13 Months, what's new!

Update on Emma! Another month has past and she's in the early toddler stage.  She's finally getting her 3rd tooth, which is exciting! She's been a little crankier than normal and wants to snuggle instead of laying down in her crib to go to sleep, but that's okay in my book. It does make it hard to do anything else, but snuggling with a baby is the best. Some new things she's learned:

-Walking. She's doing great and doesn't look like a teetering drunk now:)
-folding her arms. If she sees food now she'll fold her arms. So cute!
-she can officially stack rings on her ring-stacker toy. (We've been working on that)
-She loves putting toys and other objects into boxes, bowls, trashcans, etc. Today she tried to put her binky in the trash. And the other day we found her night light in our DVD bin. I think it's her new favorite game! We're just hoping she doesn't discover the toilet anytime soon.
-She's good at throwing stuff and has a pretty good arm.
-She LOVES dancing! Anytime music comes on, she bounces up and down.
-She does a lot of actions and understands what we ask her to do, but her favorite and constant word is still Da-da. The other day, our neighbor came up the stairs and she thought it was Josh. She looked at me and whispered "Da-da" and then ran over to the door. Sadly it wasn't him and she was disappointed, but she just had to wait an hour to do it again!
 -Master control of the TV remote. This one is a little scary. She know you have to point the remote at the TV to make it work and she's really good at turning it on by herself. Bah! Not the best skill to know, but I guess it was going to happen sometime.

I forgot to post some pictures of her birthday party a month ago so I'll post them here:

Your very basic smash cake

My cute sister decorated for it

This is my favorite face!

Those lashes, so jealous!

End update!

Christmas Time

Josh told me today, "You know, you're doing way more for Christmas this year than you've ever done." I guess he's right. I made my advent calendar months ago, and I've been trying to deck out our apartment more than normal. well as much as one can on a college budget. We actually put up lights outside our apartment and I splurged and bought some more ornaments at the dollar store;)

I decided the reason is because we have a kid now, and I want to start traditions and memories for her, as small as they are. When I turn the lights on the Christmas tree, Emma breathes really deeply and just stares at it. She's saying "wow" in her only little way. I know she doesn't understand much, but the little she does, she's really excited about. And that makes me excited!

Tonight we made gingerbread cookies and they turned out delicious. We topped them with cream cheese frosting and chocolate chips. I'm glad Josh liked them because he normally doesn't like gingerbread. Success!

1 Year

Happy Birthday sweet Emma! How is it possible you're already a year old? I keep flashing back to the first time I saw you and held you in my arms. I tear up every time. You are growing up so fast! Too fast for this mamma. Your Dad and I are so blessed to have you in our family. Your happy little personality shows more and more each day. You've always been quick to share a smile and laugh at the funny faces we make (generous laughs:) Everyone who meets you can't help but smile when you make your scrunchy face and laugh at them. They all think you're the cutest little thing. Every time we walk in a store, everyone comments on how cute you are! Hopefully it won't go to your head:) You started walking this week, something we're totally not prepared for! But we love seeing your curiosity and excitement about everything. Your big blue eyes melt our hearts and I think dad is going to have a tough time saying no to you. You love us so much that you still want to see me 3 times a night and hang out. But hopefully you'll get over that soon:) Your favorite word it still Dada and you light up when he walks through the door. You love your stuffed animals and love snuggling them. Thank you for being you! We're so lucky to have you in our family!

1 day

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12 months

We love you Emma!

Gettin' My Craft On

So I spent the majority of the summer making an Advent Calendar for Christmas. I knew, being the slow crafter I am, it would take me forever and I needed to get an early start for the Holidays! I hand stitched most of it, since I didn't have a sewing machine to use until the very end, but I think it turned our pretty well. It took me a long time, slowly sewing during Emma's naps but it was fun and I learned some stitches along the way.  I got the template off Pinterest of course, and it should be pretty fun for us in a month or two. With each day there's a scripture that goes with it. Now that I'm done with that I'm starting a quiet book for Emma.

So this month has been busy with Josh starting school and interviewing for lots of jobs. It's stressful but exciting preparing for the next chapter of our lives after school.

Emma is always the charmer at our house! We think she's the cutest thing ever.

A favorite past time is pulling all her baby food out of the pantry and rolling around in it.

She loves fruit and bread and we discovered she hates peas. We have a video of her grabbing pineapple pieces one after another. We'd sneak a pea in to see if she would notice and she would grab it and drop it to the floor...everytime haha! Smart girl!  At least she likes other veggies. She has such a cute happy personality and laughs and squeals all day, while saying her favorite word Dada. She'll say Mama if I ask her to and will give me kisses after so I'm okay with that:)

Oh yeah, and we made this rad Jenga Man for FHE one Monday night.

These two sure do make life fun!

Sickies

This week was a long one! Emma and I had a fun intro to the fall season by getting our first gross cold since last winter. Urgh, I was so excited about the weather cooling down and the leaves changing that I forgot about all that getting sick all the time junk. Joy. So Emma, who finally started sleeping through the night 3 weeks ago, went back to waking up 4 times a night and not being able to take a nap without me nursing her while in bed. Poor little thing.  Hence, no sleep and Emma smothering me with snotty kisses gets me sick. And to top it off, Josh had to work almost every night this week, with homework on top of that.  I seriously don't know how you do it with more than one kid. ( Take them one at a time I know ). But we made it through triumphant! That cold is behind us...until the next one that is.  I was impressed that I still made dinner most of the week, but here's a picture of a casualty as a result.



I know what it looks like but it's not, thank heavens. I gave Emma a squeeze pouch while I was making dinner, and thought she could handle it, but...oh well, she had a great time so what can I say?:)  

Family Reunion Time

Our Family Reunion in Yellowstone was a blast...literally haha! Josh thought of that of course. ( You know, cause Yellowstone? Old Faithful? he he). We got back from an incredible week in Idaho on Saturday, Josh's only week off for the whole summer. That guy works so hard! He's amazing!  I'd say "heck no! I need my vacation!!!"  My family rented an awesome barn/huge house in Ashton, ID. It's called the Shootout Barn. We later found out the origins of its name and it creeped us out big time. It wasn't just a creative name.  There was literally a shootout between an escaped convict and a police officer. The convict shot himself in the barn after shooting the cop ( the cop lived ). You could make up some FREAKY bedtime ghost stories! Josh was going to make some up and tell the nieces and nephews but we wanted them to sleep:)

During the week in Idaho we went to Yellowstone, horseback riding, hiking, floating the river, and vegged. It was fantastic! Shoutout to my brother and sister-in-law for planning it all. 

Isn't that barn fantastic?! Such a cool idea to redo a barn and make it a house! It was a perfect size to fit our whole family, more than 30 people.

The Luker Crew!

In Front of Old Faithful after the big shootoff!

Yep, that's bison after crossing the road. Pretty awesome.

Emma and I on our horse "Shadow"

Love these two:)

Cave Falls. A Beautiful Hike!

The Grand Canyon in Yellowstone. Isn't it spectacular?

Emma is not a big fan of grass. 

She'd raise her legs like the every time we put her down haha!

Emma and her cousin bonding:)

Emma will be 10 months tomorrow so here's some adorable pics from the last little bit.

Being super aggressive with her toy box haha. 

She finally has her 1st tooth and loves talking. She waves and loves to clap and we swear she says "Hi Dada" whenever Josh comes home from School. Haha but that's probably just us:) We love her!

Update Overload

This summer has flown by crazy fast! I can't believe Josh will be starting his last year of college here in a few weeks. Can you say...YES!!! I'm kind of excited. And Emma is officially 9 months old. Where does she get the nerve to keep growing up and get so big! I mean really, I can't handle it.

We've tried to branch out and go on some fun hikes and stuff on the weekends around here instead of our classic routine of eating food and watching netflix. So here's an overload of pictures from the last month of our adventures. Enjoy! (if you make it through them all)

We love us some mini-golfing!

 Went to Bridal Veil Falls. Beautiful!

Bean Museum at BYU, enjoying the late President Packer's art work. He was so gifted and inspired!

Our one shot of us on Pioneer Day at the parade! We did tons of other stuff too, like watch fireworks and go to the Pioneer festival in Provo, but alas, no pictures:(

Josh's parents have been in town so we've loved hanging with them and family. Emma loved playing with her cousin Evelyn. It's a little blurry since Emma was moving the whole time and pulling that poor baby's ear, but those two will be best buds.

Emma's first watermelon experience...true love. Sadly she got a rash after so we might wait a bit to give it to her again.

Stewart Falls. Gorgeous!!! It was a perfect day to go, nice and overcast for the most part without raining. And we made it with a baby! Go us!

Adorable. I wish we could all hike like her...

Josh's mom made that headband and those little flower booties. Um, cute overload!! Thanks Grandma!

I feel creepy sometimes because I just love to watch Emma sleep...but look at that face! What mother wouldn't?

Emma is now a superstar crawler. 

Still no teeth yet, but we're holding our breath and waiting on that one (not with excitement). 

She's eating more finger food and is getting pretty good at getting it in her mouth and passing it between hands.  

She learned to clap this week and has been doing it non-stop! 

And she has her own little conversations and funny noises she does. 

We love her.

And to finish...a lovely walk around the temple. A great couple of weeks:)