Shutterfly

I am fairly new to ordering photo cards for Christmas, last year was the first year that I did it, mainly because before then we didn't have kids, and I figured no one really wanted a picture of just Mark and I :) But after we had Emmory, I figured family would definitely like a picture of him, and it would be fun to save the cards each year and look back on our growing family. So, I definitely plan on ordering cards again this year. I was pleased with the cards that I ordered last year, but since then I was introduced to Shutterfly. I was told they have really good quality products, and when Emmory turned one I wanted to do a photo book of his first year, so I had it made on Shutterfly. I was extremely happy with how it turned out, I thought the quality was excellent and it had a lot of different options for backgrounds, format, etc. So this year I decided to look into Shutterfly's photo cards for Christmas, and wow, do they have a lot of options! I am definitely planning on using Shutterfly to order this year's Christmas cards. I love that there are so many options, and since we just had another baby three weeks ago, this year I am going to combine the birth announcement with the Christmas card, and because there are so many options for cards, there are a lot that have a lot more space for writing so that I'll be able to do this, unlike many other websites and stores that offer Christmas cards. I highly recommend Shutterfly for their quality photo products, and you can check out their Christmas photo cards here: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards
They also have standard photo cards that you can order for any occasion here: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery
I am very excited about creating this year's Christmas photo card on Shutterfly!

18 months

Emmory is a year and a half, and that is the age he will be when his baby brother is born! Hard to believe that time is already here, but I am due in one week! I was very excited at my last doctors visit last week because I am 2 cm dilated....the reason this excites me is because 1) I never had any dilation with E before I went into labor, and i was late with him, and 2) When I got to the hospital in labor with E I was only 3cm dilated, and that was after having contractions for almost 12 hours, so I'm hoping this will cut out a few hours of labor anyways.
E had his 18 month checkup today, we moved it up so we could get it in before the baby is born, and also wanted to have his ears checked since he'd been sick a week or so ago, so we thought we would kill two birds with one stone. Thankfully his ears looked good, I am hoping he is moving out of the stage of getting constant ear infections. He is a big growing boy, 97th percentile for height and 90th for weight. We already knew this, as he is as big or bigger than many kids that are older than him. He's still a good eater and has a good appetite most of the time, although sometimes I think he would rather get down and play rather than eat. There are three things that Emmory is really crazy about right now, the vacuum, the moon, and tractors (which is really any vehicle that makes loud noise in his mind). He says those three words most frequently, and when we are home he is constantly begging me to vacuum (I guess he realizes how dirty our house is, haha). It is nice because I can always get that chore done really easily when he is awake. He will just run back and forth to the vacuum and away from it while I use it, pointing and saying "vacuum".  About a month and a half or so ago he discovered the moon. He walked outside, and just stood staring and pointing at something in the sky. We realized he was looking at the moon, and told him what it was and he started saying it right away, which is amazing because he doesn't use a lot of words. That is when we realized he has the ability to talk, but only bothers saying the words that mean a lot to him. Now we always look for the moon outside, and he loves reading his "Goodnight Moon" book because of the pictures of the moon. He also realized his love for loud noise-making vehicles about a month or so ago. We were at the park, and there were some construction vehicles working there. Emmory grabbed my hand and led me away from the playground over to where the vehicles were working, and just stared at them for probably at least 20 minutes. Also at that same playground a lot of big trucks go driving by, and he was always fascinated when they did, and learned the word truck. Then about a week ago we were at a harvest party where they were doing tractor pulled hayrides, and of course he loved to watch the tractor, and we taught him the word tractor which he caught onto right away, and the whole ride home he kept repeating it over and over again, it was so funny. However now he calls any truck or vehicle a tractor. This boy loves anything that makes noise!

Here's a video of him from earlier this month. He thought of this game all by himself. You will notice his bad habit of not looking where he is running.

16 month-old fat face

Today Emmory is 16 months old....wow! For some reason 16 months seems so much older to me than 15 months, I'm not sure why. I was determined that I would do a post today, since I have been so bad at posting lately and this would give me a specific day to do it so maybe I would remember. He is getting so big, and in roughly two months he is going to look a WHOLE lot bigger, because his baby brother will be born! I just know that is going to make Emmory look like a 3 year old to me, it makes me sad, but I know he can't stay little forever. But I'll spare all of you all the sentiments I am feeling about all the big changes that are coming, and get on to the title of this post. Unfortunately I don't have a picture, but this morning when Emmory woke up, I noticed that the right side of his face looked swollen. I didn't do anything about it right away, but after his morning nap it still looked pretty swollen, and I could feel something hard underneath his ear and around his jaw. He has a history of ear infections, and just had one two weeks ago, and I thought maybe it was a lymph node that was swollen from that infection, so I called the doctor and they said they should probably check him out since he had recently had an ear infection, and also had a low-grade fever off and on the last few days. So I took him in, and he did end up having a lingering ear infection that never completely healed from the last one, but the swollen part of his face ended up having nothing to do with that, it's a swollen salivary gland (I think that's how you say it) from a virus. Right now there is really no treatment except to give him sour things to eat to try and help the gland drain. So right now we have a fat face little 16 month old, it looks pitiful to me but I don't think it's causing him a lot of pain right now, I think it was worse when it was swelling up because the last two days he was very fussy but he was much better today. The poor guy also is cutting two molars at the moment. It's been a rough month for him, as he got sick on both of our vacations and now this. He is a trooper though and can still have fun and play. So that is what has been going on here, we got back from all of our traveling two weekends ago and are still trying to get into a regular schedule/routine....all last week Emmory slept in until 9, which was wonderful for me, but made our days kind of unpredictable, and this week he has not been napping well, probably due to everything that's going on with him, so hopefully by next week he'll be feeling better and things will get back to normal.
Here are a few things that Emmory loves at 16 months:
1.Flashlights. He loves lights in general, and one day he found Mark's flashlight and just loved turning it off and on, and then it was even better because our dog is obsessed with chasing lights, so Emmory figured that out and waves the flashlight on the wall for Tillman to bark at and chase. It is lots of fun for both of them, and nice that they can both be entertained by each other. So I went to Walmart and got Emmory his very own little flashlight, and I think it is the best $5 I have ever spent on him.
2. Climbing. For as mobile as he is, it took him a while to figure out that he can climb on things, but now he has definitely figured it out. I have often found him sitting or standing on top of various boxes around our house.
3. Running. This child loves running more than anything. When we take him to the mall to play at the kids play area that is perfect for his age, he plays for a maximum of five minutes and then just tries to run out of it and run the corridors of the mall. If he can be let somewhere to run free, he is in heaven.
4. Phones. He loves to imitate talking on the phone, whether it be one of his play phones, my cell phone, or anything else he has that he decides to pretend is a phone.
5. Doggies. He continues to love dogs, especially Tillman, and he calls almost every living creature a doggie as well. Our doctor's waiting room has a fish tank, and he runs up to it pointing and saying "doggie". We're working on that one.
6. Reading. He is starting to rediscover books. He used to love it when I would read to him before he was mobile, and we would lay in my bed each morning reading books, which is one of my favorite memories of him. Then, when he started crawling and especially walking, he lost interest in books because you have to sit still to read them, and he isn't interested in sitting still. However, recently he has started to like to read again, and will have me read the same book over and over and over again. Once it's over and I say "the end" he will say "gain", wanting me to read it again. Right now his two favorite books are one about sleep and one about pets.
7. Our bathroom. This is probably his favorite room in our house, and if I let him he could probably stay in there all day getting into everything that is in there in all the cabinets and drawers, bathtub, etc and have a grand old time making a huge mess and who knows what else. No matter how many times I organize the cabinets, they are constantly getting "un-organized" by Emmory when he is able to get in there, I am always walking in there to find lotions and shampoos lying all over the floor. 

I could go on....the boy loves to explore, and of course get into things he shouldn't be getting into, and he is getting really smart and is able to communicate very well (without very many words) and understands most of the things we say to him even though he can't talk, things are definitely a lot different now than they were when he first started walking...being smart + being very busy=a lot more work for us! But he is also a sweet boy, he gives kisses freely and still wants to be held and when we get him out of bed he will put his arms around our neck and it is oh so wonderful.

Here are some random pics from this summer:

Helping Mommy sweep

Playing with the fan

Watching Daddy mow the lawn

Fun with the hose

4th of July

Cheesin it up!

Burying Daddy's foot at Cannon Beach, OR

Running on the beach

Having fun at the pool

Love the expressions on their faces-having so much fun!

Enjoying his first Henry's root beer-Daddy was so proud

Riding the fun cycles on the beach with Papa

This is when we first discovered climbing

We also like to sit on boxes

And sit inside of them with our toys

On top again

Trying on Daddy's shoes

Riding around in the laundry basket

This was all his idea to have Tillman get in with him. We had to give Tillman treats to stay in.

You can tell how much Tillman enjoys it :)

Playing with our sand/water table on the deck. He converted Tillman's water bowl into a bucket.

Video

Obviously, I have been horrible at updating this blog....it's just become less of a priority for me, although I do still want to do it for those of you on the west coast and just to have some things saved for memories sake. Fortunately, my sister-in-law updated her blog with something about Emmory, so now all I have to do is copy and paste a link to that.....thanks Susan! So click here to see a video of Emmory cheesin' it up for the camera. You can also see his sign language that he has become quite good at....he'll do anything for food so it was easy to teach him please. And hopefully I'll get back on here sometime soon to put up some long overdue updates, I can't even believe I haven't put anything up about his birthday!

Lately

There has definitely been a lot going on lately, and I think it will be easier to use bullets so that this post stays somewhat organized. So..

• Emmory is going to be a big brother! We've known for a while but I just haven't gotten around to posting about it. It was a surprise to me, but I am truly thankful for life. So sometime around November 4th, when Emmory is just over 18 months old, we'll have another Steenback baby.
• We went to the beach last week. We stayed in a house with Mark's family just south of Myrtle Beach, and had a great time. We were able to take Emmory to the beach a lot and he loved it, he loved the sand so much that he just had to eat it :) I am really looking forward to our beach trips this summer now that we know he likes it and hopefully he will be out of the "put everything in your mouth" stage so we won't even have to worry about him eating sand. We took pics and videos so I will have to do another post about the trip.
• Emmory is going to be the big ONE in just over two weeks! I cannot believe how fast it has come up, hard to believe it was almost a year ago that I gave birth to him. My family is coming into town to celebrate and we are so excited about that. I haven't really done any preparation at all because it has just been hard to believe it's actually happening, but now I realize how soon it is coming and need to get to work! We aren't really doing anything big but I need to practice making his cake, and I'd like to get a few decorations.
• Emmory's preferred mode of transportation these days: Walking! He took his first steps on March 17th, but now he is really good at it and is pretty much all he does unless he falls down, and when he falls down he just crawls over to something he can pull himself up onto and then starts walking again. It is a really fun stage, I think I may be one of the only parents out there who feel this way but I really prefer walking over crawling....and it is so nice now not to have to hold his hands all the time so he can walk. Now I just have to follow him everywhere :) He has the cutest walk ever, he holds his hands in the air and kind of waddles and it is just precious.
• Clingy: Emmory has definitely entered the clingy stage, he now cries when we leave him in the nursery, he cries when Mark and I leave him with somebody else, and he even cries if Mark leaves when I am still with him, and vice-versa. Thankfully right now the crying doesn't last long, it is just initially when we leave. He is definitely not afraid of strangers though, we were at a baseball game last night and he was walking around by himself going right up to people he didn't know, smiling at them and hanging onto them. I think it's funny that he is fine going to other people on his own, but if we are holding him and try to hand him over to someone, he wants nothing to do with it.
• Just a few other things I love about my boy: When he sucks his thumb he runs his fingers through hair with his other hand, either his hair or our hair, he does the same thing when he drinks his bottle; when I get him out of his crib after a nap he wraps his arms around my neck and gives me a hug, and usually gives me a big open-mouthed kiss; when he picks up something new he holds it out in front of himself to examine it and turns it over, then he shakes it.; sometimes he will pick up a book or magazine and start "reading" it to himself, it is so funny to watch and listen to the sounds he makes as he "reads"; he can be a big flirt, and really try to get other people's attention; frequently throughout the day he will grab a toy or object, walk over to me with it, and try to put it in my mouth, whenever he is with his cousin he also tries to put toys in her mouth too, either that or he will bounce it on her head in a not so gentle way; his smile, I have always loved that smile and he's always had such a great one; how he will walk over to a light, look up at it, and say "off", although it sounds more like "ahh", wanting us to turn the light on and off, and when we do he just stares at it and smiles with delight; when he plays now he is really into manipulating things, he loves to put things inside of other things even if they don't belong together; he has a toy where you press a button and music starts playing, so he will walk/crawl over to that toy, press the button, then turn and look at us smiling and start swaying with the music. I could go on and on, but I will stop now because this post is getting really long! Here are a few pics I took of him last month:

Love this face

One day he decided to put all his toys on top of the storage bench

"Daddy, please don't go"

Sleepyhead

This is how we found Emmory when we had to go in and wake him up from a nap one day this weekend. I don't see how anybody can sleep like that, but he was sound asleep!

My crazy boy

I was finally able to upload a video after we plugged our computer directly into the cable rather than using our router. This is Emmory in his walker making some of his crazy noises, and I was hiding behind the chair and would jump out at him and he would start laughing, then go right back to his noises, as you will see.

February

If there is one word that I could use to describe February, as it relates to Emmory, it would be movement. He is constantly on the go, crawling, standing, and getting close to walking. I will be shocked if he isn't walking by his first birthday (which is only two months away, how can that be?) I got his walker out of the attic last week, and he loves it, except he doesn't walk mostly he runs and rams into things. It has been nice to having something where he can move but be contained at the same time. The only problem is he loves to chase me in it so on more than one occasion I have gotten my heel run into or my foot run over. He loves to walk around with our help too, whenever I am holding him on my lap he will grab my hands and slide his body down to the ground letting me know he wants to walk around. He is still eating like crazy, not as much his bottles but solid food. He loves it and if he is ever around food he isn't happy unless he can have it....something we need to work on. We were at the doctor last week to get a shot and he weighed 22 lbs, 5 ozs (with his diaper on). He is also teething like crazy right now, working on tooth #3,4,5, and 6. I think all but one have broke through the surface of the gums so hopefully once #6 breaks through he will get some relief. Thankfully it hasn't affected his nighttime sleep this time, but it has seemed to affect his naps. Well the main reason I wanted to post was to put up some new pictures, so here they are. There was also one "first" this month that you will see in the last pictures....I'll make you wait to see to keep you in suspense :)

Standing up on the footrest

If anyone wants to know what to get him for his birthday, how about a big package of socks? I don't know why but he loves them.

On his riding toy that we got with his Valentine money from Nama and Papa. It also doubles as a push toy/walker which he loves to do, except he tries to go too fast and falls down

We finally got snow! I can't wait for next year when he can actually play in it, we took him out for a few minutes this time

Chasing his doggy whom he loves....I don't think the feeling is mutual, I've noticed that Tillman tries to avoid Emmory now...I guess he's had his ears pulled one too many times

Taking a bath in the big boy tub. He LOVES bathtime, he splashes like crazy with his hands and feet and everything is soaked once we are done

Oh that sweet, beautiful, long brown hair...

Which is now about to be cut off...that's right in this pic we are waiting to get his hair cut!

This is what he did the entire wait time, he sat still for 20 or 30 minutes (a record for him) and just chewed on this thing

He was not happy once she started combing his hair

Funny expression

I think this picture is so funny, this is how I kept him happy and "somewhat" still while he got his hair cut...I fed him puffs

Not thrilled

All finished with his first hair cut! I hated it at first, I thought I wanted it cut but when she was cutting it I wanted to yell "stop, don't cut off one more piece of that hair!" But I am happy with how it turned out, she did a good job and I am getting used to it...it just makes him look like a little boy and not a baby anymore, and I do miss that beautiful long baby hair, but it had to happen sometime, and he does actually look like a boy now so maybe he won't be called a girl anymore all the time. It is a lot lighter now too, all the long hair was the darker hair so now it looks not only like he got it cut but lightened too. I promise it is all natural, no chemicals were put on his head :)

Nap protests

Emmory is going through a really tough time right now....well tough for me probably not so tough for him! He has always been a good sleeper, he learned to fall asleep on his own at an early age, so naptime has always been easy, I lay him down and he falls asleep. Well, now that he knows how to stand up in his crib, that is all he wants to do at naptime. He just stands up and cries and cries. You would think he would get tired of this after a while, but there is no wearing him down, apparently our child is extremely stubborn. I've tried leaving him in there without going to him at all, and I've tried going in, laying him down, and immediately leaving; neither of which have worked so far. When I rock him before his naps, all he wants to do is play, he doesn't act tired at all, although he does yawn quite a bit. It's just amazing how things can change so fast, he is really growing up fast lately and having so many developmental changes. Honestly sometimes I wonder if he will ever nap again...most people told me this only lasted a few days with their child when they learned to stand up in their crib, I think we are on at least on day 4 with Emmory. We shall see how he is doing by the end of the week.

9 months and so many changes

Once again, I haven't blogged in a while. I just feel like I have less and less time for it, there are so many other things I need to do whenever I have any free time. And Emmory requires much more attention now then before, because he is now crawling and can get anywhere that he wants to. That is one of the big changes that's happened somewhat recently. He has always been a "mover" even when he couldn't actually move himself, so now that he can move himself he is everywhere! It is so much fun to watch him though, he loves to explore. Another recent change is he is now pulling himself up in his crib, and he can sit up all on his own from a lying down position. He is a strong little boy and I'm sure it won't be long before he is walking. Another change we've experienced is he is pretty much no longer nursing. I'm really not sure what happened, I don't know if it was a supply issue and I just couldn't keep up with his growing body (He's 21 lbs 10 ozs!) or if he was just no longer interested in nursing, but he just kept dropping one feeding after another refusing to nurse so I had to give him a bottle, and now I'm only nursing him once first thing in the morning. I am thankful that I can still do that at this point though. It was very sad to basically wean him, it's our first huge milestone of him growing up and becoming a little boy, but I know that it is okay. I'm making his baby food and he is getting great nutrition out of that, and he loves it! He has recently started eating oatmeal, brown rice, and yogurt. He loves the yogurt and oatmeal, and is still getting used to the brown rice, but he eats it. We went to his 9 month well checkup today, and found out he has an ear infection. He hadn't been acting like himself the last couple days, and was really fussing for his naps and just restless and discontent which is not like him. I had a feeling there was something wrong with him, but I figured it was his teeth or something, not an ear infection. So he is taking antibiotics and hopefully that will clear it up soon so he doesn't have to be in too much pain. Even with his ear infection, Dr. Song said at his appt that he is the happiest boy, so he is still doing pretty good, it really just affects him when it's time to sleep. He cried five different times last night between 8 and 10 pm, but it was only for a few minutes each time and he went back to sleep on his own, and then he was quiet all night until he woke up at 8. Hopefully he'll do okay tonight.
I haven't gotten around to putting up pics of our time in Seattle during Christmas, but here are a few recent pics since we've been back. The pics are actually out of order, but oh well...

Look what I found mama!

I love to take my socks off and eat them

This is right after he fell backwards while he was standing up in his crib, he bumped his head on the side of the crib

Look at what I can do!

Look what I did Mom, is this okay?

This is what I saw when I opened his door after he woke up from his nap

This was taken the very first day he stood up...unfortunately I didn't think to get the camera until he had already fallen down