Well, I did it again...

    I've let a month go by without posting yet again. I swear some day I will get better at frequently updating. That day is probably a long way down the road, but it will come. So much has happened this month so I am going to do a couple shorter updates so I can post as I finish each event instead of working on one for a long time and waiting even longer to update.

    The first major event in August was Emerys baby blessing. She was blessed on Sunday August 14. It was a wonderful day. We decided to forgo the usual sacrament blessing and have a smaller gathering at my parents house. It was very nice to have an intimate blessing with just our family and close friends. The spirit was so strong and Brock was guided by the spirit to give a very beautiful blessing. I am so blessed to have such a spiritual husband and an amazingly wonderful baby girl. Emery wore the same blessing dress that I wore and that my mom and Aunt Kris wore on their blessing days. That was pretty cool. The dress was pretty short so my talented mom made a lace slip to go underneath it. She looked adorable. We've got one cute little girl!

Emers in her blessing dress

Emery with our friends Wes, Chelsea & Suzi

Emery & "uncle" Phil

Great Grandma & Grandpa Larson

4 Generations

Our little family w/ Grandma Julie

Emery loves Grandpa Steve

Emers &  my friend Sherrie

Emers and her daddy

Emery w/ my friend Cheryl

Emers & Aunt Carrie

Emery & Adren

Sid & Carrie wanted in on the 4 generation action

Finally another update!

    Wow, its been almost a month since I last posted. Crazy how time flies. Everything has been going well here in the Herlein house. Our little Emery has been growing like a weed! She weighs 11lbs 8oz and is 23 1/2in long. She is getting some super cute chunky thighs with some awesome little rolls. Aside from her thighs she is still really skinny. She is 11 weeks old today and can still fit into her newborn clothes. Oh man, I just love her so much!

    Here are some things that have been going on with our family recently. Last week we went to my cousin Jessicas wedding. It was absolutely beautiful, she was one the most gorgeous brides I have ever seen. I am so happy for her and her new husband Mike. He will be a great addition to the Davis family. At the wedding there was a photo booth guest book, so of course we had to get our pictures taken. Emery had been having a really good day, not much spit up, not fussy, no tummy aches, just a happy baby. Well, we go into the photo booth and the first picture turned out ok, between the first and second picture Emery starts spitting up and the 2nd picture was taken as I was flinging the spit rag up and it looks like its hitting Brock in the face and Emery has spit up running down her chin. The third picture Emery was still spitting up and I was trying to calm her down and Brock was just cracking up. The fourth picture turned out ok. So we asked the photo booth guy if we could do it again since she spit up. The second set wasnt much better though. We ended up putting the first set in the guest book since it was so fitting for our everyday life.

Photobooth pictures

    My mom and dad bought Emery a sleeping wedge. It is phenomenal. Its basically just a foam wedge with a harness that keeps Emery strapped onto it so she doesnt slide off in the middle of the night. Emery no longer wakes up covered in spit up or scrunched down at the bottom of her crib from sliding off the blankets we used to prop her up before. We are so thankful that we have such generous parents! Love you Grandpa Steve and Grandma Jenn, thanks for some great nights of sleep.

Emery sleeping on her wedge

     Speaking of sleep. Emery has been sleeping 10-11 hours most nights. She usually goes to bed at 9:30pm, then she'll wake up around 8am. I change her bum and feed her and she usually sleeps for another 3 hours after that. She has been doing this regularly for the last 3 or 4 weeks. A couple nights ago she woke up after 6 hours and I was falling asleep feeding her. I am so glad she is such a great sleeper! I love her 11 hour nights!

    Emery has discovered her tongue. She is always sticking it out and chewing on it and trying to lick things. Last week she was holding onto Brocks fingers and she pulled them up to her mouth and he thought she was going to suck on them but she just licked them a couple times and then pushed his hand away. haha, things have definitely become a lot more slobbery around here!

      Emery is getting so strong! She can hold her head up all by herself with no problems. She has yet to roll over, but she is much more interested in kicking her legs during tummy time than using her arms to do anything. When she is propped up on a pillow while lying on her back she tries so hard to sit up, she is definitely not strong enough yet, but she is working those abs with all the baby crunches she does. She loves her bumbo, but since she is still so skinny we have to wrap a blanket around her waist to fill in all the extra room. Once the blanket is there to help hold her up she loves to look around.

  Well I think thats all for now. I'll try to write more soon. Hopefully I wont let another month go by without updating. So check back soon, and if I haven't written make sure you tell me to stop being lazy. Goodnight!

2 month check up = Vaccines

   Emery still has a week before she is 2 months old but yesterday was her 2 month Dr. appointment. Her eye is looking a little better, it still gets gooped up every once in a while but nothing compared to what it looked like a week ago. She is still spitting up like crazy but she is gaining weight so the Dr isn't too worried about it. He upped her dose of axid since she is bigger than she was when he first prescribed it. Hopefully the bigger dose helps a little. She seems like she is in so much pain sometimes. It just breaks my heart.

       Speaking of breaking my heart, besides the usual check up Emery also got her first round of vaccines. This consisted of 3 shots and an oral vaccine. She took the oral vaccine first and did really good, I'm sure she was just glad it was something sweet instead of the usual bitter medicine she takes. Then came the shots. It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. She was crying so hard. Her face was bright red, her mouth was open, but there was no sound coming out. Poor girl. It was even more sad too because she is such a good baby and really never cries, even when I can tell her tummy is hurting her, so for her to be that miserable it must have been pretty bad. She calmed down pretty quick though. She only cried really hard for about 5 mins. Then she had calmed down enough that I felt like I didnt need to hold and comfort her anymore and I put her in her carseat. As soon as her carseat was moving she was calm as can be and she fell asleep in the car on the way home.
    
     Luckily she didnt have any bad reactions to the shots. I was worried because I am allergic to pertussis and had an extremely severe reaction to it when I was a baby, so I was a little paranoid. But she was fine, no crying, no fevers, nothing! I am such a blessed mama!

Before her shots

After her shots

Cute little bandaids

     As of July 15th, Emery weighs 10 lbs 9 oz. (56th percentile) is 23 in (84th percentile) and her head circumference is 39cm (68th percentile). We have a very healthy little girl, we are very lucky parents!

So many firsts...

     Last week held a lot of new firsts for Emery. The week started off with her first fourth of July. I had to work and Brock had to finish off his final projects of the semester and study for finals, so we didnt do a lot. But after I got off work we went over to my parents house and had a barbeque and Emery got to meet her Aunt Evie for the first time. Topher and Evie were driving through on their way back to Spokane after picking Evies sister up from EFY. It was really good to get to see them for a few minutes. Emery sure does love her Auntie and Uncle! Oh and the night before she had her first bath in the big tub and used her bath chair for the first time. She really likes her baths and just leans back and relaxes in the water.

Fourth of July (she had cute little jeans on most the day too)

First bath in the big tub!

     On Tuesday Grandma Jen watched Emery for a little bit while I was at work so Brock could study for his theory final. Grandma Jen had a young womens activity she had to take snacks to, so Emery got to go to her first young womens activity. I'm pretty sure she loved it, she usually likes anything where people are doting on her.
    Brocks last day of summer semester was Wednesday and to celebrate we went mini golfing with some friends Weds night. We borrowed a baby carrier so Emery got to join in the fun. She seemed to like the baby carrier a lot and was asleep before we were done with the second hole. She did really good until about the 13th hole when she got chilly and hungry and poopy. So we decided we should probably head home and let our friends finish without us. Good thing for Brock too because I was kicking his hiney! Which if you've ever seen me golf is hard to believe, but its true.

Having fun golfing!

Fast asleep

    On Fridays I work all day which I'm not too fond of, but its much better to just work all day one day a week than 5 days like some moms have to do. This is the first week Brock hasn't had school so its the first time he has watched her all day by himself. Around 2 o'clock I got a text message from Brock, it had no words only a picture of Emery and a pretty nice blow-out. Her first blow-out for Daddy! She also had a Dr. appointment that we all went to on  my lunch break. She's had a really gooped up, red and swollen eye lately and I wanted to make sure it wasnt a big deal. Its just a slight infection from a clogged duct that she got some eye drops for. She has to have 2 drops in each eye 4 times a day. She only fusses for a minute when I give them to her and I think its more from me holding her eye open than the drops themselves because when she is wide awake and I don't have to open her eye she doesn't fuss.

The picture I got from Brock while I was at work

     Saturday night Emery slept through the night for the first time! She went to bed around 9:30 and was still asleep at 6, when Brock woke her up because he was worried about her. He was sure that she shouldn't be sleeping that long, I was excited about it but let him wake her up anyway. She slept from 9:30 to 6:30 last night! Hopefully she keeps it up. Its amazing how much better I sleep when I don't wake up every 3 hours... who would have though.
       Emery is getting more and more smiley everyday, I just love it! Sunday night she was so smiley I was able to get it on camera for the first time. Oh my, I never knew I could love anything as much as I love this little girl and that love grows stronger every time I look at her. It is the most wonderful feeling ever!

VIDEOS!

Here are a few videos of our sweet girl.

Emery was just a few days old in this video and she had cute little hiccups, which she would get about 5 times a day. They've decreased a lot since then and we're down to once or twice per day now.

This video was taken when Emery was 2 weeks old. She gives the best kisses! Especially when she's hungry.

This video is one of our favorites, taken about 2 weeks ago at 1 month old. Emery had fallen asleep after a middle of the night feeding and she was smiling and laughing in her sleep so I grabbed my phone to try and catch it on video. Of course the second I grabbed my phone she stopped smiling and started grunting. I had wanted to get her grunting on video too so I just kept recording, only to capture what came next.... Poor little love, its so sad when it happens and yet I laugh every time I watch this.

Tummy time? Emery (5 weeks old in this video) has such a strong neck and holds her head up no problem when we are holding her upright, but when we try to do tummy time she has no interest in holding her head up and looking around. She would much rather kick her legs and try to scoot around, she even manages to move a couple inches if we let her work at it long enough. If I hold her legs and bum down so she cant move them she starts looking around and trying to use her arms to push her chest up.

Emery takes medicine for her reflux and it is nasty. One time I got some on my finger while loading it in the syringe and I accidentally licked my finger and oh man, I will never make that mistake again. I feel bad that she has to take it twice a day. She gets to funniest looks on her face and tries to spit it out. I've had to start tricking her into taking it by having her suck on her binky for a while and then sneaking the syringe in the side of her mouth and slowly giving it to her while she is sucking so she actually swallows it. I'm hoping she doesn't catch on to that one anytime soon. Emery was 5 1/2 weeks in this video.

Since Emery, 6 weeks old-this video was taken last night, tends to spit up out of her nose (see video #3) she gets a lot of dried milk "boogers" which make her snore. Good thing its a cute little snore.

       Well, we sure do love this little girl and all the cute little things she does, which seem to be multiplying every day. She is growing so much and we look forward to all the smiles, giggles, funny faces, and even spit up that awaits us in the future. Don't worry we'll let you know all about them!

Newborn Pictures

  When Emery was 5 days old my Aunt Carrie Johnson came up from Utah and took newborn pictures of her for us. A few days ago we got the disc of pictures in the mail and they are so cute! The photo shoot was a pretty lengthy ordeal and Emery was quite the trooper. She let me pose her, put large bows on her head and she was freezing from being naked so much and she only cried a little bit.
Here are just a few of my favorites.  Hope you enjoy!

Tiny toes

So small on Daddy's arm

 Thanks Aunt Carrie! You are fabulous!

1 month old!

  
    I cannot believe Emery is already 1 month old! Why couldn't the last month of pregnancy have gone by as fast as the first month of her life? It has seriously flown by and her daddy and I are enjoying every minute of it! We spent the majority of the last month just holding and loving on her. I am just now getting to the point where I'll set her down for more than a minute so I can actually get housework and things done. Its definitely hard though because I could sit and stare at her all day long... and there are some days when I do! It is amazing how much I love this little girl. Throughout my life my mom would write me little notes and always end them with "I love you more than you'll ever know". Well, now I know. It really is indescribable, words could never truly express the way I feel when I look at my sweet baby girl (all you parents know how this is). It is something I can only pray that everyone has the blessing of experiencing at some point in life.

    At Emerys 2 week Dr. appointment, on June 10, she weighed 8lbs 5oz (42 percentile) and was 21in (70 percentile). We were worried that because she spits up like the Bellagio fountains she might not have been gaining enough weight, but that fear disappeared as soon as we set her on the scale. The Dr. said she was doing great but he gave us a mild antacid for her reflux to try to ease her discomfort. He wasn't too worried about it since she is gaining just fine. She is still spitting up like crazy though, it makes me feel so bad when I can tell she is so uncomfortable and there is nothing I can do for her. We are hoping that her reflux will go away very soon. She is such a good baby though that she doesnt even cry when she is uncomfortable, she just sits and grunts. We like to call her Gruntzilla. I will have to get a video of it.

     Here are some observations, some of our favorite things, and some of the reasons we are so blessed to have such a good baby girl!

• She has her Daddys nose
• She has her Mamas long fingers and nail beds
• She has long toes which she can spread really far apart
• Her eyes are currently light blue in the middle and dark blue around the edges
• Brock says she looks just like me when she yawns (apparently we have the same yawn)
• She has a big dimple on her right cheek, a smaller one on her left cheek, and one on her chin
• She is a super smiley baby
• Her facial expressions go through every emotion in about 2 mins while she is sleeping
• She LOVES to stretch
• There may or may not be some red in her hair (Grandma Jen swears she sees it, only time will tell)
• She laughs in her sleep
• She already sleeps, on average, 5hrs at night (Thank goodness!)
• She has a death grip, she is already pulling my hair
• She loves to hold on to things... blankets, hair, her other fingers, her face, anything she can get her little fingers around 
• Her neck is very strong
• She has very dainty hands
• She gets the hiccups about 5 times a day
• She gives the best kisses (especially when she's hungry)

We are so blessed to have Emery in our life and we can't remember what it was like without her in it. She truly is a gift from God and we are so grateful for her.

Holding on to her ear

All stretched out

Cute little smirk

Dainty little hands