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.

Emma's 1st Christmas

What a fabulous change in our Christmas celebrations - the addition of Emma. Although she is still too little to understand what is going on, it sure was heart-warming to see the day through the excitement of her little eyes. Everything is so new and wonderful to her. Tissue paper? Wonderful! Wrapping paper scraps? Wonderful! Hugs from mommy and daddy and everyone else? Wonderful!!

We started off holiday festivities with Uncle Spencer's 30th birthday. Dusty was sick, so Emma and I stopped by Grammy's house for a quick visit. Emma was very excited to see her new cousins and her Uncle Spencer. She is becoming such a ham. She loves to be the center of attention.

Emma - "Look! I have two new baby cousins!"

Emma - "Hey guys! Over here! It's Natalie and Audrey!"

Emma - "I'm sitting with my Uncle Spencer!!!!"

We started Christmas Eve with a mid-afternoon lunch at Grammy's house. Emma wore a precious little Christmas outfit her Papa Crane gave her - with "Santa Baby" on the bloomers. We enjoyed spending time with the two newest members of the family, as well as existing members!! Emma enjoyed her exer-saucer and attention from her Grammy AND Mamaw. Emma is growing and changing so much. She is more and more aware of her surroundings each day. She seems to be realizing that Natalie and Audrey are little people like her and wants to talk to them and touch them.

Mamaw with Audrey

Natalie snug as a bug.

Emma looking festively cute!

Check out those big beautiful eyes on Natalie.

After Grammys we went home for a little nap and then got ready for the candlelight service at Christ United. Dressed in our festive attire, we headed through the pouring rain to the service. Emma was especially talkative, so we decided to sit in the crying room. We were the first to arrive in the room and we got settled. A few minutes later, a cute little guy and his daddy arrived. He was around 10 months old and just learning to walk. He toddled around the room and when he discovered we were in the room, toddled over to us. The best part was the little noises he made! He sounded just like a little ewok from Star Wars. We couldn't help but to laugh. After awhile, he would make a little grunting sound, and then Em would make her screechy sounds. It seemed as if they were communicating! Next came Lauren's (a friend of Brittany's) little boy Ty. He is absolutely adorable! On this night he had a concerned look on his face. He kept studying Emma and the other little guy. Within a few moments, the three of the kiddos were "communicating". As parents, all of us could not help but to chuckle. Finally, the icing on the cake! A final little boy came in with his daddy and plopped down in front of Ty and his mommy. This little guy pulled himself up and stood by the chair for a few moments and began "talking" to Ty. Then he got down on the floor as if he was going to sit on his knees and began hopping. All around the room! Every time he hopped, he giggled. He giggled so much he got Ty giggling. It was the most wonderful sound ever! We tried to pay attention to the service, but it was very hard being surrounded by these adorable children!

We concluded the evening as a new little family, just the three of us, and dined at Carrabbas. It was a perfect ending to a wonderful evening.

Christmas morning, after Dusty waited excitedly for Emma and I to rise, we opened gifts at our house as a little family. Emma loved grabbing onto packages and pulling on paper. She taste tested most of her gifts, but that was about the extent of her excitement for the new toys. She did take a liking to a little frog stocking stuffer since it offered a yummy ring to chew on. Among the items we bought for our little darling were a moose named Mortimer (how could I pass that up!?), a glow worm, a cabbage patch doll (this year was their 25th anniversary, so I just had to get her one like I used to play with), and a fishy bowl with fun little fish to drop in and out.

Emma - Gifts for me!?

Mortimer sure is fun!

In the afternoon we got dressed up in more festive attire - this time Emma wore a special dress that my friend Rachael handed down. It is one that her daughter, Emmie, wore, and our friend Julie's daughter, Madeline, wore it before her. We headed over to Mom-mom and Pops for a yummy turkey dinner with Omi and Poppop and presents for Miss Em. We concluded the evening at the Crane household with dessert and a Chinese auction.

Presents from Mom-mom and Pops, how exciting!

Emma and her Pops.

Emma, Omi, and Poppop having some laughs.

We concluded our Christmas celebrations Friday night with some members of the Ooltewah Gang. We enjoyed a spaghetti dinner and WII Fit fun! Emma enjoyed getting to see her Aunties.

Emma and her Auntie Rel.

In all, it was a magical Christmas filled with wonderful memories of our baby girl, family, and friends. What better way to spend the holidays.

A UTC Kind of Christmas

We gathered with the UTC folks (sans Becca and Brent - we missed you) for Christmas Saturday night at Kristi and Nathan's beautifully decorated house. If you didn't know, Kristi is the next Martha Stewart!!

This year is extra special with the arrival of our little ones and the celebration of their first Christmas. We celebrated with fabulous Manicotti. Kristi and I hear it was wonderful, but we're on restricted diets for our little one's allergies. We did get to enjoy some spaghetti and salad, though. We finally engaged in a cookie swap. We have been talking about doing one of these literally for years. We have decided this was our first annual. We also had a little fun with an ornament swap.

The most fun of the night came with the children's group picture. Trying to sit four little wiggly kiddos on a leather couch came with much effort (and many laughs). Wish we had also had the video camera out. We've decided Ada and Emma will be the trouble makers of the group. Ada is the only "mobile" child right now, so she kept wanting to crawl away. Emma wanted to wiggle down to her back and at times just wanted to cry (we later found in one of the pictures that the crying was due to a love tap from Ada). Owen and Nolan just sat so patiently the entire time, taking everything in and being so photogenic. All the babies are just too cute. We hope to make this picture an annual thing as well, watching these kiddos grow and adding to the group as more little ones arrive!

Dusty and I are so thankful for our friendships with the "UTC Group" and feel so blessed to be able to share in these wonderful memories with each of them. Here are some pictures from the night. (I don't have a group one - will one of you lovelies please send me one!? Thank you!)

Proud daddies - Kevin, Dusty, and Nathan with Owen, Emma, and Nolan

Emma, "Ooh, look! It's Owen. I love Owen." Owen, "Ewww, Emma has cooties."

Auntie Jess with her cuties.

Here's one of the group picture attempts. I think this one is hilarious because Ada's about to get on the move, Emma looks a bit flustered with Ada, and Nolan is getting smushed between Emma and Owen. We did have them in order of age, but as you can see in the next picture, they got moved around a bit.

Emma, 5 months; Ada, 10 months; Nolan, 4 months; Owen 3 months

(I'm framing this one!)

The two good little boys, just hanging out.

Nolan checking out his viewmaster ornament from the swap.

Partying was just too much for Em.