Smiling sweetie!

Like I always say, "Emma loves her daddy!". This is her smiling this morning at her daddy when he was kissing her feet! I could just squeeze her!

3 months & growing fast!

Emma will be 3 months old tomorrow and I can hardly believe it! She is changing so much and nearly every day there is something new. She has started laughing and wants to chuckle but can't quite figure that out yet. She watchs Bella play around her and turns her head to our voices now.
She LOVES the morning time and when we go into her room and look over in her crib she gets a really big grin. She doesn't stop smiling all morning until her first nap. When we get her out of her crib, we bring her in to our bed and play with her for a while. She talks to us and smiles the whole time. It is now our favorite part of the day as well, even though we are not morning people. Emma still loves bathtime as long as the water is really warm. She loves her pallet in the floor so she can kick her legs and arms which she does constantly! Just in the last week she has started grabbing on to her blankets and clothes to put them in her mouth and if she can't grab that, she'll just stick her fist in her mouth! If she could ever find that thumb, she'd go to town on it! Our biggest change and greatest news is that we went and saw the GI specialist, Dr. Higgins, who I was greatly impressed with. He little intently to our story of Emma's bad reflux, the vomitting, the screaming, and the fact that she only eats 1 to 3 ounces every 3-4 hours because she acts like it hurts to eat. He told us to add 1 tablespoon of cereal to every 2 ounces of formula, double her medicine, and he added one more medicine. So, we came home and started with the next feeding adding the cereal. At first, she was not one bit interested in that weird texture "stuff" we were trying to feed her. We spent an hour figuring out the perfect "cutting of the nipples" to get the right flow for her. After another hour of her figuring out that the milk was different, she finally took to it and now LOVES it. She eats 4-5 ounces every 4 hours now! Needless to say, we may have a chunk on our hands here pretty soon!

Mark and I are staying busy with work and everything else. He is working really hard to sell his bike and I am staying busy at work with lots going on. The holidays are approaching and so the hustle and bustle begins. We have family pictures on Thursday afternoon and then I have our bi-annual Hospice Memorial Service to attend and speak at that evening. Between Mark's schedule, my work, my on-call, church, and our families, we are finding it hard to have days to just do NOTHING! Wonder if they will ever come? Nevertheless, we are incredibly blessed and life is good!

I will post more pictures soon! I'll take some tomorrow maybe!

My pea in a pod is 11 weeks old!

Emma Grace turned 11 weeks old on Halloween. She is SOOO precious and is smiling so more, even though that isn't all that much....:)....she has her daddy's serious demeanor!

She came down with an ear infection over the weekend and so we didn't get to take her to Trunk or Treat at church but I still put her in her costume and took some pictures. Because she was sick, my mom and dad came over for the evening and kept Emma while Mark and I got out and went to a Halloween party at David & Tiffany Dyess' home. It was a lot of fun and was a good chance for Mark and I to be around some people we didn't know very well.

Mom brought Bella Mae a new toy and she is OBSESSED with it. I'll take a picture soon of her with it and post it on our blog! She's a hoot!

I mentioned Emma had/has an ear infection and so I posted a picture after I TRIED to get her to take her medicine! HA! She did NOT like it at first but is much better at it now! She is on so much medicine right now and I feel bad for her. She takes the Reglan and Prevacid for her reflux, the Nystatin for the thrush, and the Amoxicillin for the ear infection right now! I know what it's like to have to take tons of medicine from my younger days and it is not fun! Poor baby!

A couple of the pictures are before church on Sunday when she wore a headband and bow for the very first time and didn't scream her head off when we put it on her! She actually did really well and never made a peep with it on! Maybe she'll get better about wearing them....they are sooo cute!

I tried to put her in her bumbo tonight and see how she liked it since she loves sitting up so much! You see how that went over! She was not a fan. I'll keep trying though.

She loves her bathtime and you can see how relaxed she gets. She LOVES to have the hot washcloths on her belly and head! It's so fun to watch her in the water.

She changes every day and even though I'm happy she is growing, I am sad to see it go by so quickly! Seems like we just came home from the hospital. She has changed so much lately and it is one of the most joyous things to watch her grow. Mark gets to stay home with her on his days off and for that, I am truly grateful! She LOVES her daddy and thinks he is about the neatest thing...which I agree! He is such a good daddy and I cannot complain at all. He is so good with her and just has the "instinct" in him. Sometimes I just sit back and watch them play or talk to each other and my heart melts away. My Dad and I have that "Daddy's little girl" relationship and I'm blessed that Mark and Emma will have that too!

I go to work every day and visit and care for patients and families who are going through death and dying and I can't help but be more in the moment at home. So many say they wished they had more time, or they aren't ready yet. Are we ever ready to let our loved ones go? I just don't want to say I didn't live life abundantly if someday, God forbid, it is cut short for any of us. We care for pediatric patients and having a baby makes those much more emotional for me. I'm blessed by that 9.8 pound baby that cries, smiles, talks, kicks, poops, and stares up at me! I want to remember every day that she has been lended to me as a precious gift to raise and love. I will love her in every single way I know possible and never give up on her no matter how old she is or what she does. I promise to love her daddy more and more each day and be grateful for every joy we have, every hurt we endure, every goal we accomplish, and every day we live!

K