Busy day!

I wore Emma out today:

We went up to David's Bridal on Kirkwood Highway to pick up my bridesmaid dress for Karene's wedding (next weekend!!) and then went to Five Guys for lunch with Mom. Emma was out for the rest of the afternoon!

Fun in the swing

Martin's family from Vermont is down visiting the Baltimore area this weekend, and so they've been to see Emma and brought her a surprise -- a swing! Emma had a great time in the swing this morning especially.

She loved watching the mobile go around:

And laughed and smiled while swinging:
And pretty much just looked cute!

6 weeks old

God has really blessed us, especially with our beautiful, happy, and healthy baby girl.

We love you Emma Ruth!

Onion juice

A few weeks ago I got this:

I had never heard of such a thing until a few weeks ago. Turns out that Oma had a friend who really wanted some onion juice to use for cooking, but the only way they found it was to buy a huge box online. So I got a bottle of onion juice!

I've used it a few times now, and it actually works really well. It saves a good bit of time since I don't have to chop up an onion - especially like this afternoon when I made spaghetti sauce. Sometimes you just want the texture of an onion, but when it doesnt matter, this sure comes in handy. I dont know that I'll actually buy some when my bottle runs out, especially if its so hard to find. Chances are that Oma will still have a few left over from her case!

My Birthday

For my birthday, Martin had us make a cake together. We used silicone cupcake molds of different shapes.



They come with different patterns. We made a turtle in honor of my childhood pet, tiny the turtle. The cake was funfetti and it was delicious!

We had a couple extra cupcakes that weren't needed to make the turtle, so we ate those first. Then we took the whole cake to my parents' house to eat Friday night on my birthday. Mom cooked a turkey dinner, my favorite, and Oma, Martin's Mom, and Kidron were there too. It was very fun, especially when I found out I am getting a garage door opener. Yay!!!

Hand-eye coordination

Look closely:
Can you see it?

One finger, holding onto the pull ring that plays the music for her bouncer. I was across the room and I heard the song start playing. Emma pulled it all by herself! Admittedly, she did it accidentally. But it sure was cute!

on eBay

You can clothing and shoes that were Steven Curtis Chapman's on eBay! I'm not a complete stalker; I haven't bid on anything....yet.

1 month check up

Emma went to the doctor today for her one month check up and she is doing great! She weighs 8 pounds 9 ounces and the doctor said that she is very strong. She didn't cry the whole time that we were at the doctor's but just looked cute (see picture), and even cooed for the doctor.

After the doctor's we went to Costco for the first time! Actually it was a little crazy because today was a holiday and it was close to lunch time, so there were a lot of people there. But in typical Emma fashion, she slept the whole time we were at Costco and on the ride home!

And since today was a holiday, Martin was able to leave work early! Daddy-daughter time (lookalikes):

And just plain cute:

Emma slept through the night!

YAY!

A great deal

I love libraries. Where I grew up in Howard County, MD, we had a great public library, and I loved our weekly trips there while I was homeschooled. When we moved to Middletown, one of the first things I did was find the public library. I couldn't believe how small it was! The children's section at my old library was probably 4 times as big as the whole Middletown library.

Since then, the library has moved to a larger location, which is nice, but it is still relatively small. In order to get books and movies that I want, I usually order them from a different library in the Delaware system. I do this so much in fact, that several of the librarians ask me if I'm picking up when I come in now! All this to say that I make frequent trips to pick up my ordered things, often going more than once a week. When I was at the library earlier this week I looked quickly over the For Sale rack and noticed these:

Its the Circle Trilogy by Ted Dekker, but not the books; its the audiobooks. I couldn't believe it-these are some of my favorite books, and audiobooks are really really expensive (and these particular ones were not in the DE library system cause I checked a few months ago). But alas, on that particular trip I had no money with me, so I figured someone else would snatch them up by the time I got back.

THEN, when I went back to the library yesterday, I brought my wallet in, but anticipated that they would be gone. Happily, the audiobooks were still there, and I grabbed them! For $2 each, I now own all three of these audiobooks (which would be at least $50 had I bought them elsewhere)! I am very excited. Martin and I read the trilogy together last summer, so I may wait a little while before listening to it, but I'm making them available on loan if anyone else is interested in the meantime!

Emma found her thumb

Well last night Emma managed to get her thumb in her mouth and proceeded to suck on it. We'll see if she ends up being a thumb-sucker long term or not!

She really doesn't sleep all the time...

This post is full of pictures of Emma with her eyes OPEN in order to show that she really doesn't sleep all the time, as it may have seemed from our previous post.

What a chunker we've got!

She's loving her tummy time!

And working that adorable smile -

And this one is blurry cause she's moving too fast!

the past week

We have been so busy lately, that the blog has been a little neglected. I'll try and do a quick summary of the past week:

Last Saturday, Grandad, Martin's grandfather, passed away. He had been sick with a bone disease for several months, but this was pretty sudden. We traveled to New Windsor, Maryland, where he lived, for the viewing and funeral on Wednesday and Thursday. It was a long two days for us, dealing with the grief of losing Grandad and the emotions that go along with the funeral events, but also since this was our first time traveling with Emma. She was his first great-grandchild, and since we couldn't travel yet and Grandad wasnt able to travel either, he never got to see her in person. He did get to see pictures of her, and was so proud to be a great-grandfather! We look forward to when we'll be reunited with Grandad. Even though he was Martin's grandfather, he also treated me like his own granddaughter. He was a very kind and caring man, especially to his family, and he is very missed.

The weekend was busy for us too. Friday night we had our small group meeting with friends from church. It was great to hang out and fellowship with friends, and Emma slept in her car seat the whole time we were out. I hadn't been grocery shopping in about a month (!!) and so Martin and I went together with Emma to Walmart and then to Acme on Saturday morning. I dont remember the last time I was at a grocery store on a Saturday morning - they are so busy!! It was good though, and Emma slept the whole time. That afternoon it was soooo nice out, so we put Emma in the Baby Bjorn and Martin carried her and we went for a walk (again, she slept the whole time). Sunday we went to church in the morning (Emma slept the whole time). That afternoon Martin and Adrian washed our car and their car - it was still so warm out in February (after being really really cold earlier in the week too). We went over to the Peterson's for dinner that night and played Mario and Sonic at the Olympics on the wii. It was a really fun game, and had so many different sports to play.

Though it sounds like Emma sleeps all the time, she actually has been awake a lot more lately during the day. We've gotten some good pictures with her eyes open, but I havent put them on the computer yet...hopefully I'll get to that soon!

4 Weeks Old!

Our little Emma is four weeks old today and doing great! We did a "weigh in" with her on our scale to try and get an estimate on how much she weighs now, and our best guess is about 8 and 1/2 pounds! She goes back to the doctor for her one month check up on Monday, so we'll have an official weight then.

This is a picture of Emma in her matching hat, mittens, and booties that Mrs. Goedeke made for her. We went for a walk around the neighborhood with Emma in her stroller since it was so nice out! (She did have a blanket over those little legs, dont worry! But I thought she looked so cute before I put the blanket on, I had to get a picture!)

All smiles!

Emma has been smiling for us since she was just a few days old, but since her smiles are so unexpected and unpredictable, we've never captured one with the camera -- until now!


TA-DA!!!