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