Beautiful Girls!

It sure is nice to be home! Around here the typical stay in the hospital is 48 hours. Way too long for me! Honestly, how are you supposed to rest when they come in your room every 20 minutes at night to do dumb things like take out your garbage? I decided I'd rest better at home, even with a toddler! So, I got permission to leave after 24 hours. (okay, technically it was 28)

Emmallynne was glad to meet her new sister. She doesn't quite grasp the idea of "holding" her; she does much better at "smoothering." It's adorable. It's been a few days, and Emmalynne still loves her. She likes to bring her blankets. Her favorite is to bring diapers and wipes in excess. A couple nights ago Carman was trying to put Em to bed and she was crying about it (which is VERY infrequent) Clara and I were just in the other room and Clara was crying about having her diaper changed. When I was done I traded kids w/Carman. I held Em for a minute and tried telling her "ny-night." She kept crying and then finally mustered out the word "baby." (who was still crying) So I called Carman and Clara in. We all sat on the bed together while Em held Clara. Everybody stopped crying and after about 5 mintues Em was ready to go to bed. She just wanted to say good night to her sister!

I'm Not Pregnant!

Clara Deanna Ragatz

born Dec 14, 2009 at 7:12 am

7 lbs 9 oz

20 in

She finally made it! I had a dr. apt last Friday and decided to schedule to be induced on Monday (12/14) at 7 am. I guess the deadline was all she needed! I woke up at 1:30 Monday morning with contractions. I was afraid of going to the hospital, not being in real labor, and getting sent home. I woke Carman up at 2 because I couldn't sleep anymore. The contractions were about 5 minutes apart, but some were 3 min, some were 7 min. Carman was anxious so we called my dr. office around 2:30, they told us to wait it out at home for awhile until the contractions were longer and more consistent. We put a movie in and I walked around the front room until at 4:30 the contractions had been 4 min apart and 45 seconds long for nearly an hour. My sister came over to be with Emmalynne and Carman and I got to the hospital at 5:30. My dr. office had called to tell them I was on my way in but I had to laugh when we got to the front desk and the nurse asked if we were the 7:00 induction. I said we were, she told another nurse we were there and the other nurse said, "why?" (she just thought we were an hour and a half early to be induced!)

They did the standard procedure of hooking me up to all the fun machines to make sure I was really in labor. I had to be hooked up to those for 30 minutes before they'd do anything else. I'm pretty sure we were there for a total of 10 minutes by the time I told them I wanted an epidural. After they did some paper work the nurse checked me and I was dialated to a 4. (not much considering I'd been a 3 for a week and a half) The nurse seemed to take her time casually getting stuff done. I go to a ob that has 6 drs working together, so they called the on call doc, who told them to give me 500 cc of fluid before the epidural. 30 minutes, 3 nurses, and 4 needle stickes later, they finally got the IV hooked up. I think that was around 6:30-6:45. It was going to take 30 min for enough fluid to drain. You see where I'm going, right? At 7 I told the nurse I was feeling a lot of pressure. She checked me again and said, with big eyes, "oh... you're fully efaced and an 8 now... you're progressing very quickly..." Then everybody seemed to be moving around much quicker and saying things like "tell her dr. she's an 8 and its her second baby." It didn't take long and I was telling them I felt like I needed to push. They called my on call dr but apparently he was going to be taking too long. The drs happened to be inbetween shift changing so they called the one that was just getting off. She was going to be taking too long also. So, the next best thing was to walk in the hall and grab the first dr. they saw.

Then it was like the movies. He came in, two nurses held out a gown for him, as he put his arms through the arm wholes he told me to go ahead and push on my next contraction, I did, and she was out! It was amazing. I feel like part of an elite club of crazy strong women that give birth w/o pain medication. Now that's worth writing on a resume! It would have been better if I were mentally prepared for it. However, all things considered, it really wasn't as bad as I had imagined. It certainly has its pros. As for getting an epidural or not in the future, I have no idea!

Random side note regarding the dr that delivered Clara, my brother Brian asked if the nurses walked into the hall, told the first guy they saw to drop his mop and put on a white jacket because they had a quick job for him to do...

Thanks for all of the baby name suggestions! Carman finally settled on her name about 1pm. He actually liked the name Clara back when I was pregnant with Emmalynne so I wasn't too surprised he picked it. It was also a suggestion from my sister, who claims we named Clara after her since it has "lara" in it. Deanna was one of Carman's Grandma's middle names (She had 2, or maybe 3). And now we have two beautiful little girls. I'm excited for them to meet!

Learning to Talk

Emmalynne is the best jibber-jabberer there is. She says real words, too, but mostly just babbles. This morning we had a funny little moment:

Me: Hehehehe
Carman: Are you laughing at me?
Me: No, I was just watching Emmalynne run in circles with my keys and dragging my purse.
Emmalynne: I'm a giiirrrrlllll!

Of course, she was just babbling but Carman and I heard the same thing. It was hilarious.

Dilema

Thanks for all the baby name suggestions. I sent them all to Carman and, as expected, he compiled a list consisting of his favorites. He won't tell me what's on the list though. You'll have to be just as curious as I am.

The new question is whether or not I should be induced. My doctor already said he'd induce me if I wanted to. Here are the pros and cons I've come up with:

Pros-I'll have the baby. Carman has saved 8.5 days of PTO just for the birth and if he begins his vacation this Friday, followed by Christmas break, and he won't have to go back to work until Jan. The baby's birthday won't be too close to Christmas. The baby wont' keep getting bigger and bigger in my womb, which will lessen the chances of having a 10 lb baby. *ouch

Cons-They say its easier for the mom and the baby if you're not induced. I'll have 2 kids and still not know what it's like to start having contractions or have your water break and get all excited and go to the hospital.

So, I want the baby to come on her own. As long as she doesn't take forever... If I get induced I'm leaning towards either doing it this Friday (one week late) or the following Monday (a week and a half). Then Carman would get to take his time off and I'd feel like I gave her a fair chance to come on her own... Any thoughts?

Hopefully this post will jinx me and I'll go into labor tonight!

No Name

Well, today's the day. I'm officially due and soon I'll be officially overdue! Its not too stressful yet. Like previously stated, I'm hoping she'll be born Sunday, the 6th. However, I guess because I was induced (9 days early) with Emmalynne I feel like the baby's never going to be born UNLESS I'm induced. Weird.

Now, on another note, I pretty much single-handedly chose Emmalynne's awesome name. I wanted Carman to have the opportunity to get more than his fair share of name picking this time around and, therefore, put him in charge of naming the baby. Thus, here it is, my due date, and he doesn't have a name picked out yet. The quote-unquote "list" he has consists of a few names people have suggested that he likes, and a few others he must have come up with on his own. But, I thought I'd give everybody the opportunity to influence his decision by giving any name suggestions you might have. I'll forward them all on to him, and viola! She's bound to have a name before we leave the hospital...

If I had to Decide...

I'd pick this coming Sunday for the baby to be born. I know its 2 days after my due date, but its December 6th. Lets think of all the reasons it'd be a great choice. First off, Emmallyne was born on June 6th. How nice will that make remembering birthdates? Pretty sweet. They'll be exactly 18 months apart, and that's just cool. Plus, if the baby comes before then, I can be pleasantly surprised instead of anxiously waiting, right? Well, I guess those are all my reasons. Feel free to come up with some of your own. Go ahead, enlighten me.

The Nice Guy Returns

Yesterday I was going to the store with my neighbor when I got a call from Brian. He had loaded up his trailer with dirt and wanted to know if he could stop by. He didn't mind that I wasn't going to be home and by the time I got home he had one wheelbarrow of dirt left. Emmalynne and I stayed out to chat with him while he laid the grass seed. He complained that he wished he'd brought more dirt and thought maybe he'd come back in a week or two after all the rain stops. He said he just doesn't like leaving the job half done. (Although it might need a little bit more dirt, it looks pretty good to me!) Then he confessed that he didn't think he would be seeing me at all on this trip and thats why he didn't bring anything. He said, "I hate coming without bringing you something." Next time he comes he's bringing fresh honey from their hives! And we decided we'd do dinner after the baby comes so they can see her.

Baby

I'm still pregnant.

A Nice Guy Named Brian

First off, the nice guy named Brian is married to Linda Lou. Cool, huh? How fun is it to say Linda Lou? If you're feeling bored sometime, just say "Linda Lou." It'll be all sorts of fun. I've tried it.

Ever since I married Carman, I've lost the ability to tell a short story. I don't know how to leave out a single detail. But this story is very long with all the details, so I'll try my best. Just keep reading, it's a good story. We have a weird driveway that has a couple of places that, instead of being driveway, are gravel. The city sent us a letter telling us we had to remove the gravel because we're too close to the lake and we have to allow for drainage. A month or so later, Carman got around to removing 1/2 of the rock. It took him all day. We posted it for free on craigslist.

This is where the nice guy named Brian comes in. He's the one that came to get the rock. I told him our situation and about Carman's busy schedule. I told him if he wanted the rest of the rock, he was welcome to shovel it out himself. Brian's an older guy, probably mid 50's. He and Linda Lou spent a few hours here getting rock, didn't have time to shovel the part Carman hadn't got to, but said he'd come back the following week with a tiller to loosen it up and take the rest. And then he did. He offered to till our garden but ran out of time. He left his tiller here so we could do it ourselves. A week or two passed, we hadn't done it yet, and Brian said, "you tell your hubby to stick to the books. I've got some spare time Monday and I'll come till your garden." That was today. He came and quadrupled the size of our garden for next year!

(The part of our driveway that had the rock removed had to have dirt laid down and grass planted.) Today while Brian was here he said, "Oh, and I brought some dirt to fill in your holes. you're planting grass, right? I brought seed if you want me to go ahead and do that for you." Only he hadn't brought quite enough dirt so he's coming again next week to finish the project!! And he won't let us pay him. We talked a lot about blessings, God, and the power of prayer. The closest thing he'll let me get to repaying him is that he accepted the invitation for he and his wife to come over for dinner. I also gave him a free date idea for him and his wife in a few weeks when our church puts on the "Community Nativity Festival" where they display 100+ nativities from all over the world. Its really cool and it sounds like he plans on going. Oh, and did I mention that the second time he came Linda Lou sent squash for us? And today she sent a pumpkin with a really fun dinner recipe?

Here's one of my favorite parts: I was basically telling Brian how God had a hand in him being the one to come get our rock because we had a ton of responses. That's when he said, "I'll be honest, I don't need the rock. I just felt like it was something I should do and I'm a firm believer in doing it when you feel like you're supposed to."

Its Halloween Again!

Yesterday morning we let Emmalynne have some Halloween candy. Naturally, we did so by dumping the bag on the floor and letting her pick something. She couldn't have been happier with our decision:
And here she is, ready to walk away with a handful of suckers. Seriously, she couldn't have been more excited. It was so fun to see her light up. If we save all her candy for Christmas, we won't have to get her anything else!

She figured out suckers taste much better with the paper off.

Halloween Fun

We had a super fun Halloween. Emmalynne was a bee. We went trick-or-treating with her cousin, Megan, who was a fairy or a princess or something girly like that. About every five houses we went to someone would tell Megan something along the lines of "Can you pick a piece of candy out for your little brother?" That was Emmalynne. Those who didn't refer to her as Megan's little brother said things to Emmalynne like, "here you go, buddy." Apparently she wasn't dressed quite girly enough to be walking around with a princess!

I thought it'd be great for everyone to dress up and Carman was a trooper. He even enthusiastically wore socks on his head for the cute little bears ears. He was a bear, I was a tree and baby #2 was the beehive! My favorite comment was something along the lines of, "you got another bee in the hive getting ready to come out?" (And Mike, my brother-in-law, thought he was one of many to have made that type of comment, however, he was the one and only. The other comments were much more lame.)

We waited until Halloween day to buy and carve a pumpkin. It was one out of three left at the third store we stopped at. I learned my lesson. Emmalynne had fun sorting the seeds. And today she's had a lot of fun eating them!

One Big Blog

It's been awhile, so here's what we've been up to...

1. I've been trying to make a baby blanket with a broken sewing machine-not going so well.

2. Carman's been forcing Em to say "please." It sounds like this, "ph"

3. We went to a corn maze and Carman sucessfully navigated us out in less than 2 hours, while holding a sleeping Emmalynne.

4. I've gained 10 pounds on each of my arms.

5. I found out I'm dialated to a 2. The Dr. said not to get excited about it, but I did anyway-until I talked to my sister Tammy. (weird how the Dr. says its nothing to get excited about and I don't believe him but then my sister tells me it doesn't mean anything and I believe her...)

6. Carman's done 2 tons of homework. Every day.

7. Em has successfully transitioned into her twin size bed.

8. We bought Emmalynne a toy at the store, possible for the first time in her life. (We are experts in hand-me-downs and yard sales!)

9. Em's been taking all the pots and pans out of the cupboard and throwing them around the front room.

10. I tried a new hairstyle for Em:

Look how cute they are!

Okay, so did I ever post about the bunny watching tv? It was the funniest thing. He would literally stop hopping around and just watch the tv. Here he is watching A Beautiful Mind.

The tv watching continues. Apparently Baby Einsteins is fun for babies and dogs! Do all pets think the tv is amazing or is it just ours? (oh, and did you notice the upgrade in tv? Thanks to our nice neighbors...)

Mom of 4 for the Week

I've been rather busy this past week! We have some friends that went out of town for the week. They took their youngest two children with them and left the older 3 with Carman and I. We've been staying at their house and having a super time. Sometimes I sware Emmalynne was not meant to be the oldest child. She absolutely loves have "big sisters" around. I'm thinking having these older kids take care of Emmalynne is more of a favor to me than it is for my friend. The girls are 8, 6 and 3 years old. I've had a little practice of what it's like to be a mom of school agers. It took an entire 2 days for them to realize they didn't have to do every thing I said. I was hoping it'd last the entire week... Overall, they're really good kids though. However, I've decided NOT to have 4 kids until Carman is home in the evenings!

Huh, that's cool

I've been all bummed about the little baby ticker on the side bar that went from how many days I have left to how many I've been pregnant. I JUST realized you can click on the number of days and it will switch back and forth. That's cool.

And I Didn't Have the Camera

Ready for a great story that lacks photos? Okay! After tons of debate, and I mean tons, we decided to move Emmalynne into a twin size bed. Like any smart mother, I was nervious. Em watched as her dad and I moved the new bed in, the old bed out, and set everything up. She didn't seem to care. She even danced on her new bed. And then came nap time...

I did my normal hug, kiss, "Ny-night, I love you," and layed her down. She screamed. I left. 5 minutes of screaming later, I came back. I cuddled with her (which I've NEVER done) for half an hour. When she wouldn't stop poking my face I decided she was going to have to cry it out. I t gave her a hug, kiss, said "ny-night, I love you," and left. She screamed. I hid myself in my room and turned the fan on full blast so I couldn't hear her. I made a phone call which lasted 11 minutes. Then I decided I'd better go check on her.

She wasn't crying. I assumed she fell asleep right at the door and just had to see. I twisted the doorknob, started to push, expecting some resistence from her 24 lb sleeping body, but NOTHING. I opened the door and looked on the floor. No Emmalynne. I looked on the bed. No Emmalynne. Then I saw her. She was asleep. She was standing up!! The foot of her bed is about 2 feet away from the door. She was standing next to her bed, with her back against the wall, her head cocked to the right and resting on her bed! Once again, SHE WAS STANDING UP! The camera takes a special battery and it was dead. Lame. Seriously though, standing up! Oh, so figuring she couldn't sleep like that forever, I picked her up and put her in her bed.

Weekend Camping

Last weekend we had an awesome family vacation to Crowder's Mountain. Something inside of us said, "it'd be fun to go to the campground where you have to hike a mile to your site." Surprisingly enough, we had lots of fun. We tallied up our miles at the end and I got about 15 miles in 4 days. Carman had 2 more than me because of that last haul of stuff to the campsite! We loved our little get away.

We even let Emmalynne bring her best friend:

Here we are hanging out on a stump. Emmalynne was absolutely filthy the ENTIRE time.

Hiking with Mom: FUN

Hiking with Dad: B-O-R-I-N-G

Good Morning America

Emmalynne is a very lucky girl. She is blessed with all kinds of hand-me-downs! (Now her little sister won't be able to say she's tired of getting all Emmalynne's hand-me-downs, since they'll really be somebody else's! Nothing like a double hand-me-down.) We got a night shirt from a friend that doesn't fit Em perfectly. When Carman put it on her and her hands didn't come all the way out of the sleeves he said she looked at them and started giggling. When I put her to bed, I rolled the sleeves up a little bit, certain that would do the trick. This morning when we went in to get her, this is what we found:

Lovin' Louie

Emmalynne loves to give the dog his toys.



She especially loves cuddling! I had to take Louie outside and let him play fetch in the hot sun for about 30 minutes in order to get him to calm down enough to let Em cuddle w/o him being too playful.





She was just about to try to pick him up by his head when he offered her this nice doggy kiss!

Animal Math

+

=

To make a long story short, good ol' bunny boy didn't love Emmalynne as much as she loved him so we sold him. We took that money, added another $5 and bought Louie, an English Springer Spaniel. He's been with us a total of 48 hours and so far, he and Emmalynne like each other lots. He seems to be a really good dog. I'm just hoping the house training goes quickly! So far he's had 2 accidents and Carman's taken care of both of them!

Today I...

enjoyed my new ride by driving over to my sister's house to spend the afternoon/evening. It wasn't long before our two little girls were going bonkers and we decided to take them down to the park to run off some energy. That seemed to work until Emmalynne started running off.

That's when we decided to go for a walk on the trail.

It started off like any walk with Laura and Megan would go. About 2 seconds before we hit the trail Megan started begging to get out and walk. Laura let her. Shortly there after Megan decided she needed a leash to walk her kitty. (FYI: She has a new stuffed kitty that wasn't even with us)

Here's the exciting part of the story: As we walked on the street and headed back to the house "to get Megan a leash," a pre-teen looking boy was riding his bike down a big hill. He was wearing a helmet. "Good for him," I thought...up until I noticed it wasn't strapped on. I mentioned to Laura, "Gee... a lot of good that helmet's going to do..." She readily agreed and even told me she was thinking the SAME THING.

From here, you're allowed to vote on your ending. If you're really interested, I'll tell you what really happened. But, since I think my sister's about the only one that reads my blog... Well, she already knows the true ending so I don't have to say.

Ending #1: That's when the boy ran over a stick he must not have seen on the sidewalk and totally biffed it. Needless to say, his helmet went flying. He didn't die or anything. That's why its okay to laugh at him.

Ending #2: Realizing that my sister has been a mom for 12 years now and certainly has the mom thing down pat, I thought if she was thinking the same thing I was thinking then, "Wow! I'm a real mom now!"

Sweet New Ride

Well, I recently joined facebook. The other day I was invited to take a quiz titled "What car were you born to drive?" Sounded excellent to me. I took it and come to find out, the Hummer and I were meant to be! Unfortunately, just DAYS before the quiz, I purchased this:

We had debated between getting a car and a minivan. A car would get better gas mileage... a minivan would have room for mysterious child #3 (at some point)... etc. After deciding to get a van the search began. I learned about a ton of vehicles not to buy. Those were pretty much all I could find in our price range. Then I remembered about a friend that has a 98 Honda Odyssey. It has 4 doors that all open like regular car doors (no sliding action). They also have a 4 cyl engine, which helps a little with gas. My favorite part is that Honda's tend to last longer. That's when my search really began. I knew what I wanted and with lots of effort and even a little frustration, I found one. Yay! Emmalynne and I are excited for our many driving adventures. Although, I'm probably more excited than she is. I like to say, "the road's the limit!" Carman likes to say,"the gas budget's the limit!" Either way... Yay!! The Hummer and I's union will just have to wait.

Hahaha

After hearing a funny story about my dad, I called him up to tease him. The conversation went a little something like this:

Me: Dad, I'm glad you got your shirt back.

Dad: Huh?

Me: Your shirt, I'm glad you ended up getting it back.

Dad: What shirt?

Me: You know, your shirt.

Dad, with a sigh: Oh, you mean Mom's story.

Me: No, I mean Laura's story.

Dad: Oh great... did she blog it already?

Me: Yep!

Dad: Well she was supposed to blog something about Mom too! Did she blog about Mom?!?

Me: Yea.

Dad: The stroller story?

Me: Yea.

Dad: Yea, that's funny, huh? That's a funny story.

He sure did a great job at switching the subject to Mom so as to hide his own embarrassment! If you don't want to be left in the dark, here it is. And here's Mom's funny story.

It Just Might Work

Wow! She used to be so BALD! As you see, this is Emmalynne going potty when she was about 5 months old. We've been taking her since she was a whopping 3 days old. Some call it "elimination communication" while others call it "infant potty training." The list goes on but I like to call it, "taking Emmalynne to the potty!" If you want more baby pottying info, I'd suggest this website.

Emmalynne has been through various stages, including going potty in her diaper only twice in one day to going on the potty only twice in two weeks. I've taken the laid back approach and thus, its been stress-free.

Her current stage is as follows: She's learned that she really likes potty time because I sit in the bathroom with her and sing songs or give her a special toy to play with. Sometimes she'll sit up there for a good five minutes. Sometimes I'll ask her if she wants down, put my arms out to her, and she'll push them away. So there she sits until she's ready to get down. When we ask Emmalynne if she needs to go potty she gets really excited, nearly hyperventilates, grabs my hand, and runs to the bathroom. Sometimes she goes, sometimes she doesn't. Well today, out of the blue, she got really excited, nearly hyperventilated, and ran into the bathroom. So, like a good mommy, I followed her in, and set her on the potty where she proceeded to do her business. Yay! She did the same thing yesterday! For all you non-math majors, that's twice in two days! Its been so cute how much fun she's having. We'll see how it goes...

Good Times with Great Friends

I love being busy. A week after my mom ended her month long vacation her in NC, my best friend Melanie and her kids came down for a visit. Her husband had a week long work thing in DC and she dropped him and then continued the 7 hours to my house! She has a son about 2 weeks younger than Emmalynne and a daughter that's almost 3. Emmalynne thinks friends are amazing so she had a ton of fun. She would even let Rachel (the 3 yr old) hold her hand sometimes. She's not usually too big on letting little kids hold her hand. She loved playing ring-around-the-rosie too. Rachel made sure Emmalynne did a good job with the "We all fall down" part.

Emmalynne has been the little one around here that's always had the opportunity to have someone older than her take toys, blankets, cups, etc. away from her. She's used to it and pretty much never complains. When she does though, she grabs my hand and walks me over to the problem. This week she's taken a new step. I'm not saying a good one, just a step. Melanie's son Lincoln is even more used to being bullied than Emmalynne is. Thus, he allowed Emmalynne to take things out of his hands. Sometimes he got mad about it and I made Em give it back. She did good with that but it was certainly weird to see her on the other side of the story. I guess its only a look into our future!

And in order to not make this post too long and make you stop reading, I'll post about Melanie and I's remodeling saga in the next post!

Strollin'

I'm not sure exactly how it started but I'm positive its Grandma's fault. While Grandma was visiting Emmalynne developed a love for being pushed in a stroller, but not just any stroller, the midget one for baby dolls. Em would take Grandma by the hand, walk her over to the baby doll stroller, and grunt. Grandma would put her in and stroll her around the house.

Then Grandma left! And Emmalynne thougth she could get me to do it. Seriously though, those things are built for toddlers to push and an adult can only do it for so long before their back breaks. Thus, no baby doll stroller pushing for me. That left Emmalynne pretty upset. Like any good mom would do, I made a compromise. Much to my pleasure, Em excepted my terms and now she loves to be pushed in the regular stroller. She thinks its so cool that she sits in it for fun, even when I'm done pushing. For instance, she's lounging in it right now, with her feet kicked up, watching me type. Sitting still never would have happened before our "stroller days."

IT'S A...

GIRL!!!


Yay! We're so excited to have another girl! I hope she and Emmalynne will be best buddies. The ultrasound was pretty fun. The nurse had a hard time getting the baby to move into the position she wanted her to be in. I guess the baby had found the little corner she liked and wasn't willing to move! My favorite part was getting to see the baby suck on her thumb. So cute! I'm not sure if that's what she's doing in this picture but Carman thinks she is. Cute, huh?

Don't See This Movie

I just have 2 things to say.

1. Don't read My Sister's Keeper.

2. Don't watch the movie either!

More Animal Love...and Gma too

Emmalynne continues to love her bunny, otherwise known as "Bunny Boy" and "Buddy Boy." She now likes to take me over to the bunny food so she can get a scoop out to feed Bunny Boy. She also likes putting oats in her hand so the bunny will eat them. It's lots of fun.

The past few weeks we've had Grandma Wallis over and its been a lot of fun. Emmalynne has grown to really love taking Grandma by the hand and getting her to do whatever it is Em wants, such as pushing her in the babydoll stroller, walking circles around the house, reading a book or even getting out Grandma's rats!

Yep, that's my daughter climbing into a cage with 4 rats! What can I say? She loves animals, even rats. These ones happen to be very tame. Grandma had been wanting to get a pet rat and I found these ones for her on craigslist. There were actually 5 when she first got them but one wasn't nice so she got rid of it. The mean one actually bit Em and it took Em a couple of days to trust the rats again. But as you can tell, she's made a full lovin' recovery!

Bunny Kisses

Here's Emmalynne, climbing in for a bunny kiss. The bunny's so sweet and lets Em pat him, kiss/lick him, chase him around the front room, etc. About every other morning when we first come downstairs, Em grabs my finger and walks me over to the bunny cage so we can get him out. I'm glad she's loving him so much. And I'm especially glad he's loving her back! Hopefully we'll get a better picture soon. We tried out a few different names for him but we've kind of settled on "bunny." Oddly enough, it fits him well. Go figure.

Birthday Cake...yumm...

These pictures are in reverse order. I'd reccommend starting at the bottom and working your way up if you want the full effect.


I don't know if I've ever seen anyone enjoy their birthday cake THIS much! She spent most of her cake eating time sucking on the cake like this.

She was so excited and happy to be allowed to make a big huge mess and eat so much sugar!

The messy fashion of cake eating began when she stuck her face in the cake.

She started off rather dainty, just picking the icing off with her fingers.

Boy did she want to grab that lit candle while we were singing "Happy Birthday."

Happy Birthday!

Finally! Here are Em's birthday pictures.



Emmalylnne loved ripping the paper to open her presents. I guess all the times I let her tear up the junk mail paid off! Obviously, her cousin Megan was sure to get in on the present opening.

Taking time to read the book Grandma Wallis got her.

More paper ripping. She didn't really care what was inside. She just liked ripping the paper off.

We got a mini cake for free from our local grocery store and I made a cookie cake for everybody else.

We had the front room decorated for her when she got up. She liked playing in the streamers with Dad. She also loved all of the balloons piled on the floor.

Little Sleeper

Can I just say Emmalynne is the best sleeper ever? Yesterday she got up at her usual 6:45 am. Then she took her usual nap 2 hours later. She pretty much slept from 9-12. If you can't add it up, thats 3 hours. Then she took an afternoon nap from like 2:30-5:00. 2.5 hours. She went to bed at 8 (little later than usual) and she did not wake up until 7:45 this morning. Amazing little girl. Today she has had a repeat of napping schedule. Its now 5:30 and she's still sleeping. Must be growing! I guess she's trying to get big for her big first birthday tomorrow!

Honey Bunny

Emmalynne got her birthday present a little early this year! She loves animals SO MUCH! I wanted to get her something fuzzy to love. Carman has yet to convince me to get a dog. They poop in your house and eventually in your yard, they bark, they wake you up early to go outside... Anyway, dog was out of the question. Cats usually aren't friendly enough. I didn't want to go with something too small, like a hamster. So, you guessed it a long time ago...we went with a bunny.

Em and I went to pick him up today. There were several to choose from and we got the sweetest bunny there was! This picture was taken by the breader. He's a 10 week old Holland Lop. Em thinks he's super. Remember that video of her kissing the dog? Well, she tries to give the bunny dog kisses. Basically, she licks the bunny. We'll work on that. She also snuggles her head up to him. Its way cute. We'll get pictures and maybe a video soon. Any name suggestions?

What'd she say?

We have this picture of Jesus at the top of our stairs. Frequently, after climbing up the stairs with Emmalynne we'll stop, point to the picture and say, "Jesus." We started doing it when we first put the picture up shortly after we bought the house. That'd make Em 7-8 months old. She has always loved it. She smiles so big and stares at the picture. Now sometimes we'll be walking past it without saying anything and she'll be looking at Jesus and smiling. Well...one day last week Carman told me he was pointing to the picture saying, "Jesus" when Emmalynne copied him and said, "Jesus." I'll be honest, I thought, "Sure she did honey."


The next day I thought I'd do a test. I took Em over to the picture, pointed, said "Jesus" and sure enough, she said, "Jesus." I still thought it might be a fluke. However, she has said it several times since. She still doesn't say it every time we try to get her to say it but she's said it enough to make me believe Emmalynne said her first word. Jesus.

Ultrasound #1

I couldn't decide which picture to post-even though they're practically identical. For any unexperienced ultrasounders (like my Dad) this is a profile of precious baby #2. According to the sonographer my due date is Dec 4th, which makes me 12 weeks. But since its not much different from my current Dec 7th due date, they don't actually change it. The ultrasound was great. Daddy and Emmalynne went. Em's favorite part was the lights on the keyboard. :) The baby was nice and active. Yay, another Emmalynne! It was so exciting to see our little baby. It's too early to find out the gender, that should be around the beginning of July. Yay for babies!

Fun Emmalynne

Emmalynne is getting to be more and more fun! Here some things she's up to lately:

1. Clapping when we say "yay!" or randomly whenever she feels like it.

2. Following her dad around whenever he's home.

3. Drinking a cup of juice fast enough to set a record.

4. Trying to put things in my mouth, especially balls.

5. b5++533lkui Typing on the computer.

6. Repeating any cute thing we laugh at.

7. Mooching food off of anybody. It doesn't matter if she knows them or not.

8. Pushing the bathroom door open when we're in it.

9. Playing outside any chance she gets.

10. Eating things she shouldn't-like grass.

11. Trying to put things where they go, like her shoes on her feet or lids on containers.