Wordless Wednesday - Budding Photographer

Swim Time

We headed up to Missouri this past weekend for an anniversery party for some good friends of Brad's mom and dad. Congratulations Don & Berniece on 50 blessed years together! We stayed with Aunt Lesa and Uncle Chris and had a great time. Emma got to go swimming in a real pool and really enjoyed it for the most part. She wasn't too crazy about it at first after she tried to take a nose dive and ended up with a face full of water but before long, she was splashing and kicking and didn't care about water splashing in her face. Besides swimming, Emma also got to try some honeydew and loved it!

Zooming Around with Daddy!

Emma & Uncle Chris

Trying to Splash Aunt Lesa

Wordless Wednesday

Farmer's Market and the Flowers

On Saturday, we loaded the pink princess up into her new hot pink stroller so we look for some good, fresh produce at the farmer's market. There was a woman in front of us who had a tote filled with fresh flowers. Apparently the flowers were very interesting to Emma. At one point I stopped to look at some tomatoes. Brad also came to a stop as did the woman with the flowers. Brad got the stroller a little too close to this woman and next thing you know, he looks down and there is Emma gently fingering the flowers in this woman's tote. She was working with the flowers the same way that she does her tags; gently touching them and moving them around with her fingers. I missed it but Brad wishes that he had brought the video camera with him because it was too funny. Fortunately she didn't pull any petals off and the woman was never any the wiser.

The Pink Princess

Sleep Training

Happy belated 4th of July to everyone! We hope that everybody had a wonderful weekend. We spent out weekend working on sleeping. While we kept hoping that eventually Emma would learn to sleep through the night on her own, things were getting progressively worse, instead of better. Recently, Emma has gotten a bit too comfortable with the idea that mom will come rescue her and sleep with her as soon as she starts crying. While this works for her, Emma is a very restless sleeper so my sleep isn't so restful. That being said, we decided that the three day weekend was the time to start some sleep training. We had tried all the "no cry" methods previously and those were not working so it was time for "cry it out". I am not sure who the cry it out method is harder on, Emma or Brad and I. The first night Emma went down easily but woke around 2 am. We spent the next hour and 45 minutes alternating trips into her bedroom to give her a little pat and reassure her that she had not been abandoned. It sure did make us feel terrible to leave her crying when all we wanted to do was pick her up. The next night was a little better although it took about 40 minutes to get to sleep initially. Then Emma was up around 4 am and took an hour to go back to sleep. The third night was much improved although she was waking up every hour or two, Emma would only cry for a couple of minutes and then drift back off to sleep. We didn't even have to go into the room that night. Last night was even better. After 30 minutes of crying initially, she basically slept until five a.m. and then had to change positions but no crying and then back to sleep. We are cautiously optimistic that Emma is learning how to sleep on her own. Hopefully these improvements will keep up especially since we are heading up to Missouri this coming weekend.

Wordless Wednesday

Tags

In addition to her love of shoes, Emma loves tags. A toy with a tag on it is far more interesting than one without. Brad's mom joked that she should make her a blanket out of tags. Apparently this behavior has not gone unnoticed at daycare. They have one play mat that has a tag on it and Emma spends a great deal of time working with the tag. She is also very protective and not willing to share. Andi at the daycare was telling Brad that there are several other children with a similar interest but if Emma sees them coming near "her" tag, she rolls on over and positions herself so that she has the only access. No need to buy this child expensive toys. What is it about tags?