Pumpkin Festivals, Blueberries & First Steps

Mom & Emmy
Grammy & Emmy

Emmy, Grammy and I went to our town's annual Pumpkin Festival this weekend. Emmy is still a little young to enjoy all of the activities (face painting, pumpking bowling, eating a donut on a string, etc) but we still had fun walking around.



Jake and Papa didn't go because they were busy hunting. J was so excited because it was his first time hunting. Sorry to say that they didn't even see a deer until the end of the 2nd day and they were does, not bucks. Oh well! There's always next year. Although I'm a little relieved because he wanted to make jerky out of the meat . . . sounds not too tasty!



Emmy tried her first blueberries a couple of weeks ago. And as you can see, she loved them!

She is also getting ready to walk. She took her first steps last week! Jake and I were walking her back and forth between the two of us. I let go of her hands as Jake was reaching for her. She took 3 or 4 steps on her own! She gets mad at us now when we try to do it, but I have to try! She is constantly wanting us to walk with her around the room, holding her hands. She cruises while holding onto her walker and while walking in her sit-down walker. So give her a month or so and I think she'll be walking on her own. I can't believe how fast she is growing up!!!

Mothers Who Know

For those of you who listened to conference this weekend, hopefully you heard the talk by Julie B. Beck, General Relief Society President. What an inspirational talk for mothers! I got onto lds.org today to listen to the talk again since I was a little distracted by Binga when she gave it on Sunday.

Sometimes I think "what am I really doing as a mother?" I change diapers, clean up after Binga, clean the house, do laundry, plus I work about 5 hours a day. Life gets so hectic sometimes that the more important things seem to get lost in all the chaos. It's nice to hear a talk like this one to help us see what is really important in life. And I'm always trying to be organized, but with a child crawling around, pulling out toys all day, sometimes I think "What's the point? She's just going to pull them out again." But we need to keep our house like the Lord's house:

"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God." (Doctrine & Covenants 88:119)

If we do that, the spirit can feel welcome in our homes. And then it will be easier to focus on the important things, like teaching our children the gospel. Like President Bent said, our homes should be like a pre-MTC so that when our children go on missions, it's a review instead of a revelation when they go to the MTC.

Anyways, if you can't tell, I was really uplifted by this talk. Thank you President Bent! I love General Conference and the guidance that we get twice a year from our wonderful church leaders!


And here's a tribute to my beautiful daughter. I'm so lucky to be the mother of such a sweet, beautiful little girl. I love you, Binga!!!

Chatter Box

Emmy has been such a chatter box lately. She is constantly talking and having conversations with herself. It is so cute and fun to watch! She even started talking the other day after she fell and got hurt, in between cries. It was like she was saying "Mom, I was just trying to walk across the couch and I ran into something and I fell! And it kinda hurt!" all while she was crying. It was hillarious.

Emmy is also starting to use actual words, which is really exciting. She says, "Hi!" in the cutest little voice! She also says "What's that?" but it sounds more like "wha sa?" My child is so smart! She can say "Pa pa" which is what the grandkids call my dad. She says "ma ma" and "da da".

She can also sign. She signs "daddy" (not mommy yet, dang it!), "kiss", and "more" (she doesn't know what "more" means, she just knows how to do the sign so she does it randomly. I'm trying to teach her what it means).

I've also been working on teaching her to find her nose for a couple of months. She always just looks at me and doesn't do anything. And the doctor said his baby didn't do it until she was 14 months old so I kind of gave up a little. Well, I decided to try it again the other day and, to my surprise, she touched her nose! I was so excited! It is so fun to see how smart she is. Every age just keeps getting better with her!

Oh no!

So I was doing my hair the other day and I saw something in my hair. I leaned in closer to the mirror and to my horror I found . . . a gray hair!!!! This is the first gray hair I have ever found on my head and I was freaking out! I'm not old enough to have gray hair. My sister has a bunch of gray hairs (not enough to notice, but she has some scattered here and there) but she's almost 30 so you'd expect it a little more from her.

Some of you may be saying, "No big deal!" Others of you may be saying, "Wow, you are getting old, the proof is in the pudding!" So I am here to say, I'm trying not to make a big deal out of this. There are only more gray hairs to come!

Caped Crusader!

She looks like Mother Theresa here!

Emmy is such a joy! She has been so much fun lately, I am loving being a mom! These pics were after her bath one day last week.

Poor girl, though, she has had dia (short for a longer, not very fun word. This is what we call it in our house :) ) since Thursday last week. And due to this she has had the WORST bum burn I have ever seen. There were open sores on her bum and she would scream every time we changed her diaper. The dr prescribed Pink Swizzle for her on Friday but by Monday it wasn't any better. I couldn't get into the dr on Monday so we went on Tuesday. The dia was causing the bad bum burn (I knew that, but the dr confirmed it). We had to put her on an all liquid diet (Pedialyte and Soy formula) for 2 days. Now she has to be on the BRATY diet for 3-5 days to try and get her regular again. If that doesn't work, they will have to take a stool sample. So we're hoping it will work! Poor baby, I feel so bad for her. Her bum is getting better, but it was pretty bad. She hasn't had a fever or any other symptoms of anything besides a loss of appetite so what she has is a mystery. Sorry if this is too much info for any of you, but I had to share my stresses with you!

On a lighter note, I took this hillarious pic of Binga with her two cousins, Dylan and Ella. They were watching Elf and it was a Kodak moment!

Roomies

My parents have been trying to sell their house for a while. They decided they needed to downsize (this usually means they build a bigger house). They've almost sold it twice, but I guess 3rd times a charm because they actually closed on the sale this week. So, that means Jake and I have new roommates! They threatened a few times that they might live with us if they sold their home and they kept true to their threat. We moved them into our 3 bedroom apartment this past weekend. It's nice for my mom because we live underneath her office. She built the office a few years ago and I think it's got about 1300 square feet. But still, it's a tight squeeze for everyone!

We will lose a little privacy for a while, while my parents build their new house, but that's ok. It will be fun, like a sleepover every night! :)

Binga Bows

I make hair bows and flower clips and I just started my first website to sell them! I'm really excited about it! The name of the company is Binga Bows since Binga's nickname is, well, Binga. To check out the website, click here or you can click on the link under "Other Blogs and Cool Websites" on this blog. We are having a special right now so check it out!

Bryce Canyon

Over Labor Day weekend we went camping in TeePees right outside of Bryce Canyon National Park. It was so much fun! It was a little cold at night for Emmy but overall it was a great trip. We went into the park and got to drive and walk around. There were a ton of hiking trails - we didn't have a hiking back-pack to carry Emmy around in so we'll have to go back to hike those trails. They looked like a lot of fun. Hope you all had a great Labor Day!





And here is a cute pic of Binga that I couldn't resist posting :)

Teething and Sleeping

Emmy had a horrible time breaking her front left tooth and the one next to it through. That was a couple of weeks ago. After two bad nights of being up with her anywhere from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours, she has been doing great. The past 3 nights she has slept all the way through the night!!! I'm talking 7:30 or 8 pm to 7:30 am!!! She was sleeping through the night by the time she was 2 1/2 months, then something changed and in May she started waking up to eat again. This is a glorious occasion for me and Jake!!! We just have to knock on wood that it will stay this way.

Also, I saw her other front tooth trying to come through tonight, so we could have some more rough nights ahead. But I actually think it won't be that bad with this tooth. :)

Grandpa V

J's grandpa was in the hospital last week. We were in town so we stopped by the hospital to see him. Grandpa couldn't keep his eyes off of Emmy! He was just staring at her, it was so cute. We wanted to get some pics of Emmy with him. We got some good ones! Of course, here she is with her camera face. And then there's one with cousin Bellie. What cute pics!