We Can't Believe We Have a 1-Year-Old!!!

Our baby has gone from this: 6 lbs 12 oz and 19.5 inches long

To this:

19 lbs 8 oz and 28.5 inches

In just one year!

Emily has grown so much; we can't believe she is already a year old. Emily loves leading, dancing, and listening to music. She has developed such a cute personality. She loves to babble about everything. She can say mama, dada, tada, ah oh, mean, baby, n-n-no, boo, and much more. She even tries to say her own name sometimes but it comes out mamalee instead of Emily. She can also make animal noises such as chicken, kitty, puppy, sheep and others. She also does motorcycle noises. Emily makes the funniest faces too. My favorites are the kissy face, when she puckers up her lips, and the wow face, when she makes her mouth into a tiny O shape and her eyes get really big. She does the wow face when she hears a funny noise, when she hears dad come home from work, our when she sees something she likes. Emily loves to imitate everything we do and say. She is even developing a little bit of an attitude. The other night we were eating dinner and Emily kept dropping her food on the floor. Then she dropped her cup. I said, "EMILY!!" and without missing a beat she said, "MAMA!!" I couldn't stay mad because it was so funny! Emily loves walking now and is constantly going and getting into everything. Her favorite things are the kitchen cupboards and drawers. We got her her own kitchen play set and she loves playing with it; the little food and dishes are all over the house. Emily likes reading books, going for stroller rides, discovering new places in the house, and playing outside. She has always been a good baby and never cries unless she is tired. She is also getting very independent and wants to feed herself and turn the pages in the books we read.

Emily is definitely a joy and blessing in our lives. Happy Birthday, Emily!

Emily's 1st Birthday Party

Emily is ONE!! We had a really fun birthday party for Emily with all of our family. Russell and I made homemade Cafe Rio pork salads with Cafe Rio dressing for dinner. It was so good. At the party, we ate dinner, opened presents, and watched Emily eat/destroy her very own cake.

Here's the birthday girl!

I made Emily a Winnie-the-Pooh birthday cake. I was really worried this would not turn out well because I have never decorated a cake before but it was not as hard as I thought it would be. I think the cake turned out pretty good.

I also made Emily a little cake to eat by herself. I think this turned out pretty good too.

Emily loved her balloons. When Russell brought them in the house, she perked right up and had this "wow" look on her face. She loved hitting them. I was trying to put Emily down for a nap and it was hard because she kept sitting up to make sure the balloons were still there.

Well, the beautiful balloon bouquet did not last long unfortunately. We took them outside when the party started and we thought we tied them tightly to the high chair but, next thing we know, they were floating away never to be seen again. I almost teared up; I was so sad! I just kept looking at them wishing they would come back.

Everyone at the party in our backyard.

Emily opening presents. That party hat didn't stay on very long.

Opening presents takes a lot of concentration.

Birthday cake time!!! (This is the before picture)

Dig in Emily!! She wasn't quite sure about this. She kept looking at us to see if she would get in trouble for making a mess, but when she saw we weren't getting mad, she started digging in with both hands.

"Here Dad have some cake." Emily loves to share.

And the after picture; cake is officially destroyed!

Some of the presents Emily received.

We had a great time despite the balloon incident and running out of batteries and video for the cameras. Thanks everyone for coming to the party and supporting us.

RS Broadcast & "Create!" Display

On Saturday, I attended the Relief Society General Broadcast at my stake center. The broadcast was very good and the speakers were very inspiring. I especially enjoyed Sis. Thompson's talk about "Minding the Gaps in our Lives." We cannot let the gaps in our lives separate us from the Lord. The other talks were also good and made me want to strive to be a better visiting teacher.

Before the conference, our stake and ward RS presidencies put together a "Create!" open house for the sisters in our stake. The presidencies wanted each sister to have an opportunity to share her talents by displaying things they had "created." Then, throughout the day on Saturday, we were able to walk through the stake center and look at all of the displays. There were some pretty amazing things on display. I had no idea how talented the ladies in my stake were. There were awesome paintings, quilts, journals, scrapbooks, sewing projects, and much, much more. I also displayed some of the things I had made over the last couple years.

I displayed a pink checkered quilt and two receiving blankets and burp cloths I made for Emily and some bows and flowers I made to put in Emily's hair. I quilted a Halloween table runner, and sewed the pumpkin Halloween candy basket. I also painted the Frankenstein, reindeer, and lady bug out of patio paver bricks.


I had a lot of fun making these things. Sometimes, when I put my mind to it, I can be creative.

Birthday Project #2

Russell is really good at woodworking. He made our bed headboard, foot board, and frames, refinished an old dresser for Emily and now has made her two birthday gifts, her rocking chair and this stool. All of his projects have turned out so nicely. Nice work, Dear!

This stool is also a puzzle that will teach Emily to spell her name. We saw the stool in a magazine (see below) and we wanted to get it for Emily for her birthday. The only problem was it was $50! We decided that was a little expensive for our tight budget. We were bummed. Then we looked closer at the picture and we decided we could make one for less than $50 so we started making blueprints.
The first thing we did was decide what supplies we needed, so we took off to Lowe's. Of course all of the boards were warped so we had to get the least warped ones.

Then we made a stencil of the names we were going to do. We realized we had enough materials to make three stools so we made one for our two nephews, Paul and Alex, for Christmas.

Here is Russell working away on his project.

The tools we needed. (Just so you know, we used a lot more than one sheet of sand paper!)

After drawing on the stencil, Russell cut out the letters.

Then the sanding began!!!!

Keep sanding Russell!

After all of the cutting and sanding was done, we needed to paint and stain the pieces.

The painting supplies. This was my job.

This is after painting and staining.

Almost done, now we just have to put on the legs.

The finished product!! I think the stools turned out good! Well there were a few problems but we were able to fix them. Because the boards were warped, when Russell put the bottom board and legs on Emily's the top board (the one with her name) cracked. We were so mad but we were able to putty it and you can't really tell where the crack is now. Also, Emily's Y dipped down too low and when we drilled the hole for the leg, we drilled all the way through so we had to putty and repaint that too. The stool still turned out really good and you can't tell where the problems are.

All in all, we made three stools for the price of the one in the magazine.

We let Emily play with it when we finished and she loved it. But she liked to beat the pieces together and made a few dents in it so we took it away until her birthday. Hopefully she doesn't destroy our hard work!

Emily's First Steps!!

She finally did it! Emily has taken her first steps! We have been noticing that her balance has been getting better and she has been walking really well when she holds our hand so I bought her some trainer shoes to see if they would help her walk. We call these shoes the "magic shoes" because when I put them on she will take a few steps. It is so funny to watch her walk because she looks like a Frankenstein with her arms up. Emily will only walk to me; if I try and have her walk to anyone else, even Russell, she just falls or holds her feet up so she can't stand. She is still kind of scared to walk and wobbly but she is getting closer and will probably be walking by her birthday. Here are some fun videos.

"You Mean!"

Our little nephew Tyrel is turning two on Monday and he has one of the cutest personalities. His facial expressions, and the things he says and does just make you laugh. I think Tyrel's favorite saying is "You Mean!" Anytime someone is bugging him or he doesn't get his way, he says "You Mean!"

Emily loves Tyrel. She gets so excited when she sees him because he plays with her and makes her laugh. Here are a couple of pictures of them playing together:

After camping with the Hughes' and the rest of my family for a week in July, Emily had learned a few things from Tyrel. About a month ago, Emily was really sick. She had a fever for about three days and she threw up a few times. When I took her to the doctor, he said it was either a virus that would run its course or she was teething. (I think it was just teething because two teeth came in right after that.) After a few days, my mom came over to look at Emily's throat to see if it was sore. We had to hold the poor girl down to try and look down her throat and of course she HATED that. When we were done, we gave her a Popsicle and she said as plain as day, "YOU MEAN!!!" Oh my gosh, is was so funny. She even wrinkled up her nose and made the mean face as she said "You mean!" over and over. I wish I had recorded it because it was the first words she said besides mama, dada, and tada. Russell called me while she was saying this to see how she was doing and he heard her in the background and he thought it was Tyrel. He even asked me what Lacie was doing down.

I have tried to get Emily to say "You mean" again so I could record it but she won't; she will only say "moo meen." I could not believe how clearly she said it when she really meant it. The funny thing was that she looked right at my mom and said "You mean" like she knew my mom was the one that did the mean thing to her. What a smarty.

Zoom, Zoom!

I guess there is one good reason, and one reason only, for having a tile floor in our house. It is so Emily and entertain herself in her walker. She loves walking all over the house in that thing, but she refuses to walk without it. Here is a fun video of her zooming around in her walker.

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Free!

My sister, Lacie, called me on Tuesday and asked me if I wanted some peaches to make jam. I said, "Sure, but I don't know how to make jam." She told me it was way easy and gave me the recipe. So last night I was up until 3 am making peach jam! It really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be; the skinning and pitting the peaches is what took the longest. This box was half full of peaches. It took about 3 hours to skin and pit them. I am glad my sister told me how to blanch the peaches because after doing that the skins came right off. I would have been skinning forever if she hadn't taught me how to do that.

After skinning and mashing, I started cooking. I had enough peaches to do 3 1/2 batches of jam. When Lacie gave me the recipe over the phone, she told me to cook it until it boils and then continue cooking for 4 to 5 more minutes. I thought she said 45 minutes. So when I read the recipe back to her to make sure I got it right I said 45 minutes. She said, "No, no, no 4 TO 5 minutes!" We both laughed, I definitely would have burned the jam and that would not have been good. I thought 45 minutes was a long time to cook something!

The final product!! I made 4 1/2 jars of Peach Cherry jam, 4 jars of Peach Orange jam, 4 jars of Peach Raspberry jam, and 2 jars of regular Peach jam. I haven't tasted any of them yet but I am sure they will be good. Thanks Lacie for the peaches and the reciepe! Jam anyone?