Friends and more friends!!!

What a wonderful time Emma and I have had in SLC. We miss Dad of course, but have been surrounded by friends that feel like family. Wednesday evening we went out to eat with Nick's parents for their 29th Anniversary! It was SO HOT I had to undress Emma, she just laid across my lap fully sretched out. She got fussy later on, so after many paople lovingly holding her Nathan took her over by the bushes and seranaded her for a good while. It was adorable to watch, he is so perfect with her. That has actually been my favorite thing while here, watching everyone hold and love her, especially all the men! She has melted them:)

Thursday morning we met with the Roma's crew, and it was so good to catch up on all of their goings-on.

Thursday evening we watched So you Think you Can Dance and had Cafe Rio (the single best mexican restaurant in the world) for the second time (!). Nathan, Nick and Toasha just loved Emma up again....

Friday we realxed in the morning (it has been 100 here basically all week so being out of the heat as much as possible for miss Emma who is not used to it!), then met Juan and Jenna (RW) for lunch at Squatter's, after we had gone in to see Rw's new piece choreographed by Charlotte. It was really great to be in the studio setting, and made me excited for when that might happen again in the future. emma slept through the whole thing. After lunch we came back to Rw and Emma entertained everyone for a while, uncle jo changed her diaper!

Then last night - wow! - so great. Nick, Nathan and Tosh hosted a dinner in Emma's honor (really just so we could all get together!). Everyone came over and we sat outside, drank wine and champagne, ate really good food, had many many laughs. Emma was just passed from person to person, she seemed to watch everything and very quietly took everyone and everything in. She had a few "moments" of course, but it was so fun to see her enveloped in this "family".

As for today we'll see friends again, stay out of the heat if possible, and maybe get a little bap (midnight is WAY past our bedtime!).

Guess tha's it for now... love ot all

SLC - SO BEAUTIFUL!!!

Oh my goodness... how wonderful it is to be in SCL! Emma traveled really well again and there were TONS of babies on the flight; an adorable 9 month old behind us. We got in to SLC and tlaked with Jo who demanded that we come right down to the Rose Wagner (where I used to dance) and see all of them (Jo, Juan, Caine, and Ursula). That was exciting and so great to see them all and have them meet Emma, but it was apitstop as Emma was HUNGRY!! So Tosh and I sat in hall while I fed her. We came home and she made a great dinner of our favorite coconut shrimp, corn on the cob, and brocolli. She has a new apartment which is SO cute and SO SLC, we have tons of room and feel very welcome here. As a matter of fact Tosha has us sleeping in her bed while she is on the couch!!! I must say Emma and I did sleep very well last night though - she slept from 10:30-7am!! Then slept on her own in bed for another hour!

Tosha has not had good luck holdin gher so far, we are afraid it might be the blackness:)!!! Emma has let both Corinne and KAren hold her just fine:( Poor Tosh, we'll work on it:)

Today we had breakfast at Rachel's and got to see her new beautiful and again SO CUTE, SO SLC house, and see how big her two little ones are getting. And so beautiful with their big eyes and lashes. I wish I could down load my pictures for everyone to see, but next week I guess.

Will write more later... love to all...

Good Sunday Morning...

Here are pictures of Emma with her new Moose Stuffie that Grandma and Grandpa Loerch sent her from Alaska! She is sitting/leaning inher rocking chair, and WOULD NOT smile what so ever for me! I think she knows I have the camera:)

Speaking of that chair she LOVES reading in it. We read together at least once a day and she has started making her squealing and whooing noises when I am reading. So I know she loves it, especially certain books. She LOVES "On the Day You Were Born" which she got from our friend Caine from RW. She also loves "Goodnight Moon" which I think is from our friend RAchel, and "Baby Barnyard Animals" - to name a few!!!

She is also going through a growth spurt. She slept ALL DAY friday, and almost all night; seriously she fell asleep at like 7pm and only woke up once in hte night (after sleeping most of the day!). And last night, she fell asleep about 10pm, and slept until 6:30am!!!!! That is REALLY sleeping through the night. Of course I wake up worried why she hasn't woken up:) But really, it is great.... Elliott and I are amazed at what a little person she is becoming, and they have really bonded lately so that is fun. She is just so expressive and knows her like and dislikes, and I am starting to really know when she is tired or hungry, lately it is a lot of both!!!! She is in her 3-6 month and Carter's brand 6 month clothes now!!!!! I am affraid of how the nextfew months are going to go. But she doesn't seem fat to me, just solid (maybe that is just me?!).

Today we will go to church and run some errands with dad... Tomorrow we leave for Salt Lake City for a week.... Wow! That's a long time to be away from dad! I am going to have to bring the computer camera with me so he can see her. I think he is looking forward to a week to just do whatever he wants though - mostly play his game!!! When we get back it is back to adult life for both of us:)

That's it for now.... love to all....

almost 12 weeks!!

Emma and I enjoyed our time together, but are so excited that dad is back home! we picked him up this morning at 5am. haven't heard much about the trip yet as we all went back to bed!! i do know that they caugt fish though (king salmon).... so that's good!

emma and i did a little shopping on wednesday - bought a new vacuum! so tht's exciting. she slept almost the whole time.

yesterday we cleaned the house - i say WE because she rode facing forward in her Bjorn while i vacuumed and mopped. she really seemed to like it, and even fell asleep eventually!

john and allison came over for dinner last night (thet made dinner actually) and brought Hause to play with Roscoe... Of course they got in a fight over a food wrapper!!!! Emma slept with Allison for a little while... Not much else new on the homefront.... I'll take updated photos later on today, after I see the one's from alaska..
love to all...

Just the two of us...

So it's just the two of us (and all the animals) for a few days. elliott went to visit my mom and Denny in Alaska, and him and dennya re going to do a little (hopefully BIG) salmon fishing!!! i hope so much that they get to catch something!

emma and i took el to the airport yesterday, then we went downtown to say goodbye to d9 Dance Collective. They were a dance company that I had the wonderful opportunity to dance with, but i feel i just can't spend time away from emma right now if I am not make some sort financial contribution to the family! and i really would to spend that time teaching (and will a little at Lake STevens Dance Academy)... so that was sad becasue it is a wonderful group of girls that make-up d9, but i feel really good about the decision.

emma and i went and got groceries this morning, picked up the house a bit, reorganized the closets and thew old things out (donating our and her clothes that no longer fit)... She is growing like a WEED!!!! it took so long for her to fit in her clothes and now she is going through them like wildfire! so i am working at getting her in everything 3-6 and 6 months at least a couple of times! she barely slept before 5pm today, i don't know what that was all about, but just couldn't stay aleep and half the time didn't even try!!! maybe she'll sleep thoruhg the night? she only woke up at 330 last night, but I had a ahrd time sleeping and had some scary dreams about emma... but we are fine:)

tomorrow we may head to the mall, as we still have a GC from christmas to spend!

guess that's about it for now... love to all..

fun in san fran...

wow!!! what a great weekend we had.... besides missing our plane on friday (we missed it by 3 minutes, but were able to get on the next flight), the weekend was wonderful. Emma did great on the plane again (she really seems to steal the show everywhere we go!). We took the BART (like the subway) from Oakland to our hotel in San Fran. The hotel was right in the middle of Union Square (shopping district of sorts). Somehow Elliott draws the attention of all the "intersting" people, and he has such a good heart that he has to talk to them, so that was kind of funny as the same thing always happened when we were in Europe together too:)

We went to a cocktail party friday evening and we wlaked in the door and Roberta Phillips (I basically grew up at her house, Anne was my best friend from K-9th) just swept up Emma - she seriously didn't even say hi to me:) IT was jsut a great night, talking with all of these wonderful people who I knew as a kid. Elliott did a wonderful job on hunting down a taxi for us so we could get back home.

Saturday morning we slept in and enjoyed life without any animals! We went to grab a bite to eat for lunch in the mall, really good salad and clam chowder for El. Emma slept through it all. Elliott wanted to go get her a hat becasue it was quite chillier than we anticipated, he also needed to get a jacket (SF gets a good breeze and can get fogged in, and it did that day!) - so we ran into Gap... Emma was getting HUNGRY so I ran back to the hotel to feed her before we needed to get ready for the wedding. As we were gettin gher dressed she had a fREAK OUT - I felt so bad. We were putting a jumpsuit like outfit on her and evidently it was over her face too long and she just screamed and screamed (like when she got her shots!!!!), so eventually we took that off and opted for outfit number two!!!! Oh, it broke my heart, but she was fine after that... She was all in white and hadn't pooed yet... I was worried! Christine Hasegawa (my friend from undergrad) held her on the shuttle to Inspiration Point (overlooking th ocean , alcatraz, the bridge), and yup, she pooped!!!! So I crossed my figers and changed her as soon as we got there - Yiipie! No blowout:)

She slept through the ceremony... Onto the reception.. El and I took turns with her, she slept and ate and looked around, spit up on some mans suit who wanted to hold her (!), got lots of attention from the "grandparents". It was so fun to talk with other parents about parenthood - we were tlkaing about how great it is to be apart of this new club. I talked with another dancer who has a 7 month old about "surrendering" to motherhood, so that was really good!

Sunday morning was Father's Day - Elliott wokeup to two picture frames of him, me, and Em, and he also got tickets to go see the Mariners vs. the Detriot Tigers! WEdecided to venture out and see the Fisherman's Warf before we had to catch the BART back tot he airport... We jumped on the bus and everyone offered us a seat! Emma stole the show again:) The warf was fun and we were so glad we ventured that way. It was PACKED with tourists, and we got great pictures of the sea lions, and all three of us and dad carrying emma.... It was a wonderful weekend together...

Emma has found her hands (with her eyes I mean) and it is SO CUTE!!!!! She will just stare at her hands for hours!!!! She holds them in fists in front of her face, sometimes she'll bring them/it to her mouth, sometimes to her face, others to her eyes! I can just sit and watch her watch her hands forever - just to see the learning and exploring that is happening is fascinating. She also had her first "holding" experience (that is one of the pictures posted here). She is still sleeping really well. I was worried because she slept from like 6-9:30pm last night and though t she might not sleep - but no, she knows its bed time!!! She did wakeup to eat in the night, but that's fine every now and then!

I guess that's all for now..... Love to all...

leavin' on a jet plane

just a quick note... we are leaving this morning for San fran.... so probably no posts until monday! so sorry:) Emma was suck a good sleeper last night! She slept from 9:30-5:20am!!!!! And she even slept pretty quietly, yippie!!!!

We ran errands yesterday, and brought Dad lunch at work, he got to show her off a bit:) Then it was time for Em to eat so went to Barnes and Noble - wow- our first time "eating" in public by ourselves!!!! It went pretty good, except that poor em just doesn't do well eating under a blanket, she gets too hot and sweaty... just like her dad she is a furnace....

guess that's about it for now, love to all.....

so you think you can dance?

crap.... there seems to be nothing we can do.... she LOVES the TV!!!!!!! we can be holding her backwards, to the side, lying down, holding her, and she will turn her head anywhich way she can to see it!!!!!!!! I know that she is just transfixed by the colors becaue they can't fpcus that far - but jeez! these pictures are from us watching "so you think you can dance" last night. she loved it, she would get so excited and tense up her whole body and shake it then squeal.... it was the cutest thing, i just wish it wasn't because of the tv!!!!

exciting though, is her response to reading lately. just in the past week she has started making her owl sounds when i am reading her books! so that is good i think, she is really getting in the sounds my voice is making and the colors! it's fun...

she only woke up once to eat last night again - yeah! today we'll run errands and get packed for our big trip to SF tomorrow!!!

love to all...

she sleeps - but she's LOUD!

Yes, Emma is growing up, and all of a sudden she has started "sleeping" through the night. I couldn't figure out though why I wasstill so tired yesterday morning, because Emma had slept from 930pm-5am!!!!! Then I realized.. she is loud and squirmy when she sleeps... seriously LOUD and SQUIRMY. So cute, but I realized that it is keeping me awake:) So last night at about 3:30 I finally just woke her up. She had been grunting and groaning and sucking on her hand and kicking and stretching and moving her head back and forth - so I just woke her up to eat because I couldn't take it any more:) She was more than happy to eat too, and went back to sleep well, and slept until 7:15!!!!!! I just can't believe how all of a sudden she has decided to sleep... Maybe she is going through a growth spurt? They say they do at 3 months, well, she is IN her third month so who knows!

I don't know if I shared, but she followed Elliott as he walked across the room on Sunday, and she will look up or turn her head at us if we talk to her, and she smiles usually as soon as I talk to her, especially in the morning or after a nap.

Monday night Elliott watched her while I taought a dance class. I guess the first 45 minutes were great, then she just lost it! I felt bad for the both of them.... the house was silent when I walked in, and Elliott turned around almost frantic "shhhh, she just fell asleep"!!! It was cute. I guess we have some video of the moment she lost it, becasue she had been "talking" to him so he went to get the video camera, and caught the rest on tape too:)

Yesterday we went to run errands, andI fed her in the car in the Target parking lot. She does realy good... I read that if they like their baths (which she LOVES) it often means that they are more "adaptable" babies! She really seems to be, and we go to San Francisco this weekend for a wedding, so we will see how she does with that! We surprised Dad at work yesterday with an Iced Caramel Machiato, he was very excited to see Emma and show her off a bit... Sothat was fun...

Guess that's all for now.... These pictures are of Emma this morning, and she does TOTALLY look like Elliott, but I see a bit of my baby pictures sneaking in there:)Love to all...

she sleeps!!!

our sweet emma slept from 9pm to 4am last night!!!!!!!!!!! i couldn't believe it... she was quite hungry when she woke up of course, but fell right back asleep again afterwards. so, a good night!

we had a really good weekend. on saturday the threeof us stayed home and relaxed, while we got a few things done too. i decided it was time to get some pictures of emma around the house, so i got things organized and made pictures at fred meter, got them up on the walls. one of the frames has a picture of emma with each grandparent, so she can see you every day! then i made two 5x7, one of her in the bath from when my dad was here, and one of her with the greenblanket behind her. we put some smaller ones around the house too. el made a good shrimp dinner - basically we had a really nice family day!

yesterday roscoe got a bath from dad, then we went over to john and allison's (roscoe went with to play with their american bull dog puppy). allison and i went to a "southern living" party, emma too. she was so good, ate, the looked round a bit, then slept while john's sister held her... cute! we headed back to their house, emma played with her new careat toy that makes noises, from grandma loerch. she made her owl noises (which this morning i think i heard donkey noises - a mix of her tarydactyl and then something immeduately after it!!!!). she took a nap while we ate, we watched a show, then headed home.

last night she just wanted to eat/suckle, so i just let her for about 45 minutes! that was enough of that, and she was gettinghow she does when she wants a pacifier.. she getys warm and her legs just kick and kick, she's really fussy. i tried to give her the pacifier and she kept pitting her hand in her mouth -yay! so that's good, except she was trying to get ALL of her fingers in and that wasn't working so she was more frusterated. all in all she was just trying to fall asleep after a long day. so we got it under control, and really it wasn't thar bad, as i am really starting to be able to read her more. so yay!

here are pictures of emma, probably the only day she'll wear this outfit because she is so tall!!!! but the important part is that she is happy sleeping on her back by herself - she's growing up!!!!

today? don't know, we'll see. love to all...

favorite past time

Emma has a new favorite past time... sucking on her hand! Sometimes she will try and get the whole thing in her mouth, the minute she wakes up it is often the first thing she does, if she is lying down, in it goes, if she is sitting up too:) And she can be pretty loud at it too.

We went toi the grocery store yesterday and there seemed to be an extra amount of Senior's, Emma got a lot of attention! Not much else here. Today we will go for a walk, and then who knows!! Often our days depend on how tired she is...

These are pictures from last night, and in the white from this morning (i think she KIND OF looks like my baby pictures in the white one!!!!!)
love to all...

she must sit this way...

good morning... what a lovely day Emma and I had yesterday...

We woke up and went to The Attic in the morning to see the kids, teachers, and parents on their last day. I also wanted them to see Emma! Of course, I went to lift her out of her carseat and she was covered in poop! For the second time that moring... It was a new outfit too, that seems to attract poop - ha! She sure did get a lot of attention after that though:) I told them that I would be back next year, for the first half of the day. So that is exciting and scary and sad.... I don't want to leave Emma and am still hoping for something in dance, but it is a great opportunity to be part time and still involved in education.

After that we went and nursed in the Target parking lot, then we went shopping at Target to get a few household things. Came home and hung out, did some house cleaning. Emma slept a little on her own, so that made it easier to vacuum!

Dad came home and loved her for a bit, we watched "so youthink you can dance" and we went to bed. She slept GOOD, 4 hours and then 5 hours... So things are going well... Guess that's it for now.

Here is the picture of Elliott from when I got home form teaching the other night, and the other is of Emma and how she INSISTS on sitting/sleeping - it looks SO uncomfortable, but she loves it:) love to all...

lookin' at hands

yesterday emma was a sleepy bug most of the day! I was able to work on her scrap book quite a bit, so that was exciting. I went to teach a dance class last night at a studio that i will be teaching at in the fall, so Elliott got alone time with emma. i was so excited to get home and see them! I walked in and elliott was leaned over at the waist with emma lying on her stomachin her arms, and he was swinging her back and aforth, SO CUTE!!!! I took a picture, and will include it later (i haven't downloaded it yet). She had just eaten and he was like "she is a food monster!" she ate a whole bottle... and she was ready to eat again 2 hours later! BUT, she did sleep pretty well becasue of that:)

we think she did hit a milestone though!!!! i was getting ready to leave and el and her were sitting on the bed (she was eating her hand, a common occurance these days) and El said I think she just looked at her hand! And sure enough it looked like she did it again, it was like she was looking at her hand before she put it in her mouth!!! This is the month where they should learn that their hands are actuallya part of their body. So I am going to keep my eyes peeled to see if she does it again!

That's about ti for now. We may go to The Attic today to visit, it is their last day of school. Then we might go to Targe to run errands.... That's about it for now.. love to all....

rainy day

finally a rainy day... this means what? i don't know really, but it's not so hot, so i know that emma likes that.

not a whole lot new here. we went to costco yesterday, emma was great and slept most of the time. she took a long nap in the aftenoon, so i was able to work on her baby/scrap book, and wrote out our "birth story". ah the memories:) that was fun.

last night we went to watch a dance class at the studio i might be teaching at next fall. emma started out good, but got fussy so i fed her, and it was downhill from there:) of course once i put her in her carseat to go home, she stopped crying! what mom in her right mind would think that her child would stop cying if she set her down?:)

today i think we'll work oncleaning out the closet, then dad will come home and watch emma while i go teach a beginning class at the studio...
all for now, love....

dad's gaggin'

yesterday was a first..... el changed one of emma's blowout diapers (I was getting in the shower for church when i noticed the poo climbing up her onesie). i guess it was a little more than he had expected!!!! he gagged!!!!!!! cute, huh? he said he couldn't believe that there was poop just everywhere... anyway, he did it and that counts for a lot.

then we both had a "moment" at church. emma was in a cute pink drss from one of el's workmayes. it was during the first song, i was holding emmma and she was looking forward brighteyed (probably looking at the lights). i looked down at her and got teary eyed (she's just so dang cute!) not more than a minute later i looked over at el and he got teary eyed too!!! he hadto go out to the hall for a minute even.... not sure what emm was doing to us:) and it's so funny because el and i are often thinking the same thing at the same time (really spooky actually).

anyway, i got to work out in the yard a bit while el "played" with emma. it felt SO good!!!! she slept great last night, 830-12-30 and then not officially awake until 5, but she was grunting and groaning for quite a while before that.

that's it for now... love to all...

she's an owl

Our little Emma is talking and she sounds like an owl! She has a new "whoo whoo" sound she does (a cooing of sorts). Well yesteday she was lying with Elliott and he made the sound back to her, then to our surprise she did it back to him! They wnt back and forth a couple of times. We were so excited... I looked at 2 months in my books and sure enough it said this is the beginning stages of talking, a call and esponse of sorts. Of course she doesn't know what she's doing really, but it SO fun. She went back and forth with me many times this morning.... SO FUN! She looks right in your eyes and her little mouth shapes an "O"... TOO CUTE...

Yesterday Emma and I got up and went to get groceries, we wnt for a walk, and did stuff around the house. El took over for a bit, but it seems like each time this happens she is eady to eat! So we need to work on our schedules a little bit.

Today we'll go to church, then Mom might get a little work outside time to herself!! we'll see if Emma agees:)
love to all...

after shots....

oh boy..... we made it through the nite! i gave emma just a little more tylenol at 8pm and she ate and promptly fell back asleep AND slet so well last night too! they said the shots might make her drowsy and they were right....

what else? emma's hair looks like it may be coming in a little strawberry blonde!!!!!! who knows where that came from if it really is that color!? butthe top of her head is all fuzzy with new hair, while the back is still long and dark.

this picture is of her silver shiny band-aids from the dr. you can see how sound asleep she was once she finally slept!

that's abou tit for now.... love to all....