New Nephew!

Our nephew, Robert Beck Durham was born on Emery's birthday! What fun it will be for these sweet cousins to share a birthday! I look forward to many birthday parties and Thanksgivings together! We have so much to be thankful for!



Congratulations Sarah, Miles, and Elle. Beck is absolutely adorable and I can't wait to meet him in a couple of weeks!!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Emery turned one year old on November 23rd. I can't believe my baby girl is one year old already! This year has flown by. I'm not sure where the time has gone...it better slow down though because I couldn't handle it if every year went by this quickly.

We had a family birthday party for Emery at Bo and Rosanne's house the weekend before her birthday. It had been a long time since most of us had been together. Hannah, Willow, and Grady were in town from Dallas and Tricia, Steven, Isaac, and Hannah were here from Monroe. It was so fun having all of them there to help us celebrate Emery's birthday. So much to celebrate - so many prayers answered this year. What a little fighter we have. I am so proud to be Emery's mama.

Here are the pictures from her first birthday party.




She wasn't too interested in eating the cupcake. She's not really interested in food period. I thought sweets would be different, but she didn't really care for it!

Here she is opening gifts from all of us. She was really excited when she got this baby doll. She has a lot of babies at Grandma's house but needed some for home. She loves holding them, patting their backs and giving them bottles. So sweet!

Her first puzzle! I absolutely loved puzzles growing up. In fact, I would tell my parents I was going to go "puzzle up" any time I was going to work on a puzzle. They should have known I'd be a math nerd...

Emery LOVES this book from her great Aunt Mary. It makes animal sounds and has pop-ups. Hopefully the pop-ups will survive more than a month...

The next day, we had a birthday party with my girlfriends and their little ones. I cannot believe we didn't get a picture of all of the kids together! Sorry!

Here she is walking around the house with her pretty dress up purse. I believe she was carrying around a bath toy in it!
Precious.
Talking to daddy.
Posing for daddy.
Her bumble bee cupcakes that I made for my special girl!

Happy Birthday Emery!
Eating her cupcake!

Emery and her BFF, Maddie. Emery loves Matt. She smiles at him any time he's around!

Our happy little family. I can't believe it was one short year ago that Emery changed our lives forever. I love her more than I ever imagined I could. I look forward to many more birthdays and the fun memories along the way!

Here's what our girl is doing at one year:

Walking! - started at 11 months
Still saying dada, mama (well, nana some of the time), hi, hey, that
Trying to say - "I love you" , Josie
Stacking blocks and rings
Plays with her tea party set
Loves her babies and loving on them
Loves to dance to music
Loves her baths, will actually lay down in the water now - used to hate it!
Still loves to be rocked to sleep and I love every minute of it!
I'm mixing whole milk in with her formula now to make the switch - so far she hasn't noticed!
She loves cheese, yogurt, and fruit.
She usually will eat pasta but not much of anything else...not sure how I'm going to get her to eat when she's off formula completely.
Not much of a juice drinker, which is okay with me!

Little girl weighed 17 lbs 12 oz at her 1 year appointment - 5th percentile but our dr. is not worried. Neither am I as she is a pound heavier than I was at her age.
She is in the 50th percentile for height though!

We have had two rounds of scans now since her surgery last April. So far there is no sign of cancer in her little body! We are so thankful!

We will go back to Houston in January to see her oncologist there and have her third round of scans. I am looking forward to seeing Dr. Thompson and Dan and Lauren! It will be fun minus the fact that we have to be at the hospital part of the time!

My Little Bumble Bee

Emery was a bumble bee for Halloween this year. She looked so cute and had a good time posing for daddy. Here are some pictures from her first Halloween!





I love these pictures of her! David captured her personality perfectly!

Emery 11 months old!

Emery is now 11 months old and is doing so much! She is finished with occupational therapy now! She had only been going once a month but this Monday was her last session. We are sad to not see Jennifer anymore but we'll be sure to go visit her from time to time. David is sad about not getting to play with all of the fun toys they have there!

Well, Emery decided to walk this weekend! She took a couple of steps and has been taking more each day. David counted 16 steps in a row today! She's going to be walking all over the place in no time!

Here is a video of her playing. Please ignore the TV show in the background...I think David was watching Dexter. It's very much an age appropriate show for Emery. ;)

10 Months Old!

I can't believe my baby girl is 10 months old - well, almost 11 months now! She is so much fun and is growing up more and more every day. Here are the latest pictures David took of her. We were in Abilene last weekend so we took some chairs out to the old fort by my dad's house for some photos. She was very cooperative as always, and I think David got some great pictures!







What Emery is doing at 10 months -

Still crawling and walking holding on to things.
Eating a little bit more table food. So far she has liked Chicken Spaghetti and Lasagna. She also likes bites of cheese, puffs (her favorite), strawberries, peaches, and apples. She's finally starting to eat bananas as well. Feeding her can be very frustrating but hopefully she'll start liking food more.
Still saying Dada and daddy, saying mama again, hi, trying to say dog. She talks all the time and is always making noises. She is so funny. Her latest thing is pulling the bottle out of her mouth and blowing raspberries. She thinks its hilarious!
Loves her baths - but she has for a long time now.
Can stack her plastic rings! Rosanne also has some wooden rings, squares, and triangles that she stacks over at her house. She puts one on and then looks at you to clap and cheer. She's a ham.
She claps her hands and cheers for herself all the time.
She is waving hi and bye now.
She gives the best kisses.
She has become very much a daddy's girl lately. Any time David is around, she wants him instead of me.

Emery puts a smile on our faces every time we see her and we couldn't be more thankful for our precious 10 month old baby girl!

Emery's 9 month Pictures

As usual, I'm terribly behind. Here are the pictures from Emery's dedication at church and her nine month pictures. I have not done a very good job of writing down what Emery is doing each month. I'm trying to remember what all she was doing at 9 months old! It doesn't seem like much has changed over the past couple of months but I'm sure there are many things to celebrate! I'll try to remember some!

It was so nice to finally dedicate Emery at church. Our church dedicates babies once a month and we wanted to dedicate Emery at the same time as her best friend Madeline so it took us a while to find a weekend where we both could do it. There were so many babies dedicated that morning. It was so fun seeing all of the babies and their parents, many of whom we knew. What a special way to spend our Sunday morning celebrating the gifts God has given to us!


We took some pictures after church in her cute little dress and shoes. She is standing up so well now! I can't wait for her to walk! I know everyone keeps telling me that I will not like it, but I am tired of carrying her everywhere!


This was at the church. We couldn't stay in the sanctuary for much of the service. She just gets a little too loud yelling and playing! So we hung out with one of our friends and his little girl during the service.

Nine Months old -
Still in the 10th percentile for weight and 50th for height.
We are attempting to give her table food now - not a fan! She hates it and so do I!
Crawling everywhere, pulling up on everything, and walking holding on to furniture.
She says Nana (she quit saying mama shortly after she started saying it), Dada, Daddy, and hi.
She still loves the dogs although they don't really think her pulling and tugging on their fur is nearly as cute anymore. Emery will pull up on Josie and Josie will walk away making Emery fall down. Emery does not appreciate it very much but keeps doing it!
Emery loves looking out our front window. She will bang on the window and yell like she has something really important to say to everyone outside. It's pretty adorable.

I think that's about it! Now, I need to post her 10 month pictures!

Houston Trip - First Round of Scans

Well, I finally am posting about our trip to Houston which was the end of July. I guess I'm not too terribly behind! We had to go to Houston for Emery's first round of scans since she finished chemo in March. We were excited to see Dr. Thompson again and a tiny bit nervous about her scans, not so much about the results but everything she has to go through when the scans take place. We took our time getting to Houston because we didn't want to put ourselves or Emery through the entire drive in one day. We stopped and stayed the night with Sarah and Miles in Dallas which is always fun. One night is never enough! We went on to Houston the next morning looking forward to seeing our Houston roomies, Dan and Lauren. They both turned 30 this summer so we had some wonderful birthday dinners with them! For some reason David cooks a lot more when we are in Houston...

We had to be at the hospital bright and early Wednesday morning for Emery's MRI. Thankfully, my child doesn't like to eat so she really didn't mind going all morning without eating. She was super busy as always so we had to find creative ways of keeping her entertained for a couple of hours while we waited. They have to sedate her for the MRI so it's always hard handing her off to the nurses and watching her fall to sleep on the table. They take good care of her and are always so sweet to her in the recovery room. Thankfully, the scan didn't take too long and we got to see her about two hours later. After her MRI, we had to go down to Nuclear Medicine where they injected her with a chemical that is absorbed by her type of cancer cells. After the injection we were done for the day and headed back to Dan and Lauren's. The next day, we didn't have to go to the hospital as early which was nice. We had to get Emery to drink some Pedilite with the contrast in it for her CT scan. She didn't want to drink it from a bottle so we had to drop it into her mouth with a straw. I'm sure the nurses were pretty amused with our 8 month old who wouldn't take a bottle. Once she had taken it all, we thought they were going to sedate her for the CT scan but they ended up not having to. Good thing we starved her all morning. However, she did have to be sedated a little bit later for her MIBG scan which is what she got the injection for the previous day. This was a much longer day for us and Emery. She was a trooper though and toughed it out! On our way home that day, Dr. Thompson called and insisted that we stop by Craig Waibel's (the soccer player) house. We felt really uncomfortable doing it but knew that Dr. Thompson would be upset with us if we didn't! He is so funny about David and Craig being friends! So, we complied and stopped by Craig's house. He and his wife were super nice and Jocelyn and Emery got to meet. They just stared and smiled at each other the whole time. We had a good visit and headed back to Katy.

We had to go back to the hospital AGAIN the next day to see Dr. Thompson at the clinic. It was strange being back but it was wonderful to know that we were just there for a check up and not treatment! We ran into Dr. Javi while we were there. He was the fellow who worked with Dr. Thompson when Emery was first admitted. He couldn't believe how big she has gotten and all of the hair she has now. It was great seeing him even if it was only for a few minutes. Dr. Thompson needed a urine sample so we had to get Emery started on that right away when we arrived. This might be too much info but it was pretty funny. We have had to do this in the past and have never been very successful. This time was no exception! They give you these little plastic bags with adhesive on them that you have to stick over the entire genitalia. Sorry, but that's the best I can figure out how to describe it! Anyway, Emery moves a lot these days and we were having a hard time getting a sample! So, we were changing the bag out in the little exam room we were in and she peed all over the exam table! We ended up having to wait almost another hour after we had met with Dr. Thompson before we were able to get her to use the rest room again. I finally took her diaper off and blew on her tummy a few times and she finally went! It was pretty funny! Back to Dr. Thompson, it was great seeing him as always. He was full of laughs and jokes for David. He was so impressed with Emery and gave her nothing but compliments. The scans were all clear! She still has a few spots in her liver but he is not worried about them at all. He said they would have never even treated her had she only had cancer in her liver. It will go away on its own because of the nature of Neuroblastoma. He also told us she has a less than 5% chance of the cancer coming back but he doesn't anticipate that happening at all. She is perfect in every way and he couldn't be happier. We just love him so much. God couldn't have given us a more perfect doctor for Emery. He knows just the right things to tell us and is always so encouraging.



Craig and his little girl, Jocelyn.


The daddies and their girls.

Emery and the scale having a hard time getting an accurate weight!

Having fun waiting for Dr. Thompson!

She's ready to see him!

Staying busy in the exam room.

Yay! It's Dr. Thompson!

This is why we love him!


Emery is obsessed with getting people's mouths...

I love this one. Dr. Thompson is definitely one of a kind. He treats every patient like they are his only patient. He will answer every single question we ask and spend as much time talking to us as we need. I don't know how he gets to all of his patients every day but I'm pretty sure none of them mind waiting for him.

So, we had a wonderful visit with Dan and Lauren (unfortunately we don't have any pictures of them...) as well as Dr. Thompson. Emery is technically in remission now and we will continue with scans every three months for the rest of this year and then just twice next year.

Thanks for all of the continued prayers for our baby girl. She is truly amazing. She blows me away every day with all of the new things she is doing. She is definitely a determined little stinker!

7 month Pictures - Better late than never, right?!

Here are Emery's 7 month pictures - a little late but oh well! She is so much fun these days and keeps me busy all day long. I love this special time that I have with her and know that I will miss it so much when school starts in August. It is so much fun watching her explore and learn new things every day. She is so interested in everything going on around her and just soaks it all in. She is a social butterfly like her daddy and loves being around lots of people. Here are some pictures of her playing in her room.







Here are some things that Emery is doing right now:

Sitting up by herself - been doing that since about 6 months
Army crawling - thank goodness she has not mastered crawling on her hands and knees yet!
Pulling up on everything - time to baby proof our house!
Eating lots of things now - most veggies and fruits, not a fan of chicken
Favorite foods - carrots, sweet potatoes, mangos
Loves going for rides in her stroller and to feed the ducks
Sleeping through the night - thank you Jesus!
Taking good naps during the day!

We love this feisty little girl with everything we have and are so thankful she's ours!

Best Friends

David took some pictures of Matt, Niki, and Madeline in May and we decided to take a few of the girls too. We happened to have matching dresses so it was fun getting some cute shots of them together. We know they are going to love growing up together and will be the best of friends!


Emery sitting up like a big girl. She was about 5 and a half months here.


Maddie and Emery - telling lots of secrets already!


My heart is overflowing with love for this little girl.