beach baby and other beautiful days...

today was hot. and sunny...and overall a beautiful day. so we took emerson to the beach. now, i was raised on a "island"...i guess it really is an island but since it's connected by 2 bridges, it doesn't quite seem like one. anyway, point being, there are obviously beaches there. i grew up going to the beach, as my mother might have been the original "beach bum". so i felt like it was important to start emerson's life out right and take her to the beach.

now those of you who know central ny, know that there is no ocean...in fact, i would consider the definition of "beach" to be interpreted very loosely. i took her to green lakes state park today, where there is a large section of dirt connected to the beautiful lake. the water at green lakes looks like it's in the carribean. the sand at the "beach" couldn't be anything further. trust me...it's dirt. anyway, true new yorkers really think this is a beach, and as a result, it was packed today with lots of scantily clad girls and guys showing off their bodies.......oh yeah, and us. heh.

anyway, we brought lunch and a sheet to sit on and ate right next to the water. emerson wasn't really caring about the sand or being on the sheet, so she got to sit in her carseat under the shade and play with her toys... for all she cared, we could have been sitting at home.

once we were done eating, i decided to liven things up a bit and take emerson into the water. you'll see the pic below...i still havent really mastered getting these pictures to post in any good order, so the pictures are posted most recent first and oldest last. after playing in the water, we decided it was time for some shade, so we went walking around green lakes. brad carried emerson in the backpack carrier, which she loves. she even fell asleep in it...leaving me with some time to sit on the edge of a ledge and dip my feet in the water. it was great.

we spent a few hours there, then came home to feed her, chill out (aka do dishes so that ants dont overtake the house) and head back out to return the baby swing to my friend who let us borrow it, and then visit her at work. after that, we did some quick shopping at wegmans (oh wegmans, how do i love thee...let me count the ways....) and headed home right in time to get her to bed.

phew...what a full day! and tomorrow is supposed to be nice too! this is turning out to be a great weekend. friday we had gone to onondaga lake park and walked around for 3 hours. that was awesome too! if we move away for a job, there are definitely things i am going to miss about this place!

anyway, pics...

emerson asleep in the backpack

making silly faces

emerson and daddy

happy to be going for a walk

piggies in the water

more piggy time in the water

emerson's first day at the beach!

beach baby

getting some experience with the sippy cup

emerson's first up close experience with seeing waves. she loved watching them!

me and emerson at onondaga lake park on the dock

brad and emerson outside the bathroom at onondaga lake park waiting for me!

emerson before heading out to onondaga lake park...just had a shower with her dad and was lookin cute!

before the shower...where she was discovering her feet...and i was discovering that her feet were smelly....hence the shower!

being cute with the blanky..

the end!

6 months and video-licious fun..

so...today emerson is exactly 6 months old. where has the time gone? never in my life has 6 months gone by so quickly. usually i want time to go quicker, but since having her, i want to keep her little as long as possible and lo and behold, time is flying by (that damn time warp again!).

anyway, i considered having a little party for her, but figured that would be lame with just brad and i, and who would eat cake? i mean, i would love to eat cake, but its come time to face the fact that i really dont need to be stuffing my face with junk food. actually, i never needed to do that, but since having a baby, i want to lose weight even more. anyway, enough about me and back to the half birthday party i wanted to have but didnt happen. we went to the mall and i considered buying her a little toy, but brad told me she has enough toys and it wasnt necessary. so...no party and no toys. thats okay...i guess its kinda lame to celebrate half birthdays anyway.

anyway...here are some videos taken recently...

this one is of emerson learning karate...hehe

this was taken last night...emerson is a rolling machine! i had been trying to get a video of her rolling since feb 14th, and this is the first time i caught it...and she wouldnt stop! great video.

this is from tonight. i was changing emerson and she was blowing some serious rasberries. she gets kind of gross about it and gets rabid looking spit all over her face. she likes it though and she is pretty cute...even if she is rabid. :)

hope you enjoyed the videos!

disaster in the kitchen

and when i say disaster, i am talking about myself. whenever the cooking gene was handed out, i must have been absent that day. god i suck at cooking. and the thing is...i know this! i have known this for a long time. its not so much that i cant actually make something that tastes good. my problem with cooking is that:

1. i hate it
2. i cant stand needing more than 3 ingredients in something
3. i hate it
4. i dont have the attention span to stand there and stir something or wait for something to cook
5. i walk away and time goes into a time warp, and the next thing i know, all hell has broken loose and whatever i was cooking is now a burnt black mass....

numbers 1, 3, 4 and 5 were all the case the other night when i decided it was time to make more baby food for emerson. this time i planned to make squash and green beans. i steamed the squash and pureed it and all was good. then came the green beans. i chopped off their ends and gave them a rinse and began steaming them... (here is where all hell breaks loose...)

so while they were steaming, i decided to run over to the computer and check out www.wholesomebabyfoods.com to double check on whether i was doing this right since i had never cooked green veggies before (i know i should have done this BEFORE i started cooking them). anyway, i saw on the site that you arent supposed to cut the ends and you arent supposed to wash them.....so that lead me to a search online of why not?? which of course caused time to go into time warp mode and the next thing i know, i smell something burning.

well, i get out to the kitchen and the pan was burnt to a crisp. i had let all the water burn out of the pan. i tasted a green bean, and sure enough, it tasted burnt. luckily brad ate them so they werent a waste but still. i was so mad at myself. i know that i suck at cooking so i dont know what the heck was going through my mind when i thought i could make my own baby food.

anyway, i am still going to try. you dont fail until you give up, right? so, i had 2 successful times and one really bad time. the pan is totally ruined, which i am pissed about because it was one of my nice pans but i am going to keep making baby food. it doesnt take long and it saves a bunch of money. plus its fresh. no preservatives. only now, i think i will boil stuff instead of steam...there is way more water involed, so less of a chance of me burning the hell out of all my pans. heh. wish me luck.....

p.s. emerson LOVED the squash.

jack black and sitting pretty...

first off...i discovered today that emerson is insanely afraid of jack black! it is too funny! we were at my friends house today and she put on yo gabba gabba for her 8 month old. it was an episode she had dvr'ed and emerson had never seen yo gabba gabba before.

she watched the bright colors and danced around to the song, and then suddenly started screaming such a high pitched scream with instant tears. she was deadly afraid. we couldnt figure out why, and i had turned her away from the tv and shhhed her until she was calm. i then turned her back to the tv and then she started the instant tears and high pitched screaming like you were murdering her. we laughed thinking that it was because of jack black. every time he was on the tv, she screamed and cried! so we shut it off and she put on spongebob.

just to double check the theory, about an hour later we decided to put the show back on and emerson was fine for a while because it was little kids dancing and singing (And some weird furry puppet things on the show) and then it was a close up of jack black again and she screamed bloody murder again! hahahaa!!! its way too funny that she is insanely afraid of jack black! i wonder if i can get in touch with jack black and tell him to please not appear in any more childrens shows because he is too scary! haha.

anyway, this vacation i have been working with emerson to try to get her to sit. basically, i am trying to give her more opportunities to try out sitting. here she is a few days ago trying to sit. she was way leaned over and toppled about 2 seconds after these pics were taken!

emerson and ari today. its cute that they were in the same pose!
emerson sitting today...notice she is sitting a lot taller and can balance a lot more. she still toppled over about 2 seconds after the pic was taken, but i could tell she was trying to stay sitting, rather than just tipping over...

another sitting pic! all on her own!! oh and check out the cute bandana bib my friend kim made! it is super cute and matches her outfit perfectly!

here is a pic of emerson watching ari bounce in his jumper. it was funny because he was watching her watching him and kind of putting on a show. he loved emerson, but she was scared of him...he was crawling all over her and kissing her and she thought he was moving a little too fast (she is very conservative), so she was scared and crying... hehe.

new look...

i decided to get all tech savvy and play with the layout and format of my blog. i decided to make it more "me". notice that there are greens and oranges and browns. yeah, thats all me. hehe. i couldnt change the background color, so i am stuck with gray, but i am okay with that. i also played around with the comments and such to make it easier to both leave and read comments. leave me some comments and let me know if it is working better...

anyway, today was a gorgeous day! my friend kim and i went to ithaca with her son fletcher (aka emerson's one true love) and emerson. it was a good time...we each got some fancy schmancy cloth diapers (bum genius one size all in ones). i am excited to try them on emerson. we also went to get some yummy food, and the babies actually behaved...for babies anyway. they weren't perfect but they were pretty darn good. after doing a little browsing, i found a book that i couldn't resist...its called "tickle monster" and its super cute! it reminded me of when my brother, sister and i would play tickle monster with our dad. it was always fun so i had to buy the book...and i'm sure once emerson is walking, there will be many games of tickle monster happening!

we also went to one of the waterfall parks and hung out with the babies on their blankets and showed them their first waterfalls. overall, a great way to spend a day....and to top it off, parking in the parking garage was only $4 for 5 hours!!!! i love ithaca!

pictures, pictures and more pictures...

ready to duke it out if you even TRY to take her bottle!


looking cute in the exersaucer at nannie and grampys house...

my friend kiley's son, sean, trying to put the moves on emerson. she is cute but its WAY to early for this! good thing brad wasnt there!! hehe

my little buddha belly baby.

wearing a cute hat. she is really good about wearing hats and bows...she doesn't even try to rip them out or take them off!

well, hope you enjoyed some recent pics. i have a few more of emerson trying to sit up/sitting up for a few seconds, but i havent downloaded them yet...

i should have taken a picture of the MOUND of clothes that i folded tonight. the loveseat was covered in baby clothes. and then i finally put them all away. i also sorted through the next size up. i did all this hastily because little miss emerson was soo tired and needed to go to bed early.

anyway, we are headed to ithaca tomorrow to pick up some cloth diapers and hang out. i cant believe april break is almost over. i am sad. but soon it will be summer and if i dont find a new job, it will be vacation every day! heh.

success..

in more ways than one! not only was i able to successfully make my own baby food for emerson (and let me tell you, popping it out of the ice cube trays just about ruined my success!) but i also fed her some of it and it didnt kill her! in fact, she even liked it...and i have the pictures to prove it too! here you go...

sweet potato love...

i love it mom!

so happy...solids=success!

now that is love! hehe.

also, in related news (meaning, its still about emerson), she is starting to sort of get the motions of crawling....she wiggles her butt but doesnt have the arm strength yet.

i am going to post another post to show some pics of her sitting and stuff....i hate the way pictures post on here...its too complicated.

time to eat!

with emerson approaching the 6 month mark in a few days (where did the time go??), i decided it was finally time to begin eating solids. really i don't want to ever start solids...formula is so much easier. however, the formula she is on is super expensive so i am looking to save a few bucks.

anyway, i have known that i wanted to make my own baby food, so tonight i went shopping and bought some sweet potatoes. i have been researching over time and decided that i wanted to start with veggies and sweet potatoes are a great first food and usually well received. i got them home, steamed them and pureed them in the baby food mixer. i put them in ice cube trays and am currently freezing them up for emerson to eat tomorrow. we will see how that goes...

so...i had bought 2 sweet potatoes at 99 cents a pound. i spent about $2 on them. it made a tray and a half of sweet potatoes, so this should be a great money saver. we will see how many little cubes she eats in one sitting eventually and i will be able to calculate my savings a little better. overall, it was easy to make (And those who know me know that i am no good at cooking, and to top that off, i HATE cooking)...but this was easy to make, except chopping sweet potatoes sucks because they are so hard.

i know i havent posted pics in a while and honestly i have been slacking on the picture taking. i should get out my dslr and take pics, but i have been lazy with the point and shoot, so i just need to get on the ball.... she is growing so quickly and we need to work on baby proofing the house...which i am not looking forward to. my house is not condusive to crawling babies. can i just hire someone to come in and make it that way??

i'm addicted...

to starbuck's, that is. ever since having emerson, i have discovered that i am addicted to starbucks. there are a few things there that i am in love with. first, the peppermint mocha twist. its chocolate and coffee and peppermint...could anything be better? actually, there is a close second to that. its the java chip frappuccino....translation: coffee slush with crushed up chocolate pieces in it. and something about the coffee at starbucks is more energizing than dunkin donuts. so after years of hating starbucks, i am now a fan....but i really want to hate them. i am still loyal to dunkin donuts and their tea and coffee coolattas, but really, i'd rather have a java chip frappuccino. unfortunately, the price of starbucks forces me to be an occasional customer and not a regular one. but all the times i am not there, i am thinking about the next time i can go and treat myself to one of these wonderful drinks!

of course, i have been so super busy lately that i think that might be the cause for my severe caffine addiction, but i have been enjoying being busy. i wish i had more time with emerson though, but will make up for it soon on april break and over the summer....which is fast approaching. in the meantime, the (clean) laundry can continue to pile up and the disaster i made of her room trying to sort out clothes in the next size up (where am i going to PUT all of that???) can wait until the next rainy day that i am motivated to clean.....there is too much to do in the meantime! (like type on here while emerson takes a little nap! hehe)