Squash, Apple Juice, and Green Stuff

Until recently, Emma had not met a food she didn't like. It is quite apparent when you look at her absolutely adorable chubby thighs!! Her favorite veggie so far has been squash. As for the "green stuff", not her favorite. She enjoyed green beans for awhile, but after enjoying her squash, has changed her mind about that enjoyment. She has decided that green peas are yucky. She'll eat a few bites, decide it is gross, grunt, and spit it out.

She has only had applesauce right now for fruit, and loves it. She grunts when I don't get the spoon to her mouth fast enough! We have been trying to get Emma to drink liquids other than mommy's milk. She only likes water if it is from my water bottle. She has started drinking apple juice, but it has taken some time to get used to it.

6 Months

Emma Grace! You are half a year old today! Goodness gracious! You have had a great many changes and exciting events this month. Let's see...

Your biggest accomplishment this month has been sitting up. You seemed to just start it out of nowhere. You and Daddy were upstairs changing a diaper. When he was finished, he sat you up and you were intrigued by the wipes in front of you and sat up by yourself. You have continued this, playing with anything we put in front of you! What a smart little girl you are!

You are very strong. You love to stand on your little chubby feet. You can hold your own weight, you just need support from Mommy and Daddy to keep you balanced.

You are a reacher and a grabber. In the months past, you began reaching out and playing with your toys. This month, you have realized there is much more to grab and touch. You have started reaching out for things out of your immediate area. You love to leap forward and are quick to snatch things up!! You also love noses, glasses, and long hair. You've also found your toes - you like to grab and eat them!! Daddy likes to say you are doing your ballet stretches when you grab your feet!

Last month you started rolling from front to back. You have been working on rolling back to front. You get all the way over on your side, reach out for what you want, grab it, then roll back to your back. We think you know how to do it, but you just don't feel like it! We'll see!

You figured out your aquarium this month. You have a little aquarium in your crib that has a little fishy and crab that swim and bubble with music. There is a big blue button on the front, and you have figured out that it turns the music and bubbles on and off. Impressive!

You have tasted all sorts of food this month and haven't met a food you don't like! You've eaten sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, prunes, and oatmeal. Yummy yummy! You also started drinking water out of a sippy cup. More of it gets on you than in your mouth, but that's ok!

You have worked on more babbles this month. My favorite sound right now is your newest babble - mamamamamama!

Emma, you are our giggly, talkative, smiley baby girl. You are such a joy to be around. We love spending every minute of every day with you! We love you Emma Grace.

Emma's New Skill

Just this past week, Emma began sitting up by herself! It seemed to just come out of the blue! She has been sitting supported for awhile now, but all of a sudden, she had this new accomplishment. It's as if she works on these things at night in her crib when no one is watching. Maybe that's what all that noise is! She's not 100% accomplished at this new skill, but she's doing awesome. She is very proud of her accomplishment (as are we!) and loves to show it off!

Sweet Moments

I share so many sweet moments with my dear little Emma, too many to share each and every one. Tonight, while trying to get Emma to take a nap, I experienced an absolutely sweet moment. Emma was not happy about going down for a nap, so I went upstairs to comfort her. She immediately stopped crying when I looked over the crib at her. I lowered the side and leaned in. I gave her a passie to nibble on (we really think she is starting to teeth as much as she loves to chew on things and rub hard objects on her gums). I leaned down, putting my arm next to her head, and started rubbing her tummy. My little girl looked at me with her big beautiful eyes and started softly touching my arm. Then she reached up with both her hands and grabbed my cheeks and then softly touched my hair that had fallen from behind my ears. It was just the sweetest moment. Then, to my surprise, she reached over to her little aquarium, which had been playing Canon in D, and turned it off using the big blue button on the front. I figured this was a coincidence and turned the aquarium back on. She looked at me, and then turned it back off. How funny. We had a little chuckle, and then she returned to softly touching my arm and looking up at me. Of course I couldn't make her take a nap at this point. I AM the weakest link. I scooped my baby up. She wrapped her chubby little arms around my neck and squeezed. I am in love.

Party like it's 2009 (almost)

Well, our New Year's Eve celebration was wild and crazy this year! We wrapped up hours before the new year actually arrived, but we still had fun. The Moncriefs and two of the McKennas joined us for a small celebration at the Crane household. It's crazy that last year at our gathering I was pregnant, Kristi was just sharing with us that she was pregnant, Brittany was coming in on the last month or so of her pregnancy, and Katie was just about pregnant (or pregnant and didn't know it yet!). Now here we were, playing with our little ones!

It's hard to believe 2008 has come to an end! What an amazingly wonderful year! This year has just flown by. We spent the first half of the year preparing for our little Emma's arrival. I cannot believe that this time last year I was sick, sick, sick with "Baby Crane". We had just bought our new house and were trying to get settled. We learned never to try to move around the holidays while being pregnant and very sick. Then came the remodeling projects around the house - the kitchen disaster with Lowes (have I told you lately not to shop there!?), the hardwood floors and fun replacement of the sub-floors, the painting, shall I go on!? My most favorite projects were decorating Emma's room, shopping for her furniture, and getting all of her baby things ready. (I loved going into her nursery while I was pregnant and just sitting and dreaming about Emma, what she would be like, and how anxious I was to meet her.) We were able to squeeze in a babymoon during the first few months of the year, going on a quick cruise and enjoying some time just the two of us before the baby. Finally it was time for our Emma-bear! July 9, 2008 was the most amazing day of my life. I will vividly remember that day for the rest of my life. I am not sure what happened to the year after her arrival. My maternity leave seemed to be over in a blink of the eye and my little Emma was no longer so little. Although it seemed so ver short, it was a wonderful year. How God has blessed us over and over this year with our little family.

Now here we are, 2009. It'll be my baby's first birthday before we know it. So many more firsts are ahead for Emma and our family and so many exciting adventures. Here's to another great year.