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11 Months

Our baby girl is almost a year old! Just one more month! Every day it seems she is learning something new and blowing Eric and I away with how amazing she is. It will be hard to mention EVERYTHING that she is doing these days, but since I didn't write much last month I'll go ahead and write a few things down this time. I'll start with what she is doing in the picture above. You may think she fell down or something but in fact she is lounging. Emma loves to sit back/lean again something, cross her legs, and "rest." Usually it doesn't last for more than a few seconds, but it is cute to watch. This girl really needs her own special little chair but I'm not sure we'll find one here. I think in this picture what happened was she decided to lean back on the toy basket but then since it was empty she slid all the way down to the ground until she was laying. I looked over and thought it was funny. She also seems to like comfort in other areas too. If I ever put a blanket on her before she falls asleep, I will come in 15 minutes later to find her sleeping ON the blanket, almost using it like a pillow. So, then I'll have to add a blanket on top of her as well.

Speaking of sleep, she still almost exclusively sleeps on her belly (her choice). And, unless she is teething, she sleeps through the night from 7:45- 6:00. Ok, so sometimes she wakes up at 5am but I still won't let her out of bed until 6. Then she takes 2 naps a day.

Since I mentioned teeth, I will tell you that she now has 12 teeth! This girl is a teething machine! All 4 of her 1st molars (not the 2 year back molars) came in at the same time last month so we had quite the time dealing with that.

Size: She wears 12 month clothes and 18 month jammies. To me, I don't feel like she's grown a whole lot in the last few months, especially in her legs... they still seem short. But then again, I have short legs and a long torso, so she will probably follow suit. I'm not sure what her height and weight are. We'll have to wait until we go to the doctor next month for that.

Emma is slowly starting to feel more confident in her walking. I still would not call her a "walker" yet, but I think it will happen soon... in the next few weeks. She CAN take many steps at a time, stand well, and lower herself to the floor, but most of the time she still chooses to crawl and is pretty cautious with walking. Who knew that learning to walk was such a process!

Some of her favorite activities/games to do are: playing "knock it down!" with the blocks. She can even help build the block towers too. Listening to music and clapping/jumping/swaying. Playing chase with Daddy, Mommy, or Jack. Playing with Mommy's phone. Looking at books. Pulling things off of tables or out of drawers. Opening the cabinet and pulling out ALL of the ziplock baggies one by one and leaving them on the floor while Mommy is cooking. Walking with the stool or chair as a prop. Taking walks in the stroller or going outside in general. Playing with Mommy's nail polish bottles in the bathroom whenever she gets the chance (meaning whenever the bathroom is open.) (Hey, at least she isn't playing in the toilet!) Eating snacks! Climbing, climbing, climbing over anything she can get her leg up onto.

Speaking of snacks, some of her favorites are: cheerios, raisins (newly added), crackers (ritz or saltines), fruit (bananas or little oranges), apple juice!, puffed rice cakes, and anything Mommy is eating that doesn't have nuts in it. And for meals , I'd say 80% of what she eats is the same thing we eat. ie - big people food. Not much mushy food left around here! And she seems to love both veggies and fruit alike! And she like chicken, pasta, and bread too. I'm glad she's a good eater and like feeding herself.

Emma seems to understand so much of what we say these days. She understands and follows most commands we tell her. "Go get this, come here, don't touch that, etc." She knows the names of people and so many things. She knows what most of her toys are called. She gets a kick out of hearing me make animal sounds while pointing to the animal in books. However, she still won't repeat what you say on command. The words that she definitely knows how to say are: #1 word heard - "MAMA!" all day long. She also knows how to day "Dada," however, we hardly ever hear her say it anymore. She also knows "Baba" (bottle). Other words we have heard but aren't 100% sure she knew what she was saying: "Hi" (says this a lot), "Bye, bye" (said once but mostly she just waves byebye). She also says, "Oohyeah" a lot. It's cute. And I'm pretty sure she has her own special name for Jack. She talks to him or yells at him or chases him a lot. :) And for "no" she just shakes her head... mostly in regard to she question of, "do you want this?" (when we offer her more food or drink and she's finished).

Ok, I'm sure I'll think of more later, but for now that is a good stopping point. Stay tuned in a month for big birthday shenanigans and a one YEAR update!!!

Penny Wars

I should have blogged this last weekend. A few weeks ago our school participated in a Penny War to raise money for our school Mission Trip. Eric was the main person in charge of this fundraiser. Without explaining all of the details of how it works, I'll just say that each class had a jar and if they put pennies in their jar they got positive points. If they put any other denomination into any other class's jar, that class got negative points. In the past this has been a very big money maker, making an average of $1,000 each time we've done it. Well, with the zeal of my husband promoting this, as well as other teachers' zeal (plus a couple of awesome rule changes near the end), our tiny school ended up donating nearly $4,000 this year! They REALLY got into it! I am so proud of our school and so proud of my husband. This really helps in sending our kids to the Philippines, too! The pictures above are of the "counting party" we had at our house the week after to count and sort all the money before taking it to the bank. Yay, God!

11 Weeks + 2 Days

We went to the doctor again this Saturday and got to see our little jelly bean (who is now the size of a fig). We had a new doctor and while the appointment didn't seem particularly informative to me (although, really, what's new the 2nd time around), we did enjoy getting to see our little baby wiggle and squirm. Even Emma sat quietly and watched the whole time. I think this doctor got a more accurate reading on the size this time because the baby is now exactly right on for size. 11 wks + 1 day. 43.3 mm with a heartbeat of 162 bpm. In other news, I didn't gain any weigh! This is a big deal for me considering I gained SO much weight last time and even now with the nausea I have to snack constantly to keep from feeling sick. So no weight gain is good. :) (for now) We don't get to go back again until March 26th which is over a month away! This is actually right after we'll be getting back from our Philippines Mission Trip. Also, it's right after Emma's birthday. It seems like a long time from now but I'm sure it will go fast. And... HOPEFULLY at that appointment we'll get to know the gender of our baby!!! Yay!!! We love you baby #2!

Valentine's in the ROK (Rep. of Korea)

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Here in the ROK we decided to spread our day of love into two days! Since Monday was Eric & I's date night anyway, we decided to call that our Valentine's date.
Eric surprised me when coming home from school by greeting me at the door with my favorite flowers. :) I love the smell of Easter Lilies! And there were 2 roses in the bunch to symbolize 2 years of marriage.
Then he surprised me again by taking me to my favorite Korean restaurant to eat Kalguksu/Shabu Shabu. I will SOOOOO miss that place when we finally leave Korea.
This is a picture of Emma with her favorite babysitter in the world, Teal. She graciously babysits Emma every Monday night for us (when we choose to take her up on it) for free. And they always have a grand ol' time together.
Then, Tuesday morning, we got up and Emma gave Daddy the Valentine that she "made."
She was also able to dress a little more festive with a pink heart skirt that a friend of mine made for her. There was also a matching bib that went with it.

And the best part of the day... Attention all Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles! You must watch this video. A milestone to be sure. I'd say this counts. However, will she choose to continue using her newfound skill... we'll see. :) Happy watching!

Twig-Tails

Just sending a little Saturday morning love!

A few Random pics and video as of late

Emma LOVES to be naked and gets really hyper when we let her do this right before bath time. :)

Most of the pictures I take turn out this way...Emma loves looking at books. Well, she mostly loves opening and closing the pages.Eating big girl food in her big girl "high chair."

Introducing...

Our little Jelly Bean! version 2.0

Coming to a hospital not anywhere near you (sorry about that) around September 7, 2012. (such a great date, huh?)

These pictures were taken yesterday at 9 weeks pregnant. However, the baby is measuring a little small right now at only 8 wks 1 day. 1.68 cm. My initial take on this... must be a boy! (Being that Emma took after me being a "big baby" and she was a girl, so this one must take after his smaller Daddy???) Only time will tell!

The Transporter

Ok, so I am slightly disappointed that no one even tried to guess which movie character Eric dressed up as. However, since I have something much more exciting to post after this, I'll go ahead and tell you the answer.

Jason Statham. aka - "The Transporter." aka - "Handsom Rob" from the Italian Job.

Character Day

Can you guess which movie character my husband dressed as today? (hint #1 - He's missing his gun) (hint #2 - A LOT of Koreans think this is his doppleganger).