Guess the pumpkin

Steve and I carved pumpkins tonight after Emi went to bed. She went to bed pretty early, so YEA!!! Can you guess what we carved?


And just for good measure, a cute picture of Emi. I took this the same day I took the Lil Punkin picture and I just thought it was funny because she looked like she was ready to box somebody. :)

We're going down to Kearns tomorrow to visit my parents and I'm excited to spend the weekend with them. Hopefully Emilia won't let it upset her schedule too much. We'll see!

I got a real job

Well, I decided to quit pretending to be a photographer and get a real job. JCPenny offered me the job, and although it doesn't pay well, they're willing to work with my (or technically Steve's) schedule. I don't get to be a photographer there--they don't want to train new photographers this close to the holidays--but I'll get to "enhance" the photos and work with the customers, as well as get out of the house for a while each week, so it should be a pretty good job.

In other big news, Emi rolled over by herself today! She did it on the couch, so she had a little help (the couch has a slight tilt to it), but I was still impressed. Of course, then she was really mad that she was on her stomach, so I'd have to roll her back over so she could do it again. As everyone knows, it's so exciting to see her grow, but sad that she's doing it so fast. She's such a cute, fun baby, and I'm sure she'll be extremely independent as soon as she can be. That's life, though, right?

I caught her!

I caught Emi doing her arm thing on video. I was trying to capture how she's learning to grab things and bring them to her mouth and she did the thing I was describing a couple days ago about sticking her arms straight out in front of her. She's so cute!

No tears

Emilia finally had her 2 month appointment today. (I know, I know--she's over 3 months old. But we didn't have health insurance for her between her 2 week appointment and now, so I did it as soon as I got her on health insurance.)


You'll be happy to know that the doctor gave her a clean bill of health. He says she's very healthy and very active. The nurse was also very impressed with her. She got three shots today and didn't really cry. She gave one burst after the 3rd shot, but stopped as soon as the nurse leaned over and talked to her. She actually started grinning because of the attention. We'll have to see if she gets a fever from them.


They stamped her little feet for us. They're so cute! We were also told that she is in the 95th percentile for length and 60th percentile for weight. She's tall! But she seems so chubby! I can't imagine what a baby in the 95th percentile for weight looks like. haha

Super Baby!!

Emilia is figuring out her arms. She likes to stick one or both of them strait out in front of her with her hand in a fist. It looks like she is trying to fly. It's really funny. :D I haven't been able to capture it on film yet, but I'll post a picture as soon as I can catch her at it.

Our webcam does low-light pictures and video and when we're putting Emilia to bed, we turn the lights down. So I decided to try out the camera. Here she is lying on the couch (which is where she usually falls asleep--while eating--and then we transfer her to the pack-n-play). I can always tell when she's getting hungry when she tries to put BOTH hands in her mouth at the same time!

I have my laptop, so I blog and such from the comfort of the couch as well. Here I am in my comfy spot:

I have been cleaning house so far this week. Steve's parents are visiting for the weekend, so I needed to make sure we had a clean space for them and a clean bathroom. That's harder than it sounds when you're getting used to a new baby! I'm figuring her out, though, I think. Since she rarely naps during the day, I just have to do stuff while she's awake. She's generally content to entertain herself for about 10 minutes at a time. Which isn't much, but more than I had before.

I had my first photography job last Friday. Steve had the day off of school, so he watched the baby and I went and took some senior pictures for a girl here in Logan. She was a cute girl and it was fun to do what I love. I've been processing the pictures since then and finally finished today. I wouldn't have worried about finishing so quickly, but I have another job this Saturday doing pictures of a family and their little boy who is turning 1. I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and be warm like they are predicting (if you call 62 warm that is!) Here is one of the pictures from the shoot last Friday:

Oh! and last but not least, both Steve and I had job interviews this week. I had an interview today with JCPenny Portrait Studios and Steve has an interview with Shopko tomorrow for a loss-prevention job. I think I'll get a job offer from Penny's; the lady talked about me possibly being an assistant manager at the interview, but we'll see what the Shopko job pays and what the hours are first. I'll have to work a few Sundays if I take the Penny's job and it only pays $8.00 (for the regular position--I'm not sure how much it would pay for the assistant manager job). We'll keep you posted though.

Love you guys. Brina

Pretty normal

I did my first Logan photography job on Friday and I think it went well. They were senior pictures and the girl was really cute. I hope the pics turn out well. I was able to do the shoot Friday morning because Steve had the day off from school. "Fall break" apparently. It was nice to have him home an extra day. It finally made it feel like a weekend! :) I have another shoot scheduled for next weekend; this one is a family and a little boy turning 1. That should be fun, too.

Miss Emi is a little cranky lately, but just a little. I think my milk has a hard time catching up with her growth spurts and she gets hungry really quickly. She's been taking better naps lately, so I've really been enjoying that. It will be especially good if I keep getting photography jobs so I can work on processing the photos while she naps (as well as do the housework and such).

I made lunch for us and another couple in our ward yesterday. I love Cafe Rio, but I can't eat there because they make everything with garlic. So I found some knock-off recipes online and made everything minus the garlic. It turned out SO TASTY. It was great.

Well, Miss Emi just woke up from her nap and is hungry, so I better go.

Brina

Li'l Punkin

BIG and STRONG

Miss Emilia (as her father calls her) is having another growth spurt. Waking up only twice to eat, she slept from 9:30 last night until 10:20 this morning. And then she ate almost every hour during the day today. If that doesn't shout "GROWTH SPURT," I don't know what does. :)

She is a strong little tyke, too. She is trying to sit up on her own and she likes to stand whenever we let her as well. She's not very good at it, yet, but I'm sure she'll perfect it way sooner than I'd like!

Everybody's favorite 3 month old

I have searched the entire house and I cannot find my glasses, so if I write something really funky it's because I couldn't see the computer screen very well.

We've discovered one way that Emilia is just like her mommy---She's like her daddy in almost every way. :D We realized in the last few days that she has bendy ears like her daddy, (They can roll over and suction to themselves. It really grosses mommy out.) and I think she has seasonal allergies, too, which mommy doesn't have.

She has been really happy to see her daddy the last few days. I caught these pics yesterday after he came home from school.

And here's a funny one of her chewing on her hand, just for good measure.

Have Dad read this one to you Mom. You won't want to see the pictures!

I went out to our shed earlier today to check whether we have an electrical outlet out there. I knew we had a light, so there was power, but I didn't know if there was an outlet. (I want to get a small deep-freezer so we can keep more frozen than what we can keep in our refrigerator freezer.) Anyway... I opened the door and lo and behold, right there at the bottom of the door is the biggest spider I've ever seen in my life. --I know-- anyone who's gone to South America will tell me they've seen way bigger. But this is a big one for Logan, UT. Ew.


I had to take a picture so everyone would believe it was big. I put my phone near it so you get an idea of it's size (You have to click on the picture and enlarge it to get the full effect). I got out the Raid and sprayed it down good, along with the rest of the doorway, and then made Steve go back out and stick his head in there to see if we have an outlet. And we do! Hooray! Guess we'll be looking for a used deep freezer. If anyone hears of one for sale, let me know! :D

It just got monster sized

I just got back from the Logan Instacare and I have strep. Well, I think I have strep anyway. It's funny how modern medicine doesn't know much more than the average person nowadays. I looked up strep symptoms online and I had all but one of them. Since I don't have insurance, I wouldn't have gone to the doctor and paid $126 if I wasn't sure I wasn't going to get over this on my own.

So when the doctor came in, I told him what my symptoms were and he looked at my throat, and he was like, "Well, it sure looks like you have strep, but we'll wait for the culture to come back." Well, the culture came back negative. UGH. So he said the other thing it could be was mono, but if the mono test came back negative, he would treat me for strep anyway because he was 85% sure I had strep before the test came back negative and the test is only 85% correct.

Thank goodness the mono test came back negative!!!

I think Heavenly Father heard my thoughts: I was packing it up and going home if I had mono. Can you imagine trying to take care of a household and a 3 month old baby with no health insurance in a strange town with MONO!??

So he gave me a prescription for penicillin. And I'm praying it works. Sorry to anyone down in Orem/Kearns/Eagle Mountain that I might have given strep to. I certainly hope it wasn't full-blown strep yet and I can spare myself from feeling guilty over that, too.

Love you all!
Brina

2 kitties, 2 skeins of yarn, and a whopper of a cold bug

The first kitty is of course Cosmo. Steve, Emi, and I drove down to Orem to watch the BYU vs. USU game. It's a little silly that we drove 117 miles to watch a game that was being played less than 5 miles from our house, but we can blame Steve for that. He didn't actually ask someone if students got discounted tickets to football games, so we were under the impression it would cost us at least $70 to go to the game. Which is WAY more expensive than driving to Orem. (We found out later from some friends that students get in free and spouses pay $5.) But...we were looking forward to spending the weekend with family anyway, so it was worth the drive. Surprisingly, the 110 (or so)-ranked Aggies managed to make the #7 ranked Cougars look bad during the second half of the game, so it was actually a fun game to watch.

Here is the second kitty:


This is Emi's halloween costume. We decided not to go all out on a costume for the non-existent halloween party that we're not going to that she won't know she's wearing anyway. I put her in it today because it was the only long-sleeved outfit I had that was clean. I got a ton of long-sleeved stuff from my sister this weekend (Thanks Megs!), but it needed to be washed.

Since I wasn't holding Emi all weekend, I actually finished the scarf that I've been trying to knit for 2 years. I took it all out and crocheted it and it took me all of 2 1/2 days to finish. I hate knitting. :P

And last, but certainly not least, the cold bug. I came down with a fierce sore throat Sunday and it still hasn't gone away. This is my first experience of HAVING to take care of someone else while feeling like crap...and it's really not all that fun. Although taking care of someone as cute as Emi makes it easier.

Little Personality

Hello everybody! I haven't blogged for a few days because I've been trying to work on my photography portfolio and another blog I'm trying to customize. It's not working--trying to customize the blog. I'll have to get Steve to tell me what I'm doing wrong. He's at school right now and Emi is laying here next to me and still in her pajamas at noon. Does that make me a bad mother that I haven't dressed her yet? She's blowing bubbles and smiling and talking to me while I blog. Oh! and I guess she's filling her pants, too. :)

I'm so excited to go down to Orem on Friday! Seriously, I've been looking forward to this weekend for 3 weeks. Everybody better not be disappointing. Haha. :D

Emi is getting so interesting! The grandparents are going to be so sad they haven't seen her in over a month. It's amazing how much she can do now. She's holding up her head (mostly) and she can keep one finger in her mouth when she wants to. I've discovered she only does it when she's hungry, though; she usually doesn't do it just for comfort.

We've also decided she is sensitive. Sometimes when I sneeze or we start the vacuum or something like that and she wasn't expecting a loud noise, she bursts into these sobs like we've seriously hurt her feelings. It's just so heart-wrenching. I haven't discussed this one with Steve, but I think she's a little shy, too. Whenever you talk to her and make her smile, she turns her head and brings her hands up to her face like she's trying to hide a little bit. It's really cute. That observation contradicts another one that we've made. She loves groups of people and whenever we get a camera out, she can't keep her eyes off of it. So I'm not sure how those two go together yet. I guess it will become more apparent as she gets older.

Her headbands finally fit her so I took some pics of her with one on. I think they look pretty cute on her, but then, she could probably make just about anything look cute. But then, I'm biased. :)