Happy Birthday, Sweet Emma

My "12 picture" blog has turned into waayyyy more! I originally thought I would choose 1 photo from each month of her life and re-cap the year that way, but that was kinda hard to do! Especially June of last year!! I couldn't pick just one, so you get many. Here we go...





June 1st, 2008 Emma Rose Lovejoy graced us with her presence. She weighed in at 5 pounds and 4 ounces. Daddy did not get to cut the umbilical cord, as the Dr. felt she had to get her out ASAP, as the cord was kinda wrapped around her. It was all surreal. Knowing that you had just given birth, watching all of the after birthing things that happen within those first 10-15 minutes, but you are not a part of, as the Doctor is finishing her job, but yet it feels like it is happening to someone else and you are a spectator or something. It took awhile for it to sink in that this is real. She is mine. This is the most special gift God could have given to Martin & I.

Here we are at the end of a long day. A very happy Delamarter-Lovejoy family!

In this one, I am pointing at her blue mouth. She had been breastfeeding and was sucking so hard that her mouth was blue.

She scared us that first night. During the night she was in her bassinet in my room and she started coughing and gagging and the sides were up and padded (the nurse was concerned that I might have a seizure) and I couldn't get to her and I couldn't get to a call button and Martin was asleep! I yelled for him and somehow he got up, we got her and we got the nurse and the nurse flipped her over and pounded her back. She still had fluid in there and scared me TO DEATH!!! Our original plan was I was going to go home and immediately sleep her in her nursery/crib... Well, after that episode that idea flew right out of the window! I would have been sleeping in the rocking chair in her room if we had done that! We borrowed a bassinet from my cousin and that allowed her to sleep by my bed for the first 3-4 weeks. (After that scare and the bassinet change, she never had another gagging/not breathing episode).

Here we are all dressed to go home. Three days old. She lost 4 ounces before leaving the hospital and was a tiny bit jaundiced. That corrected itself immediately and she regained her birthweight before her first Dr. appt.

Daddy's little angel!! Ready to meet the world and see her new home.

June 8, introducing her to Great Grandpa Delamarter. We have 4 generations here: Robert, Philip, Davida & Emma.

Great Grandma Delamarter was in love! She adored her long fingers and kept saying "Look at those long fingers. She's going to play the piano".

Awwwwww! Asleep on Papaw's chest! What a sweet picture!

It got this one and the previous one out of order. This is the day we got home. It took all my energy to get ready to leave, stop at Martin's office and show her off for 5 minutes, drive home, eat my McD's and change into jammies. Emma & I slept in the recliner while Daddy put the swing together. He was just about as tired, but didn't have the luxury of a nap. He had to immediately go into "Daddy" mode.

Meeting Aunt Trina for the 1st time. Emma was 9 days old when my best friend forever, Katrina came to visit. She stayed with us for 2 weeks. Such a wonderful thing to have your best pal here to help out, chat, hang with, and even venture out a few times. It was different for her, and I guess me too, as we are used to going and doing constantly when we are together and just having had a baby didn't allow me to "go & do" too much.

July we celebrated Emma's first Independance Day. Mommy bought her a "sweetheart" outfit and Cousin Halie gave us another one that was blue.

In August, Emma met her paternal grandparents for the first time. Grammy & Gramps came from England for a 3 week stay. They adore having a granddaughter. Several mornings I found Gramps standing by the crib talking with her, just after she woke up. Such cute moments to watch.

Emma was dedicated to the Lord in August also, while Grammy & Gramps were here. Pastor Wolf & my Dad did the ceremony. She wore Martin's Christening gown from when he was a baby. It has a long satin bow on the back that was taken off of Mum's wedding dress and attached for Martin's Christening. So, we left it on here for Emma's. Mum loved that!! Martin & his sister and her 2 sons have been christened in this same gown. We plan to keep it safe and save it for Emma's children someday.

During September several things happened: I had to wean Emma over to formula; we got Emma to give up that final middle of the night feeding and sleep all night; weaned her from her swaddle blanket at bedtimes; gave up the binky, and in doing so she learned to soothe herself by sucking her fingers. Her left hand, first 2 fingers and they are turned upside down. To this days he still sucks those same fingers in the same way when it is naptime only.

After her 4 month check-up in October, the Dr. said to start rice cereal. So, we did one time a day. I kept that up for EVER, but she was actually not physically ready to eat solids yet, as she still had that infant 'tongue-thrust' and couldn't actually swallow too well. But, we introduced her to it at each morning feeding time.

Here we are in November, with Daddy showing Emma his workshop & his power tools. He had been finishing up the toy box that Gramps had built in August, and I took Emma in to see.

Here we are in December, 6 months old and discovering our feet! She loved her toes and had to play with them, suck on them all the time.

January 1st 2009 arrives and so does Emma's first teeth. Yes, teeth. Not one, but two came in at the same time! We spent New Year's with Stephanie & Robert and cousin Halie.

February found Emma making some major milestones within several minutes & weeks of each other. She sat up by herself first. I was so excited, I ran for the camera and got 1 picture and then she was pulling up to standing!! That day Daddy lowered her mattress so she couldn't get hurt. This made the top rail unreachable and she couldn't pull herself up. But, about 2 weeks later that changed and she figured out how to do it anyway. She was also scooting/bouncing around. She wasn't crawling, but doing this funny bouncing scoot.

Then March rolled in and Emma figured out how to crawl! WOW! We were so thrilled for her! She just got better & faster at it and soon was everywhere!!

April came with Easter and egg hunts and egg coloring, but Emma was working on "cruising''. She would walk around the furniture, hanging on to stuff and moving along and when she needed to she'd drop down and crawl to the next piece. We kept saying "she'll be walking soon".

Well, surprise, surprise... May 1 arrives and Emma took her first real steps. 3 & 4 of them at a time and did several of those during the morning. Then, 5 days later she just took off and walked for real. Halfway across the room! Now, there is no stopping her! She is quite fast and very good at it! Although she does have a funny Charlie Chaplin kind of gait. OH, yeah... and we cut 4 new teeth this month!! We now have 6 teeth! Emma can say "Dada, Mama, Cat & nigh nigh". She can now sign "milk" and "please", as well.

Here we are today, June 1, 2009. One year old. She got some presents (clothes, Leapfrog Music activity table, money for a wagon, new sippy cups/suction plate and a new big girl tooth brush and tooth paste) and ate a cupcake. She's never had something like that before! But, she dove right in! Ate some of it and ended up with frosting EVERYWHERE!!! Her face, hands, hair, behind her ear, her shoulder.... and probably even more places I'll find tomorrow when I get her up & washed.

What an amazing journey this past year has been! I used to think I was ok with my life the way it was, until God gave me Martin. Then, we tried and tried for an Emma and it wasn't happening, so I was getting my mind ready for no babies, and then we are given this wonderful gift of life we call Emma Rose. She has been such a blessing, not only to us but to my parents and grandparents. We are looking towards the future and waiting for all that Emma's little life will bring.

New Teeth

OK, some of you are loyal, faithful addicts... uhm, I mean followers. :) And are complaining because I haven't blogged enough this week! :) Sorry! I have been scrapbooking and journaling more than usual this week. See my other blog to see why.

Emma has been cutting teeth for "ever" it seems. And once the top right one poked thru, you could see the top left one was almost ready and you could see the shape of her front right one almost ready. But the actual front left was not. Well, we got the 2 teeth next to her front and then to our amazement the front left one that I was not prepared for came in and then her front right. All within 2 or 3 weeks. So we were constantly chewing on frozen "chewies". I mean 3 & 4 each wake time! Motrin was our friend!!!


You can only see her bottom two teeth when she is talking or smiling. So...

Mommy had to intervene and stick her hand in there so we could try and get photos! In this one we have 3 teeth in and that 4th one is ready, but hasn't poked thru yet.

She was not happy about this! I got one photo each time and she was ready to explode at me!

OK, no more blogging until next week. We are off to Stephanie & Robert's for the weekend. Gonna play some "wii", babysit Halie so they can celebrate their anniversary and we'll just enjoy a weekend away. Love to ya all!

Some of you (& you know who you are) never leave me a comment! That is called "lurking". You read, but don't comment means you lurk! :) Take a sec and give me a comment so I know you have been here.

Nana & Papaw Come to Visit

The past several weeks Emma's Nana & Papaw have come to spend the evening and share a meal with us. This has been such a great thing for all of us! Nana & Papaw get some quality time with her, but best of all Emma gets alot of attention from them. We usually see them on Sundays, but after church Emma is hungry and having missed her AM nap, she is super ready for sleep! So, she eats and immediately goes to bed. She gets a few bits & pcs. of conversation w/ whoever happens to be there that day.

This first picture was from the first time. She was teething that day and I didn't realize it. So she was really fussy and not so keen on them being too close.

Although she did like playing down on the floor with Papaw. But...

The next week was so much better! Nana came dressed to play with her out at the pool, but it rained!! So, they adjusted and Nana played with her on the floor and Emma was soooo loving that! They had so much fun and Mommy got to fix dinner w/o her hanging on me! She even let Nana feed her!

The third week, was just super! It was Memorial Day and we went out to dinner first and Emma did very well. She just laughed and talked to them during dinner. Once we were home, we got some photos of all of us in our red clothes. These past 3 weeks of regular contact and more one-on-one attention from her Nana & Papaw have changed their relationship. She is much more at ease and happy to see them!! She's such a Mommy's girl right now that that is a huge accomplishment!

Lunchtime Sillies

Just acting silly during lunch one day. She makes some funny faces and noises these days!

But how can you NOT love that cute face????? Even with cereal and veggies all over it!

The Shoe Dilemma...

We were getting ready for our play date at the library and needed shoes. Well, we have 2 pair of brown ones so Mommy grabbed one and to my amazement- they were TOO small!! So we had to get a picture for Emma's 'shoe file' and get out the other pair.

Here is Emma wearing the adorable headband from her auntie Trina. She just looks so cute in this outfit and the headband!

It was so hard to get her to sit still long enough to take pictures! She is so mobile these days that sitting still is NOT on her agenda!! You can just barely see the tip of her other pair of brown shoes. I just realized that I did not include a picture of the shoes that we did wear. Hmmm... Now if I add it blogspot will insert it at the beginning of the blog.

She looks like a lil' mousekateer! Daddy picked out this cute top at Sears.

We ended up wearing the other pair of brown shoes. They were passed on from cousin Halie and were a brown suede type material. They had pink soles and were the type that have a curved sole. They seemed to fit her ok , but when we were at our play group, I took them off her only to find that she had big red marks on her feet from the shoes! They were too narrow or something. So, we got to wear them one time! I did get a picture on the other camera, but it has not been dumped lately.

Emma's Pool

About a week or so ago Martin set up the inflatable pool. (We had bought it last year when his nephews were here from England) We had take Emma to the fountains the week before and she hated it, so we didn't know what to expect. Well, the pool had several hours to warm up during her nap and she liked it alot!

Daddy brought out some of her bath toys and she had fun. Now, she didn't love it this first time, but she did like it.

She got to wear her princess swimsuit that I bought on clearance last year for $1. :) Gotta love those sales!!

Showing her the slide. She likes the slides at the park. We'll see about the one on the pool...

You can't see it, but she is playing with the clear, empty spice container. Her absolute fave bath toy!

Being the first time, and being kind of spur of the moment, I had no swim diapers. Look at that big ol' soggy bootay!! LOL!!!

Now, the only problem is not killing the grass! We have been in a drought lately and have had no rain for what seems like ages, so I have been making sure to empty and move the pool somewhere else every 3 days or so. That way we don't actually kill what is left of our grass.

Plus, the grass gets the water when I empty the pool. :) That's a good thing, right?

My 1st Mommy's Day

My very first Mother's Day! What a blessing to be Emma's mommy! I have loved every moment of it!
She had a new white & yellow dress to wear and Mommy had a bit of yellow in her skirt. Daddy is not in any of these pictures, but he had yellow on his tie.

Three generations. Mom looks beautiful here! I had just been outside taking a bazillion pictures and you can tell by my shiny face! Emma was getting extremely tired and hungry, so a bit grumpy.

Somehow this is out of order, but this is Martin's pasta salad. The guys were in charge of Mother's Day lunch. From cooking, decorating, setting the table, providing dessert, clearing away... They did a fantastic job!

Grandpa & Grandma Delamarter waiting for dinner.

Here you can see the table. They used Mom's pastel table cloth and Dad had bought clear plastic plates and clear plastic square glasses. He also got pink napkins and sage green plastic ware. He did so good! He had the table set when we got there, so Martin just had to add his touches, as he was in charge of decorating the table.

Here are the napkin rings he made. Paper daisies (made with my Cricut) attached to a pastel ribbon "ring".

He also made a paper daisy centerpiece, two actually. One for each end of the table. They have 2 daisies on each stem, with a center dot on each side so you can enjoy it from either side. He did a great job!

You can see the table, the centerpieces, most of the guests (not Aunt Ruth or Grandma) and the food! They grilled chicken breast (Bob Cantrell , you did superb! So yummy!) and steak (yummo Dad!!), grilled Parmesan Corn on the cob (Martin), Baked Potatoes w/ sour cream and a bacon bits & chive topping (Robert), Pasta Salad (Martin), followed by an awesome cake.

Mom with the card I made for her. She had worked the night before and had to work again that night, so she got up for lunch, ate, opened her cards/gifts, passed hers out and went to bed with no dessert!

Here is the divine cake. Courtesy of Publix, but it was really good! The chocolate leaves on the top were a hit! It was moist and quite tasty, without being overly rich.

Aunt Ruth did the honors. Notice the ruby glass serving utensil on the table. It was my Granny's, who passed away quite a few years ago. There were 3 pcs. left after serving everyone. So, we saved one for Mom and somehow the other 2 quickly found plates to land on... a tall cowboy was coerced :) into one and Grandpa & Martin shared the other.

Now we are on to playing! With Emma beginning to walk, this makes "playing" much more interesting for both cousins. They had a good time both before nap and after.

Some more of them playing...

Here we are after naptime. Papaw had let them each have a balloon and they had a ball!

Emma had never played with one, so this was totally new! She quickly learned how to beat it like a punch ball and was just going to town!! She played with it almost all the way home! And has still played with it today.

Peed on Daddy!!

LOL!!!! HAHAHAHA! HEE HEE! This is so very funny! I had undressed Emma out in the living room and let her crawl to Daddy who was in the bathroom getting the tub ready. I had snapped a few photos of her cute little naked self crawling down the hallway and of her & Daddy before her bath.
Well, before we got her in the tub... SHE PEED ON DADDY!!! This huge stream came running down and he was just shocked. Took him a minute to realize just what it was! I just immediately cracked up!!! Had to take pictures! No shirt on Daddy and no clothes on baby, so can't post the rest of the pictures. :) It will make a great scrapbook layout though!!

The Next Toofies Are Arriving...

She is loving her teething toys right now and chewing on anything she can! Taking her bottle can be tricky... Eating is usually ok.

I had to pull her lip up in order to get a picture of the new teeth.

In this one, you can see where that tooth on the right is getting ready. (It is now popped through )

You can't see it very well, but there is one on the left side, too. She has those 2 coming in and one of the actual front ones. So, 3 of them all at one time! UGH!!! Cranky baby at times! These were taken in late April and now in May they are only about halfway in and that front one is still not poked thru.

Can't wait for them to all get here -all the way. We can move on to more toddler type foods, as she'll be able to chew so much better!

Emma's second walk

Well it was just one week ago that Emma was taking her very first steps and now look at how much better she is. This is some video of her looking much more stable and walking like a pro now. She has come so far in just 6 days and it makes us wonder just what she will be learning next. At this rate she will be riding a bike before her birthday.



You keep on growing, girl, and making mommy and daddy very proud of you.

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