Catching up with Emery...

Ok... I'm SO bad at this blog thing!  I just haven't been motivated at all lately.  So much is happening and I'm not getting any of it down.  Emery is changing so much every day and yet... this post has sat started, but empty, for 2 months (yep I actually attempted to start a new post and left it a blank page!!).  So here we go, with a little kick in the butt from my dear friend, and expert blogger, Lisa!  ;-)
What have we been doing all summer since my birthday??  Well, not much.  But I have been keeping up on yard work... lots of hedges to keep in shape and I'm mowing the backyard to help my hardworking husband out.  Its actually really fun and only takes me 15 min.  I have the easy job vs doing the front yard.  But HEY, its something!  And keeping our fish alive which we both would say is more of a nuisance than a joy given that there are so many mosquitos that we can't even sit out there and enjoy our pond!  But hoping with the cooling of the weather that the end of them is near!
Emery is changing so much every day!  Its crazy!  Even just today, as I gave in and let her watch some Cars before taking a nap, we were snuggling on the couch and I looked down at her and started to cry.  It still hits me every now and again how far we have come and how extraordinary she is to our lives!!!  She is the most amazing little person I've ever known!  Don't get me wrong, she can be feisty for sure and definitely tests my limits, but its all part of her growing and learning and experimenting and building her character.  I just hope and pray I do, at least most, things right so she becomes the person God has created her to be.  It is my daily prayer!
So this summer she's been swimming... a lot!!  I've taken her swimming every summer since she was 6 months old.  And in the winter, I continued to splash her and pour water over her in the bath tub.  LOL  But it was all for the good because she has never been afraid of the water or getting her face wet.  And now, with almost weekly swim times, I have personally had the honor of teaching her to swim.  She is on the very brink of swimming on her own!  I'm sad that summer is coming to a close.  I hope to get in one or two more at the very least.  This girl is a fish!!!!  Just like her mama, I might add!  She is now, jumping off the step or the side of the pool all by herself and swimming to me under water until she finds my arms and pulls herself up.  I usually stand about 3 or 4 feet away from her!  She will swim under water for as long as 8 seconds so far.  Its crazy!!  Last swim we did, she would swim to me, come up and take a breath, I would count to 3 and let her go and she would swim to me again.  We would do this all the way across the pool!  She just can't get enough power to kick her way above the surface.  So we have been working on just kicking as well as swimming out and turning around back to the steps.  Her least favorite exercise is when I roll her on her back to 'float'.  She will cry and cry!  But she finally started letting me do it without fighting me, but will still cry.  hahaha   But she is an amazing swimmer so far!!  She's gonna go crazy next year!

Two months ago I had to bring her with me to my 4 hour hair appointment (little did I know it would actually take that long!).  But she did awesome!  Luckily its a very low key salon and all the girls loved Emery.  She just hung out with us the whole time and played on "her rug" with her toys.  Then at the end, she finally got to climb up into the big girl chair and got her first, official, professional haircut!!  My stylist said it would help her hair grow out by cutting a bob (eek!), getting the unhealthy stuff off, and would prevent it from continuing to break.  I'm happy to say I think it really has helped!  Her hair is finally growing longer and starting to look more like a kid rather than baby hair.   Again, she did awesome as she sat there quietly letting Amber do what ever she wanted! :)

My friend Tyranie watches Emery on the days I'm at work.  I'm always begging to take her kid(s) to help her out in return and also give Emery play time.  So finally she asked me to watch her youngest, Meagen for the day, who happens to be Emery's little best friend and "sister".  We had a super fun time picnicing at the park, playing, eating ice cream and then naptime (yeah for mommy!).  It was so fun watching them play!!  They crack me up!

Meagan and "mini-me"

I scored BIG TIME on this one!!!  A coworker told me about this classic car showroom not far from where we live.  So one Saturday morning I took Sean there.  I'm not sure who was more excited.  Probably him... but I was pretty darn ecstatic and also so proud of myself!!!  This place was crazy cool!!  Over a hundred classic cars!  Sean was in RPM heaven!

We had a family date night one night and went to Las Pinatas.  Its a restaurant just down the street from our house and up on a hill.  Really cool location and really yummy mexican food!  We were not disappointed!!  Tonight... Emery had her first full plate dinner ordered for her... aaaaaaallllllll for her!!!  Just another small show of how she is growing up!

Just had to share this because she is just sooooooo cool even when 

she is going potty in a public restroom!!!  hahahahaha

.....And at Target...... and..... 

I'm gonna stop for now or this will never get published (still took me a week to complete!)  But I will share more pics very soon!  Tomorrow Sean leaves me for California to go get our house ready to list and sell!  I will be on my own for a week!  But not alone.... I'm leaving on Friday and making my first road trip in Texas (and first road trip alone with Emery and only my second road trip by myself ever! ha!).  I'm driving to the other side of Houston to Baytown to visit a long time friend from high school.  We are so excited to see each other as its been 5 years maybe (?) since we saw each other last!  I can't wait to meet her whole family and for her to finally meet little Emery!  Gonna be a blast!!

Turning 40 Ain't So Bad!!!!

My birthday has come and gone.  Like the long anticipated wedding date that you stress and worry about and build up in your mind.  And in a day it's done.  Well, I was, sad to say, stressing about this birthday for the past year.  I think a big reason for that is because of our move to Texas.  I think it may have been different had we still been in Fresno with all our long-time family and friends.  I always said I would embrace 40 with grace!  But here we are and so I have been a slight bit insecure about this one.  But despite all the worry and stress, it came and went, and I still feel the same as I did a week ago!  LOL  As if 40 would really change who I am or how I look.  I think there's grace all over it!

Well it came and went, but not without a lot of celebration, lots of memories and fabulous friends who are like family!  I had an absolutely wonderful birth-week! (yes, Sean and I celebrate the entire week!)  Sean set out to surprise me with a super fun weekend.  He asked me what I wanted a while back and he did all that he could to see that it happened down to every detail!  He told me only days before that I needed to pack my bags.... We are staying over night!!!!!  

My Saturday started out with getting my hair done.  I think I set a record with a 4 hour hair appt!!  It was the first time seeing this girl, Amber, who is a sister and cousin of a couple of my friends at work.  But more than that, my hair color was awful!!!  It was a year of boxed home hair color!  Like layers of paint on a wall.  And so she went to work gently stripping it down to shades to reveal the natural highlights underneath.  We will do this one more time and then it will be on to beautiful color!!!  I felt bad that the appt went so long, but Sean was so gracious saying this was My Day!  I got home and we were instantly off to Dallas (he had already dropped Emery off a couple hours earlier)

Hello Dallas!!!  Hope you have your party hats on!!!

I was "Wowed" as we pulled up to our hotel... the Hotel Zaza.  It is a very trendy, hip, artsy hot spot of a hotel in the Arts District in downtown Dallas.  It is beautiful!  Definitely not like anywhere we've ever stayed before!  And he found it all by himself! :)

 

That's Sean standing in front, in black. :)

The Lobby

Beautiful Art everywhere!

The pool... which reminded me of the Roman Baths! 

I couldn't believe how 'live' it was at 4 in the afternoon.  At night it closes and becomes one of the hottest poolside nightclubs from 10-2am.

Just a little pre-dinner drink at the hotel!

Our room

We set off for dinner, taking the hotel shuttle (a black Escalade... I kind of felt like a Kardashian! lol)  I felt so alive as we drove through the city to the restaurant.  It's confirmed time and time again that I am truly a city girl!!!   I just looked at Sean and said "I'm in heaven!!!"  As we waited for our friends to arrive, Sean and I even discussed that maybe we bought a house in the 'burbs' too soon and should have moved to the city! lol  But we both need new jobs for that!  So back to the 'burbs' we go!!!  hahaha  But I LOVE the fact that we can drive 35 min and be in the city!  I love that about the DFW area!!  

We ate at Del Frisco's.  It's a high end, trendy restaurant about a mile from where we were staying.  Sooooo very yummy!!!

The best part about this night together was the time we spent sharing wisdom. It started with Steve stating that 40 is the year of wisdom and so I needed to share 3 words of wisdom that I've learned over the years.  I shared a bit about marriage... about how it is the hardest and yet best relationship you'll ever have.  We talked awhile about that, digging deeper, and then I was like "wait a second!  You all are already in your 40's... YOU need to share your wisdom with me!!!"  It began a time of sharing with me.  It was a priceless, beautiful and rich time of sharing wisdom, encouragement and really speaking into my life.  Given that I had been sad, since we moved, that I would not be celebrating such a huge milestone in my life with my closest friends and family back home , God truly came through and has provided the most wonderful friends, both old and new!  (and the fact that we have such rich and long history with these two couples is the icing on the cake!)

I feel like every next picture like this that Sean and I take shows more and more depth, beauty and maturity in each of us and together as a couple!

(dessert on the house... the best Coconut Creme Pie!!)

On the upper deck/balcony of the restaurant.  

We wish we would have known about this before dinner!

At night, the street comes alive with lights, music and people!  After dinner we ended up at this Irish Pub, Idle Rich (I have a thing for them, being that I'm Irish!  Someday I'll get to go to a real one! lol)

Luke and Kathy

Steve and Tyranie

The Carlsons left around 11pm (they just drove home from Colorado that day so I let them go home), but the rest of us party animals stayed out.  We found this cute little house called BrokenTree Coffeehouse and chilled for awhile with some cappuccinos.

Me and My Cappuccino!

We walked back to our hotel and Steve and Tyranie met us there.  The Dragonfly Nightclub was open and the place was hopping!  They came by to check out the hotel and then left for home a short time later.  It was the best night in the city with great friends!!

The next day we slept in (as best we could) and then headed out for breakfast.  I got a few recommendations from people at work and we ended up at Breadwinners.  From the outside it looks like a big house, but when you get inside you realize just how big it is as it goes on and on and on (the host must have led us through 4 or 5 different rooms and lush patios before we finally ended up in an upstairs room off the bar-room.  It filled up quickly.  

 

THIS was the highlight of my weekend!  Up!  I said it!  In 22 years of being together, I have never been able to get Sean to take these silly booth photos with me.  I love them and he never got it.  So guess what was right behind me in the restaurant but a photo booth!  He easily agreed to take pics with me.  I was SO excited, grinning ear to ear!!!!  (I can be such a school girl sometimes... it really is pretty easy to make me happy)

We chose to walk it back through to our hotel after breakfast.  It was a beautiful mile long morning walk through the city, but it was warming up fast!

And let me not fail to mention Emery at least once.  It was a big deal for us because this was the very first time we have left her overnight with anyone.  She stayed with the Caughrans, who of course were with us for the evening.  But their oldest, Josh and Elizabeth, watched all the young ones (four in all including Emery!).  That was kind of weird to think of too.  But we trust them so much and she really is part of their family as she is watched by them twice a week while I'm at work.  So we were able to have a wonderful time away without worry.  But it definitely was weird to not kiss her goodnight or good morning!  I won't be longing to do that again for a little while. :)  And of course, we had to bring her back a little something yummy from the Breadwinners' baked goods counter!!

Sean did awesome in planning this weekend!!!  We had invited three more friends of mine but they were not able to make it, so we all celebrated another day.  But it was so much fun and SOOOOO what Sean and I have been needing!  I was amazed at just how much MORE we needed it than I had even thought.  It was rejuvenating for each of us and our marriage!!!  

Been too long...

Well gosh!  I need to catch up on my posts.  But there is so much is going on and I feel like I better write in the moment or it will be gone!  We were without internet for 10 days after we moved into our new house.  So I am very behind!  

First and most important... Emery!  She is doing so amazing!  She is such an awesome little girl.  Although it does not make her exempt from those toddler twos.  But realizing the development side of this stage helps to survive it, as she is forming independence, social skills and becoming aware of her own being.  But man, she gives me a run for my money some days!  I don't remember if I blogged this before. But I realized at the end of my visit in Fresno that I was really letting her get away with a lot.  And she was becoming this whiney, fussy little squirt.  But I was mentally, emotionally and physically tired from all that was going on.  Whether one could see that from the outside, I'm not sure, but that's what was going on on the inside.  Sean and I noticed this upon returning home and agreed we had to kick it into gear and get back on track.  I hate to think that friends and family back home saw her that way (hopefully it wasn't as bad as I perceived it...lol), because she truly is a very sweet and fun girl (all bias aside!).  So we have been a lot more on top of discipline and rules and consistency.  Even recently I realized how many chances I was giving her and, once again, knew I was creating a monster.  So I now am telling her once and if she doesn't obey then there is a consequence.  This only happens once or twice and then I can see her attitude change for the better.  I'm setting boundaries for all her not-so-nice habits she's forming... "no", "I want blah blah NOOOOOOOW!" (this is the newest...ugh), whines, and irrational cries.  It's amazing how quickly she changes and becomes a happier baby when we set, and stick to, these boundaries.  Makes for a much happier family. :)

On the more fun side of things, she is growing so much in spirit and personality!  She memorized her first memory verse, "Fear not, for God is with me!" Isaiah 41:10!!!  It is adorable when she sings it with signs!  And she's learned almost all of her ABC's and 1-10.  She goes around singing A-Z along with the jingle at the end "now I know my ABC's...".  Although she does leave out a few letters, but she puts them all in the right order.  Yes, I think she is a genius!!!  haha   She still has funny sayings for some of her favorite things.  Almost everyday, she asks for "oh-oh" which is the Lincoln Brewster song "Today is the Day".  It starts out singing "oh-oh-oh-ohhhh, oh-oh-oh-oh!"  She LOVES dancing to it!  And when he says "Jesus", she sings along!  It's awesome!  The other thing she always asks for is "ooh-ooh-ah" which means monkey. lol  First it was a monkey sing-a-long video on you-tube but now it is baby monkey Nala getting a bath on you-tube.  Her vocabulary continues growing every day!  We have full on conversations now!  It's so much fun!  I still can't believe that we created her!!!  It amazes me all the time!  And the times when we can't understand what she is saying, she gets all impatient and frustrated.  It's kind of cute. lol  

I keep thinking I want to leave my "Emery" journal out (I haven't written in it in months!) and jot down every cute, amazing and funny thing she does and says.  As you parents know there is so much!  I feel like I'm experiencing this as if it is all new to mankind.  To think I had missed out on this for soooo long!  But I'm here now and it is the most amazing time of my life!!!  I feel so blessed to get to be home with her, working minimally, and get to be such an intimate part of her life. 

Potty training and big girl beds!!!

So I started potty training 3 weeks ago on May 21st.  I decided to do the "Potty Patty training in One Day" technique.  I did not use Potty Patty (she's too expensive), my friend let me borrow her DVD (thank you Karah!!!) and I bought a cheaper potty training doll, which I returned realizing Emery's dolls would do the trick.  So all in all, I did it with no money out of pocket!  

I talked the whole event up for a few days before, and that morning she woke up and I said "Today is the day!  No more diapers!  You're a big girl now!"  I used one of her dolls she got for her birthday and I had Emery name her.  She named her Lola (ok, so I helped with that one).  First we took off Lola's diaper and put on 'big girl panties' and began the entire training process with Lola.  We celebrated every time she went potty in the big girl potty.  I got creative though and used a syringe and apple juice to simulate her pee'ing in the potty.  I did this without Emery noticing and she was amazed every time!  It was fun!  

Once Lola was officially potty trained, it was Emery's turn.  We ran through all of the drills and practice runs and then it was every 5 min of asking if she has to go potty or if she is dry (she feels for herself) or, eventually being more suggestive and asking if she 'should' go potty.  Every... 5... minutes!!!!  It was an intense day, but I felt it was quite successful!  With lots of salty snacks and lots of apple juice, she went 23 times that day!!!  We were 13-10 with successful pee pee's in the potty being the winner!  More than half of them were self-initiated and she only had one accident after her nap that evening.  

Emery teaching Lola how to use the big girl potty!!

 More teaching! (don't mind the bare booty!)

 Emery's first attempt that day of pulling up her own panties

 Lola sits by and cheers her on!!  Emery say's "Good job!" with thumbs up! (her new thing!) 

I'm a big girl now!!

Day 2, however, was excruciating for me (I brought it on myself) because for some reason I thought she should be an expert by then (she should, right?! lol), but she continued having accidents that morning and I ended up in tears.  But after her nap, she had no accidents.  I was ready for a break by day 3 and welcomed a day at work.  Tyranie took over potty training on day 3 and 4.  I figured all the kids would be a distraction or they would be her biggest supporters.  Luckily, Emery LOVES all the attention and so she did great with her entourage looking on and celebrating every success with her!  

By Day 5, I took her for her first outing.  We went to downtown Dallas, REI and Klyde-Warren Park.  We played in children's courtyard, in the water fountains and ate ice cream sandwiches.  We were out for 5 hours and she had only one accident.  I took her portable potty with us and she went in the back of my car and also on the curb. lol  It was also her first time going on the "big-BIG potty" in a public restroom.  Success!!!!  We had a great time!  

 Going potty before going into REI!

 Playing at Klyde-Warren Park

She even made new friends

 Going potty before driving home!

She's always so happy and proud of herself!  She'll say "I proud of you" when she goes because that's what I always say. :)

We had no accidents on day 6 and she continued doing well from then on!  According to experts, she is officially potty trained.  But it is still a conscious effort to stay on top of her.  She does have accidents once in a while and she hasn't figured out how to hold back and get to the potty BEFORE pooping in her panties, which the my least favorite of this whole thing! lol  But overall she is doing so well!  I put plastic covers over her panties when she naps (99% of the time she wakes up dry after a 3 hour nap) and for bedtime she wears a pull-up because 99% of the time she has a huge wet diaper in the morning despite limiting her fluids at night. 

Yes, the first two days were intense, and maybe even extreme, but I think it was a great technique and would recommend it to anyone who is willing.  I always thought I would just let it happen on its own, but I'm so glad I did it this way.  BAM!  It's done!  lol  

The next thing to conquer was transitioning her to a big girl bed.  I had planned to do that when we moved into our house this next weekend.  It would be a new house with a new room and a new 'big girl' bed!  But funny thing is, she transitioned herself last week!!  I have our long couch cushion in front of her crib in case she tried to climb out.  I had stripped her bed that morning because she soaked her sheets.  When we came home from bible study, I realized I had no where to lay my sleeping baby for naptime.  So I laid a blanket on the cushion and laid her on her pillow, covered her up and she took her nap there.  That night, she wanted to sleep there again.  And the rest is history!!  She never went back to her crib!  It was way too easy!  Now that she is used to it, she will play for a little bit in there before finally falling asleep.  I'm okay with that.  She always did that anyway in her crib.  But there is a rule that she cannot get out of bed after I leave and shut the door.  Can't say she is 100% obedient on this, but she still ends up back in bed and asleep before too long.   A couple of times she has ended up with the lower half of her body on the floor and her upper body on the pillow.  Or one morning before work, I walked in to find her 2 feet away from her 'bed' curled up on the floor... no pillow, no blanket.  Po' baby!  lol   The thing I absolutely love about her new bed is that I can go in and kiss her whenever I want!  I can also lay down with her in bed which brings back the fondest and most precious memories of my childhood with my mom.  She always laid down with me as I fell off to sleep.  At Emery's age, I don't do it to that extent yet because she doesn't understand boundaries and would demand it every night.  But I love having the option to cuddle with her when I want.  This mommy thing just keeps getting better and better all the time.  Every time I think I don't want this stage to be over, she moves on to the next stage and I realize it is even better!

This weekend when we move, we will convert her crib to the toddler bed and she will officially be transitioned.  I think the cushion worked well for her to get used to it before being a little higher off the floor in the actual bed.   So that is 2 out of 3.  Now if I can just retire the pacifer (or as she calls it... Fru-frier)!  lol

 First nap on her pseudo 'big-girl' bed!

 First night night time!  This time with her bed officially made up with

 sheets, blankets and animals! 

She's a pro!!!

My sweet, sleeping angel!!!