Walking Already?

Well, Miss Emma is on the move--more so than ever before! She is finally figuring out the walking thing, much to our delight and dismay! She's so cute! She toddles around with her hands above her head. Her Uncle Chris calls them her Crab Hands because she walks around opening and closing her hands like a crab claw. She's not completely sure of herself, but she's trying it a lot more than she was last week! Eventually she'll get faster, so we're already looking for an extra long baby gate to keep her out of the kitchen area. We have such a small house that we haven't really had to block her from anything yet, but I'd like to have the kitchen area out of her reach. She's just too fast!

Time Flies!

Well, I have decided that I'm really bad at keeping a blog. I can only seem to do it on a monthly basis. I'm sure it has nothing to do with our very active 9 month old! Boy is she a busy girl! She is constantly on the go, and is learning so much every day! I have loved our 2 weeks together over the Christmas break, and I am kind of dreading going back to school. I know it'll be good to get into a routine again, but I hated how little I got to see her during the week. Things were always so busy, and it was hard for me to find a nice balance of wife, mom, and teacher. Once school gets going again I'll have to think about testing and conferences. I know it's life, and I am incredibly thankful for my job. It's the next best thing to being a stay-at-home mom I think. It's just tough sometimes.

On the bright side, we had a wonderful Christmas with Emma! She was a riot! She has started doing lots of new things. New facial expressions, mouth noises, and games. She's really getting into playing peek-a-boo, and we had great fun with that! I can't believe she's 9 months already! I made a DVD of a bunch of her videos for family members for Christmas. It was amazing to see how fast she has changed and all the stuff she can do now.  She is so close to walking! She walks all over if she has our fingers. Sometimes she'll take a couple steps if she's only holding one finger, but then she realizes what she's doing and looks for the other one. She holds onto furniture and walks around, which is fun to see, but scary too! I don't think I'm ready for her to be THAT mobile! The crawling has kept me busy enough! LOL! I have a feeling she'll take her first steps before she turns 1, but we'll see!

She got tons of fun new toys and lovely clothes from friends, family, and Santa. We were able to see her birth family, which was really nice. The holidays were tough for her birth mom, but I think spending time together helped us all. We are so lucky, and we love Emma so much. I really hope the birth mom knows that and sees that and believes she made the right choice.

Let's see... I think that's mostly it for now. I'll just list a few of her favorite things....just for the heck of it. :)

Favorite Toy: Anything she's not supposed to have!
Favorite Show: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (and don't worry...she sees it once in a very great while. It calms her down in a split second when she's really having a fit though!)
Favorite Snuggle Item: Definitely her taggy blanket made by my Aunt Tami. She loves to play with the silky tags.
Favorite Song: Still Mary Had a Little Lamb I think, but she really likes most music. She'll bounce to pretty much anything!
Favorite Food: Any baby food and her bottle, but she has tried bread, lasagna noodles, and a few other grown-up foods, which she has really liked.
Favorite Things to Drive Crazy: The dogs! Hahaha! They don't like that she's really mobile now, and she knows it!

Words she's saying: She has been saying "Mama" and "Dada" for a while now, but she also starting saying "Up" occasionally when she wants to be picked up. Pretty cool!

Can you tell we love her to pieces? :)