Updates Before the Holiday Frenzy Begins!

Well I thought I should post before we are traveling for the holidays and I don't get a chance to sit down.  My birthday was last week and I was definitely spoiled.  We needed to go to Rochester this past weekend (I'll elaborate in a bit) and planned to be in the car traveling on my birthday.  Because of this, Amos gave me my gift a little early...ok a lot early (a few weeks ago!!).

 

Yay!!  I have been wanting a KitchenAid for years now and he finally gave in :)  I must say that it takes some getting used to.  I have been baking using a hand mixer for so long and have gotten pretty good at knowing how long to mix that I am used to it.  This amazing machine is like a speed demon and I need to learn and practice more (which no one at this household is complaining about because that means more baked goods!!).  Thursday (my actual bday) was spent running around like a manic trying to pack and get ready to hit the road.  Around 10 am I get a knock at the door where I see a man handing this to me...

I was so surprised but even more surprised when I read the card and saw that they were from my beautiful baby girl!!  Emma sure does have good taste doesn't she??  It was such an amazing feeling to receive a card that simple said "Happy Birthday Mommy!  Love Emma".  I look forward to the years where I start to get handmade cards from her :) 

After that Amos got home and we jumped in the car and headed to Rochester for Vin and Emily's wedding.  Amos and our friend Bob were Co-Best Men and we were so excited to get to see and spend time with some of our closest friends and our other family (the Furfaros of course).  This was also the first night that I would be spending away from Emma and had been pretty nervous about it.  But of course she was fine.  She got to spend some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa Burke. Amos and I had so much fun getting to spend the night just the two of us (well and with the other guests of the wedding).  The wedding was beautiful and both the bride and groom looked amazingly happy.  Amos and I have known Vin since our freshman year of college and we could not be happier that he has found happiness with Emily. 

 

 

One of the highlights from the night was when Emily was tossing the bouquet and my very best friend caught it :)  Hmmm.....what does that mean??

All in all it was a fun night and I realized that its okay to get out every now and then with just my husband.  I only called my mom a total of 3 times (including all day sat and once sun morning).  Emma did great...except she convinced my mom to let her stay up WAY past her bedtime, but I guess thats part of spending the night at Grandmas :)

Here are a few pictures of our baby girl!

Yes she is apparently a big girl now standing all by herself playing with her toy!

 

Playing dress up with Grandmas jewelery

Hard at work!

 

Oh who are we kidding?? 

And I leave you with one final picture of my very handsome nephew who had SO much fun helping Aunt Erin pick out jewelery to wear to the wedding!! 

We are leaving again on Friday to spend the Thanksgiving Holiday with my family.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone :)

November?!

I guess it has been awhile since I've written!  October seemed to fly by.  Emma and I had the chance to spend a week with my mom in Rochester while my step dad was in Colorado.  Amos drove us up and spent the weekend and then headed back home to work.  I have the most amazing husband.  He has taken on so much so that Emma can have me at home with her.  I have the most amazing job (and yes I completely classify a stay at home mom as a full time, overtime required daily/nightly, no holidays, vacation time limited to a date night here or there kind of job).  But I wouldn't change it for anything.  So here is a little side note shout out to my hubby...thanks babe ;)  And now back to Rochester, we had so much fun just visiting and relaxing.  It was like a girls only week!  Emma and I got to see a lot of friends and spend time with family (although we didn't get to see everyone we wanted to...luckily we are headed back for Thanksgiving!).  We got to see my dad, step mom and little brother (even though he was been taller then me for years) for a short time but had so much fun.  They took us to the new Anchor Bar in the city (home of the original buffalo wing idea).  Amos was in heaven.  There is hands down one thing that he absolutely misses about Rochester, CHICKEN WINGS.  He has not found a place down here that comes close to anything that we had in Rochester.

We are headed back to Rochester next weekend for a wedding which is sure to be a great time.  I am beginning to get anxious though.  I have not left Emma over night yet and this will be the first time.  My mom is going to watch her which is something she has been waiting for!  I was pregnant when I told my mom that our friends were getting married in Rochester and the 1st thing she said was "Do I get to watch the baby for a whole day and night?!"  Needless to say, she is thrilled and I am nervous (although I know she is going to be in AMAZING hands).  I am definitely excited to spend some "grown up time" with Amos and with all of our friends.

Things at home are well to sum it up...COUGH COUGH SNIFFLE SNIFFLE!!!  Yes we are sick :(  Amos caught it first and I thought (stupidly of course) that Emma and I were in the clear because we were both feeling great!  But Sunday afternoon it hit Emma and later that night me.  So, Amos is still feeling terrible, poor Emma doesn't feel good (but really is doing great dealing with it) and I am slowly feeling worse.  Hopefully we will be back on our feet again soon!

Here are a few pictures of our beautiful baby girl :)

 Emma was Pebbles Flintstone for Halloween :)

Still loves Allie!!

Helping Mommy with laundry

On our way to Rochester

 

Coffee date with Grandma :)

Is it really October already?! Our busy Fall season has begun.  A couple of weeks ago we went to visit with The Dicobs.  It had been a few months since we had been there and Emma's Grandpa and Grandma Dicob were getting pretty anxious to see her.  She has changed so much since the last time that we were there.  We had a relaxing visit and it was good to see Amos' extended family.  I was upstairs feeding Emma one morning and Amos came in and we got to talking about how the last time we were there visiting, Emma giggled for the 1st time.  Here are a couple of pictures from our weekend...

Grandpa Dicob and Emma

Grandma Dicob and Emma

Emma in the sunflower garden at Great Grandpa and Grandma Honers house

This past weekend Uncle Bob (Emma's Godfather) came down for a visit.  He said that he needed to come down and get fitted for his tux with the rest of the boys for a wedding (Vin and Emily's) that they are all in.  But I think we all know the real reason that he needed to come all the way down here to our Mens Wearhouse...

 

(yes he is a big sucker for this little lady...although so are we!!)

Sunday, before he left, we went apple picking.  We rode a VERY old fire truck up to the apple orchard.  The views from the top of the hill were amazing.  Emma loved eating (well sucking on) freshly picked apples.  We even found an apple that was just her size and she carried it around with her for quite a while.  We now have half a bushel of apples and I am beginning to feel the stress of all of the things I need to make with these apples before they go bad!  Apple pie, apple sauce, apple crisp, baby apple food, hmmm did I forget anything??!!  Here are a few pictures...

 

 

 

 

 

And now for a little Emma update =)  She is becoming her own little person with her own little personality!  She still desperately loves our cats and completely lights up when one even walks into the room let alone comes near her.  She is eating all kinds of food.  Her latest additions are baby yogurt and juice.  Teething is definitely going on.  It is terrible.  I feel like there is nothing that I can do to make her feel better.  I can only imagine what it feels like.  Her latest thing is scrunching up her face and whining until she gets whatever it is that she wants.  She does this for EVERYTHING.  When she gets dressed, gets her diaper changed, has something taken from her, when she wants Mommy, when she wants to be picked up, ummm are you starting to get the picture??  While it is something that I know we should not be encouraging, it is absolutly HILARIOUS when she does it.  I cannot help but laugh.  She scrunches up her little face, puts her hands into fists, her entire body stiffens up, and she starts squealing.  It really is too funny.  I know that I need to get a handle on this laughing at things that I should really be discouraging but its so cute.  Ugh...I am working on this!  Here is a picture of what she does...

This weekend I am planning on doing lots of cleaning while I have Amos here to entertain Emma.  Next weekend we are off to Rochester and Emma and I will get to stay for the entire week =)  

Baby Food

Emma has been eating baby food for a couple of months now.  Our first sign that she was ready to start on baby food was the saddest look on her face whenever we would eat.  I can only relate this face to "puppy eyes" when a puppy sits by you begging for food.  Since she is a human though I like to call them her "baby eyes"  =)  We started her off on the typical firsts, rice and then oatmeal cereals.  She quickly disregarded those and I could tell that she desired a diet full of more tastes.  We had been talking about whether to give her store bought baby food or make it homemade and ultimately decided to go with homemade.  I quickly bought a couple of cookbooks and off we were making baby food! 

Our first venture into homeade food was carrots (which to this day I think are her favorite veggie!). 

I have continued making all kinds of new things for her to try (sweet potato, apples, bananas, papaya, pears, potatoes, and butternut squash).  So far she seems to enjoy everything.  Her favorite thing to do while eating though (and pretty much anytime it is offered to her) is drink water!  I'm not really sure why this is so exciting but she loves it.  She would rather drink out of a regular cup or a water bottle then a sippy cup.  Lately when I give her water in a sippy cup she just kind of lets it dribble out of her mouth and then smiles at me like she is saying "this is fun".

 

Emma has also begun the "wonderful" stage of teething! I bought some teething cookies which she has grown very fond of and will throw quite a little tantrum (tears rolling down her cheeks, screaming, etc.) if you attempted to take it away or even touch it while she is eating it.  They also make a mess!  By the time that I can take her cookie, her entire face, hands, and clothes are covered in it. 

 

And now just a few more pictures of our little love bug!

 

 

Although it appears that Emma is very gentle with cats, she only is this way with Aunt Cat and Uncle Bryan's little rascals (she still continues to pull out our cats fur!)

 Cuddle time with Daddy =)

A New Hobby

Blogging has seemed to become quite popular and although I thought it was confusing and difficult, it really isn't! It seems like a great way to keep family and friends updated on our lives (well, mostly Emma's life!). So here it goes, I'll try it and hopefully be able to keep up with it.

Our lives changed on March 11 of this year. Emma Merry was born and we became a family of 3. Now I know that all parents say they are the luckiest parents of all but I really think that we take that prize. Just look at her...





Here are some pictures of Emma with her family...

Silly Uncle Josh

Aunt Destiny

Uncle Jake

The Honer Side

The Dicob Side

Now onto to our "adopted" family as we like to call them...The Furfaros. When we decided to move down here we knew that it was going to be challenging to be so far from our families. After Emma was born it became even harder to be away. Luckily, we have a family down here who loves Emma like crazy! They have included us like we were their family and we will forever be grateful to them for that. Emma loves her "adopted" family.

Crazy Uncle Dave who seems to introduce to Emma to all kinds of new things!
You really have to keep an eye on him =)

Aunt Dawn, Aunt, Cat, and Aunt Ange (these are the ones that spoil her like crazy!)