Emily's 1st - Part 1

It's so hard to believe that my sweet girl is 1.  I am so incredibly thankful for God's blessings in giving her to us.  

 

Emily's birthday is the day after mine so we enjoyed lots of birthday festivities last weekend.  It was a wonderful weekend spent with family.  Aunt Carrie flew in from CA, Grandmama flew in from GA, Mimi and Papa Stan drove up from GA, Aunt Alison and Uncle Stephen drove in from Youngsville, and Aunt Katherine and Uncle Brett drove in from Bunn.  So Youngsville and Bunn are only about 15 minutes away, but we're still thankful they could make it.:)  

Thursday night (my actual birthday) Alison, Carrie and Linda prepared a wonderful meal for us complete with ice cream sundaes.  It was soooo good!

On Friday (Em's actual b-day) we all went to dinner at Red Robin.  I really like this restaurant.  It has such a fun atmosphere and great food.

Emily with her grandma's...

Mimi and Papa Stan with the birthday girl.  

This picture is a little blurry, but I thought it was cute.  Emily loves Aunt Alison and Aunt Carrie.  

Emily was having such a fun time at the dinner table.  We had her sitting in the middle of the table and she was really putting on a show.:)  Just before we left they came to sing "Happy Birthday" to Emily and I...she got SO excited about the singing.  

Group shot. 

When we got home we put Emily straight in the bed.  She was exhausted and we wanted her to be well rested for her party the next day.  She missed out on the ice cream cake action, but she was fine.  She got plenty of cake the next day!

Alison and Stephen

Alison, Bert's sister, and her husband Stephen moved up to Wake Forest last weekend!!  More family in town...woohoo!:)  Alison has done a great job getting everything unpacked and getting their home all set up in no time (it took me a little longer when we moved up here). 

They have three dogs...Penny, Dexter and Luna.  Emiy LOVES them!  She gets SO excited when we go over to their house.  She starts saying "dou" (dog) as we walk in the door.  She basically just keeps repeating it the whole time we are there.  I have a feeling as soon as she can really talk she's going to be begging us to get a dog.  It probably wont' take much convincing to win her Daddy over.:) 

We really are so excited about having Alison and Stephen up here.  We're looking forward to many dinners being eaten, games being played, movies being watched, and good times being had by all! 

Bath Time??

Emily decided she wanted to help me feed her spaghetti for lunch.  I didn't want her help.  As you can see, she won.  I took that sweet girl straight to the bath after lunch.  In fact, that may have been her plan all along.  She does love bath time!?

First Steps

Emily took her first steps last night (3/18/11)! 

She gets soooo excited when Bert gets home from work.  Last night was no exception.  It was an absolutely beautiful day so we decided to go on a quick walk before dinner.  Bert was sitting on the bed putting on his shoes and Emily kept hanging on him.  He set her out a few feet from him to see if she would stand up by herself.  (We've been working on this....she can totally do it....but most every time we stand her up and let go she drops herself to the floor and starts crawling.)  Anyway, when Bert stood her up this time she took 3 steps towards him.  I was standing right there talking to him and saw the whole thing.  Bert jerked his head up at me to make sure I had seen it too....my mouth was hanging open.:)  He set her back and she did it again....couple more steps.  She did it a third time and then we decided we HAD to get the video camera out.  I ran to get it only to find it was as dead as a doornail.  (That's not supposed to happen!)  Bert told me to go get our regular camera and we could take a video with it.  I raced to get that camera.  By the time I found the camera and was ready to go, Emily had decided she was tired of that game.  Oh well.  You'll have to take our word for it for now, but we're hoping to get a video soon!!:) 

Healthy Competition

We like a little healthy competition in our family!:) Bert and I started filling out brackets together our first year of marriage, and it's become a tradition. I prefer filling out a paper copy over an electronic copy b/c I like to mark through the teams that lost and highlight the teams that won. (Probably goes back to my obsession with marking things off my to-do list.) Anyway, we drug Brett, Katherine and Stan into the March Madness thing this year, and everyone's having a great time!

Emily's modeling beside our brackets. Doesn't she look like such a big girl here with her legs crossed?:)

After Day 1 of Round 2:

Bert - 17

Stan - 16

Brett - 14

Kate - 14

Steph - 13

I'm losing so far, but I have every intention of coming back...it's just the beginning.

We decided that the winner gets to pick the restaurant for one of our eating out nights on our family vacation in Panama City Beach this summer.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day and Emily was decked out in her St. Patrick's day gear, thanks to her Aunt Carrie.:)

It was an absolutely beautiful day! My brother, Stan, has been visiting us this week so Emily and I had a fun afternoon with him. In fact, we were having so much fun that she refused to take her afternoon nap. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

After Bert got home we rushed out the door to take a walk before we needed to get back home and start getting dinner ready. As we were getting back in the car from our walk I made a comment about wanting to try a Banana Pudding Milkshake from Chick-Fil-A....I had heard they were really good. I truly didn't mean that we needed to go get one at that second (before dinner!), but to my surprise that's where the car was headed. Bert and Stan both thought I meant I wanted one right then and said that now I had them wanting one. Once they promised me that they would still eat the dinner I had planned, we were off to Chick-fil-A. Most days I would quickly choose ice cream over a milk shake, but I must say that new Banana Pudding milk shake is going to make me think twice.

Family Time

My parents (better known as Mimi and Papa Stan) came to Wake Forest for a visit last weekend.  We had such a great time!  They stayed with Katherine and Brett this visit, but we were able to spend lots of time with them.

My mom's sister and her husband (Aunt Ann and Uncle Bud) came down from Yorktown, VA on Saturday and spent the night with us Saturday night.  It was so good to see them!  Uncle Bud retired from the army a couple of years ago.  They've lived all over the world, from Germany to Colorado.  Our family has always enjoyed taking trips to visit them (and their two girls) in their exciting locations!!

Papa Stan lets Emily play with his phone.  I told him that he was a brave soul, but she has him wrapped around his finger. 

Getting ready to take a walk.  Bert had to work most of the day and Brett is the photographer. 

We had a wonderful dinner prepared by Brett and Katherine.  Can you find Emily?  She's at the head of the table in her bumbo seat.:)  

Brett's birthday was the weekend before so of course we had to enjoy some red velvet cake in honor of it.  Please excuse the lack of candles.:) 

Sad picture.  Emily wanted out and Chloe wanted in.:)   

This is absolutely my Dad's favorite thing to do.  He just loves it when a baby falls asleep on his chest.  Emily doesn't do it very often any more (she's too interested in what's going on around her), but she indulged him one time over the weekend.  Made his day!:)  

Bert and Brett thought a Sunday afternoon nap looked like a good idea, so they joined Daddy and Emily.  

Emily with her Mimi and Papa Stan!:)