shots went in. The nurse was really quick. Emmy stopped crying after they were all in. She did so good! Before the shots, I gave her some Tylenol...I bet that helped.
The doctor said to keep doing everything that we are doing and stay on the same schedule. She said Emmy was doing just great. Her next appointment is her 2nd flu shot next month and then after that it's her 9 month check up.

Friday night Emmy had a fever of 100.6. It's typical for her to run a fever after getting her shots. I gave her some more Tylenol. She was a bit restless and cranky. But, she was fine by morning.

Giggle Giggle

We had to post this video of Emmy eating last night. She thought it was hilarious when I played Peek-a-boo with her. I love how she's searching for me when I bend over each time.
Enjoy!

A Weekend at Home

Last weekend my "Check Engine Soon" light came on in my car. I thought that it had something to do with the gas that I had just put in my car. I had the key on, but the car was not running when I filled the tank. When I turned the car back on, the check engine came on. We had a neighbor take a look at my car and found out that it was going to cost us over $700 to fix. He fixed the problems quickly (fan clutch, water pump & serpentine belt). So, with that being said...we'll probably stay close to home for a little while now.
The weather was so nice on Friday. I think it got up to 43 degrees. We have a huge ice build up at the end of our driveway. It started to melt a little bit on Friday. Brad took advantage of the nice weather and chipped away at some of it. I even tried to help, but realized quickly that it was too much hard/heavy work.
Since we were staying in all weekend, I decided to open one of Emmy's toys. It's a toy that she can learn to sit/stand/play with. It has a little spiral slide that you drop little balls down. She loves to watch them slide down the shoot. She immediately tried to pull herself up, but couldn't quite make it all the way.
She is sitting for longer periods of time and will actually put her hand down to hold herself up. When she tries to crawl, she usually ends up going backwards or just rolls everywhere. Here's a cute picture of one of her favorite things to do.

Starting Early

Last Sunday we went over to our neighbor's house for a superbowl party. I can honestly say we have not watched one game this year, but we enjoyed watching the superbowl & the crazy commercials. Emmy was having fun playing on their floor with her toys and...

Routine

We have gotten into a good routine at home. I pick Emmy up from daycare by 5:00. She's always so happy when I pick her up at the end of the day. Dar does such a good job with her. Emmy loves the little kids at her daycare. The kids are good with her and Dar has taught the kids that they can only touch Emmy's feet. However, by them touching her feet, she gets tickled a lot. I came to daycare one day and the little boy was sitting there tickling Emmy.

After leaving daycare, Emmy will sometimes fall asleep by the time I get to the first stop light. I can always tell when she's about to fall asleep because she starts to make this weird sound. It's kind of like a little croaking sound. She'll do it for about a minute or so and then she crashes.

She takes a little nap and then it's time for dinner. She sits pretty well in her high chair, but if I don't get her food fast enough, she fusses. As soon as she takes a bite of food, she hums...as if it's her way of saying YUMMMMMMM.

After dinner, we have a little play time and by 7:30 or 8:00 it's bath time. She LOVES bath time. After her bath, she gets her jammies on and we read a book and put her to sleep. She's doing so well in her crib. The first night she screamed for about 30 minutes and finally fell asleep. Now she goes right to sleep by hugging my shirt that I leave for her in her crib.

She's working on eating puffs by herself. I put one down on her high chair and she'll grab it, but it doesn't quite get in her mouth. She likes it when I just give them to her. I don't always give in though.

She's learning how to use her sippy cup. I started by giving her an empty sippy cup for her to learn how to grab it. It instantly went to the mouth, so I added a little water. She got the hang of it pretty quick.

She's starting to get the crawling motions down. She will rock and move her legs a little. She reaches for things and will twist around, but doesn't quite get her butt up in the air yet. Brad was with her on Saturday night and he said that she was crawling a little bit.

She's sitting up a little, but only sits forward. She sits for a little bit and then gets top heavy and topples over.

She loves to jump in her little bouncer. She bounces and giggles at the same time. It's so funny. She really gets excited and will squeal. She squealed all over the grocery store the other day. So many people were coming over to us and saying how cute it was and that she was happy. I just hope she doesn't irritate people with her screech.

Our local hangout on Mondays (The Lookout) has dollar tacos & dollar beers and BINGO. I have yet to win. Brad has won, but usually bingo's with another person so he has to split it. The waitresses are getting to know Emmy and get excited when we bring her in. We're usually in there at least once a week since it's only a few blocks from our house. (Back in the day, we used to walk home from here a lot).

Our new thing to do on Thursdays is to go to the local meat raffle. Our first night we won twice. It costs $1 for each number. There are 30 numbers for each drawing. They spin the big wheel and you hope it lands on the number that you got to draw. So far we have won: steak, jumbo shrimp, a huge rack of ribs with bbq sauce, a porterhouse, scallops, sausages, and jerky. It's fun to get the "Mystery Bag." Everybody stops to see what you got and you have to yell out what you got in the bag and how much it was. Our first mystery bag was around $33 worth of meat & seafood. Pretty good for only spending a few bucks.

Great Grandpa Harley

On Friday Brad, Emmy and I drove to Willmar to visit my grandpa Harley. This was the first meeting for Emmy & her great grandpa. I called my dad to have him meet us all for lunch. My dad picked up my grandpa at the nursing home and then met us at McMillan's in Willmar. It was so nice to see grandpa Harley. We had such a nice visit. Emmy was so cute for them and she ate like a little bird with her mouth wide open ready for each bite. Grandpa Harley thought that it was funny.
Emmy also LOVES pickles. I let her suck on the pickle that came with my meal. I thought that she would have made the funniest face, but she didn't at all. She thought that they were great & just wanted more...this kid will eat ANYTHING! I was taking pictures during lunch and then I handed Emmy to my grandpa Harley to get a picture...then at the worst timing the battery on my camera went dead. I was so bummed!! My dad was taking pictures with his camera and they turned out so stink'n cute - I'll have to post them later when I get them from my dad.

Emmy was playing with her toys/rattles and I asked grandpa Harley what his favorite toy was as a child and he said, "Trucks." Go figure - he drove truck for many years.
After lunch, we went to the nursing home to see my grandpa's room and also visit my aunt LeAnn. She works at the same nursing home where my grandpa has recently moved to. How nice for them to be so close. Emmy did so well with Aunt LeAnn. She was so happy.

My dad takes my grandpa out for dinner every three weeks. My grandpa doesn't ever forget how long it has been and will remind my dad when the time comes near -- he would prefer that my dad came every week! He loves to go to the American Legion.
We didn't get to see grandpa's room - my dad had to take grandpa Harley to Cash Wise to get groceries for his little fridge that he has in his room. So, we had a nice visit with LeAnn and then...we got in the car and drove to Alexandria. We were all over Minnesota on Friday. We saw BOTH sides of the family in one day!!! My nephew, Tyler, had a diving meet in Alexandria on Friday evening. We weren't sure that he was going to be participating because he wasn't feeling well. Thursday night he told us he wasn't going to be diving, but by Friday morning he felt better and was then scheduled to dive. So we made the trip up to Alex and then stopped at Wal-mart to buy diapers, formula, jammies, toothbrushes, etc to stay overnight with Grandma Debbie & Papa Jerry.
There were nine schools participating in the tournament. Out of those nine teams (about 30 or so kids) Tyler placed 4th!!! He did very well and had a very good season this year! Way to go Tyler!! Next year he will be on Varsity??!!
After the meet, we met the team at Arby's. Brad even recognized one of the Monte coaches - Matt Olsen. Brad knew that he was from the Hoffman area, but couldn't quite place him. My mom, Linda, isn't shy so she went up to Matt and asked him if he was from the area. He said that he was and then my mom asked him if he knew the Krusemark name. His face lit up and then he came over and talked to us for a while - he mentioned that he used to party with Brad's brother back in high school.