OMG!!

I know many of you thought that this post would NEVER come...Emerson is actually in her Big Girl Room full time as of this weekend!!!!  Saturday morning after she got up and we got a bath I went into what used to be the nursery and stripped the linens and took her pillow, blankie, and pig into her new room as well as the monitor and rain, and closed the nursery door.  When she got ready for her nap, I went through all our usual things of closing the curtains and turning on her rain, put her in her new bed said "night, night" and closed the door.  I didn't hear a peep out of her for 3 hours!!!  Bed time rolled around and it was the same result!  When I laid her down in the floor to change her diaper she pointed to her new bed and said "mine"!  The only issue came at around 2 am.  She cried for just a few seconds, hardly long enough for me to wake up enough and get out of bed, but I went to check just to make sure all was well.  When I went in I was shocked to find her asleep on the floor!  I don't know if the cry was her falling out of bed or if she had gotten out on purpose and then couldn't get back in but I put her back in and she was still snug as a bug on her pillow when I went in at 8:30 this morning!  I never dreamed it would go so smoothly-yet again she amazed me!  On a different note the Bears won 56-30 Friday night against the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last year.  Bad Mommy of the Year forgot her camera and there were many great photo ops!  I'll do better next week!

I know it is very hard to see but I was scared I would wake her up if I used the flash!  I had to capture this monumental day though!

Mommy's big girl all ready for Sunday school after a restful night in her cozy new bed!

Week in Review

Last Friday morning GranSan was telling me how much she wanted to see Em and asking if we could do Skype that night.  I pointed out that she wasn't working any more and could easily see her in person...an hour later I got a call saying that she was on her way!  We did a little shopping and a lot of relaxing.  I again worked in Em's new room-yes I am referring to the one she is not even sleeping in yet!  I think it is pretty much done with the exception of hanging the frame that I bought today-yea!  We had 18 month pictures taken this week and I can't wait to get them back!

What is that face?!

Taking in a little TV with her puppy!

Blurry, but too cute not to post!

Shawn calls her my "mini me" because it doesn't matter what I am doing she is right there!

I was pretty proud of how the shelf turned out, particularly the hanging process-I did it all by myself, with a little over the phone help from Papa!

I stole the design of this bow hanger from somebody at a baby shower I recently went to.

I found this dry erase tile at Office Depot-perfect for displaying our little artist's work!

She wasn't feeling very good the morning GranSan left but needed her shoes and bow all the same-check out the bed hair!

She looked so cute in her new jeggings for her pictures!

One morning this week she insisted on her pig having breakfast with her.  In between bites she would sing rock-a-bye baby to it!

18

Emerson is 18 months old as of yesterday!  She is looking more like a little girl rather than a baby every day.  She continues to say more things-the clearest of which are her accessories:  bow, shoes, and socks!  She is very good about saying "please" to ask for anything.  As of late her favorite word has been "no" but we are definitely working on that!  She doesn't like for me to get too far from her.  If I wander any distance from her she yells: "Ma"!  I don't know what happened to Mom and Mommy but it has been shortened to Ma.  She is still not sleeping in her big girl bed but we really haven't tried.  I am probably going to start working on it a little more starting this weekend.  I also think we are going to attempt potty training soon as she has started showing more signs of being ready.  She LOVES cells phones and iPods but just about anything can be turned into a phone-she puts many different things to her hear and says "hello" and then starts telling whoever it is ALL about it!  We unfortunately learned today that she is allergic to peanuts and eggs so we are definitely educating ourselves on that and learning what we need to do to keep her safe.  The good news is, she can still have baked goodies made with eggs.  That is very good news because she definitely got Ma's sweet tooth!  At her 18 month check up this week she was 32 1/2 inches(80%) and 28 pounds 4 ounces(93%).  She had met all her milestones and he said that she seemed to be doing great!

I guess I should have said that she loves electronics instead of just cell phones and iPods-this is the stud finder I was using to hang a shelf in her room!

The artist at work!

Ma, don't look yet...I'm not finished!

Enough with the pictures, I have to work!

Hmm, maybe I need to work on that paper over there now.

Thank you for the toddler crayons Aunt Janet...I know what to do with them now!

Meet the Bears

Every year before the season starts Montgomery has a Meet the Bears dinner and scrimmage.  It was this weekend, one of the hottest weekends to date of course!  Saturday morning they did team pictures and we were all able to go up and do family pictures.  They were running a little behind so by the time we got to family pictures Em had had plenty of time playing in the scorching heat so was bright red and had wet hair!  We'll see how they turn out!  She and I went back up for the dinner but given the temperature we left before the scrimmages started.  Let's hope it cools off a little before the real games start!

This picture is just to give an idea of how humid it was-every time I tried to take a picture, the camera fogged up!

Sharing the Dickson's doughnut holes!

Daddy is already chasing her away from the boys!

She had fun breaking in her new shoes running on the field.

We tried to get a picture with Kamryn and Brady in their matching shirts but she was having too much fun running!

Racing Coach Dickson, Brady, and Kamryn

Getting some sugar from Daddy before we had to leave

Coach's Cutie

Every year they take a picture of all the coaches' kids to put in the program.  We missed it last year because it was in the middle of the day and I had something for work so we were glad that they moved it to the evening this year.  You can imagine what an undertaking this is...if everyone had been there it would have been a total of 40 kids!  Here are a few that I took and I will post the real ones when we get them.

Oh my gosh...look how many kids I get to play with!!!

Hey, wait for me...I want to slide too!

One of the other wives had this shirt made for her-it is so cute!

She is looking more like a little girl every day!

Brooke(the football head coach's daughter) volunteered to have Briley and Em sit with her.

She had her work cut out for her with 2 very active toddlers!

Are we all crazy even thinking this is possible?!

I don't know if they ever got one where everyone was in their place AND not crying!

Beach Bums

As the end of free weekends draws very near we decided to make the most of the ones we have!  We decided to take Emerson to Galveston for her first trip to the beach.  We got up Sunday, ate some breakfast and hopped in the car.  We ate lunch at The Rainforest Cafe and then walked across the street to the beach.  As soon as Emerson's feet hit the sand, she never stopped running and laughing!  It was so cute-she loved the water and just running on the beach.  She was hilarious chasing birds that had landed close to where we were. 

Are we there yet?!

Daddy was showing her the waterfalls at the entrance to the restaurant.

It was such a cool place to eat-Em loved the gorillas!

Priceless!

Too bad her first ocean experience was in brown water but she loved it nonetheless!

Is that a beach babe or what?!

Fun family day!

Gotta watch those waves...they'll get ya!

Finding shells for Mommy

Completely worn out!

Winner: The Lion

Yesterday I had to go to San Antonio for a meeting and since Shawn is back at work, it was a pretty long day for Emerson at school.  While she was there she had a run in with a toy lion and from the looks of her eye the lion definitely won the fight!  I tried to get a picture of it but it is hard to tell-some of the damage is on her eyelid.  When I dropped her off this morning they told me what a tough little girl she is.  They had to get it all cleaned up yesterday after it happened and she hardly even cried at all through it all!

She got a sticker from the cashier at the grocery store after school today.

She is serious about her snack!

She finally let me put her hair in pigtails for school today-so cute!

I was trying to get a picture of her pigtails and eye before we left this morning and she would only let me take one if I held her!

Could It Be?!

From the time Emerson became mobile there has been nothing that has been able to keep her in one spot for any length of time.  It got to be a joke to count any time she did sit somewhere and see how far we got-we rarely got past 4...that is until now.  We made a discovery of the Sprout channel and they have something called "The Goodnight Show".  She loves it and will sit perfectly still either in our lap or in the chair and watch for at least 30 minutes if not an hour.  Shawn said that he finally turned it off the other night because she had already watched for an hour and the last thing we want is a couch potato!