eight months

i'm a tad bit late but baby emmie is eight months old!  she's flying soooo quickly through babyhood.  a lot of times i'm guilty of wishing my way to the next stage but sweet little ems is in such a fun place right now.  i love love love where we're at and it will be a little bittersweet to move on from this place someday.  here are a few of the happenings with you little princess.

you had two new teeth by the time you turned eight months (you actually have one more now).  you had one night of fussing & i don't know if that could be attributed to teething or not.  i know that we had it pretty easy with that one.  all three teeth are in the bottom center.  the two little middle ones are precious, crooked nibblers.  i love them.  you may have nibbled on your momma a few times as well.  that i do not love.

you twirl the hair on the back of your head with one hand while you suck your thumb on the other to fall asleep in your crib.  i feel like that is probably pretty typical for babies but i find it completely adorbs.  speaking of hair...

you're rocking a pretty awesome, fluffy baby mullet at the moment.  the back of your hair has gotten longer & thicker daily and while the top is "growing" it ain't no match for the back.  benny says you're kentucky born and bred so it's only right that you have a that kentucky waterfall.  business in the front, party in the back.  i'm fine with it.  you're hair is getting lighter.  it's not like you're a blondie or anything but you don't have dark brown hair like your parents...yet.

you're still sleeping great.  always sleeping all night, naps a little bit predictable but definitely not as finite as i'd like.  putting you to bed is one of my favorite times.  you melt into a little thumbsucking ball and let me rock you, pray, sing and plop you in the bed.  we're down to very little whining most nights.  i like that.

ok, sometimes you don't sleep...
now that we have blackout curtains, this is better

you are crawling like a pro.  you are everywhere, all the time.  you are pulling up on everything, and sometimes you even take a few steps while holding on to something.  you usually like to crawl around where ever we are, never venturing too far but if we'll move with you, you really love exploring.

you are babbling like crazy, favorite word currently is Mama, Dada, lalala, high pitch squealing and airplane sounds.  in the books it says that mama and dada are indiscriminately right now but i swear you think mama is me.  i love to hear you use your words.

you learned to wave watching me in the mirror, the day you learned you waved at everyone for a LONG time. For a while you would crawl and in between each step you'd stop and wave, like a one-woman baby pageant.

right now you eat stage 2 foods and love puffs now, you eat anything, & love it all.  i need to read up on introducing bigger kid foods to you.  we still haven't seen you turn down anything.

gee mom this is delicious

am i allowed to post this?  how could i not!

as you can see, you love to read.  you are super into flipping through your hard books, throwing them, sitting on them and letting momma read to you.  you love music, to dance, to 'sing' and to bounce. when I'm done bouncing you keep on going.  you also love spending time with your poppa and watching documentaries.  that's real.  look at you all!  ahhh melt my heart.

you smile all. the. time. It's pretty awesome.  You giggle some now but you still hold them back a bit.  your little grin is big and awesome.

napkin hat, smiling baby

you rode in a grocery cart for the first time this month, it was a target cart. probably the best cart you could start in.  you've done great with all your rides since.

krogering

you climbed up a step! i didn't get to see you because your Granna and uncle nick were watching you but I can't believe you're so big!

you wear 9 mo, 12 mo and 18 mo clothes.  but 12 mo most often.

carrying around treats in her mouth like a puppy.  favorite new pastime.

you got to meet your bestie, baby ellie this month.  you're in love.  so are we.

i'll be back soon with a love note for my sweet bean, until then look at this awesome, climbing princess!

That one time...

That one time when I had to walk (all alone) through Walmart at 10pm, to three different registers/attendants collecting 300 postage stamps dressed like a zombie. The sweet cashier asked if I was getting married. Too much.

because i'm sure everyone is DYING to know...

i'm sure you were just sitting around thinking, "i wonder what movies & books emmie collins is enjoying these days..."  well, since you're interested i guess i'll share what we've stumbled upon as of late.  since you are likely one of my four friends, or my mom, i've probably already shown you this but last week my momma and i went to a baby sale.  you know one of those consignment sales at a church jam-packed with every kind of kid paraphernalia ever invented and 28,492,394 mom's gold diggin'?  we bought a bunch of goodies but one of my favorite steals was a pack of 10 old library books in a bag, taped shut like fort knox.  i could tell from the spines that even if the books were awful that i'd love them on a shelf in em's room.

but much to my delight, a few of the books are absolute gems!  i have decided that all babies need this book.  it's awesome

here's a little preview [this is just like amazon.com]:

"a face is so you can make faces.  a face is something to have on the front of your head"

this one made me think of emmie, because her eyebrows are awesome.  i love the quirky illustrations and the words all make me giggle.

another one of the books is 'a kiss for little bear,'  i won't give away the ending but i really want to.  instead i'll just show you the front page.  he gives that picture to his grandma.  ha!

ben and i were blessed to go out on a date not too long ago while our town was blanketed in a blizzard.  the obvious choice of where to spend your snowy date night is a bookstore yes?  in the children's section we found this.  and i am obsessed!  i don't know why i love kid books so much that have weird undertones for kids but i'm just drawn to them.  i mean this book may encourage my daughter to be a thief but i seriously laughed at every page.  if it wasn't $16 i would have bought one for emmie and all her friends.  it won an award.  i'm dying!  read this the next time you're at b&n.

we've continued to read em's jesus storybook bible which will FOREVER be my favorite thing to read to ecb and her favorite book i believe is a sesame street book about bubbles at bathtime.  emmie doesn't even really love baths but she really loves the bubble book.  "bubbles bubbles on my nose, bubbles bubbles on my toes."  what's not to love?

now, i didn't take emmie to the dollar movies but if i had i think she would have loved wreck it ralph.  it was one of those kid movies that as a 27 year old you still think is amazing.  you laugh, you cry, it's really good stuff.  i'm looking forward to getting it froms redbox for benny to see.  he'll totally cry.  there's a little girl in it.  this = waterworks.

also, ecb watched part of aladin while rolling around on the floor yesterday.  she smiled when they sang "a whole new world".  presh.  annnnd, i'm done.  aladin reviews are one step too far.  also, it's 1 am and i just got done enjoying a night full of family, young life club, hangout afterward, late night work and now blogging.  i'm spent and 6:30am will be here shortly.  goodnight world.

oh, and i put this on facebook but it's too funny not to share here.  also, who's on fb these days?  about twenty minutes after i was done eating dinner i found a french fry in my scarf.  that was a low point for me.  what. a. mess.  spring break you can't come soon enough!

the dailies

just thought I'd pop in with a little glimpse into the last seven days. It has consisted of lots of rolling around on the ground with a certain squirmy bean, meals with friends, baby showers, morning snuggles, an extra day with daddy, some beautiful weather (and some not so beautiful), donut dates (yes multiple), visits to poppa's classroom & time w family. It has been a jam-packed, fun bursting time around here. Unfortunately 3 of the last 7 days have also held migraines for me. It's been rough for me and for Benny rushing around to take me off baby duty. Maybe more on that some other time.
em had her first ride in a cart this week.  an awesome target cart to boot.  she seems pretty psyched about it.  i'm likely creating a tiny little target monster.

did you know my baby could speak korean?  me neither.  i hear siri say "let me check on that" as my 7 month old fiddles and screeches into my phone from across the room.  it appears that she solved an equation for world peace in her native tongue.  baby genius. 

and did i mention, one of my besties is in labor!?  emmie CANNOT wait to meet her future best friend.  we had a donut date with mr. silas [big brother to be] this morning and basically the first thing out of his mouth was "we get to meet ellie!"  so awesome.  this is our 'last supper' with the postons and websters.   or so we thought, she stayed in there a little longer.  so they had to eat a few more suppers, but we tried.

 *****

on poppa's day off of school he still had to go in and get settled into his new classroom.  so fun!  after a donut date with friends and their babes we got to go check out the new digs and then steal poppa away for a sweet lunch-time date complete with gift cards and napkin hats.  she is really fun to take out now that she can sit and be a tiny person.  no crying, just fun.  and an afternoon meal with pops, our favorite.  we wish you could take a halfday every friday, that'd be the dream.

last saturday was absolutely gorgeous.  i wanted to spend literally the whole day outside but we didn't really do that.  we need to spruce up our outdoor furniture so that we can really take advantage of the great outdoors steadily.  we did go on a glorious walk.  maybe the prettiest one we've ever had as a family.  emmie double kicked her feet the whole time [picture fist pumping but with her feet].  we also went for ice cream and had a whole family day.

and the weekend is back once more.  i hope you have such fun plans in the works, or plans of no plans - those days are also great.  i have a bunch of work that needs to be taken care of so i need to be a busy bee while making sure that we have plenty of friends and family time as well.  see you again soon.  all our love!

daddy-daughter time

now ben did not like it when i posted this on instagram but i know many folks out there don't have the wonderful app and i would hate for them to miss out on this moment of awesomeness.  husband, i'm sorry for the time i told everyone you passed out a 6pm on baby duty and i'm sorry for bringing it up now (a la mean girls).

 

i was trying to get just a few things accomplished after ben got home from work last friday.  he agreed to keep an eye on baby emmie for just a few minutes (literally like 120 seconds or something).  in that time i came back to see this.  my husband asleep on the kitchen floor in a pile of baby toys.  utterly unconscious.  baby emmie didn't see me and was hovering over her dad.  she was sort of standing up but then would lean over every few seconds so her face was in. his. face.  as if to say "uh, hello?  anybody home?"  apparently not, and now she's off to wreak havoc elsewhere.  my sweet family.  you are awesome.

 

and just since we're talking daddys and daughters at the moment, i wanted to capture this sweet little tidbit as well.  one of benny's students went to a father-daughter dance that they held in the area and wrote ben a whole letter about how special it was to go with her dad and how she thinks it would be a really great idea for him to take emmie someday.  ugh, melt. my. heart.  how sweet is that little girl?  i believe this poppa has every intention of stealing any dance with princess emmie that's available. 

 

he promises to be a more lively date than the kitchen incident of twenty-thirteen.

 

seven months + a love note

current aliases:  emmie, emmie collins, ecb, baby emmie, baby bear, little one, little bear,  bean, princess, emmiekins, tiny chin (because she has the smallest chin), bright eyes

you eat baby food twice a day.  you've tried and loved bananas, peaches, peas, sweet potatoes, squash & green beans so far.  you appear to be the opposite of picky when it comes to food.  i'm so glad that you didn't inherit my bad tastebuds.  you've also tried puffs but are very skeptical.  you make the most awesome bitter beer face when i give you a puff to try.  i don't think you dislike them, i think the texture is just so foreign to you.

 

after you're done eating baby food is one of your favorite times.  i wipe you down with a warm rag (because you make massive messes sticking both fists in your mouth between each bite) and you love that!  you nearly clean up your own face and hands because you love your washcloths so much.

you still nurse just as often and it is still a joy for me.  you are so sweet when you eat and one of my favorite things is that you kick your little feet and play with my or your hair while you lay there.

licking your first skyline cracker [unsalted]

you still sleep in between most feedings but i think we may be stretching to 3 during the day instead of 4 soon which would be great.  and you're still sleeping from around 7pm to 7am.  you scrunched all your bumpers down when you would wake up, which was absolutely adorable...you just wanted to see if anyone was on their way in to get you, but you were also making me nervous when you'd squish your face in them so i took them out.

bum straight up in the air

 then you got your arms stuck through the bars and that scared me pretty bad too so i'm on the hunt for one of those breathable bumpers that will hopefully take care of both issues even though i don't think they are very pretty.  Since you don't have bumpers now, and your curtains aren't opaque (because they're made by your mother) i was forced to hang a sheet up in your window to block the light out for now.  you fall asleep for naps so much easier now that it's dark.  now i just gotta figure out how to line a curtain - yikes...

you started crawling this past week.  you spent about 3 weeks tricking me into thinking that "today will be the day" but at the end of February you finally went for it!  as soon as you figured it out, you were on the move.  you get quicker and quicker by the day.  its so sweet to see your little self get around a room.  you see something you want and you go exploring.  me and your poppa love when you crawl to us.  you're really snuggly and loved to be held (but not in an obnoxious way...yet).

ems being a hoodlum

3 days into crawling, you started to crawl toward tall things, like couches, benches and your parents legs to pull yourself up.  3 days after successfully mastering lifting yourself onto your knees you stood up all by yourself on march 2nd.  you had the help of your crib but no help from a person.  absolutely unbelievable.  how is your momma supposed to deal with you growing so fast!?

your favorite toys are probably sophie and the crinkly bag that holds your diaper wipes.  you also enjoy pulling my hair as much as ever.  you have an almost unbelievable affinity for tags on anything.  tags on pillows, tags on toys, tags on bibs, you name it.  i'm thinking if i could buy you a tag without the toy attached, that might be something.

you went on your first stroller ride like a big girl (not in the carseat but facing outward).  i thought it was warm enough, and when the wind died down it was perfect but when it would blow, yikes.  it was biting.  so needless to say, the walk was brief, just around the block but i was still pretty hype about it.

you celebrated you poppa's 28th birthday and your very first valentine's day where daddy treated you like a princess. 

you got your very first baby trench coat and some knit, bow earwarmers!  you also tried on your very first bathing suit...i die!

we think that you love music.  we watched a guitar documentary and you were enamored.  you try and sing along with the songs in your jumperoo, and you have a beautiful voice.  you love stories and hard books where you can turn the pages.

you also have started talking and babbling more.  sometimes you don't make noise you just open and close your mouth over and over.  i'm not sure if you're practicing to talk or to chew but you look like a precious little old person.  sometimes you scream and squeak and your poppa says you're dramatic like me.  as if.

you had lots of time with friends and family this past month.

and just for good measure, some extra adorableness from my bean:

no monthly report would be complete without a little love note for my little lady.  be back soon with that for you princess tiny chin!

i'm here!  little one, seven months looks good on you. 

i have to admit that i have a "favorite" time with you.  now i don't want you to get all crazy and think that i don't enjoy other moments with you (don't be ridiculous) but hands down, no competition, i love weekend mornings with you, me and your poppa.  my heart could literally explode as i get your little squeaking, and now standing, self out of bed.  you grin as hard as you can when i walk in the door and put your arms up juuuust a little for me to pick you up.  sometimes you even let out a little giggle.  after i lift you out of bed you melt into a little ball of preciousness on my shoulder.  you usually lay your head down and suck your thumb, or squeak, or both until i get you into our room for meal #1 of the day.

you nestle on down in between me and your poppa to eat.  lots of mornings poppa is still a little out of it when you first come to bed with us. it's dim in there, usually about 6:30am, and on a saturday or sunday, who can blame him?  you start out all about the food but a few minutes in you realize that there is a grizzly poppa bear in the bed and try your very best to eat and touch him at the same time.  sometimes its a smack and sometimes you just hold his arm or pat his face.  you don't quit even when he's asleep and unresponsive, you just keep on keepin' on.  it is the best.  when you're finished eating poppa gets pretty much all your attention.  it doesn't bother me a bit.  i'm obsessed with seeing the two of you together.  it looks like you're comforted by me being nearby with your little glances even if your focus never reeeeally strays.  it's my happy place. 

those mornings are what i dreamed of when we were pregnant with you.  i used to ask ben, "won't it be so incredible for emmie to wake up and come visit with us in bed?"  those moments were my favorite when it was just me and your poppa and now with you in the mix...i can't stand it!  it's that undistracted, "quiet" time (quiet in feeling, not in noise) that blesses me so.  i used to imagine it just like this, and it's all i could want wrapped up in a few moments of fluffy pillows and baby wiggles.  i can picture your little toddler self joining us too, and maybe some other little siblings too, God willing.  maybe someday we'll jump on the bed, who knows.

one other little thing i wanted to tell you is that you have the sweetest, funniest personality taking shape.  unfortunately for the world you don't share it with just anyone.  you pretty much stone-face the majority of our friends and family with just tiny glimpses of your silly self and when it is just me and your dad you are a wild woman.  huge smiles, crawling all over, so playful.  i hope someday that you embrace being with all different kinds of people and that you let your little light shine.  not that you have to be the center of attention, but that you wouldn't be afraid to be yourself.  shine little one, shine.  if you're reserved, that's ok.  i just hope you know that you are brave and that you can put yourself out there.  God has made you pretty darn special, don't be scared to be you.

we love you with all our heart. 
momma & poppa