Gettin' around

Well, ever since Emeline has been scooting and rolling, she's been able to get to most things she likes. But lately her mode of transportation has gotten more interesting. She does a lot of couch and table surfing, some wall scooting (which makes her look like a spy on the side of a building), pushing - sometimes with her push cart, but she's moved on to anything that will be pushed, and today we found one more mode of transportation to add to the list. In the last couple days she's been able to push herself into a sitting position by getting up on her knees from her tummy, which led me to believe maybe she could do a little bit more. So with a little encouragement, we got a new trick today.

Here are some recent videos of Emeline gettin' around the house, and the last one shows off her new trick. Watch it and leave a comment if you know what to call it :)


Sleepy walking


Helping with the laundry


Wall cruising and pushing


New trick, what is it?

Tickles

This is a bit long, but worth it for all the giggles :)

For Grandpa: Oregon vs Auburn

As most of you might know, Wes and I aren't the biggest sports fans. We're all for supporting our respective universities, but it's quite the event if you actually catch us watching our schools play football. Let alone football at all.

So this one is for my Grandpa! When we were visiting over Christmas, my grandpa was super excited about the Ducks playing in the national championship game. He was so excited he told us all about coach Kelly and his very innovated offensive strategies. He made it sound like so much fun to watch and told us that this was a moment in history. After that pep talk, I was honestly somewhat excited to watch the game. Given that we don't have cable to even watch the game at home, we asked some of our good friends who are into football if we could mooch off their cable and have a little Ducks party at their place. Our friend Terah loves football and jumped at the chance to have an excuse to watch. Terah and Michelle also have a little one, Noah, about the same age as Emeline. So it was a date!

Here are some of the pics of our festivities.

The little ones sporting Ducks cheer!

Just a little friendly toy rivalry.

Emeline excited about the Oregon cake I made.

Go Ducks!

A family pic at halftime.

By the end of the night, Noah was in bed, Emeline was cranky and exhausted, and the Ducks had lost. We were bummed that the Ducks didn't win the big game, but it was an exciting game to watch in the end. And we had a fun evening with our friends!

Thanks to Terah and Michelle for having us, and thanks for the inspiration Grandpa!

Emeline cruizin' the carpet...

She really loves her little cart from Ikea that Grandma got her for Christmas.

First College Tour

First college tour? Hahaha. Just kidding. On our drive back home to CA we stopped off at my alma mater for a trip down memory lane and some Duck clothes for Emeline :)

It was a beautiful day for a walk.

 

Past my sorority house.

Ahh the dorms! Go Decou!

Friendly Hall, where I took many a Spanish class.

Walking past Johnson Hall on 13th.

 

Good old Chapman.

 

Does she walk like a Duck?

 

Smile like a Duck?

And last but not least, just before we were going to hit the road, we ran into Laura and Jeff! It felt like the old days, just running into friends on campus, even though neither of us live in Eugene any more.

 

Go Ducks!

Nine months

Happy belated 9 months Emeline! This is a little late since we were on vacation on December 29th.

Let me just say that I had a lot of expectations about what 9 months would look like for Emeline. Since I knew we would be traveling for Christmas, I kept trying to plan what sorts of things we would need to take with us, based on what I thought Emeline would be like at 9 months. I thought she'd for sure be crawling, probably be sleeping through the night regularly, and falling asleep by herself. Yes...most of my expectations were about sleep. But of course, life with a baby is not what you expect. And just cause she's not doing what I expect doesn't make her any less amazing. She's surprised me a lot.

So we haven't seen crawling yet, but by the looks of things, she might skip it all together. She's pulling herself up on just about anything she can get her hands on, and she'll shimmy around furniture. She'll take steps from place to place holding on to your fingers, and even walks with her little push wagon. She's also got the cute new trick of clapping! It's really sweet. She does it at the most opportune moments. 

Emeline is also much more wary around new people and likes to stay close to mom and dad. Vacationing threw her for a loop, but by the end, she was excited to be in new places (restaurants are especially fun!) and interested in new people. She still seems pretty fearless of any physical challenge...swimming, walking, diving from high places...lol. Today's photo shoot was cut short cause of all the attempts at diving off the couch. And it was much hard to get one of her actually next to the sheep and smiling and looking at the camera. Here are some outtakes, although even the one for the series wasn't as good as usual. You can see her diving attempts as well as the unhappy faces because I wanted to take pictures of her instead of picking her up.

Nine months. 21 lbs 5 oz, 27.5 inches long.

Happy New Year

Well, one fever, 3 colds, and 14 sleepless nights later....we're back! A very tiring Christmas vacation, but a good one none the less. Emeline got to meet lots of friends and family from Oregon, had her first Christmas, had her 9 month birthday, and even got to visit U of O! Wes and Elaine did a lot too :) Lots to share, and we'll be posting pics soon! But until then, 2011, here we come!