Two Weeks Worth

As of yesterday, Emersyn officially has 2 weeks worth of experience with the whole walking thing. We're quickly learning that walking is good and bad for us... On one hand, it's great that Bird is learning and growing and developing; it's great that she's able to do things herself and is showing some independence. On the other hand, it's not so great when she just decides to dive out of your arms because she wants to walk right then, or when she refuses to go anywhere that you're trying to get her to go, or when she "insists" on walking in a place that you'd rather not have her on the ground; it's not so great when she shows her independence at all the wrong times or throws a fit when you pick her up so that she doesn't get wrapped up in the middle of the dogs wrestling even though she so desparately wants to be there. Still, in just 2 weeks, Emersyn has already improved sooo much!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQpdl6kh4Ls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrLDLbnXtu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Co_BjjJdA

Aussie

One of my wonderful instructors just came back from Australia, and brought a little present back for Emersyn!! Yeah, I know, as sweet and thoughtful as the majority of my instructors are, I still wouldn't have ever imagined anyone would think of Emersyn while they were traveling. Let's just say that Emersyn has quite the little extended family and we are soooo lucky to have that! Anyways, Sheryl found the cutest Aussie Koala for Bird...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC15g0lLNb8
Ok, so the pictures are mostly blurry because Emersyn kept giving the Koala kisses and hugs and then showing him off to Daddy and the puppies and the camera... Plus she kept startling herself by accidently pushing the little button and making the Koala talk, which would only make her more "move-y" in trying to find out who's talking! But you can tell, she kind of likes him. THANK YOU SHERYL!!!

Walking & Dog Kisses

Emersyn is getting really good at walking now. She's much more stable and controlled, the problem now is trying to encourage her to do it a lot while still keeping her contained... Well, that, and trying to catch her walking on video! But, under the guise of getting her dog, I was able to catch a little bit. And, also of Bird getting her dog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRyHe4y4_OE
Yeah, so this dog is a Build-a-Bear that my dad and Cameron made Emersyn when she was just a couple months old. Just recently, Emersyn "discovered" the dog - affectionately named Beggar just like my favorite bear - and just loves him. She tries to walk with him sometimes, but the thing is almost the same size as her so it's more funny and dangerous than actually productive. Still, you can see that Bird is kind of loving to her Beggar... kisses and all.

New Uploads

I know you're all just dying for more Emersyn, (let me have my little fantasy) so here's some more pictures and videos...

Emersyn is getting really great at walking. She still prefers to cruise along a wall or hold onto your hand, but it's just incredible how steady and calm and, well, good that she's gotten already. It's only been a little over a week since she took her first steps, but it still seems like our baby should be practicing sitting up much less walking so well! We're still trying to catch her improved walking on camera, but as always, Bird is too smart for us and continues to completely stop whatever she's doing the second she sees a camera.

I also forgot the camera when Cameron, Chris and I went to the game on Sunday. So, unfortunately, we did't get a single picture of the game or Cameron. Bummer.

Anyways... Happy Viewing! :)

20th - We got Emersyn a big bucket for her toys, but Emersyn decided that the bucket itself was a toy. She kept trying to get in it, then she'd bounce up and down and turn around in side it. It was pretty funny. We flipped it over, and Emersyn thought the giant drum was just the best thing ever... well, that is, besides "running" around it and then diving onto the dog bed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgLo0TnJU-0

A few cute pictures of Emersyn playing...
She loves to walk around her microphone singing and dancing to the music. Climbing on Daddy (and really anything that she can) is another one of Bird's favorite things... She got this kitchen from Aunt Chelsea and Uncle Jimmy when Audrey got to big for it. And so far, she's into the sink and the blender, but hasn't quite shown any interest in the playing house aspect of it.Loving DaddyWe're really starting to get into sharing (even if we haven't quite got the idea of letting go of whatever we're sharing) Looking for a bunny in the back yard with Cuya. Playing with the kitchen again... "having tea"This is how Emersyn cuddles... throwing herself on top of you, usually smacking you in the face with whatever she's holding onto Talking on the phone with Daddy. While she was playing with Daddy's phone (and her own at times), Emersyn accidently hit a few buttons and ended up getting some ring tones. Chris took the phone back so she couldn't actually do anything, but kept playing different ring tones for her since Emersyn loves music so much... Well, as you can see here, Bird really liked this rocking ring tone! LOL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iWhh9y6-zE
All the pictures and more from the month are on our snapfish --- http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4352919009/a=77264276_77264276/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

It's History

Baltimore is a city of legends in the sports arena... From the Babe's home town to Hall of Famers, we're a city steep in sports goodness!

Yesterday, Baltimore made another sports milestone for the history books. The Baltimore Mariners, won the AIFA Championship. As if taking the American Indoor Football Association's "super bowl"title wasn't enough, the Mariners set the first ever undefeated season. Still more, they are the first AIFA team to have a shut out, they set the league record for the greatest win deficit and the most points scored... But, perhaps more importantly for the city as a whole, thier win yesterday makes Baltimore the first ever city to have a championship in every football league! The Colts played Super Bowl III in Miami and returned to Miami for their Super Bowl V win over the Dallas Cowboys. The Baltimore Stars won the 1985 USFL championship in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Baltimore Stallions won the 83rd Grey Cup in
the CFL, and, more recently the Baltimore Ravens won Super Bowl XXXV! Now, we get to add the AIFA Championship to the incredible history!!

To make things even better, we got to witness it live! Oh yeah!! Chris and I took Cameron to the 1st Mariner Arena yesterday afternoon to watch history being written. I'll admit, Cameron wasn't too into it at parts and I was totally confused at parts and even Chris was scratching his head a time or two. But it was really awesome to be a part of something so great. Cameron asked to leave somewhere about the middle of the first quarter; it was a little loud and overpowering, plus the opening festivities took quite a while. (They literally introduced every player on the team, each coach, and I'm pretty sure even the water boy's assistant got to be announced.) We convinced him to stay a few more minutes, and then went to look for the souvineer shop on our way out just before the second quarter got started. Luckily, Cameron caught sight of some game balls and a couple boys that had one, so when we walked by the stand selling them he was super happy. The girl told us that after the game you can down on the field and the players will sign the ball for us, so Cameron insisted that we stay and get the autographs. We went back to our seats just before half time, where Cameron's interest peaked and he started getting into the game (and the dancing cheerleaders) a lot more. Although it's hard to explain to a 5 year old how football works and the penalities - try explaining off sides when you have to define "the line", "the snap", "the count", and so on - Cameron quickly started partaking in the yelling at the refs for a missed facemask call and to "knock 'em down" when our guy began marching up the field so that "he knew to knock them guys down so he could run farther"!

It was a really cool game to watch and something special to be there for this historic moment. As promised, after the game and the awarding of the trophy, we made our way down to the field to see the players. Cameron about died when he realized that "going down to the field" actually meant "going down the field that the game was really played on"! I guess as an adult, you just take some things for granted, and it's surprisingly fun to see something through a child's eyes. It seemed to make it that much more special for Chris and I, as well as the couple people around us who overheard and seemed to murmur to each other that it was "kind of cool when you think about it". The outgoing child that he normally is, Cameron totally froze and stared in awe at each player that signed his ball. The guy would say "hey buddy what's your name" and Cameron would reply with something close to "ccca-n" if any sound came out at all. The kicker was really great, getting down to Cameron's level and trying to talk to him, but it was received with a more dropped jaw and a little grunt with the stare. A couple times Chris or I had to actually take the ball from the player because Cameron just kind of stood there marveling at the poor guy with the ball outstretched between them. Again, it was oddly refreshing to see the world and these gigantic sports heros through Cameron's eyes.

After a few signatures, we were able to squeeze our way out of the crowd and Cameron started coming around. He like the kicker even though he didn't ever punt (another detail that had to be explained - kicking, punting, kick off, field goal, extra point and their differences) and that the players were all really big and when he grows up he's going to have lots of those rings that the really big guy was wearing. Then he tried (again) to figure out what the big hairy thing was (the mascot) and what a mascot was (a costume of the team symbol) and what the team symbol was (a Mariner) and what a Mariner was (no clue) and do they play soccer here because he wants to see soccer even though he had fun and would come back if he had to. Which is much more polite than we expected, and we both agreed that it might have been a little much with all the rules and festivities and the typical football pause in action for a kid to really "get" but we would definitely like to take him to more events.

Emersyn had a great evening with Maw Maw, and both of them seemed thrilled to have had the time together all by themselves. I'm still not that comfortable being away from Emersyn for that long besides for work, but my mom took all my notes and lists and "in case of emergency" sheets taped to the counter very well. Emersyn on the other hand, seemed completely unphased by my leaving and my return... although, after a couple minutes of holding her when we got home, I did get a nice little nuzzle and a couple good slaps to the eye so apparently Bird was happy to have her mommy back. ;) All in all, it was a very good time for everyone.

Pictures are In

Emersyn's 11 month pictures came in early (at Sears - on time at Penney's)... Also, just a quick update on the whole teething nightmare - Emersyn officially has cut 2 molars. They're huge. They're the top ones too. It also looks like she's got at least 2 more teeth on the bottom right that are about to cut through any day now. Judging by how much she chews on her fingers, and how far in her mouth they go, Emersyn is in full tooth-factory-mode though. We're enjoying this little "normal" and "calm" time, but it looks like we'll be back in the midst of teething hell soon. I'd like to think of teething as a tornado or hurricane - horrible, fast, rough, tear enducing, pain and then almost back to the way it was before the giant and fast attack, only for the eye of the storm to pass and you're thrown back into the horrors of teething again. Yeah... And on that note, here's the fabulous and silly pictures from Emersyn's 11 months!! (Can you believe that she'll be ONE YEAR old in just a couple short weeks?!?!)
At JCP... Chris calls this Emersyn's School Picture

The Harley Power Wheels... Emersyn was trying her best to get on it

Little Red White & Blue for July

This was basically the only way to get Emersyn to sit still for a second

On to Sears... isn't this such a little mischevious look?!?!

Staring at the giant rubber duck. It was the only thing that would get her attention.

The Lunge-Crawl in action. Guess what she was going for... Did you say that giant rubber duck? Yeah...

The grown up stool worked at keeping Emersyn still for a about 3.9 seconds

And then we tried the column in hopes that she'd bang on it or at least take a few seconds to figure out how to go around it. It was a good theory but...

It ended up with her getting around it much quicker than we expected and also heading straight for the camera resulting in a few very, close up pictures.

Then it was some 4th of July pictures

Emersyn's signature shot... LOL!

Thanks to Aunt Shannon for the super cute outfit!!

And since our photographer takes advantage of our happy child to try new things...

Hehehe... You can't help but LOVE this "Old Man's Bitter Beer" face!

All these and more everyday pictures from July on snapfish... Happy Viewing!
http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3946255009/a=77264276_77264276/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Sunday Sunday Sunday

Yesterday we got to check off one more room on our list of to-do's at the house... Although eventually we really want built-ins around the fireplace in the den/library/formal-living-room-that-we-plan-on-using-as-almost-anything-but/office, our time and budget just doesn't allow for that just yet. We did get some great bookshelves from Ikea though, and they'll work great for a while. We also painted it so that it matches the rest of the first floor... Looks fantastic and sooooo much brighter and fresher than it did before. I know I still need to get some pictures of the house to post, but there always seems to be something else that's taking precident whenever I think about it... or, you know, I'm in the middle of doing something like posting an update when I realize that I still haven't posted any update pictures of the house... ;)

Anyways, as our Sunday routine, we headed over to my parents' house today to hang out and get some pool time. Emersyn's teeth are coming in full force (you can actually see two new ones poking out in the back now), but the pool and Cameron always make her happy! Unfortunately, it was short lived as the tiredness and exhaustion mixed with the teething won out over playing in the water. Still, there was some very cute Cameron-Emersyn silliness in the meantime! I have to say, it really never ceases to amaze me how wonderful Cameron is with her... I won't lie and say that he doesn't ever have those moments when he's begging us to take her home so he can do something or complaining about a random toy being too loud for the tv, but that child is soooo protective and loving to Emersyn that it would bring a tear to your eye to see it!

Bruiser & Walker

First, let me just say that Emersyn's a bruiser... She's pretty fearless, and now her new thing is to climb and stand on everything. We've been slowly illiminating toys from her MMA cage because she insists on standing on top of them no matter how wobbly her balance is. So it shouldn't have been a surprise when I picked her up on Friday to find out that she took a dive off one of the foamy-padded-toy-mats that daycare has, only to land on a toy (that she was probably trying to get) and ending up with a huge bruise on her right cheek. Yeah, even on a face as gorgeous as Emersyn's, it still looks pretty rough... You can just see it with the flashfrom the camera in this picture, but it's hard to get a "good" shot of Emersyn these days.But now the important Friday moment... (insert drum roll here) Emersyn's first steps!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oMRzPLzhLU

Mind you, the video is a little shakey since this is about the 5th time that I made her do it... The first time I was so excited that I scared the hell out of her and it took a little bit of coaxing to get her to try again. Then I was so happy that she started getting really excited and I couldn't help but play the game a couple more times. So, Emersyn doesn't look quite as sturdy in the video as she is when she does decide to walk. Although it's only been a day-ish since she started, Emersyn still seems to prefer holding on to something and scooting along than walking on her own. But, she's officially taken her first steps!!http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4352919009/a=77264276_77264276/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Happy Birthday Michelle!!

Wishing you all the best on your special day. :)

Back In Business

After two horrible nights, we are back in the business of sleep!! Woo hoo!! And last night was even better than before... although, with such rough nights, my memory has already lapsed into that hazy, vintage kind of thinking in reference to how sleep used to feel. Never the less, last night wasn't looking so good when we started. Emersyn took a lot greater pleasure than normal in abusing Mommy and in her efforts to get the string for the blinds, which is her sole mission in life at bedtime since... well, since she first found it not long after we moved... but anyways, the enjoyment factor of headbutting, pinching, biting and fighting me was much higher last night than it normally is. Chris was out with the dogs for their evening walk, so lucky for him, he couldn't come up and take over when I desparately called for it to be his turn... By the time he made it up to relieve me of the violent Mommy-hate-crime, Emersyn was in full sweet and loving mode, all curled up and snuggling nicely in my arms. Apparently, doing said abuse really takes it out of you, because I put Bird in her bed about a minute after 8 and Chris went in to wake up her about quarter after 6 this morning. I will admit that I sent him in because of the fear of what I'd walk in on... after all, even on a full night's sleep, it's not like Emersyn not to move around a bit and making noise even though she's not waking up at all. But, of course, everything was fine and my Morning Bird was all smiles after Daddy stopped wrestling her shirt on her and she was allowed to hug Mommy. So, fingers crossed, we're totally back to sleeping all night long... or, at least, for another week. I'd take a week of this, if that's the max.

Nice While It Lasted

Apparently one full week of sleeping totally through the night is all our family can handle... After a whole entire week's worth of full night sleeps, Emersyn wasn't having anything to do with it last night. She was up twice. Not like stirring twice, but like full blown wide awake up twice. Even after a bottle, there was no sleeping. There was a lot of giggling mixed with a lot of wrestling the blankets... all done by Emersyn. There was also quite a bit of huffing and puffing, done by Mommy and Daddy. There was not much sleeping though. Not by any person or pet in our house last night. It was really, really nice while it lasted... I had forgotten how much I enjoyed sleeping.

Big Water Bird

Today, my baby is officially 11 months old. ELVEN MONTHS! It's so depressing that 11 months have gone by so fast and I feel like I still missed so much of Emersyn's "babyhood". I know it's silly. Trust me. I tell myself that all the time. But I still feel kind of jip-ed out of some time with my baby.

But anyways, Emersyn is just becoming such an amazing little person. She's so full of personality and independence and... well, HER. I know I say it every month, but she really is this magical little person that just amazes me.

Yesterday, after doing a ton of pictures, we went to my parents' house for our usual-but-forgotten-lately-routine-Sunday. With so much going on - moving, out of town trips on all sides, pictures taking up a good part of the day - we've missed a few Sundays of hanging out. But, it was all back to normal yesterday.

Cameron and my mom were already in the pool when we got there, of course. (My dad is traveling again and we just missed him.) With Emersyn already in her bathing suit, she all but jumped out of my arms and straight into the pool and to Cameron. For the rest of the afternoon, Emersyn just bounced between the big pool with Daddy and Cameron, and her pool where she had more freedom. It was a wonderful day. Hot, but a perfect Summer day with the family. I love having Cameron around and watching him and Emersyn play. Oh - and supposedly Emersyn took her first steps yesterday. I didn't see it and, surprise, surprise, she didn't do it again to save her life. But my mom and Chris both insist that Emersyn took a couple steps.