Growing

Sometimes I think Emma hears me when I read the book that say by now she should be.....doing whatever a baby does at her age. This week it seems she picked up new 'words' everyday. She now says words that start with M, B, G, H and D. Most of them are mama, baba, gaga, aga, dada, hi/hey and bye bye, etc. She does seem to call all the girls 'mama' and she says bye bye at appropriate times, so she is also starting to know what she is saying. She even said bye bye to daddy on Skype...melted my heart. She can also use sign language for more, finished and nurse. And of course she waves. :) she is just growing and learning new things everyday.

Here she is playing the other day. 

Reading books

Emma loves to 'read' her books. She loves to turn the pages, and read them up-side-down. Maybe she is just extra smart. ;) In the last day or two she has started saying 'ba-ba-ba-ba' and it is super cute. I will take a video if I can catch it. She has also started to go forward in her walker...but only sometimes. Pepper better watch out though...Emma almost ran her down  yesterday while she was in it.

ALSO: Emma is 10 months old today!!!

Daddy's Book

Sorry...thought I posted this already......

I haven't posted in a while because we have been busy. If you have facebook, I will be posting stuff to there as well, since Steven can't check the blog or youtube anymore...silly internet restrictions. Here is a video of Emma reading her 'daddy book,' which is a recorded version of Steven reading Goodnight Moon, his version at least. :)

Totally adorable

I feel like I have been slacking off ever since I found out that Steven can't check the blog...sorry about that. Honestly I haven't been taking as many pictures, either. Emma has been waking up at night, for a couple hours, several of the last few nights, so we have been a little off our schedule, too.  But here are a few from the last couple days...

Look, Daddy! I like Coke, too!

No crawling yet...she just can't get that leg to cooperate!

Oh that tongue!

And thanks to Grampy Loha for this super cute outfit...Emma got tons of compliments!

Being silly

Remember when I said that Emma liked fans blowing in her face...well, I wasn't kidding. We had just been for a walk and came back hot, so we sat in front of the fan, and this is what she did...

Happy Birthday Aunt Grace

Aunt Grace is 30 today....apparently this is exciting.

Houdini

Since we have gotten to Kansas, Pepper had been escaping and digging more and more. So in order to keep her from doing this, we set up a trolley system in the Bency's back yard....it is hard to describe, so here are some pictures.

She digs when she doesn't get enough exercise...so I tried to get her to walk on the treadmill. It didn't work out very well. :) ( I can't take her for walks by myself when I have Emma, too.)

Thankfully, other people have volunteered to take her on walks, so hopefully this escaping and digging goes away...those squirrels and bunnies are just too hard to resist!

Grandma, the fan, and silly faces

So the other night, I was trying to catch Emma making her owl face. I didn't end up catching it, but here are some of the other pictures I did get. Side note....Emma loves things blowing in her face: The wind, a fan, or Mom.

Chillin with Grandma Connie.

This was as close as I got to her owl face.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to Grandpa Steve, Grandpa Mike, and Daddy!
We are glad to spend a Father's Day with Emma's grandpas, which we don't normally get to do...but we dearly miss Emma's Daddy. Here are a few of my favorite pictures to honor our Dads.

Swimming

Emma went to the pool today for the first time. It was bittersweet, as I remembered last year...not only were we with our neighbors, Martha, Keith and Guen, but Steven and I were looking forward to taking our own baby (who was in my belly at the time) to the pool this summer. (We didn't find out about his deployment until later.) It's a good thing Emma has so many aunts to help us forget what we are missing...and they all came along for the ride.

Ugh..not the hat, Mom!

Emma had a good time. She did NOT like her hat. We ended up putting sunscreen on her head instead. She also seemed to prefer the big pool over the baby pool. I think she had the most fun 'swimming,' aka, kicking while Mom pulled her around.  Here is a short video that Aunt Faith took on her phone....there is no audio, but just imagine me saying, "kick, kick, kick."
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTCgkQagyXI&feature=youtu.be

Emma's walker

While we were in Springfield, my dad and I went to some garage sales. The first one we went to had a walker. I was pretty excited. I keep hoping Emma will be able to strengthen her legs so she will be able to get around some. However, she needs to figure out that she can move. Even if she does get around, she doesn't seem to understand very well that she can do it on purpose to get places. Oh well, less I have to chase her. 

A trip to Springfield

My family went to Springfield, MO, this weekend, and we had a blast. Here are some pictures from our trip.

This is how Emma began and ended our weekend.

My dad with my cousin,  Michael.

Getting ready for church.

Chillin with Aunt Faith.

after church, which was at a convention center

The whole family

The girls

I love my grandpa!

Swinging!

Push-in-air!

Garage Sale Fun

This afternoon Emma, Grandpa Steve and I went to several garage sales. We went to one garage sale that had LOTS of kid toys. I walked around for 20 minutes before I could decide what to buy. But I think we made a good choice:  Emma LOVES her new car/bike thing.

Emma playing

So I haven't posted any videos for a while, and Emma is doing all sorts of new things now. So here is a video of her playing last Friday at my parents house. She isn't crawling...but she is getting closer. She hates being on her tummy, so this is probably how she will figure out crawling.

Playing at the park

Today we went to Gage Park with Aunt Faith, Grandma Connie, Aunt Suzanne and Bekah Wolgast (Faith's friend). First we rode the train, then we rode the carousel. Emma was really tired, so there wasn't much smiling going on...but no crying either. I think if we go back when she is more awake she would really enjoy herself. She just loves to be outside and watch other kids.

Riding the train.

Riding Rudolph!

Checking out Grandma and Aunt Suz!

Dorothy!

Baseball game

On Saturday, we went to a T-Bones game with Uncle Alex and Grandma and Grandpa Bency. Emma did pretty good...she was mostly interested in the kids sitting in front of us. She did get pretty tired, so she and I finished the game in the van. Here we are enjoying ourselves...take note, in the second picture she is sticking her tongue out....I wonder who taught her that, Grandma Joy?