Eating Food for the First Time!

This morning, Emma got to try her first taste at solid food. Although, she ended up wearing quite a bit of it, she had a really good time and seemed to enjoy the whole process! Even though it was just rice cereal she gobbled it down and is looking forward to trying it again tomorrow. She's been watching us eat for awhile now and has acted like she wanted to eat as well, so we figured it was about time to let her try it! :)

Videos of the Snowy Ramp to the Roof

So in an earlier post I had mentioned that while we were in Seattle my brother (and family helpers) had built a ramp out of snow from the ground up to the roof of the garage. We had a lot of fun sliding down the ramp in various ways! We took some videos of it and my Dad has requested a couple of times that I upload them because he wants to see them. I apologize for taking so long to get to it, but today I was determined. I sat down and figured out to edit and upload the videos - there was a lot of extra footage that would bore most people, but here are the hilights (please excuse my first-time editing skills). Hope you enjoy!

Five Months Old!

I know I'm about a week late (well, longer now since I didn't finish this on the day I started it) in getting this up, but it's been a busy week. :) Emma's been keeping us on her toes. Anyway, it's been almost 2 weeks, but on the 8th Emma had her 5 month birthday. She didn't have a Dr.'s appointment so I measured and weighed her at home which is not always completely accurate, but my best guess is that she's about 14 pounds and 25 inches long. What a big girl!

Last week I took her grocery shopping and she sat in the front seat part of the shopping cart for the first time. I had to strap her in there real tight 'cause she is still not that great at balancing, but she really enjoyed it! Then when we were out to lunch last week with some friends, she got to sit in a high chair for the first time. It was padded with a couple of towels to keep her from falling to the side, but she had a really good time. She is getting so old. :)

She got a highchair for Christmas - it's still in the garage since we haven't quite had the time to set it up, but hopefully we'll get it up this week and she'll probably start eating solid foods!! I went to the store yesterday and bought her dishes and she's got some food so she's all ready to go. Mommy & Daddy just aren't quite ready - soon though!

She has also been sleeping in her own bed in her own room now for the past couple of weeks - ever since we got back from Seattle. We had a rough couple of days, but she has made so much progress and we are so proud of her! She goes to bed and naps now with little to no crying and for the most part is giving us 3/4 hour stretches of sleep at night - we are so grateful!

And as a sidenote, she has been in a size 2 diaper for about a month now. Yeah, for a growing bottom! Haha! :)

So, here she is on her 5 month birthday - drool, fingers and all!

Seattle - Day 15

Dave, my parents and I took Emma for her first trip into the city! We took her to Pike Place Market. For those of you who have no idea what this is, it's the famous farmer's market in Seattle. It's the place where if you watch Real World Seattle or movies filmed there you often see the guys throwing the fish. It's always very crowded and there is such a collection of characters down there. Even if you don't buy anything, it's fun to just walk around and look at the people. AND, the very first Starbucks is right across the street! :) You can't see us very well in the first pic, but you can see all the fun people. Emma was pretty tired when the pictures were taken so she looks kind of bored. :)

We ended our trip in Seattle with a visit to the restaurant where my brother works. He works at an Outback Steakhouse in Seattle and so we went there for dinner. It was fun to see him in action and they even gave us an employee discount - hooray! It was a fun little outing!

Seattle - Day 12 & 13

It's the New Year! I don't have anything interesting to post for this one, but I thought you'd all like to know that we did nothing. :) Some of my parents stopped by for awhile in the evening and we had fun visiting with them, then we ate Jack-In-The-Box and went to bed. Actually we did watch a movie before going to bed. I fell asleep on the couch, but Dave watched the whole thing and he really enjoyed it. It was called The Sting (I think). My brother came home from work around 11 and was sorely disappointed that we were all asleep.

And New Year's day was filled with lots of snacking and watching football. It was a relaxing day which was nice. Once again, I don't have any pictures for this post, but there will be more to come. Don't worry!! :)

Seattle - Day 11

Last Tuesday was the day that we got to make cookie houses. This is something that my family does every year, but this year Emma got to participate - yeah!! We had a really good time: building, decorating and of course eating candy!! :) Here is Emma helping out AND getting her first taste of anything other than milk - PEPPERMINT. She really liked it, but it was a one time treat (at least for awhile). :)

And here are the finished products. This was the first year that Dave & I didn't make a house together. We were all kind of suprised at his skill in this area (or lack thereof). Here's my house:

And here's Dave's house (it's a courthouse - hopefully this will not be a model for future buildings):

Seattle - Day 9

This was the day that Emma got to meet many of her relatives for the first time. This was the day of the annual Kelly Family Christmas where all of my extended family gets together to celebrate Christmas with dinner and a white elephant gift exchange. We were supposed to have done this on the 21st, but with all of the snow it had to be postponed. This meant that Dave's parents were still in town and so they were able to join us. We didn't seem to scare them off so I suppose they fit in well with our crazy family! :)

Unfortunately, I realized that I didnt' take any pictures, but know that Emma was definitelly interested in all the people (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmas). They tired her out so she had to take a couple of naps throughout the day, but she did walk away with a Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat stuffed animal from the white elephant gift exchange. It's red, black and white - her favorite colors, so she enjoys it. It was very nice for her to meet everyone and fun for me to see many of the people that I haven't seen in quite some time!

Seattle - Day 6

Christmas Day was finally here - Emma's very first Christmas!! It was so exciting!! As you know, it had been snowing a lot before Christmas and it continued to snow on Christmas. So you know what that means...A WHITE CHRISTMAS!! Although, we'd already had our fun times playing in the snow, it was very cool to have snow on the ground on Christmas morning - there is a good possibility that it will never happen again for us and how special for it to happen on Emma's first Christmas. She is going to be spoiled. :) Here is a picture out my parent's window of what we got to look at while opening presents:

Christmas morning was very fun. Emma got to open more presents - she is becoming an expert at that. We opened presents with her before we left and then we did Christmas with Dave's parents the day before we flew up to Seattle so she knew what to expect. :) Here she is opening her stocking and playing with one of her new toys:

Santa had definitely come and left us lots of goodies (wink, wink):

We had a very fun morning with my family and after presents were over, Dad treated us to a spectacular breakfast!! After breakfast we started preparations for Christmas dinner. Dave's parents flew in that afternoon and joined us for the evening. It was really great to have all of our family surrounding us! Emma was pretty exhausted by the end of the day, and so after dinner she had to go to bed, but it was a wonderful day - one she has probably already forgotten. Haha!! We look forward to many more Christmases with her.

Seattle - Day 5

I'm a little bit behind on keeping you all updated with our trip, but I am going to do my best to catch up! :)

Day 5 was Christmas Eve for us and we had a very busy day. It snowed a lot more and so we had to take advantage of that and play some more in the snow. Here's Emma in a bucket (annoyed that we are making her pose for stupid pictures when she's freezing cold and just wants to be inside).

The snow was finally wet enough that it packed easily and so we did some fun things with it. Dave & I built a snowman:

And then my brother had the grand idea to build a ramp from the top of the garage down to the ground. It seemed like a crazy idea at first, but it ended up being really fun. We took the toboggins down and then some of the crazy men in the family took other things down the ramp - snowboards, skis...a canoe! :) It was a lot of fun.

Next on our list of things to do was Christmas Eve service at church. I've had Emma's Christmas dress for awhile now and she was soooooooooooo cute in it. It was a very nice service and a great way to remember that Jesus is what Christmas is all about!

The last thing to do on Emma's list for the day was to make cookies to leave for Santa. A few days before we left for Seattle I found the cutest little mailbox with a sugar cookie mix inside and you can make the cookies and then leave them in the mailbox for Santa. I loved it and it will be a fun thing to pull out each year!! :) So here is Emma making, decorating and mailing Santa his cookies: