Happy Memorial Day!

We've been waiting on the warm weather to arrive and it went way overboard! This weekend was sweltering hot! I think it got up to around 95 degrees. Despite the heat, Emma got to go outside and play for the first time. She loves the grass! She just kept picking it and playing with it. Farmer Jerrod and Grandma got the garden mostly planted. It looks great! We're hopefully going to have yummy veggies in a couple of months. We finished up the weekend by having a picnic out by the garden on our new picnic table.

Kisses and Hugs

Emma is very good at giving kisses and hugs now. She makes a Hmmmm sound and kisses you on the cheek. It is very sweet. She even kisses her stuffed animals. Here's a picture of her kissing her big stuffed dog.

Emma's 10 months old!

Wow, this month went quick! Emma can stand up now for about 30 seconds (she's standing all by herself in this picture). She gets so excited and then falls on her bottom, if she didn't get so excited she could probably stand for longer. This month Emma aquired two more top teeth, so a total of 6 teeth and more coming in soon. She started eating lumpy food (stage 3). At first she thought the texture was weird and would make funny faces, but now she likes it. She got her first "black eye" (more red than black) She added another word to her vocabulary: book. More like buh, but we know what she means. She loves her books! Emma is at such a fun age!

Hello, who's there??

Grandma taught Emma how to talk on the telephone, now everything is a telephone. She picks up pretty much anything and says "Hello" (Really its Aeaaah) But she is especially partial to remote controls.

Emma and Grandma

Emma and Grandma Furlong, she absolutely loves her Grandma!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mother's and Mother's-to-be! Emma and Jerrod gave me a lovely card and beautiful flowers. We were also surprised with a phone call from Nichole Merrill telling us that she is FINALLY be a mother-to-be. Congratulations Andy and Nichole, we are SO EXCITED for you guys!

Emma, already our “little helper”

Emma was so cute this morning! I (April) was pulling her laundry out of the dryer and placing it in her basket. She was playing in the laundry room while I was doing this. She crawled over to the dryer and pulled herself up and started to pull out her clothes and hand them to me one at a time. She was an awesome helper! I loved it because I didn’t have to bend over and get the clothes out! I said “Thank You” every time she handed me a piece of clothing. When she would stop, I would say “I need more please” and she would continue to hand me items of clothing until they were all out of the dryer. So cute!

Welcome Home Grandma!

Grandma Furlong moved to Indiana this last weekend. It was such a long trip for her from Sarasota. We’ve (Jerrod, April, and April’s family) been working very hard the last couple of months on finishing the basement so she can her own space. We’ve done EVERYTHING ourselves. We’ll be experts on any home improvement project when we are finished. Unfortunately, we did not get it done in time for her arrival, but it is very close to being finished. We are really excited to have Jerrod’s mom living with us. It will be so awesome for Emma to grow up with Grandma close! A big thank you to April’s parents and family. We could not have done it without you guys! Also a big thank you to Brittany, our babysitter, she watched Emma several nights a week so we could work on the basement.

Happy Birthday Tiffiny!

Happy Birthday to our good friend Tiffiny. She's down in Mississippi cooking for the hurricane relief volunteers. We hope you had a terrific birthday! We miss you!

Emma’s 9 months old!

Emma turned 9 months old on the 18th. I think this 9 months went a lot quicker than the 9 months of pregnancy! Emma is at such a fun age, we have so much fun with her.
She’s now crawling on her hands and knees exclusively. She’s a pro at pulling herself up on the furniture and cruising around. She even has tried to stand by herself a couple of times and is successful for a couple of seconds until she lands on her bottom. Emma’s now saying Da, Da, Da, Da and Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma and Nuh, Nuh, Nuh, Nuh (only when she’s unhappy). And she has 4 teeth (2 bottom and 2 top)! They came in one right after another. Her favorite toys now are the remote control, her shoes, and the window blinds. Why do we even buy this girl real toys??!! Discipline has started, as she gets into things she’s not suppose to. She knows what the word No means, and is pretty good about obeying us.

A new car!

We were so blessed by Jerrod’s Dad! He and Jerrod had been chanting SUV for a long time every time we had to get Emma in and out of the car. It was very back breaking. So Jerrod’s Dad offered to pay the car payments if we got a new car, preferably an SUV . We went to look at the Chrysler vehicles (because through April’s Dad we can get the Employee Price on any Chrysler vehicle). We ended up in the Jeep Commander. The SUV that we really wanted but thought we couldn’t have. Thanks Dad! What an awesome blessing! It is so much easier to get Emma in and out of. And it’s roomier overall!

Emma is pulling herself up

There has been so many milestones this month. Emma started a week ago pulling herself up and now she's a pro. She'll try to pull herself up on anything! We had to lower her crib mattress because she would pull herself up and lean over the edge. She is also starting to try to go upstairs. Time for a gate!

Emma's First Tooth

We discovered last night that Emma is starting to get her first tooth! It's starting to peak through on the bottom front. She's getting so big! This morning Jerrod watched her climb up on the landing of the staircase, she crawled around there for a little while, looked up the stairs and decided that it was too scary to climb, and then climbed back down (more like a faceplant than climbing) She's such a little monkey!

Mary and Patrick's wedding

Our "sister" got married today in San Diego. We were so bummed that we did not get to go to the wedding. Sorry Mary-Frances! It just didn't work out financially nor could we find any plane tickets that had a guaranteed 3 seats together. We love you Mary and Patrick and wish you all the best!

April lost 15.5 lbs

The past 10 weeks, April has been a weight loss support group at work. She lost 15.5 lbs! She's finally now back to the weight she was before she was pregnant. Each person in the group pays $2 each week to participate, and if they gain weight they have to pay an extra $2. At the end of the 10 weeks, the "biggest loser" wins all the money. Guess who won? That's correct! So we went shopping!

Trip to Ft. Wayne

We went this weekend to the Ft. Wayne mall. It's kindof sad to think that this was really exciting for us! We went shopping and bought lots of cool clothes. April bought new jeans and some dress shirts, the same size that she wore before she was pregnant :) Jerrod bought new spring clothes. And of course Emma got the most clothes out of all of us. Lots of cute spring outfits.

April's family visited us this weekend. We celebrated Sarah and Rebekah's birthday. They are already 10 years old!

Emma is crawling

Emma is crawling really well now. There is no where she can't go, unless we block it with pillows. She is a professional army crawler, she can get up on her knees, but decides that she can get there faster with an army crawl. She's so fast when she sees something she really wants! And of course everything she really wants, she can't have.

Happy New Year!

Our good friends Andy & Nichole Merrill and Jamie, Betsy, Micah, & Kate Zile came to visit over New Year's. We had our "5 year" reunion. Lots of fun! This was the first time that Emma has played with another baby. Kate kept being a bully and pulling Emma's pacifier out of her mouth :)

Emma's first trip to the beach

Even though it was cold, we still had to go just to say that we went! It was very sunshiny and beautiful.