Vacation Time!

We took a spontaneous trip to California at the end of April into the first part of May.  Aaron's mom offered to let us use her time share and his sister Kara and her family decided they would come too and we could all drive together.  Then Lori decided she better not miss out so she booked another condo...then Shanna decided she should go too so it was almost an entire family vacation, we were only missing a few people. 
Emery was a champ on the way there.  She got fussy a few times during the week, (we had about an hour drive to and from Disneyland) but all around she was happy.  We spent a few days at the beach, 2 days at Disneyland, went to the Mormon battalion site, played in the pool at the condo, and spent a tiny bit of time doing nothing but sitting on the balcony enjoying the sun.

 Panning for gold at the Mormon Battalion

 Coronado Island.  It was a little chilly

 DISNEYLAND!!

 Yummy mexican right outside Disneyland.  Don't let Emery's smile fool you, she wasn't a very happy camper after 10 hours of Disneyland.

 oops I uploaded the wrong pic...emery hated the sand, I had a pic capturing said hate but accidentally got this one instead.

 We tried to give Em a bath after the beach but she was SO tired she just cried and cried so we got her out, strapped a diaper on her and let her crash in her caseat.

 Getting ready for the Toy Story ride

 Tuckered out.

 The whole gang

 This neck pillow was the envy of everyone in the car and was constantly fought over.

Easter

 I can't figure out how to rotate this picture :)

Emery's first Easter was pretty fun, she was just starting to take a few steps so the Easter egg hunt was cute.

swim lesson pics

Just a few pics of the last day of swimming lessons.  Grandma Cindy came to watch and got a few good shots. *Funny note-Emery HATED the pool when we were in California, even though she loved swim lessons so much.  Not sure why

 Tabi and Emery were holding hands in the this pic, it was way cute

Swim Lessons

Em and I started a mommy and me swim class on March 5th. We LOVE it. I didn't know if she'd be scared since she's never been in a pool but she wasn't at all. She was just fine on her belly and back, and even stuck her face in the water for a second. The only thing she was freaked out about was the guy next to us. :) (ok so I guess it isn't a mommy and me, it's a parent and me class, because there were 2 dads there) Dani and Tabi are taking it with us and the two kiddos were having lots of fun playin in the water together. I did get one picture but I'm going to get more and then I'll post them.

Top Tooth

I noticed on March 2nd that Emery's first top tooth had broken through the surface. It's not one of the two front teeth though, it's one of the teeth next to them. I'm not sure how that's going to look when it grows all the way in but what can ya do? This makes 4 teeth, all of which are on the same side of her mouth except one. According to teeth charts she is not getting them anywhere close to the order most kids do, but whatev.

Starting to Stand

This post should definitely have some pictures with it but every time I try to get one Emery just gets excited and tries to come get the camera. On Feb 29th, (so about 9.5 months old) I noticed Em let go of the couch and stand by herself. It was way cute, you could tell she knew she had to be careful because she kept her arms straight in front of her, just inches from the couch, so she could hurry and stable herself if she needed to. She did it for a few seconds and then grabbed back onto the couch. Since then she has been standing lots. She can even clap while she's standing, so I know it's only a matter of time till those first steps happen. She can't quite get to a standing position without something to pull up on but she's trying to figure that out too. When I can actually sneak a picture without her noticing I'll get one up.

Feeling HORRIBLE

I'm currently letting Emery cry it out for the first time and I'm feeling SO bad! I have gone back and forth on how I feel about letting a baby cry indefinitely and I'm still not sure I am ok with it but I decided to just see how she did. She just stopped crying and I want to run in there and hold her, but I'm too scared to even peek in there to see if she's sleeping because I don't want to wake her up. I can just hear her doing the sniffling babies do when they have cried so hard. She cried for like 35 minutes, I went in there every 10 to tell her it was ok and lay her back down. Ok, I just needed to vent because I'm seriously struggling at the fact that I let my baby scream for over a half an hour and did nothing about it.

9 months old

Emery is 9 months old today. She weighs a little over 17 pounds and is 26 inches long. She's crawling all over the place, which she started doing just after Christmas. She is also standing and aunt Danielle gave her one of those walker toys and she walks all over the living room with it. She has 3 teeth, all on the bottom. She loves oatmeal cereal and she'll eat butternut squash, pears, carrots, and peas, although she doesn't love them as much. She isn't very good at non-pureed food though. We tried some baby mum mums just a few days ago, she ate about half of it, choked, and puked it all over me. So we're going to hold off a little longer on those. She's starting to dance when music is on. She claps and waves and holds her arms in the air and we have just started to get her to make kissy sounds. Aaron also growls at her and she'll growl back. We are having so much fun with her, she's usually always happy and already a little goof ball. She still doesn't sleep through the night, we keep trying different things but she's just a stubborn little thing. She says mama, dada, baba, hi, and something that sounds like boy. It's crazy how much they learn and grow in such a short time. We are looking forward to all the new things she'll learn in the next little while.

Christmas

Christmas morning we got up, opened our presents, then went to Kara and Justin's to open presents with Aaron's family. We didn't get Emery anything too exciting. Clothes, high chair, and a few little toys. She did have fun opening them though and playing with the wrapping. Christmas was on a Sunday this year so after church we went to my mom's and then to Aaron's parents for dinner. The day after Christmas we went to do some grocery shopping and at the check stand there was a little camera that made sounds and a little light came on like a flash. Aaron was pretending to take Em's picture and she was loving it. He made the mistake of letting her hold it and when we tried to take it away she threw her first little fit. Only it wasn't so little, she started screaming uncontrollably. We thought it was hilarious and the camera was only $2 so we got it for her, cuz that's what you do when your kid screams for something right? :) As you can see in the top picture, she was very happy about it.

Meeting Santa

I seriously don't understand how to get text at the top of the pictures, so annoying. Emery got to see Santa twice this year, once at the big Okelberry party and then again on Christmas Eve. She wasn't sure what to think but she didn't cry, she just gave him funny looks, like the one above.





Santa gave Emery a "First Christmas" pair of jammies. It will only let me put up 5 pictures per blog so I guess picture of those jammies will be in another post :)

Night time fiasco

Last week I was feeling really overwhelmed, probably because I was sick and so was Emery, so I decided that Aaron should take 2 nights a week where the bedtime routine was all his. Oatmeal, bath, pj's, bottle...the whole shebang. That process is going on for the first time as I type and it's pretty hilarious. Emery is screaming while Aaron tries to make her oatmeal, (which he tried to microwave) then he decided to try again cuz it wasn't cooling down fast enough. I walked in to find it the consistency of playdough, so I showed him the proper consistency but he only made a tiny bit so he has had to make oatmeal 4 different times so far. :) He's a good man.
Anyway, that wasn't what this blog was going to be about but it was just too funny not to share. Since we decided that Tuesdays are his night, I'm going to try to be better about blogging and use this time each Tuesday to do it.
We looked at another nice house in Spanish Fork, only to be outbidded, so we are still looking. Emery pulled herself up for the first time on January 12th, (almost 8 months old) and now she is standing on everything and walking along the couch. She also had her first bath in the tub that night and she LOVES it. She wasn't too sure about laying on her back the first time but now she's fine with it and we can't keep her still. She wants to crawl and stand all over the tub.
I haven't uploaded pictures to the computer in forever so the next post will have pics. That's all I can think of really right now