5 months

Happy 5 months Miss Emily!  Where has the time gone?

-Sleep training took longer than I was hoping it would, but I'm happy to report that Emily is now a great sleeper!  She's not sleeping through the night yet, but she's only up once each night and I'm happy with that.  She now goes to sleep almost every night without crying at all, and when she does cry it's not for long.  Naps were harder.  She fought them for a long time, and she still doesn't respond well to scheduled naps, but for the past few days she's gone down for most naps without crying.  She now associates her crib with sleep and it's hard for her to fall asleep anywhere else.  It's a little bit bittersweet to me.  On the one hand, I'm super glad that she goes to sleep well in her bed.  On the other hand, I feel like she doesn't need me as much anymore.  I used to be able to put her straight to sleep if I held her the right way or rocked her.  The other day she was tired and crying.  She cried when I picked her up and all the way to her room until the second I put her down.  Then she was fine.  It broke my heart a little bit, but I know it's good for her and it makes my life a little easier.
-Emily's getting a lot more coordinated.  She works really well with her hands.  When you put a toy in front of her she grabs it immediately and she always seems so focused trying to figure out different things she can do with it.  Sometimes she'll take her pacifier out of her mouth, examine it, then put it back in and she does it over and over again. She can also move around a lot.  When we first started sleep training and she was crying in bed a little bit, I would put her down facing one way and when I went to check on her she'd be completely turned around.  Now that she can roll over both ways, she can get more comfortable when she's sleeping.  She prefers to sleep on her right side.  She usually turns onto her side as soon as I put her down.  One night, she was crying and when I checked on her she was wedged against the side of the crib so she couldn't turn over.  I moved her to the middle and she immediately turned onto her side and went straight to sleep.

-She loves experimenting with her voice and learning how to make new noises.  As soon as she figures out something new she can do she thinks it's really cool and she'll do it over and over again all day long.  It's so funny!  Here are a couple of her new noises.  She's done several more, but anytime I get the camera out, she stops performing so this is all I caught on tape.

-She had solids for the first time last week.  She's been really interested in watching us eat our food. Whenever we put her baby spoon in front of her, she'll pick it up and put it straight in her mouth.  One morning I was eating cereal and I put her spoon in front of her.  She watched me eat and when I picked up my spoon, she picked up hers.  Then I put mine in my mouth and she did the same with hers!  When we first gave her rice cereal she was so excited about it!  She didn't reject the spoon, but she didn't completely know what to do with it and she made a mess, so we decided to wait a little bit and try again another time.

-Emily can sit up for a little bit unassisted.  When she first started doing it, she had to be leaning pretty far forward with her hands on the ground or her legs.  Now she can sit up a little straighter and she doesn't need her hand support anymore.  She can only do it for a short period of time though.  I have to stay right by her so she doesn't start to lean and fall over.
-She seems to pretty much be over her stranger phase.  She'll let most people hold her and she's very social.  She'll still start to get upset if someone else has her for a long time, but for the most part she's ok.

 We just can't get enough of our cute little girl!

Here are some outtakes from today's shoot (and cute ones that didn't get to be the main photo):

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day

We had a lot of fun celebrating Emily's first Valentine's Day! Grant finished his busy season this week so we've been able to have him home more.  He even got Thursday and Friday off for this week!  It's been so nice having him home, but he's still been busy.  There have been lots of projects around the house waiting for his attention.  But at least we were able to go out for Valentine's Day yesterday!  Here are some pictures of our cute girl on her first V-day:

Thanks Grandma Barb for all of the gifts!  Happy Valentine's Day!

craft corner

When Grant and I moved into our house, we were a little concerned at first about how we were going to fill it.  I mean, how were we going to take everything from our small two bedroom apartment in Provo and fill a four bedroom house?  One of the perks of living close to family is that they give you things they're getting rid of for free!  With all of our furniture from Provo and several things from my generous parents (my old bedroom furniture, a love sac they used to have in their gameroom, the piano, etc.) we've been able to make our house look pretty nice!  The only things we've really had to get were some new couches (which we didn't actually need, but wanted), Emily's bedroom furniture, and some small decorative touches.  The house is coming along great, and hopefully it won't be too long until we're ready to post pictures of the finished product.
One of the things we received from my parents that I'm most excited about is this secretary:

This has been in my parents' entryway for as long as I can remember. My mom was ready for a change and asked if I'd be interested in it before we ever even moved to Texas.  I didn't think I'd have any use for it as it was, but thanks to Pinterest, I knew it could come in handy... as my craft closet!!  I was so excited!  Over the past few weeks, my mom and I have been getting it ready.  We sanded it, painted it, changed the hardware, and changed out the windows for fabric and voila...

Isn't it cute?  I can't wait for the boys to come over and bring it up to my craft room.  Yes, that's right, I said craft room!  Having my own craft room has always been a dream of mine that I never really thought would become a reality.  The floor plan of our home usually has 2 full bathrooms upstairs instead of 1, but when our house was built, they turned one of the bathrooms into a small bonus room, which has now become my craft room!  I'm one happy girl :)

I've also been spending some time making the house look a little more festive for Valentine's day.  Here's what I've been working on:

The silver tree with the ornaments is something my mom got for me and my sister at Halloween.  She gave it to us with some Halloween ornaments.  Fleming and I have decided to make it a year-round thing, so each month we've been looking for ornaments to put on our tree.  I've also decided to keep the vase out all year and change out the candy and flowers.  We'll see how all of that goes!  I'll be sure to post pictures!

In other news, us girls decided to have a little fun for the Superbowl this year.  We turned to Pinterest for ideas and created a little feast for all of the boys.  It was so fun!  Fleming and Jeff hosted the party at their house so we could break in their new 60 inch TV and we all had a great time!

four months

Little Em turned 4 months old on Sunday, and it's so crazy to me how fast she's changing!

-We've finally started sleep training.  We wanted to wait until she was in her own room so she wouldn't get confused and have to start over when we made the transition.  With the move and waiting for her crib and all of the projects we had to get done, we're just now moving her to her room.  Sunday was our first night.  I was nervous about it since she was in a new bed and a new room, but we were determined.  We did our nightly routine and put her down while she was still awake.  I was worried there would be lots of tears.  She didn't cry AT ALL.  Not for one second!  I couldn't believe it.  I knew it was probably too good to be true... and I was right.  She was up a little more often during the night than usual and we'll definitely have to get her used to falling back asleep on her own.  Last night, she cried for about 30 minutes before I went in to calm her, but then she fell asleep after that.  She was up again at 11 and had to cry it out a little bit, but after that she was much better.  She was only up for one feeding and then slept until morning.  Hopefully she continues on the right track and it all gets worked out soon.
-Emily can now reach for objects, which makes toys a lot more interesting to her.  She also loves playing with people's hands.  If she can get toys into her mouth, she will.  She's even put her pacifier back in a few times.  She can usually get it to her mouth, but the tricky part is positioning it correctly.  If she can't get it, she'll always chew on her hands.  She LOVES chewing on her fingers!  When we did her photoshoot, it was hard to get any pictures of her without her hands in her mouth.  Because of this, she gets drool everywhere!  There's always slobber all over her face, hands, and clothes.  We've heard this could be a sign of teething, so we'll see.
-Her coos have gotten a lot louder.  She's been experimenting a lot with her voice and she loves the noises she can make.  She tries to communicate with us.  She'll start humming at the end of her feedings, and I think she's trying to signal to me that she's done :)  She can laugh, but not really on demand.  She'll do it randomly, but then if we try to get her to do it again, she won't.  She's getting there, though.
-She's had a big case of stranger danger lately.  Maybe it has something to do with the move and the fact that she's mostly just with me all of the time.  She loves other people as long as they're not holding her.  She'll smile at them and talk to them, but as soon as they pick her up she'll start crying.  It's like the flip of a switch and it flips off immediately once I take her back.  She'll always go to me or Grant, and usually my mom.  But right now most other people scare her.  Occasionally she'll let people hold her for a few minutes, but it doesn't last long.  I'm hoping it's just a phase, but I'm not sure what to do to help her with it.

We wish we could've gotten a better picture of her this month, but like I said before, she had her hands in her mouth pretty much the whole time.  Either that, or she was playing with her onesie sticker.  Here are some of the outtakes of our cute girl: