All dressed up for church

Yes, I know, most mothers would dress their daughters in cute little dresses for church. But I don't go out much, so I have to use my cute outfits while I can. So today Emily wore overalls to church.

Just use your imagination

These pictures are in desperate need of captions. Rather than hindering your imagination with my captions, I felt that I should just leave them blank and let you laugh your heads off while posting comments.

"Life's not fair"

I am obsessed with things being fair. Ask Jon--it drives him crazy. If someone gives me a birthday/Christmas present, I must give them one of the approximate same value. If someone invites us over for dinner, we need to invite them over. Even Steven. I am currently being plagued (I'm nearly livid) by an unfair situation (in my eyes). You see, at Jon's work, they usually collect money when someone has a baby, and either buy gifts or just give the couple the money. Well, it's been five weeks, and our gift hasn't materialized. You might think this is greed , but trust me, it's not; we don't need anything. It's not even really about the even-steven thing (you know, we've paid in quite a bit the last couple of years, now it's our time to get paid back); I'm more hurt for Jon's sake. I mean, since he's getting out, he's kind of been blackballed, or at least kicked to the proverbial curb. He's been nothing but a hard worker and an amazing asset to his shop--where is the love? Doesn't anyone care enough to take care of this? So I was praying about it during this 2am feeding, and God reminded me that life isn't fair, and, luckily, neither is grace. Because if life were truly fair and even-steven, I'd be in a world of hurt right now. I mean, without grace, I wouldn't even have Emily in the first place. "Good thing it's her middle name," God reminded me like a bit of a slap in the face/wakeup call. I wouldn't have Jon, or a house, or a job, or anything. So now I'm trying to focus on grace rather than fairness.

If you're going to poop, poop big

Since Aunt Cindy isn't here any more, Emily has switched to pooping all over inanimate objects. Today we dropped Jon off at work, and she screamed most of the way home (only to fall asleep two blocks from our house). I figured it was due to hunger, but apparently it was that she was sitting in tons and tons of poop (not a big fan of Huggies at this point). I changed her, we all ate at McDonald's, dropped Jon off, and came home. Who knew so much could come out of a child in such a short time? Good thing those carseat covers are washable.

I could never be a single mom

With the last of my visitors gone and my husband working 12-hour (14, really) shifts, I realize how important help is with a baby. It's not that it's unbearable or anything, there are just times when an extra set of hands is nice (like when you want to shower or make dinner or plan a lesson for the middle schoolers). And there's not really such a thing as a "quick" errand any more, because you have to pack up the munchkin, and you have to strategically plan it for a time when she is either happy or sleeping, which at this point isn't necessarily a consistent or predictable thing. So I basically don't know how single moms do it, I'm just extremely thankful that I'm not one of them.

Go Bruins?

Uncle Jeffy sent this shirt to Emily when I was about 2 or 3 months pregnant. We'll see if she grows up to be a UCLA fan, or if she chooses a different school. The Welchs sent her a USC shirt, but she's not big enough yet. As long as she sticks with the Pac-10 and it's not U of O, we're fine. No daughter of mine will be a Duck!

Head control

Emily has pretty good control of her head at this point--it's kind of scary. Last night she was just hanging out looking around, completely happy. Granted, we're still trying to figure out how to change this time to the afternoon/evening rather than 10pm.

Thanks, Aunt Larisa

Aunt Larisa sent Em this cute bracelet with her birthstone & pearls.

Goodbye, visitors!

Modeling

Outfit from Aunt Cindy--she looks so old!!
We'll pay for college with the milk royalties.
A better shot of Cindy's outfit.

Thursday

I bought Emily this book today (okay, really Jeff & Wendy did, via gift card--Thanks!) because it's one of my favorites. Really, anything by Sandra Boynton is great.
These pictures are a lot easier to take when she's sleeping.
A drama queen? Even while sleeping? Please no...

Retribution

Cindy must have peed/pooped on lots of babysitters when she was a baby, because Emily is definitely paying her back. At church on Sunday she got pooped on while feeding Em. Then last night she got pooped on again, and while she was changing her diaper/clothes, Emily peed all over the table. Aunt Cindy has definitely been initiated.

War games

Jon starts a week of war games today. Not fun for anyone, because he'll be working 12-hour shifts, from 6am-6pm. When you figure in travel time & security, it'll really be like 5am-7pm. So he'll be up at 4am each day, and will likely be in bed by about 8 or 9. At least this is better than the year he had to work nights!

Aunt Cindy

I'm pretty sure these two like each other A LOT.

Morning smile

My turn to be spoiled

I should go to work every day! Yesterday Grandma made an amazing casserole (one of my favorites)for dinner, and the fam cleaned my house & folded my laundry. Then today Cindy & Meghan made dinner (I'd tell you what it was, but I'm not sure--it was Mexican). I might trick them and say that I have to go to work tomorrow and just hang out in Starbucks all day...

One month pictures, take two

Big cheeks!

Inservice

Yesterday I had to go to work and leave Emily at home. I'm definitely not ready to go back to work, so I'm really glad it's just this two inservice days that I have to attend. I didn't really freak out about leaving her, I just missed her all day, and it made the meetings seem even more unnecessary and boring and redundant. Oh, and the 3-hour motivational speaker--while hilarious at times--was not as motivating as my daughter. But I did get my back-to-school bonus check yesterday, and it clearly reflected my 10 sick days for the year. I wonder if I have to go today, since I've already received the perks...?

SMILES!!!


This is a temporary one month picture--we'll get a better one today, hopefully. At her checkup she weighed 9-4, and was 21 inches long.

Pictures

I figured it was easier to just throw Emily in with the laundry than actually give her a bath every night.
Asleep on Great-Grandma's lap.

Falling asleep while being burped.