Picture update!

Here are some pictures to make up for the last pictureless post!

This photo is actually quite old and I cannot believe I never posted it! It is absolutely priceless! We thought about using it as our Christmas card this year, but unfortunately changed our minds.

Here's our sweet girl! Bath time is the best!

Here's Emery working on her "I can do it myself" skills. She loves being independent and I LOVE cleaning up her independent messes!

I'm not sure how it ended up in her hair but nothing surprises me anymore!


Here are Emery and Maddie one night at our house after a bath. We get together with Matt and Niki at least once a week. The girls absolutely love each other.

It looks like Maddie is trying to talk Emery into doing something naughty right here...

Goodnight (or nigh-nigh, as Emery says) kisses! Niki and I were talking the other night about how awkward she felt one time when we were in Dallas and Sarah was having Elle give kisses to everyone. Now we are the moms who have our girls give everyone goodnight kisses. They are quite good at it now and Maddie usually wants to go back around for seconds! They are such sweet girls!

We hung out at Matt and Niki's last night and Emery for the first time was a little too rough with Maddie. Maddie recently got a fun little red car and they were taking turns riding in and pushing each other. Maddie apparently has been lifting weights during the week because she could push Emery around all day long. Emery on the other hand was not a huge fan of pushing Maddie. In fact, any time Madeline got in the car, Emery tried her best to pull her out. It was not good. Emery was grabbing her clothes, her head, anything she could get her hands on. I had to get onto her several times for being so ugly to her BFF. I am not looking forward to the "mine, mine, mine" stage. We got them in the bathtub though and it was much better. Emery has recently started dumping cups full of water on her head in the bathtub and decided to try it out on Madeline. Luckily Maddie is such a good sport, because we thought it was hilarious and let it go on probably a little longer than we should have. Emery has also become obsessed with soap and shampoo so she then proceeded to wash Madeline's hair for her. It was quite comical. I wish we had gotten it on video!

Well, I need to find the pictures from February when Sarah, Miles, Elle, and Beck came to visit. Maybe I'll get those posted while Emery is still asleep!

So behind...

Sorry for no photos in this post...I will try to get David to export some from his editing program. I need to have him show me how.

What's been going on lately...let's see.

Emery is now a week away from being 16 months. She is so much fun! I love how she is so interested in everything around her and loves to be around people. She is super social and very flirty! She says "hi" and "hey" in the sweetest little voice and tilts her head to the side while she says it. It's pretty adorable! She is a climber! Very much into everything! I have to constantly watch her to make sure she's not about to jump off of something! She loves hanging out with her BFF, Maddie. They fight over toys but also love to give each other hugs and kisses. I'm pretty sure bath time is still their favorite time together. Emery loves reading now and brings us books constantly. She will sit in our laps and look at books as long as we'll let her. We have to put a limit on how many we'll read at bed time. She doesn't ever want to put them down! She can point out certain animals and will make the sounds that they make. She can bark like a puppy, roar like a lion, buzz like a bee, make monkey noises, and hoo like an owl. She hasn't quite mastered meowing or quacking...

She is saying several words. She's not great at finishing her words but we know what she is saying.
Mama, Dada, more (and she signs this), out, up, ball, Jake (you can't hear the J though), night night, and no

Emery is still a picky eater! She has definitely come a long way and is getting better about trying new foods. I don't have to force her nearly as much as I used to. It's still frustrating but I am trying to be thankful for the foods she will eat! Her favorites right now are Macaroni and Cheese, grapes, peaches, cheese, bread, cheddar bunnies. She also LOVES her milk. We are still giving her milk in a bottle...I know she's old enough to be strictly using a sippy cup but we haven't quite made that transition yet!

Emery is still such a good sleeper. We are on Spring Break right now and she has been letting mommy and daddy sleep in until 8:00 or 9:00 every morning. We have woken up to the sound of her playing in her crib with her babies. She is such a sweet girl! I love hearing her talking and playing with her babies.

We have been going to the park every day and she has shown no fear! She will run up to all of the other kids and try to play right along side them. She will go down the slides by herself and loves every minute of it. In fact, she has been going down on her tummy! It's hilarious!

We just celebrated her year anniversary of being done with chemo! Her last chemo treatment was last March 12th and 13th. I cannot believe a year has already gone by. She has hit all of her milestones on time or even early and we couldn't be happier with how well she has bounced back. What fears you can have when the doctors go through all of the side effects that chemo can have on a person, much less a 7 week old baby! We thank God we have seen no signs of any damage done to our precious girl. She is still little, but she's in the 10th percentile now for weight and still in the 50th percentile for height! She's bigger than I was at her age so we're not worried about any of that.

David's photography business is taking off. He has always loved taking pictures and has taken our friends' pictures off and on for a few years. He just recently started up a website and has shot two weddings. He is loving it! He is also doing baby pictures, graduation pictures, and family pictures. I have been so impressed by how much he is learning with every shoot and think he is doing an incredible job! Now he's telling me I need to learn how to use his cameras so that I can be his second shooter! Scary! It will be fun though!

I guess that's about it for now. We have a few more days off for Spring Break and then it's back to work! I am so thankful to have this time to spend with David and Emery. I wish everyone could have a Spring Break!

Snow Day!!

I just realized when I was doing a new post that I had never finished this one! I think the uploader was messing up on me and I had given up. Now, I've figured out how to resize David's photos so that they don't take all day to upload!

Here are the pictures from our super fun Snow Day! We were happy to have a day off of work to play with our little snow bunny! David got this Patagonia vest for Emery when I was still pregnant. He loves for her to wear it and was thrilled that she got the chance to wear it this day.
Here she is all bundled up and ready for her first time to get to play in the snow!


David couldn't stand for her not to have a sled to play in, so he gathered up some stuff we had in the garage and made Emery her very own make-shift sled! He was very proud of himself!

Enjoying being pulled by Daddy. He got quite the workout that morning!

All bundled up!
Trying to walk in the deep snow!
Not a huge fan.
All in all, it was a fun day! We loved snuggling up and staying warm inside!

She loves her daddy. They have the sweetest relationship.

Christmas and 13 Months old!

Well, we never got around to taking Christmas pictures and putting together a card. Emery was sick for a couple of weeks and then I got sick. We just didn't get it done! Here are a few pictures that David took of Emery one afternoon when he took pictures for some of our friends. She didn't want to cooperate and just ran around the whole time! There was just too much to see and do! She's a very curious (and nosey) little girl...kinda like her mama. She is very interested in everything and everyone around her. I love that about her cute little personality.




Niki and I wanted to get some pictures of the girls with Santa. Neither of them were too fond of him. Here are some funny pictures to enjoy!

Emery wouldn't sit in Santa's lap so I had to hold her. It's hard to see in these pictures but she has an adorable Santa shirt on!

She was letting Santa have it here! Too funny!

And this one is priceless!

After their traumatizing Santa experience, Santa's little elf gave the girls some candy canes and that made everything all better. :)

We had a wonderful Christmas. Lots of family, lots of gifts, lots of laughs. I have more pictures I need to post from our Christmas in Abilene and here in Amarillo, but this will have to do for now!

Oh, Emery is 13 months old now! Here is what she has been up to:

Saying - "Uh oh" all the time! So cute!
Barks when she hears the dogs barking. It is adorable!
"Heeeeey!" has been saying this for a while but it's still just as cute!
She has said a few words once or twice but not consistently - boot, two, night night

Walking all over the place! Her left leg seems a little weaker (this is due to the Horner's syndrome) but we had her evaluated by a therapist and she's not worried. She thinks Emery will get stronger the longer she is walking.

She loves playing with her babies. She will push them in their stroller, give them bottles, and pat them on the back. It's precious.

She got a kitchen for Christmas and has fun playing with her real stainless steel pots and pans her Aunt Hannah and Uncle Josh got her. She also likes to talk on the phone while cooking. Yes, her kitchen came with a phone. Very realistic!

She also got a soccer ball from Gigi and Pa for Christmas and she loves kicking it around the house and the backyard when the wind isn't blowing like crazy.

She got a wagon from Popi and Grandma for her birthday and that is also one of her new favorite things to do. She loves going for rides in it in the driveway (if I'm being super lazy) or down the street.

She has gotten three teeth! FINALLY! They all came in at the same time so that was a treat...we think she has more coming in again. Not fun!

She has a thing for dog beds. When we are over at Matt and Niki's house, she will disappear sometimes and we will almost always find her on Jerry's bed in Matt and Niki's bedroom. Hilarious. She thinks it is so funny when we find her there. The other day we were at Bo and Rosanne's house and she did the same thing, except this time it was Rowdy's dog bed. She had put Poo Bear in the bed too. We constantly have to keep her off of our dogs' beds too. It totally grosses me out!

Emery is finally eating better. She still has her favorites - fruit, yogurt, and bread. She is getting a little bit better about trying other foods though. Hopefully, she will get less and less picky as she gets older.

Well, this has gone on long enough! Emery is so much fun and I have loved every minute of our two weeks together. Too bad I have to go back to work on Monday. Thank goodness for school holidays! I sure did need it! I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season. We are so thankful for how well our baby girl is doing and we look forward to what 2011 has in store for us.

One more update...we head back to Houston January 11th. We haven't been since July so we are really excited to see Emery's doctor. Emery will be having her third round of scans since her surgery in April. Her last scans showed no signs of cancer so we're looking forward to more good news this month.

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!