My First Mother's Day

I had such a wonderful first Mother's Day!  

Emma Claire made me such a sweet card!

HA! I just love this card! So true!

Here is my card from the hubs.

 So sweet. He actually gave it to me on Thursday because he was on a business trip and wasn't sure if he was going to make it back in time for Mother's Day. Thankfully he made it back!

We managed to get a good picture of the three of us before church! I LOVE Emma Claire's face. She's thinking, "Seriously people...you want to take a picture together?"

The sweet princess that made me a Mommy. I love her so much.

HAHA! I love that she makes this face ALL THE TIME now! She wrinkles her nose and SNORTS! It cracks me up!

Funny side story about the snorting. In church yesterday they had a bunch of baby dedications. One of the dads made a funny comment when introducing his son, and everyone in the congregation laughed. Well once the laughing had stopped there was a silence in between the introductions. Emma Claire took that opportunity to giggle and then snort several times SO LOUD! Everyone cracked up. 

After church we went to Panera for lunch!

Sophie is like the fourth member of our family. 

Baby girl and I at lunch. She was in such a good mood! I still can't believe that last year on mother's day I was pregnant with her and today she is in my arms.

Sadly Daddy had to go to work after lunch so Emma Claire and I had plenty of Mother-Daughter time. We took a nap, played in the pool, and went to the park.

I just can't get over this picture. She look like such a little lady in her hat!

I am thinking about painting my yard sale chair yellow. I just love this.

HER FACES. They never cease to ammuse me. She is a hoot.

I have figured out that if I can't get a smile there is one sure fire way to get one. Call Grammy and put her on speaker phone. She smiles Every. Single. Time. It's the cutest thing ever. 

After pool time we went to play at the park. 

 

There is nothing like a baby in a swing. Especially in a big bow and trumpette socks!

 I had a GREAT day! I decided to top off the day with Chipotle for dinner because I just had no interest in cooking! ha! On the way out of the neighborhood I spotted something in the middle of the road, so I stopped to get a closer look. Turns out it was a TURTLE! Emma Claire and I rescued him and released him into a pond. More on that in a future post! But I can now add "turtle rescuer" to my list of many titles! ha!

I am so grateful that this beautiful baby made me a Momma.

 I am so blessed and could never have imagined that motherhood would be as amazing as it is. I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day as well!

linking up {here}

195 Days Ago...

I went to the hospital...

 I donned a very attractive hospital gown...

I was hooked up to monitors, poked and prodded with needles, experienced intense contractions, had a HUGE needle put into my spine...

But it was all worth it.

 Because 195 days ago I became a Mom.

195 days ago I laid eyes on the most precious of all God's creations...

 195 days ago I held this sweet little baby for the first time. 

195 Days ago I fell in love with this precious face. 

The past 195 days have been the best of my entire life. Some days I look at her sweet face and I still can't believe that I am a Mom. 

“A mother's love is something we keep locked deep in our hearts; always knowing it will be there to comfort us.” Harmony Ferrario

Happy Mother's Day!

SUYL: New Mommy

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time then you know that I am a new mommy! If you're visiting from Kelly's Korner then welcome! I'm Mallorie; momma to the sassy, spunky, beautiful, six month old, Emma Claire.

 

 Emma Claire Elizabeth was born on October 31st, 2011. If you want to read all about her birthday then you can go {here}!

Our first picture together!

There is nothing sweeter than a newborn. 

We joke that Emma Claire was born smiling, but we weren't far off! This picture was taken when she was just seven days old!

I dabble in photography and I have the BEST subject! I never get tired of taking her picture. 

I am so in love with my sweet baby girl and I don't even know what I would do without her. 

Being Emma Claire's mommy for the past six months has been the best and most rewarding job I have ever had. Nothing compares to waking up to her sweet smiling face each morning. She brings so much joy into my life and I honestly can't imagine life without her. 

 "No language can express the power, and beauty, and heroism, and majesty of a mother's love.  It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over wastes of worldly fortunes sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star." 

- Edwin Hubbell Chapin

One of my very best family friends wrote a blog post that put into words exactly how I feel about being a mother. She titled it "Burnt Toast and Dandelions". Her words are beautifully written and I only wish I could comprise my thoughts into a piece of literature as beautiful as hers. So since it is the season of mothers, I encourage you to go read, be humbled, and touched by her words.

{Sandbox Moments}

Sweet Feet

I have seen several canvas paintings created by babies or toddlers floating around blog land and Pinterest lately. I finally decided that I wanted to do one! So the little lady and I went to Michael's today and picked up some canvas and letter stickers. I decided that I didn't want to do edible paint so painting with fingers was out, that left us with toe/feet painting!

 

  I saw somewhere a cute cross with bible verse underneath and decided to do that. I chose psalm 119:105. It's the perfect verse for this painting project. 

"Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path."

 The aftermath. I dipped her little feet in blue paint and held her above the canvas and let her kick and walk all over the canvas. I also brushed on some white paint towards the end so you could see some of the feet prints a little more.

 Paint covered piggies.

I LOVE how it turned out! If I do this again I will make sure that I really  press down the stickers and don't do as much paint right around the stickers because it tended to bleed underneath.

The artist all cleaned up and posing with her very first masterpiece. 

Daddy's Day Off

Well we had another short weekend at our house. Daddy only had one day off this week. So we spent the day in our jammies just hanging out and playing at home. Those are some of my favorite days.

 

Is there anything sweeter? I told y'all that she had just recently become snuggly. Well her Daddy is eating it up. He LOVES that she will lay on his chest now. PS look at that BLONDE head of hair! I can't get enough of it!

 She looks SO big to me in this picture! She loves her Daddy so much. The mornings are their time together and she always loves sitting (or standing) in his lap and talking to him.

This picture just makes me smile. I don't know who loves the carrier more, Emma Claire or Daddy!

She has the goofiest parents. But she loves us for it!

We got a fun package in the mail from Granny Dawn and Granddaddy Wade!

 

While I stayed in my jammies all day, didn't put a stitch of makeup on, OR do my hair...Emma Claire did put on her cute bikini to play. It was a rainy dreary day, but I didn't think that was any reason not to break out a cute swimsuit!

She is OBSESSED with her tongue! I am surprised at how long it is!

 

Breaking. My. Heart. She has found her bow! She doesn't pull it off all of the time but she likes to rub her head now and sometimes the bow comes off in the process. I have just started to put it higher up on her head and not react when she pulls it off. 

While Daddy got dinner ready Emma Claire and I made cupcakes.

I love my husband and his cooking abilities. 

See this sweet face. This little face should have been in bed for AN HOUR AND A HALF when this picture was taken.  

Emma Claire stayed awake for almost three hours past bedtime for two nights in a row. MY CHILD. The one who has gone to bed at 7pm religiously for the past three months. And I know what we did goes against all parenting experts/child rearing books but we had tried EVERYTHING to get her to sleep for over an hour so I figured she must need to be awake so I scooped her up from her crib and brought her downstairs to bounce out some energy.   

Turns out she didn't only need to bounce...

Girlfriend needed a full on workout! HA! 

She ended up trying to crawl for about thirty minutes. So I think her staying awake had to do with the fact that she is majorly teething AND trying to crawl. There is just too  much excitement for her to sleep! And somehow she lost her jammies? I don't even remember what happened! ha! Just one of those nights! However, I can happily report that she went down at 7pm like clockwork tonight and I haven't heard a peep from her!

We just love our Daddy days! Even if we just get one whole day of Daddy a week. It just makes them that much more special. Plus last night he got plenty of extra Emma Claire time!

What I Like About You

Emma Claire is doing new things every day now so I wanted to take a moment to record some of her newest developments.Time is going by so quickly I just want to freeze it. I can't believe she is already SIX months old. That's half a year. I can't believe it. I WILL post her six month update soon! I am waiting for nice weather for a little photo shoot!

 

- She is SUCH a fun and happy baby lately. I love playing with her and spending my days just hanging out with her. 

- Her new favorite thing is to raise her hands up in the air and rub her head or grab her ears. I haven't been able to snap a picture of that yet. It's pretty funny.

- She has started to pull her bows off on accident when she is rubbing her head.

- Speaking of bows she LOVES when I put them on her. She can be fussing and if I go to put on a bow she will start to giggle. She knows what makes her Momma happy!

- She has had lots of new foods! So far she has had: sweet potato, peas, apples, pears, bananas, avocado, and she had a Popsicle the other day as well as some pancakes.

- She is a rock star sitter now. She loves to sit up all of the time.

- Although she has been teething for MONTHS she still doesn't have any teeth. 

- The dogs are her favorite things right now. She will yell at them and giggle whenever they come in the room.

- Taking her places is so easy now. I remember the days when we hardly left the house. I love that I can just pack her up and get in the car to run errands. 

- Speaking of errands, Emma Claire had graduated to the front of the cart! It's so weird to not have her huge carrier in the front of the basket!

- Now that she's visible to all when we are out we get stopped about 15 times each time we are at the store. No one up here is used to big bows so there are ALWAYS plenty of people who want to talk to EC and talk about her bow!

- She is still a little wary about strangers but I am so thankful that she has started to smile at strangers and doesn't cry anymore!

 - Being outside is our favorite past time right now. Emma Claire loves going on walks, but only if she is in her infant carrier facing me! Swinging at the park and playing in the pool always make her happy.

 - She has gotten SO cuddly lately. I cannot get enough of it. She used to never EVER lay her head on my chest. Even when she was a newborn she used to hold her head up. Now she will cuddle up to me and just lay on my shoulder or chest. It is one of my favorite things she has done so far. 

- She loves when I clap or whistle.

-  She is not sleeping through the night consistently yet. She will have one night sleeping 7pm-7am and then the next night will be up from 2am-4:30am. It just depends on the day. It doesn't bother me and I just take my sleep when I can get it!

- Okay is this not the funniest little face?! She has found her tongue and is obsessed. She sticks it out and wiggles it around constantly. The hubs and I crack up every time she does it. 

- And since we're talking about her mouth, holy drool batman. Goodness gracious this girl can produce some drool! Hoping it's a sign that teeth are coming soon! I feel like the Momma who cried, "tooth!" ha! I've said her teeth are "right there" for months! 

- She sleeps on her tummy now! We are mostly unswaddled! For naps I put her in a sleep sack and have been just laying her down instead of nursing her to sleep. She usually takes between 5-7 minutes to fall asleep. She does cry and fuss but she wakes up happy! At night I still loosely swaddle with one blanket. If I don't then she holds me with her hands and gets SO sad when I have to lay her down after. It just works better if her arms are wrapped up. 

I just asked the hubs what his favorite "new thing" is that Emma Claire does and he said he loves it when she wrinkles her nose when she smiles. He also said that he loves how she looks exactly like me and has my personality. (I don't agree with the looks comment completely but I'm just writing what he thinks). He also loves that when he is putting her clothes on she giggles whenever he is putting her outfit on and he gets it "stuck" over her face.

So much for a "little" update! I just don't want to forget any of these special little things that make Emma Claire her sweet little self. 

***Side note: the outfit she was wearing today is one I bought with my Mom on the day we found out I was having a girl. So it's a special little outfit to me! It's surreal to actually have her in this outfit when this time last year I was just finding out I was going to have a GIRL!***