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!