Massive update 4-8 months!

I've been a major slacker when it comes to blogging. I'm not sure I can even update with all that has happened.. but here's what Emberly has been up to the past 5 months!

Soon after my last post Emberly went on her first plane ride to San Diego for Drew and Jessica's wedding (Ian's best friend).

 

While we were in San Diego we stayed with my friend Becky! We even visited the wild life park.

4 months

Trying rice cereal for the first time!

 5 months

6 months

 Utah State Fair

Emberly and silly

7 months

 

Pumpkin Patch!

 

Fall family photos 

 

Halloween!

 

 Sitting in the shopping cart like a big girl for the first time.

Visiting Great Gramps!

8 months! Christmas portraits over Thanksgiving weekend with Atkins cousins.

Over the past 5 months life has been fun, crazy, adventurous, boring, hectic, frustrating and absolutely amazing.. ALL at the same time. Emberly is always keeping us on our toes. She can't crawl yet, but she sure is a busy bee. She loves being around other babies... and is usually the one stealing their toys or binkies!! She's been fabulous and rotten. But I guess that's what's being a parent is all about! We're looking forward to Christmas in the next couple of weeks. I love the holidays and spending time with family. I have a feeling Emberly is going to be spoiled rotten over Christmas.. especially by the Atkins family!
I've made some good friendships with some girls in my ward at church. I'm so grateful that there are so many young mommies in my neighborhood. Ever since I got married I haven't really had any close friends since all my old roommates lived at least 30 min away. I've gotten really close to one girl in my ward named Kellie. She has a darling little girl who's 4 months younger than Emberly. We've had adventures at the mall with our little girls.. spending HOURS window shopping and trying on clothes we never end up buying. We have even hung out in the evenings and ordered take out Chinese while our husbands are at work. I feel lucky to have made a close friendship with someone. It's been so long!

That's my update for now. I realize that I tend to complain too much about the little things Emberly does that drives me crazy, like waking up to eat 3 times a night at 8 months of age, causing us to start sleep training. Dealing with her crying through the night is no fun at all. BUT.. I don't want to go into too much detail about the stresses of parenthood. We our grateful for our little girl and I'd hate for anyone to get the impression that we don't love her. Because we do! She's the sweetest and cutest little thing. She is the best thing that has happened to our family.
I hope it won't be another 5 months until my next post. I know I need to keep this updated. So until next time......... MERRY CHRISTMAS!

3 months!

I know I know I am one horrible blogger! But my darling baby girl is 3 months old! Emberly has quite the personality now. She smiles ALL the time.. even more than a month ago! She makes the cutest cooing noises especially while watching TV. I know, we've addicted her to the TV waaayyyy to early. Every time the TV is on, her eyes are glued to it. She doesn't care what else is going on, or even if she's dying of hunger.. she'd rather watch the TV! Silly girl. Things that she's been able to accomplish at three months is rolling over from her tummy to her back AND touching her toes! Both things that typically don't happen until they're 4 - 6 months. She's so smart :) She's still working on lifting her head, but she's getting there and getting better at it each day.
Other things that have been going on are my experiments to help her with her puking/projectile spit up. Things we've done - switch her from breast feeding to formula, switch her to sensitive formula, Dr put her on Zantac, I've recently stopped the Zantac because I swear it wasn't doing anything, gave her Gas Drops, started putting rice in her bottle, rice made her constipated so I put oatmeal in her bottle instead, that made her puke even worse, I rubbed an essential oil called DigestZen on her feet which did nothing, and now I have a friend telling me to give her Bovine Colostrum. Still not sure about that one. We'll see though. As of right now I've stopped giving her EVERYTHING. She still pukes about once a day and typically in her crib. It's a lot better than it has been. I think I've just tried too many things on her.. and typically all at once. I feel horrible. I really need to stop treating my daughter as a science experiment. Live and learn I guess.
But anywho! I took her 3 month portraits and here's a few of my favorites!
 

Lifting her head!

Touching her toes!

Giving us those cute cute smiles!!
We also took her swimming the other day. She wasn't to sure of it, but I got this super cute photo of her laying out! :)

I took her again today and we were in the water for well over 10 minutes. She was laughing and smiling. It was quite adorable. Love you sweet little girl!

2 months!

I can't believe my little girl is already 2 months old!
She had her 2 month appointment today and she weighs 9 lbs 13.5 oz (20th percentile), is 23 1/4 inches long (85th percentile!!), and her head is 37 cm (20th percentile). Her Dr. thinks she's taking after daddy... tall and skinny!
At 2 months Emberly smiles all the time! She loves sleeping on her belly and when she is lying on her back she likes to vigorously kick her legs while making cooing noises.
She still wakes up once or twice in the night/morning to eat. Typically around 4 and 7 am.
I've started a little walking group with some other new mommies in my ward. It's fun to get out with other mommies and chat :)
Here are some photos of Emberly that I took yesterday!

Yesterday was also Ian's birthday! Happy Birthday to my sexy man :) We went to the Training Table for dinner and saw Kung Fu Panda.. it was super cute. Love you Ian!

Pork Chops!

It's been a LONG while since I posted some recipes on here... mostly because Ian has been cooking. He's actually made some pretty creative stuff. It's a shame I didn't photograph them and share.
Anyway, we had some pork chops in the freezer so this is what I made!

Ingredients

• 1 cup crushed honey nut cheerios (asked for butter crackers, but all I had was cheerios. I read that ritz crackers work well too!)
  
• garlic salt to taste
• ground black pepper to taste
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 4 pork chops
• 1/2 cup butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In a shallow bowl combine crushed crackers, garlic salt and pepper; mix well. In a separate bowl beat eggs.
3. Dip your pork chops in the egg batter and then in the cracker mixture. Place the pork chops in a casserole dish. Place chunks of the butter around the pork chops. Cover and bake for 45 minutes.

 

 I probably didn't season it enough, but it was really good! I thought I did a fabulous job considering it was my first time cooking pork chops!

Update!

I have been a horrible blogger! Life got really hectic all of a sudden with photo shoots and a baby to take care of. I honestly have no idea where to begin with what's been going on in our lives. Emberly is changing so much! We had a rough first few weeks with tummy aches and spit up.. so we just assumed she was colic. Come to find out my breast milk wasn't sitting well with her, so we switched to formula. Of course she still spits up and has tummy aches, but it's no where as bad as it has been. Emberly smiles all the time now.. I love it! She went from waking up every 2 hours at night to eat, to waking up 1 to 2 times during the night. It's be fabulous! I cherish the nights she sleeps until 5:30 am.
I just love being this little girls mommy! Here's some photos from the past few weeks.

 

Last week was her Blessing day. We bought this super cute dress and Ian's mom sewed some little cap sleeves on. She looked so beautiful!

 

 We also took some family portraits in my studio... tri pod and timer style ;)

 And since my parents were in town for Emberly's blessing we took Gailey family photos too!

 

This cute picture was taken yesterday..

 

And this one today! She's so precious :)

 I love my little girl xoxo