Thank You Cousin Patrick!

Emily's cousin, Patrick, saw the picture on our blog of Emily when she scraped her nose. Chad's sister, Amy wrote this comment on our post:

Patrick had to take a moment to sign "hurt" and "sad"...and then he was off to paint her a picture that he says we will be sending to Emily "in a mailbox" to make her feel "better inside herself."

Emily received Patrick's picture in the mail this week. It said, "To: Emily I love you! Patrick". She is feeling much better now! Thank you Patrick!

I love you Patrick!

Can I Fit?

Emily has had a great time lately seeing how she "fits" into the world around her. She's been curiously testing out her environment by doing some "experiments". Here's some funny pictures of her latest adventures:

Can I fit in the corner of the bookshelf?
(She diligently worked on this for a good 10 minutes.)

YES!


Can I fit in this container?

YES!


Can I fit this cool "hat" on my head?
(She does this a lot.)

YES!


Can I fit inside the laundry basket?

YES!


Can I fit in my dresser drawer?
(It was in our room on the floor because it needed to be repaired.)


YES!

Cookie Monster

It turns out that Emily is our very own "Cookie Monster"! Emily and I made Valentine sugar cookies on Tuesday. She had a great time watching the cookie making process. When I was finished with the dough, she decided that she wanted to try some. I told her that we weren't going to eat the dough, but when she woke up from her nap I'd let her have her very own "Emily sized" cookie. I baked the cookies while she was sleeping and even made some tiny heart cookies that were the perfect size for Emily.

As promised, I gave her a cookie for a snack after nap time. She LOVED it! (What's not to love, right?) I still had the cookies on the table cooling on racks. (Lucky for her, Nana sent us some new Signing Time videos and she just learned the sign for cookie.) As soon as she was finished, she looked over at the table full of cookies. She began to sign cookie while saying, "cooookie". I told her that she could have another one after lunch.

We went into the living room. A minute later I looked around and Emily was gone. I called her name and discovered her in the kitchen with a cookie in her hand and some "puppy dog" eyes looking up at me. She had helped herself to the cookies on the table. Ha! She's our little Cookie Monster!

Valentine's Day Fun!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

We started off the morning with a pancake breakfast.

Chad helped Emily open her Valentine gift.

Chad left for work, then returned home
shortly after surprising me with flowers.

In the afternoon, Emily and I visited Chad at work
and brought some Valentine cookies to share with
our friends in his program.

After Chad returned from work,
Emily opened her gift from Nana.

She showed her approval of the gift by placing it on her head!
That's what she does with everything she loves. Ha!

Thanks Nana for the cute outfit and CD!

Later that night, Chad opened
his much needed toolbox.

Emily helped Chad out by eating his wrapping
paper and ribbon. We figured that she was hungry,
so we went and made our steak dinner. YUMMY!
We had a terrific day!

The Funny Side of Emily

Emily will be 14 months old next week. As she gets older, the more I can see that this girl has a funny side to her. She enjoys a good laugh and finds joy in simple things. Lately, I have been finding Emily in some silly self-imposed situations. Here's a few examples:

The Dishwasher

Emily can hear the dishwasher being opened from a mile away. When she hears it, she drops everything and comes running. Her favorite pastime is "helping" me unload (whether I am loading or unloading) the dishwasher by pulling everything out and throwing it on the ground. She also likes to climb up on the dishwasher door to get a closer look at what is in the dishwasher. As I'm sure you can imagine, I love these dishwasher games.

The other day I was in the kitchen loading dishes into the dishwasher. Emily was promptly unloading the dishwasher. She has been teething and was particularly cranky and clingy that afternoon. (It was beginning to take its toll on me and you might say that I was feeling a little less than cheery.) I stopped what I was doing and looked down and started laughing out loud. Emily had put the colander on top of her head, wearing it like a hat! She was grinning from ear to ear, clearly proud of herself. The comic relief couldn't have come at a better time!

On another occasion, I was loading the dishwasher. Some of the glasses had grape juice that dripped out of them as I put them on the top shelf. Emily kept trying to climb up on the dishwasher door and I kept taking her off. I would look at her and remind her that it's not safe to climb on the dishwasher. I redirected her attention (to the pots and pans she unloaded from the cupboard and were now all over the floor). This seemed to work. I turned to the rest of the dishes and quickly began loading them. A minute or two had past and I looked down to find Emily up on the dishwasher on all-fours licking a stream of grape juice that had landed on the door. HA! Chad and I are amazed by her determination. She seems to enjoy a challenge.

SNOW DAY!

It snowed about 5 inches or so here on Tuesday night. So on Wednesday we had a snow day! They even canceled classes at KU (that rarely happens). Yea! Chad went to work clearing our driveway with the snow shovel and I got Emily bundled up for some fun in the snow. We don't have any good snow gloves for Emily yet, so our past attempts of helping her enjoy the snow haven't gone so well. We decided to dress her in her warm coat for next year (as you can see it's a bit large). We hoped the long sleeves would make up for the lack of gloves.



When Chad finished the shoveling the snow, he made a snowball for Emily. It was a HUGE hit! It was all she could talk about for the rest of the day. She can sign and say the word ball (and is obsessed with pointing out all the "balls" that she sees- from oranges to footballs). Chad told her it was a snowball. So she held it proudly and said, "snowball"!


Overall our snow adventure was a huge success. However, we did have a small casualty. Emily was a little sad that we brought her in from all of her snow exploration. After she warmed up a bit we took her back out for more snow fun. She wanted to make more "balls". Chad even helped her make a snow angel (she didn't like laying in the cold snow very much). Before coming inside, Emily fell on the sidewalk and scraped up the end of her nose. It looks worse than it was. She cried for a couple of seconds and then started asking for "balls" again. She had a great time in the snow!

New First Presidency

Thomas S. Monson Named
16th Church President

SALT LAKE CITY 4 February 2008 Thomas S. Monson is the new president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it was announced today at a news conference in the Church Office Building. President Monson, 80, succeeds President Gordon B. Hinckley, who died 27 January 2008.

The new world leader of the Church has called to serve with him in the First Presidency, the top governing body of the 13-million-member faith, President Henry B. Eyring, 74, first counselor, and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, 67, second counselor.

(from lds.org Newsroom)