Emily Pulling Up at 8 Months Old

Miss Emily was 8 months old on the 11th.  She is a girl on the go these days!  She is crawling like a champ and will follow us all over the place.  Emily has also been pulling up for almost a month!  Right after she got her crawling down pat she starting pulling up.  Now she is pulling up on everything, which means getting into everything!  Also with pulling up comes a few bumps and bruises since she's still a little wobbly at times.  We are also in the very early stages of cruising from one object to the next.  Overall Emily is a super sweet, laid back, happy baby.  We hardly ever hear her whine or cry unless she's sleepy or hungry.  She's sleeping good and eating good most of the time.  I weighed her on the 11th and she weighed 21 lbs exactly.  I feel like we have been teething for an eternity now with no teeth to show for it yet, but I'm sure they'll come pretty soon.  Emily loves to eat yogurt any kind of snacks and recently we have been giving her tiny tastes of a few of the things that we are eating.  She loves chicken! and also likes pancakes pretty good.  Emily babbles a good bit and she says "Hey!" and tries to say "bye, bye, bye".  She has the wave that goes with the bye-bye down pat.  Emily thinks Kate is the greatest thing ever!  Kate is still a super sweet big sis too even though she's starting to get a little frustrated at times now that Emily is mobile and able to get to some of her toys.  Kate has always been pretty cautious in general and we are starting to see that Emily may be a little more of a daredevil.  Nick and I have been laughing at her "trust fall" lately.  If she knows that one of us is close enough to catch her and she has pulled up to a standing position somewhere, she will just give us a look and let go, falling back knowing that we will catch her.  Time is flying by and Emily is getting so big!  I feel like it will be no time before she will be walking and then talking.  We are enjoying every minute of every stage with Emily and love seeing her figure out new things and master new skills.  I cannot even express how blessed we are with both of our girls!

Emily 8 Months Old 

You can see one of her mishaps on her forehead.  She had bumped her head that day pulling up in her crib 

This is usually how Emily greets me when I go in to get her in the morning or after a nap

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter to all! We had a wonderful Easter weekend in Port Barre with Pop Pop and family! We drove in on Friday and had a fun family fish fry that night. Then Saturday morning we dyed Easter eggs with some of Kate and Emily's cousins--Braxton, Karoline and Claire. Then Sunday morning we woke up to find that the Easter bunny had been to visit Pop Pop's house bringing both girls lots of goodies! We had fun eating candy (for Kate) and snacks (for Emily) for breakfast and playing with all of the fun things in their Easter baskets. After lunch with Pop Pop and Mamaw Speyrer yesterday we headed back home. Enjoy some pictures from our weekend--

Thursday the girls helped me make an Easter bunny cake to take to Pop Pop's on Friday. It starts out as 2 round cakes...

Emily loves the camera these days! Then you cut one cake to make ears and a bow tie

We decorated with jelly beans and toothpicks. Kate loved eating and placing the jelly beans on the bunny's bow tie

Our finished product. This was an Easter tradition in my family. I remember making these cakes every year with my mom for Easter. So glad Kate was excited to get into it with me this year!

Pop Pop helping Braxton and Karoline dye eggs

Uncle D and Claire dying eggs

Kate patiently waiting for her first egg to be just the right shade of red

First egg done complete with Kate's name on it

A rare picture of Momma and Kate. I'm usually behind the camera for these types of events. Thanks Daddy for manning the camera!

Easter bunny goodies!

The girls checking out their goods

Emily Easter morning

And Kate enjoying her M&Ms for breakfast

The Easter bunny brought Kate a new princess dress that surprisingly was not a hit

Daddy teaching Kate how to pock eggs

Daddy and Pop Pop pocking. For those of you have never heard of pocking eggs (I had never heard of it before I met Nick), it is a game where you hit 2 eggs together and try to crack the other person's egg but not your own

Emily and Kate with Pop Pop and Mamaw Speyrer

Pretty girl!

This was the best I could do at trying to get a picture of the two of them together in their Easter dresses

Kate laughing at Pop Pop

Pop Pop and Emily

Again, best family pic we could get…

Daddy and Emily

Momma and Kate

Daddy is 30!!!!

Nick turned 30 on April 2. We had a big long birthday weekend celebrating with him. Nonna and Papa came in town on Thursday and Pop Pop headed over on Friday for a crawfish boil at our house. We had a lot of fun visiting and eating. Those were the best crawfish ever!! Then on Saturday Nick, Papa, Pop Pop and Uncle D went to New Orleans for the Final Four basketball games. Ever since Nick found out that the Final Four would be in New Orleans on his 30th birthday he has said that he was going to go for his birthday. With the help of some great friends, we were able to get 4 tickets for the whole weekend and they were able to spend all day Saturday and all day Monday enjoying New Orleans and seeing all of the games. Sunday we spent the day around the house smoking chickens and grilling steaks on our new Big Green Egg that Nonna and Papa brought down for us. I think Nick had a great birthday weekend and we enjoyed celebrating with him!

Kate helping Daddy and Pop Pop with the crawfish

Kate helping Papa

Emily having fun outside

Emily and Nonna

Princess Kate eating crawfish with Pop Pop. She loved them!!! Couldn't get enough of them!

Kate was so excited to help me put candles on Daddy's cake and sing to him! Emily was excited too. She grabbed a couple of handfuls of icing!

Everybody singing happy birthday

Nick, Pop Pop, Papa and Derrick outside the Super Dome

Here's where their tickets were…

…and here's where they ended up by the end of the night. Not too shabby!

Everyone inside the dome

Spring Break with the Jungs

A couple of weeks ago, Kate and Emily's Aunt April, Uncle Alan, Camden, Owen, Langley and Harper came to stay with us for part of their spring break. Kate looked forward to their arrival all week and anytime you asked who was coming she would shout, "My cousins!!!" while waving her arms in the air and jumping up and down. They got here on Wednesday evening. Thursday Nick and I worked while the Jungs + Kate went to the BR Zoo. Kate was very excited when telling us about her trip and said she had a lot of fun! Friday we all went to New Orleans for the day and took in both the Insectarium and Aquarium there. All of the kids had a great time! We went to the Insectarium first and while it was very interesting, Kate just wasn't very into it. She is not a critter or a bug girl…at least not yet anyways and she would look at some of the exhibits and then get a shiver. After lunch we were on to the Aquarium and Kate loved it! She was excited to see all of the fish, seahorses "like on Jake" (as in Jake and the Neverland Pirates on Disney) and jelly fish (Kate instantly started in saying "boing, boing, boing" when she saw the jelly fish. In Finding Nemo they play a game bouncing on the tops of the jelly fish). It was fun to see her put together some of the things she sees on TV and movies with the real thing. Kate had a blast and Emily was perfect! She just enjoyed being along for the ride and seeing new things. She slept in the baby bjorn for about half of our aquarium fun. After a long day of fun in NO, the grown ups enjoyed some crawfish after the kiddos went to bed Friday night. Then on Saturday the Jungs + Kate went to get beignets for breakfast and then all of the kids played around our house the rest of the day. They discovered a sand pile a couple houses over and had a big time playing in the sand. The Jungs also had a lot of fun catching all of the lizards that are around our house (I think they've been in hiding since they left :) We haven't seen quite as many lately). Kate loved playing with all of her cousins but especially buddied up with Camden. Camden was so sweet with Kate! Kate had so much fun playing with her! Camden read Kate bedtime stories every night and laid in the bed with her before it was time for her to go to sleep. We enjoyed having the Jungs here and can't wait to see them again soon!

Ready to go into the BR zoo

Having a big time at the zoo!

Checking out the turtles and fish

Kids' dinner time

Langley and Emily

Camden and Kate

Bath full of fun with all of the little girls

Emily with Daddy waiting in line at the Insectarium in New Orleans. Happy to be out and about!

The Jungs waiting at the Insectarium

Daddy and Emily inside the Insectarium

Kate sitting in the bug learning about love bugs

Listening to bugs on the phone with Langley and Harper. This was by far Kate's favorite part of the Insectarium. We spent some time talking to the bugs on the phone

Daddy and Kate at the Aquarium

Emily snoozing away at the Aquarium. Such a trooper!

Kate and Camden checking out some fish

Kate loved climbing on these shark's jaws

Kate also loved the parakeet exhibit. She was a little afraid of the birds and definitely didn't want to touch them but liked seeing them on Daddy.

She finally got brave enough to hold one on a feeding stick for a minute.

Looking at some sharks

Looking at jelly fish…"boing, boing, boing"