Seaside Aquarium

Before we left Seaside, we decided to take Emeline to her first aquarium experience. Seaside has a little aquarium, just the right size for Emeline

We peered in to see the sea otters.

Looked in the tanks...

And even got to touch some sea critters.

Emeline is usually a bit afraid of animals, but the sea critters didn't scare her at all. She even picked up the crab and threw it back in the water. I think she thought it was a rock ;).

Seaside, at the beach

Another part of our beach trip was spent on the beach. We actually had some beautiful sun while we were there, but the clouds rolled in before I started taking photos. Enjoy!

There's nothing like a trip to the Oregon Coast without getting your feet wet in some freezing cold water. Emeline didn't seem to mind at all!

Fun in the sand!

Family photo.

Exploring.

When she got tired, Emeline enjoyed laying down directly on the warm sand.

Which resulted in sand everywhere!

Great Grandma Betty's Birthday

The highlight of our trip to the Oregon Coast was to celebrate Great Grandma Betty's 80th Birthday! Grandma Chris made a lovely salmon dinner with lemon and red velvet cupcakes. Jenn and I worked on some fondant daisies for the lemon cupcakes and I piped some red roses for the red velvet ones. Here are some pics of the party.

Seaside Merry-go-round

Our recent trip to Oregon started off with a visit to Seaside. One afternoon we took a walk into downtown had lunch, went to the funky hat shop, and Emeline got to ride a merry-go-round for the first time. She loved the rides at Happy Hollow, but unfortunately she was coming down with a cold and fever, so was not so excited about this ride. But Auntie Jenn and Kaelin had a great time!

With the lilies

One and a half!

I have been too overwhelmed by all the photos from our recent vacation to even begin posting, so I'm sorry for the lack of Emeline on the internet these days.

But! Today is her 1 and a half birthday, so it is time for an update!

The last few months have been full of learning, I think it is impossible for me to sum it all up. But I will try to remember the highlights. Emeline is now totally running around, and she is fast. Hard to catch up with sometimes, so I need to be on my toes by a street or parking lot. She can climb stairs and go down a slide all by herself. She can climb pretty well, so now we are working on teaching her not to get on the kitchen table. She's also down to just one midday nap, so we are non stop pretty much all day (which is probably also why the lack of blogging).

Emeline has been getting more focused in her playtime. She still spends a lot of time running around and ransacking things, but now she will more often sit and play with things. Stack blocks, read books, put things in and out of boxes, and she's started to get interested in drawing. Her attention span is still very short of course, but it's really fun to watch her learn to play in new ways.

She absolutely LOVES babies right now. She's always greeted other little ones, but now she sees babies, says the word 'baby' and wants to hold them or pat them. She's even pretty gentle these days. It's very sweet. Emeline is also very much into dancing and singing songs. She's got a great little move where she stomps her foot and claps her hands, then clicks her tongue. She also loves playing games, tickles, eating with a spoon (and she's not half bad at it either), talking on the phone, and reorganizing things.

Language has also been blossoming over the past few months. I meant to start a word diary a long time ago, but I finally started a couple months ago since things were starting to pick up and I was beginning to lose track. Here's an excerpt from the last 2 months:

'potty' - sign
wawa - water
ba ba - bye bye
doh doh - zapato/shoe
mama
baba/papa - daddy
hi
doo/zhoo/shoo - shoe
no no no
no
cheese
stairs
baby
'more milk' - double sign
'more cheese' - double sign
toots
'help' - sign
chae/dzae - Jack
tata - pelota/ball
'eat' - sign
ta ta - bath time, pasta
chz - change diaper

I also think she might have tried to say 'fruta' today, but it was not clear. She can also do a few animal sounds like 'woof' and 'moo', although 'moo' is more like 'bvoo'. It's so fun to watch her learn words. I'm finally learning more what she's thinking.

I think I must be leaving out a lot, because she is learning so much these days, but that's all I can think of for now. Here are some recent photos of her out in the field while visiting my parents.

Sean and Tracy

We had the privledge of attending the beautiful wedding of Sean and Tracy last weekend. I've known Sean since I was a little girl, back in the days living in Gilroy. They had a beautiful wedding at a golf club in the foothills outside of Gilroy.

Emeline had fun wandering the grounds...The ceremony was beautiful...
And more fun to be had at the reception, meeting other little girls...
And having her first taste of cider! It was a hit!