Our week with Uncle Brenner!

I started a huge post about our vacation to Greece, and then I realized that the camera card that I had with me didn't have the pictures of Greece on them.  I'm way too lazy to look for it right now, so I'm going to post about what I currently have pictures of.


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Two weeks ago my parents went to Spain with my two 'bigger' brothers (note that I said bigger, not older).  Yes, you heard (read?) me right.  My parents went to Spain and they took some of my siblings, but not me. Cruel.


Instead of Spain, we got Brenner.  Which may not be the fairest trade, but he definitely makes for an entertaining one.  I had an 11 day experience seeing what it would be like to be the mother of two.  I can now say with every confidence in myself.... that I am totally not ready for that type of responsibility.  One baby is good for me.


So, we had 11 days with an almost 6 year old boy.  I had to get creative.


We played a lot of board games (and let him win almost every time).

We had a "water party".... which turned into us watching him go down the Slip n' Slide over and over and over and over and OVER again.

Emerson got in on the action too!  She didn't care so much about going down the slide, but we had a hard time keeping her away from the water!!

This one is just because I think she's fantastic.  

After the first day was over Ammon had to go back to our house.... but we managed to keep the party going without him. ;)

One day we made cupcakes.  And by we, I mean Brenner.  He did it all himself.  

Practically. 

Go ahead, tell me that doesn't look delicious.  What's that you say?  You don't like half a bottle of blue sprinkles on your cupcakes?  Huh.

After we thoroughly trashed cleaned my parents house, we came back up to Orem to spend a few days at my place.  That's when the real fun began! 

We went to Seven Peaks.... (Not pictured because we didn't bring a camera OR a phone).  But let me tell you, it was awesome and fun and fantastic and the best ever.  Those were exactly Brenner's words. 

Then we spent a day up at Thanksgiving Point visiting the Dinosaur Museum.  Again, it was totally awesome and rad.  I forgot my camera that day, but I did take some pictures on my phone.  I've already sent them to my mom though, and since I know that this post is basically for her anyway... I'm not going to worry about getting them onto my computer.

Anyway, moving on...

Brenner and Ammon used their iPads to figure out Sunday dinner for us.  Brenner, being a true carnivore, chose steak and beef jerky.  We made one of the recipes for Sunday dinner.  I'll let you decide which one it was.... ;)

We also spent a day at the dead animal zoo Bean Museum with my cousin Kayla and her little girl Alexis (somehow I managed to not get a single picture with her.  How did that happen?).  Brenner thought it was WAY cool.  Until I wouldn't buy him an overpriced stuffed rabbit, but that's another story for another day.

Emerson totally loved it too!  

Here Emerson is worried that the lion is going to eat her.  Or that the antelope will crush her?  Either way.

These two were the best of best friends by the end of our time together.  The day after Brenner left Emerson was totally grouchy and grumpy the whole day and I'm almost positive it was because she missed her Uncle Brenner.  

And here's Brenner with a picture of leopards that I lied and told him were cheetahs.  I don't regret it.

We had a very very very busy few days and we had a lot of fun with Brenner  (especially Emerson!  Favorite uncle forever)!

But... we were totally happy when my parents came back from their trip too.  

:)

7 Months Old!

This cute girl is 7 months old today!  I'm honestly not quite sure how this has happened, but I'm wishing that I could find a way to slow it down.  :)

She wore this cute dress to church today that her G.G. (Great-Grandma Cunningham) gave to her.  We thought that she looked adorable in it.

An older lady in the ward told me today that Emerson "looks just like a baby you'd see on tv".  So... I guess she thought the same thing.  

Haha!

Within the last week Emmy-Baby has figured out how to get up on her hands and knees... she also rocks back and forth while on her knees.... and just last night she figured out how to crawl her knees forward.  Now she just needs to figure out how to move those arms while working the legs, because right now she sort of face plants it.

She was being extremely happy and laughing at Ammon, and then he started to make some scary growling noises.... Then it became less fun. :)

Hahahahaha!

We love you cute girly!  

Although, I wish you'd start growing a little bit slower.  I just want you to stay little for longer.... Please stay my baby forever.  (Well, my baby that sleeps perfectly through the night... That's my real wish).

Yesterday

Yesterday was rough at our house.

Seriously rough!

Especially for Miss Emerson.  Actually, she had all of the bad things happen to her, but as here Mama it made my day really bad too.


I think she fell over and face planted on every single hard thing possible.

She face planted on the remote control twice.
Fell over and smacked her head on three of her toys (and not the soft lovable ones either)
She also manged to ram herself right into my left knee.

Poor girly!

Emerson also managed to throw up her lunch.  All over her clothes, my clothes, and the floor.  It was everywhere.  And it came out of her nose.  There are few things sadder than watching white vomit stream out of both of your babies nostrils.

Then I went to change her diaper and discovered that she had her very first diaper rash.  Seriously, just the day before I had been patting myself on my Mom Back for the fact that she hadn't had a diaper rash yet.


HA! That's what I get.


She also didn't want to nap.  Which makes for an incredibly grumpy baby (and a grumpier mom...)

It was a rough day.

In happier news, she slept like a CHAMP last night!


:)

Top 10!

Not a lot happened this week, but I made a goal to blog more often.  So here are our top 10 moments of the week.  Some were really good moments, and some were less good. ;)

1.  Sunday morning, at 6 am, I woke up to the sound and smell of meat cooking in the kitchen (at first, in my half awake daze, I thought that it was raining really really really hard).  Yes, Ammon woke up at the crack of dawn to start cooking meat for dinner that night.  He has some intense dedication to food.

Here's the finished product.  Ammon asked me to take a picture of the meal so that we could remember it always.

2.  We mourned the loss of Emerson's cute baby poop this week.  We're officially in solid food territory now.  Luckily for you all, there is no picture evidence of this.  You're welcome.

3.  Speaking of poop, Emerson managed to poop all over the carpet this week.  Then when I preceded to scrub the carpet trying to get the poop out (and sweet potato poop is pretty intense {how many times do you think I can say the word 'poop' in one blog post?}) she laughed hysterically while watching.  The little stinker.

4.  One morning Ammon and I laid in bed and looked up our dream homes online.  Did you know that Ammon's dream home involves building a house into the side of a cliff?!  Something similar to this:

Lucky me!

5.  Sunday morning Emerson was being such a grump!  She hadn't slept very well that night, and then didn't want to take a nap in the morning.  Ammon made the mistake of holding her and rocking her and soon she was fast asleep on him.  He was then trapped for over an hour because I refused to let him move or set her down in fear of waking her back up.  I brought him food and drinks and told him to enjoy the moment because who knew how much longer she'd ever let us do that.  

This pic was taken in our dark bedroom with my iPhone.. hence the horrible quality.

6.  One evening (like at 10 o'clock) as I was heading into the bathroom I had that horrible moment of revelation when I realized that we were entirely out of toilet paper, and it was way too late for me to want to go out and buy some.  So I did what any mom of a baby would do, I decided that Ammon and I would just use baby wipes until I could get to the store the next day.  Don't worry, we didn't flush 'em. ;)

7.  Emerson figured out a new way to move this week.  She gets up on her hands and feet, similar to downward dog in Yoga, and then lunges herself forward by pushing off of her feet.  It sort of makes her look like she's hopping around like a frog.  It's hilarious!  

8.  I fed Emerson peas this week!  Hilarious!  She gets this horrified look on her face once she realizes that she is not eating her beloved sweet potatoes or squash and then starts gagging like crazy.  It's so funny... in a very sad way.  Especially the time she made herself throw up after eating them.... We'll keep working on them.

9.  We got the best watermelon frozen yogurt yesterday.  It was delicious.  Ammon and I don't even like watermelon, and we loved this stuff.  Speaking of watermelon, we both always hated it until we went to China and William and his mother force fed it to us every night.  By the end of our Chinese Adventure we both sort of started liking it.  Not enough to ever go out of our way to eat it, but enough that we were willing to try watermelon flavored frozen yogurt.  (Yay for fake watermelon flavoring!)

10.  We got Cafe Rio last night.  'Nuff said!

Eagle Court Of Honor

This weekend we went down to Monroe for my little brother's Eagle Court of Honor! :)

Yay Camden!

He technically earned it a year and a half ago, but this weekend it finally worked out to do the court of honor! :)

Us with the Man of the Hour

All of my siblings! :)  Note how much shorter I am than the rest of them, and I'm even wearing heels.   It's only a matter of time before Brenner is taller than me too.

Emerson hanging out with dad!

Dale Woolsey brought his hawk and did a little presentation with the hawk and tied it into the Eagle and how it tied into Scouts.  It was really cool!  Although Ammon took Emerson to the back of the room.. I was not interested in her being Hawk Food.

6 Months!

My baby is 6 months old.  How did this happen?

It seems like we were just barely bringing her home from the hospital, and now she's closer to being a year old than being a newborn.  It's so crazy to me!

I love this age though, she is so so so much fun!

 Some of Emerson's favorite things at 6 months are:


- Her baby dolls!  She loves them.  She likes to give them kisses... or just suck on their faces.  Either way!

-  She loves giving us her face sucking kisses.  It cracks me up every time!

- When daddy comes home!  She hears the key in the lock and she immediately starts looking at the door, while waving her arms, and hyperventilating.  She love love loves when he comes home.  I think she knows that when dad comes home that means lots and lots of play time.  Mom gets sort of boring!  ;)

-  Any and all tags.  If there is a tag on it, she will find it and she will LOVE it.

-  Sitting up like a big girl in her tub!  We just started doing this, and she thinks it's really funny.  I think mostly just because she can see her reflection in the mirror, and she loves the baby in the mirror.

-  She loves all babies.  If there is a baby in the room she gets so excited and tries to lunge at the other babies.  It's also the same with small children.

-  She's starting to get the hang of, and really enjoy, baby food!  Especially squash.  That seems to be her most favorite.

-  Still loves her Sophie Giraffe

Some of the things that Emerson does NOT like at 6 months are:


-  Being in the car (well, car seat) at night.  We think she just doesn't like the dark.

-  The vacuum!! Although the other day I did manage to vacuum the entire living room without her screaming, she did whimper and whine the whole time though..

-  Shots! And the nurse who gives the shots.  The nurse gave her her shots she screamed, then she was ok once the nurse left, the nurse came back to give me her prescription and said 'bye-bye' to Emerson... She screamed.

-  Feeling like she's not part of the action.  She wants to be right there with us for whatever we do, she will fight naps forever if she feels like she's missing out on something... which is sad, especially because we're almost never doing anything fun.

-  Bottles!  She just doesn't like them, it doesn't seem to matter what's in them.  I think we're going to try a sippy cup instead soon.

 Yeah.. the iPhone is her favorite toy... 

6 Month Stats:


- Weight: 14 lbs 3 oz, That puts her in the 12%.  Her doctor is a little bit worried about this because she's gone from being in the 34% to the 21% and now to the 12%.

- Length: 25 inches!  That means she's in the 18% for height.

- Size 2 diapers

-  Wears mostly 6 month clothes, but still wears A LOT of her 3 month stuff.

-  Still has no real teeth, but we're pretty sure we can see one... it just hasn't popped through yet.

2011

Well, I must say that 2011 was a BIG year for this little Cunningham family.  I would do a month-by-month recap of everything that happened to us this year... but a lot of the year is one big blur to me, plus I'm not even sure if I can totally remember what happened in one month.

So instead, I'll just leave you with a few highlights of things that happened to us this year... in probably an extremely random order.  That's ok though!




- On New Years Eve night (so I guess this is technically 2010... but close enough to 2011 for me) we announced to my extended family that we were having  a baby in July!

- Ammon went to Wisconsin FOR THE WHOLE MONTH of January.. Yes, it was as sucky as it sounds.

-  I started student teaching!  4th graders at Scera Park Elementary.  Loved it and them!

- I stayed away from any and all bread.  Too risky!

-  I finally took down the Christmas tree in February.  (I can sort of see this happening again this year too actually.)

- Ammon came home from Wisconsin in February and started working.

- Beginning of March we found out we were having a baby GIRL! Yay!

- In March, the class I was student teaching in threw me a baby shower! It was so cute!!

- Finished student teaching in March.

- In March Ammon went to San Francisco for a job thing.  I was home again... he gets to do all the fun stuff.  haha!

- April I graduated from UVU with my bachelors in Elementary Education!  Yay!

- The beginning of June Ammon went to China for a week.  (See, does all the fun stuff!)

-  End of June (or was it the beginning of July?) my mom took me and Danielle to St. George to see The Little Mermaid and Grease at Tuachan.  So good!  Especially Little Mermaid.  Although by the end of the trip my feet were VERY swollen.

-  July 18th Ammon and I saw Harry Potter 7.2 after my doctor told me that the babe would probably be coming VERY soon.

- July 19th we welcomed Emerson Ruth Cunningham into our little family at 3:46 pm!  She was DEFINITELY the highlight of the year!

- July-present Ammon and I have had to get used to no longer getting decent sleep at night (although she's definitely getting better)

-August 9th we celebrated my 22nd birthday!  We went out to Sushi.  Thanks Ammon! (He hates Sushi...)

- August 16th Emerson smiles for the first time!  And it makes every hour that we'd lost sleep worth it.

- Ammon gets a new job in September!  Wahoo!

-  Emerson laughed for the first time in September!! At 4 in the morning after a night of absolutely NO sleeping.

- I'm not sure if anything else happened in September...

-  We spent General Conference with both of our families.  Friday night/Saturday we were at Ammon's parents house and Saturday night/Sunday we were at my families house!  It was fun watching with both of them.

- October 9th we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary!  Part of me can't believe it's only been 2 years, and the other part of me can't believe it's already been 2 years!

-  November 18th Emerson rolled over for the first time.  From back to stomach... then about 10 minutes later went from stomach to back.  She's been rolling constantly ever since.

-  November 19th Ammon turned 24!  We saw My Fair Lady, and went out to Chinese food with Ammon's parents, brother, and some family friends! It was a lot of fun!! Thanks for the fun night out.

- We spent Thanksgiving down in Monroe!  We had a lot to be grateful  for!

-  Beginning of December we had the Peterson Christmas Party in Monroe

-  We spent Christmas down in Monroe with my parents!

-  We celebrated New Years Eve Day at Soldier Hollows tubing.  Emerson looked way too cute in her little snow suit!  Then we went to my Aunt Lana's that night to ring in the New Year!  (We were home and in bed by 10.)

-  Oh, and from the months of July-December Emerson was very very very cute!! Of course.

It was a very big and busy year for us!  We loved it though!! :)  We had lots of new changes, and it looks like this new year will bring even more for us!  I'm excited to see all of the changes life has to offer! :)