Yummy Yummy in My Tummy

Well today was a big day at our house! Emma Claire got rice cereal for the first time! After watching her watch us eat and reach for our food I decided it was a good time to start. Plus she has doubled her birth weight and can almost sit up on her own.

She didn't know what she was excited for...but she was excited!

"What did you people put in my mouth?!"

"Okay...add some fingers and it's not too bad..."

"Yes, I think I like it!!!"

All in all She got more on her face and bib than in her mouth, but that's okay! It was a fun "first" to experience on a night that we had Daddy home with us! We did it right before bath time and that's a good thing, she was a MESS afterwords! I can't wait to start making some actual "food" for her in a few weeks! I'm going to start with sweet potatoes, they were my favorite when I was a baby!

Love

Happy Wednesday Y'all!

Here's what I'm loving today...

{One}

The Hubs and my little lady

My husband is the best daddy in the whole world. Not only does he like Emma Claire's big bows, he will put them on her when he dresses her. :-) It melts my heart to see him putting her bow on. Although Emma Claire looks less than amused...her face! HA!

{Two}

This AMAZING weather!

Emma Claire and I have been so enjoying this weather. We go on at least one walk a day and running errands is so fun with her now!

{Three}

Emma Claire's Easter basket

I know I'm a little ahead of the game on this one but I started gathering items for her Easter basket right when stores put Easter items out. My plan worked, I have all of her basket items and don't have to worry about it now!

{Four}

Insulated Whale Tote

I saw this tote at HomeGoods the other day and had to have it. I just love whales and I thought it would be a perfect summer tote.

I loved it even more when I saw it was insulated! So this summer when Emma Claire and I are going to the park or running errands I can keep any food/drink I take with us cold! Perfect! They are only $14.99 and there were lots of cute patterns to choose from!

{Five}

New Cleaning Supplies

I am SUCH a cleaning nerd. If I'm in a cleaning slump all it takes to bring me out of it is buying some new cleaning supplies. No joke. Today I got the newest Method all purpose cleaner. It smells WONDERFUL, I love it!

HA! Method always has fun stickers or sayings on their products and I love it! I'm a product designers dream.

{Six}

Spring Nails

I figured now that it's spring I needed a great new spring color! So I grabbed this beauty at Target the other day! I can't wait to take it to my next pedicure!

{Seven}

Photo Book Holder Thing?

Great description, right? Ever since I started creating Emma Claire's monthly books I have been looking for something to display them. I have looked at hundreds of baskets and never found the perfect one. Well I am happy to say the other day, I FOUND IT, at HomeGoods of course. It is a desk organizer of sorts but when I saw it I just knew it would be perfect!

And it was! I will be able to easily fit all 12 months in this little organizer! I have it on our side table now and it fits perfectly! I am so excited about this. I know it's a little thing but hey, it's the little things in life! Right?

{Eight}

My Sweet Dixie Dog

That's what we call her most of the time, "Dixie Dog" or "Dixie Bell" and I am just loving how sweet she is being with Emma Claire. She will nuzzle her and rub her head on her hands so she will pet her. I just love it.

Lots of love today. Linking up {HERE} Come join and let us know what you're loving today!

It's Here! It's Here!

Spring has finally arrived!

Happy first day of Spring, everyone!

Everyone at our house is quite excited for the official start of Spring!

Emma Claire's reaction when I told her it was the first day of spring ;-)

So in order to celebrate I got out the Easter and Spring decor and made our house all festive!

Our "mantle". I switched out the candles to "spring-ey" colors today. I got those little wooden bunnies at Target and just love them! I want to add an Easter or Spring printable in a cute frame.

I got this cute little easter egg table runner at Target the other day and knew it would be perfect on the coffee table. The Easter flowers will most likley move somewhere else but for now this is where I have them.

I love the dollar section at Target. :-)

I have this sign hanging in our kitchen!

Today I got some apothecary jars at HomeGoods and I. Love. Them. I may or may not have an addiction and have already made plans to buy more ;-) They just didn't have any others I loved. I love our table cloth but need new placemats that match better. I literally put all of this up after little miss went to bed tonight so it's not completley finished. But I just love a festive house and wanted to get everything out so then I can tweak it.

Do you love putting up seasonal decorations? I do. It just makes everything more fun in my opinion. This probably comes from how my Mom decorated when I was younger. I know I've said it before but she just always made our house fun and inviting and I want to do the same for Emma Claire. Even if she doesn't know it yet ;-)

{Linked up with Megan!}

Fun Firsts

There are a few things Emma Claire has started doing lately that I don't want to forget. So I thought I would do a random post full of our newest "firsts"! 

She's a rolly poly! rolled over from tummy to back! I'm a bit late on posting about this! Oops! I put a video up on face book right after it happened so I felt I had already "documented" it but wanted to write it down here too. She rolled from tummy to back on March 7th.

This picture was right before she rolled...

and this one was after!

She rolled over from back to belly on St. Patrick's Day!

She is OBSESSED with the wipes refill bags and is always rolling towards them...

I was NOT expecting her to roll when she did! It cracked me up!

She was not really sure what to think of it! This face kills me...when did she turn into a teenager?!

Emma Claire has officially found her hands and is fascinated by them. She will spend several minutes just looking at them and opening and closing them. Then she will grab at something and watch how her fingers move. It's just the neatest thing to watch her discover new things every day!

She now really reaches for toys and grabs hold. Then will usually try and stick whatever she has a hold of into her mouth.

Thumb sucking. This one is kind of a double edged sword. She loves to suck on her thumb and fingers however she usually pokes herself in the eye while attempting to suck and gets extremely upset.

The puppies. Oh. My. Gosh. She LOVES them. I swear it's like one day last week she noticed them and totally freaked out! Yesterday she was in the kitchen with me while I cooked, and she was just playing in her jumpy and then saw Gracie walk in the kitchen and she screamed at her! She kept doing this the whole time we were in the kitchen. I was cracking up. Then she would yell at them when they would leave the room, when they came back she would giggle.

Dixie. Okay while Emma Claire is equally as amused by Gracie and Dixie, Dixie is the only one who will come lay on the floor with her. It is so cute to watch Emma Claire run her fingers through Dixie's fur. As sweet as it is that she loves the dogs it just makes me nervous due to the other obsession she has...grabbing. I watch her like a hawk when she's by the dogs because I'm afraid she'll grab the dog and make her upset. Also I think it's cute that she "pets" them but that means I'm constantly wiping her hands down because they go right from whatever she was touching into her mouth...of course!

This girl loves her feet. She just started grabbing them last week and she is obsessed. When I unswaddle her she immediately grabs her feet and rocks back and forth.

This morning I was standing in the bathroom holding her and she really noticed herself in the mirror. This was one of those times when I REEEALLY wished I had a third hand to videotape what was going on. She would look right at herself and smile SO big and then look away in a shy manner. Then she would do it again and smile even bigger. Such a sweet memory.

The Sic'em. She can now move her arms all around and does what we call "the sic'em". All of you Baylor Bears out there will know why we call it this. She moves one arm up and down and up and down for five minutes or so. She really does it in her swing which is too funny to me. I have yet to get a picture or video of this, surprising..I know ;-)

So as much as I miss this tiny sweet thing...

I am having SO much fun watching her grow and learn new things each day.

Oh..this picture made me think of one more new thing...her HAIR! Girlfriend has some hair! I LOVE how fluffy it is!!!

Linked up {HERE} for Miscellany Monday!

Growing

Just a little "garden" update! I have all of my pation plants planted and am just waiting for them to fully bloom. I still have to work on our front patio plants and flower beds. That's a project for the hubs and I on his day off this week!

And while all of our plants grow and bloom, Miss Emma Claire is working on growing her chompers! I know she is young for teething but when I turned five months old I had FOUR teeth. Wowzers! She will be five months in two weeks so hopefully she won't get four teeth between now and then but who knows!

None yet! But they're coming!

This is her newest face. She is constantly pouting her lips out. I think she's playing with her gums so it just makes her lips pout out but it just cracks me up.

Texas Our Texas

This post is LONG overdue! I'm excited to write about and share what Emma Claire did when we were in Texas. I tried so hard to document this trip in photos, sadly I didn't get pictures of Emma Claire with everyone she met...although I tried! That being said, this post has more pictures than should be allowed in one post! You've been warned ;-)

Excited to go visit Grammy and G-Pop!

Saying bye to Daddy at the airport.

Emma Claire did GREAT on the plane. Such a little trooper! I was a nervous wreck! You can read more about our plane ride HERE.

When we first got there we went to Target with Grammy.

My parents had their house all set up for Emma Claire and she had so much fun with her new toys!

After we got all settled it was time to let the visiting begin! Emma Claire met so many friends and family. I was so excited to get to show her off! Everyone kept saying, "she's so cute in real life!" HA! Because of my blog and facebook it was like everyone knew her before they met her, which is such a positive aspect of social networking! I'm thankful that my friends and family can still feel connected to Emma Claire even though we're so far away!

My Mom borrowed most of the toys from THIS wonderful lady, my Aunt Dulcy. She was our first visitor and Emma Claire loved her.

My cousin Kristin came along with Aunt Dulcy (her mom) to visit.

My Mom's sister, Pam, was a big hit with Emma Claire. She just smiled and smiled at her!

One of my Mom's best friends, Mrs. Avers, stopped by and had her morning coffee with us. My Mom called one morning to let her know Emma Claire was awake and she came right over before even having her coffee, she is too funny!

Emma Claire got to meet our friend Debbie on Friday afternoon. We had a great visit and Emma Claire had fun playing on the floor with her!

One of my favorite families stopped by on Wednesday. Scotty and his Mom and Dad came over to meet Emma Claire. Scotty is one of my most favorite people, I mean what other man would let me put one of Emma Claire's bows in his hair?? He LOVED it and thought it was hilarious!

Scotty has Angleman's Syndrome and if you want to learn more or just read a FANTASTIC, wonderfully written blog go visit Scotty's Mom's blog, Sandbox Moments. She is an excellent writer and each one of her posts gives me goosebumps. If you need a good read the go read!

Mrs. B I promise EC loves you! She was just sleepy and ready for her bath!!! She loved meeting you anyways!

My cousin Katrina came over one morning to meet Emma Claire and visit. And I know this isn't a "perfect" picture but I crack up every time I look at it! Emma Claire's little face is just priceless.

My handsome cousin Connor stopped by to meet the newest addition! She had so much fun playing with him!

I just love this picture! My Uncle Budd is VERY tall and Emma Claire looks even smaller next to him!!! His voice is also very deep and she was just in love with him! He layed on the floor and talked with her for half an hour and she was just so sweet with him!

I was so excited for Emma Claire to meet the newest member of our family, Arbor! My cousin, Ashley, had him just four weeks before our visit!

Me with my ginormous baby! She seemed SO big compared to him. She was also fascinated by him and stared at him for a while!

Remember that sweet newborn time when they will sleep through ANYTHING! So sweet!

Arbor soundly slept on the floor while Emma Claire kicked and scooched and cooed and squealed! (And got her collar all messed up! hehe) There is SUCH a difference between a 4 week old and a 4 month old!

Cousins with our babies!

Aunt Paige also came up to my parent's house for one weekend during our visit to get her quality Emma Claire time!

I was so very excited for Emma Claire to meet my Mimi and Poppy!

On the Saturday before we left we went out to my Grandparent's new house in the country! We had a great time playing and visiting.

She LOVED Poppy! But who doesn't?! This picture just makes my heart so happy.

And of course Emma Claire had so much fun with MY family!

Emma Claire loves her Grammy!

Hehe I just love these two together. Emma Claire loved my Mom and they had a great time together.

While Emma Claire loved everyone she met I must say that I'm pretty sure my Dad was her favorite person. She would just giggle and cackle at him. Every time he came in the room she would light up and laugh, it was the most precious thing.

Emma Claire also got to meet her three uncles when she visited Texas.

She was fascinated by my brother's deep voice. She would just stare at him when he talked!

She also met the Hub's brothers, Marcus and Daniel. She loved them and I loved watching her meet them. I was so curious as to how she would react to them since they are twins and look/sound the same. She thought they were hilarious!

During our visit we Waco to visit Baylor! I did a blog post about that and you can read about it HERE.

Emma Claire and I had a GREAT first visit to Texas. Showing her off to "my people" was so fun. I can't wait to go back and bring the Hubs with us! Emma Claire was such a great baby the whole time and really impressed me.

And while we had a great time we were so glad to get back to our guy in Virginia. He completely blew me away when he picked us up from the airport...

A red rose for each of his girls, and a sign for "Mrs. K and Miss. K" He is too sweet!

 Writing this post made me miss Texas even more, I'm ready to come back!!! I can't wait for our next visit!