winter 2013::2014 with emmie bean

originally written at the end of january i'm pretty sure.  kept hoping to add to it but obviously failed, so i'm gonna go ahead and hit the 'publish' button. without further adieu...

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per usual, i have one billion things i need to post.  a thousand things i want to remember about this time in our lives.  i've come to the realization that my hold up is pictures.  i don't have all my images in one place, some on my phone, some on ben's, some on my camera and none on my computer.  it always seems like such a bear to upload from 3 different devices just to post & no post is complete without pictures.  true?

so anyway, these next few posts will be of seasons past, out of order, and half-remembered but it's better than nothing.

memories to remember:

we were out to an informal family dinner, just the three of us, like 70% of our nights...bad momma.  when we went into the restaurant it was just cold as heck & dusk but when we came out it was a full blown blizzard in the dark.  i hope to always remember how precious little em was when she watched the snow come down for the first time with her little furry hood on.  it was sticking to her bangs and her little eyes were fixed with wonder toward the sky.  the parking lot lights lit up those perfect, fat, fluffy snowflakes (i'm convinced they're the best kind), she was in heaven.  i could have watched her smile at the sky all night, if i wasn't freezing my buns off.  it was a really precious few moments.

since then we've had relatively no snow in lexington.  all surrounding areas get pummeled, and we get a rain shower or something equally lame.  since that first snow i've had one other opportunity to take sweet mem's out into flurries.  the wind was kickin' something fierce & she could barely stay standing against it in her 'christmas-story-esque' outfit.  i snapped a few shots and let her stick her mitten hands in snow before i dragged my screaming [freezing] baby inside.  she's obsessed.  i have a wilderness babe that is for sure.  i like to be outside and all, but mostly in a laying on a beach towel sense, so i'm not sure where she gets it.

in other news, i try and stay on top of rotating emmie's clothes in and out for sizing, as she grows out of one size and then into another.  we've been super blessed with adorable hand-me-downs, or future outfits that couldn't be passed up by a certain nana.  if i slack, she might even miss wearing them all together since she grows so quickly.  all that to say, in rotating into a new size i found these awesome faux-cowgirl boots.  i had been waiting for her little feet to grow into them and now that it was fall, the stars were aligning and it was time to squeeze those little chunky toes in there.  much to our surprise they had their own squeaker in the shoe and seriously, watching emmie stomp all over the house, stores, restaurants with these boots brought me at least a years' worth of laughter.

other little emmie-isms that currently kill us:

she now puts her hand up to her face to giggle.  she still belly laughs the most at her poppa.

she tries to fake snore like i do when i 'fake' sleep but really she just opens her mouth, breathes really loud and keeps her eyes open.

she squints her eyes when she smiles at me sometimes, intentionally.  i think she's mimicking me but what's funny is that it's just the way i normally smile at her.  i'm not making my eyes squinter than normal, that's just my face.

when she runs or walks really fast she breathes, huh huh huh, really short little breaths because that's what i do when i fake run holding her.  it's awesome.

she shrugs her shoulders and put her arms out to say "i dunno." without words.

she's starting to sing and dance more.  she loves music.  anytime she hears any kind of tune her ears immediately perk up and she starts to wiggle and/or hum.

she uses her chin as an extra pair of hands or a pocket. i've never actually seen anyone else do this so i guess she's just resourceful.  she wants to be hands-free to grab one more leaf or carry a few more plastic pieces of food, insert object under chin, keep walking like normal.  she's makes the best concentration face when she does this & also creates a classic ecb double chin.

she's known how to hug and kiss for a couple months, and let me tell you, it doesn't get old, but now when she hugs it's real hard when you mean it.  sometimes she wraps her arms around me and pats my back.  i may have created the most overly affectionate baby in the whole world.  she seriously would give hugs 85% of the day if i didn't distract her with necessities like food, tea parties & mickey mouse club house.  and sometimes even that results in hugs.  she's really into giving hugs between bites, to both parents at one time.  i found scrambled egg in my hair the other day.  anytime she sees ben and i hugging, she almost whines and then runs as fast as she can to squeeze in the middle.

em knows most of her body parts, her favorite far and away is her belly button which she will whip out on command, in public.

she loves to sit in her toy corner or go shut the door in her room to read by herself.  she pulls out all of her books, surrounds herself and then gets to work flipping diligently through all of the pages.

everyday is an adventure with this little miss.  being together is far and away one of my greatest joys and undeserved blessings.

hopefully we'll be back again...someday.  she's already grown so much since this!