Weekend at grandparents with auntie Laura and the dogs

Laura and Ben are moving acroos the country to San Diego for Ben's naval appointment. They were in Colorado for the weekend so we went up to the George's to spend the weekend. Laura had not seen Emma since June. Ben had only met Emma once when she was three weeks old. Laura and Ben have two very largr great danes who were very friendly with Emma. Great grandma George also spent the weekend visting with Laura and Ben.

Holloween and Kagaroo Kingdoom

Emma dressed as Elmo this year for Holloween. She met up with Parker from down the street who was dressed up as a very cute dinosaur. They both had a lot of fun trick-or-treating. Elmo wore herself out she feel asleep with mom on the couch.



After a month we went back to kagaroo kingdom. Emma had a blast agian. She really enjoys going down the slide and playing with the bubbles.

Kangaroo's, Chairs, and Soy

We went to the Kangaroo Kingdom with Koben and Riley and had a blast. Emma loved to run and climb and go down the slide. She was too funny to watch. She would walk/run as fast as she could into this peanut ball thing and go flying off of it like a perfect ricochet! She loved the bubbles, would stand and spin and try to grab them. We had a lot of fun just playing there. There are a lot of cute pictures of her with her boyfriends. One with Riley putting his hand on her head/face, he was trying to grab her pig tails. And of course, one of Koben loving on her while they are playing "house".

There are also some pictures from our weekend at my parents house in the mountains. It's almost complete and soon they will be living there full time. Will be a new change for us all to not have my parents living in Fort Collins any longer.

Tracy is on a business trip in CA until late Thursday night so it has been just us girls at home. Tonight when I was cooking dinner, she took it upon herself to rearrange all the dining chairs in various spots throughout the kitchen. This girl will find anything to entertain herself. It was hilarious, watch for those pictures when Tracy's back. This morning when I was getting ready for work, Emma was wandering all around our room and babbling up a story. She kept going to Tracy's side of the bed and pointing and talking and I kept telling her where he was. Then she would look in the bathroom and point at the shower and talk and I told her he was in California. She just shook her head, laughed, and went back to putting her toys and my lotion and brush into the bath tub.

For the past 9 days she has gone without milk and we have switched her to soy milk. This is at the suggestion of her chiropracter to see if she has a milk allergy that could explain her rashy looking skin and frequent ear infections. She loves the soy milk and is flourishing with it. Her skin is clearing up and her typical course would be to have had another cold by now (enough time has passed since her last anti-biotic prescription) and we don't have the sniffles. She also suggested some various vitamin supplements and diet changes to think about so now I just need to figure out what to do with some of them and find some recipes. So far so good, so we'll keep our fingers crossed. She is also getting her alignment better, her foot no longer points out when she walks, her eye has "lifted", and she has no tenderness in her neck when the doctor touches it now. So far, I've been very happy with the doctor and the progress that Emma has been making. The doctor even lets me email her and tells me things all the time to try, which I love!

Gilmore Girls

The cutest thing she started doing yesterday...when the theme song to the Gilmore Girls plays (yes we watch this almost nightly), she immediately stops what she's doing, looks, gets up and starts dancing. She will twirl around, clap and laugh. It is the cutest thing. We'll get it on video and post soon.

Camping Trip

We took Emma on her first camping trip and is was, well, a success. We had originally planned to camp in RMNP but due to cold weather, and no available campsites, we moved on down to Carter Lake. We found a lovely spot surrounded by grass, and a lot of dirt, but few rocks or dangers for a toddling baby. She enjoyed getting dirty, carrying rocks around, taking things in and out of the bin, and just looking at stuff. When it was time to get into the tent, it was like Christmas for the child. She walked around in the tent in circles, laughing, pulling things out of bags, she was having the best time in her life. It was really cute. Got all dressed for bed and then we all climbed into our one large bag and asleep we went. She woke up 3 times during the night, we quickly spoiled her with a bottle to quiet the screaming baby for the neighbors and back to sleep she went. Low and behold, she used her magical inner clock and awoke at exactly 6:20 am, her typical weekday time, and was up, wandering around the tent talking and laughing and making us get up with her. It was very cold that morning, but was fun to have her all dressed up in her gear. All in all, a wonderful trip. No bugs, no injuries, decent sleep for us all. Though I can't remember the last time we had packed up camp and were ready to head home before 8 a.m. And of course, she was sound asleep in the car.

She has been talking more lately and continues with her "words" which are very close to the real ones. "ish" = fish; "geesh" = geese; "at" = hat; "eh" = what is that; "emo" = elmo; and of course "mama" and "dad". The ENT doctor wants to do ear tubes, but I think we'll wait longer. Her speech is just fine and she responds well once we start antibiotics. The chiropracter also wants to keep working on boosting her immune system to try to avoid any cold. We'll see what happens. I'm just waiting for her eustacion tube to straighten out and go down instead of horizontal so we can avoid this in the future!!! She is so smart about things we say to her. I tell her to look out her car window and she looks right out, "time for bath" and she heads for the stairs, when she sees us getting dinner ready, she goes to her high chair, she can look under the couch when we ask where Lucy is, and tries to put her socks on her feet, of course getting frustrated when they just fall off.

Baptism and CT Trip

Just returned from our trip to Old Saybrook CT for Emma's Baptism and our week long vacation. It was a wonderful trip. Lots of friends and family and an overall nice get away. Emma did great and enjoyed her relatives, playing, walking, and waving at the waves. You'll see a TON of pictures from this trip. We went to the Mystic Aquarium and then had Mystic Pizza (yes, the movie), we spent time in the ocean (well kind of in the water), and spend a lot of time watching Emma love on Samantha (the black lab in the pictures). Becca and Todd are her godparents and traveled all that way for us. It was awesome. My parents also were able to make the journey and we'll post some of my dad's pics later this week.

She's getting very good at walking. One of her favorite things to do at the shore was take golf cart rides. On the way home, we flew late in the day and mostly after her bedtime. She screamed until we were airborne and then slept beautifully the rest of the flight. She also got spoiled on this trip by sleeping in bed with mom and dad for the last few hours of the night. It was very cute to have her sleep with us and cuddle right in. Check out the pictures...it was an awesome trip!

Lucky 8's

Well, today, on 8-8-08, Emma's 8th tooth appeared. FINALLY broke through her gums. It's her 1st molar on the bottom left side. She also had her first visit to the pediatric chiropracter. The doctor found her to be fairly misaligned. Stated that due to her rough birth (aren't they all rough???) her occipital bone is pushing onto her top two vertebrae and they are wacky. She gave her a massage basically, she said she was doing vibration therapy, but all I saw were her hands. Anyway, Emma loved it, tolerated it very well. At the beginning she didn't want the doctor anywhere near her ears, neck, etc and was bothered, but as she did more examining she relaxed and apparently enjoyed how it felt as she let out a huge sigh afterward. So maybe it will help. The top two vertebrae are connected with sinuses and the ears (among other things), but the doctor said she "untwisted" her two vertebrae...OUCH! She also has one ear that is lower than another, one eye which is bigger than the other, and her left foot sticks out farther than her right. The dr also said it was "interesting" that she crawled in the modified army crawl for as long as she did, as if this was a new found indication for a misalignment?!?!?! Anyway, hopefully she's aligned and that 8's continue to be a lucky number for her and our family!!!