The cell phone gods smile upon me

Everyone can thank Brittany (is that spelled right?) Sears (my first cousin, twice removed on my mom's side) for her amazingly brilliant suggestion. I had no idea you could text to an email address. But apparently you can and now we all have pictures of Emilia. Thanks Brit!

Ta da!

So Stinkin' Cute! - 2nd try

(Sorry everyone. When I hit enter after typing in a title, it publishes the post, and sometimes I just can't stop my finger from hitting enter before it's too late.)

Today, I turned on a Baby Einstein video (that I got from the library--which, by the way, are obviously made for kids because they are fascinated by them and they are SO not interesting for adults). I was looking at the ads that came in the mail while she played with her toys on the living room floor and watched the video. Well she crawled up right next to the couch where I was sitting, so she was blocked from my sight by it, and stayed there for a minute. I figured she found something under the couch that she had shoved under there previously and was playing with it. Until...I suddenly saw her crawling towards the television with no pants on! The stinker had figured out how to get her pants off! I don't know if it was a fluke (like they got caught on something) or what, but I had to laugh.

She had a bath this morning and she LOVES being naked so I let her (meaning I couldn't catch her fast enough to stop her) crawl around on the bed for a while before I put a diaper and clothes on her. She was enjoying herself so much I had to get a picture. Or two. :)

Also, after she woke up from her nap, she wouldn't let go of her blankie. She crawled around with it, ate with it, and played with it. I couldn't help but get some pictures.

Aren't camera phones great?

Okay, camera phones are not great. Ugh. I have tried for the last 1/2 hour to find a way to get the pictures off my phone onto my computer since I don't have internet access. Apparently I have to download 2 kinds of software from 3rd party companies and pay $30 for it in order to get pictures off my phone. However, since my husband is a computer geek and decided to "play" with Linux, I may be able to do a free workaround, if the software supports my phone. So, long story short. You may get the pictures tomorrow, if the cell-phone gods are smiling upon me tomorrow, and if my husband has time to fiddle with the software. Maybe you should all pray to the cell-phone gods, cuz these are some really cute pictures! ;)

Cool cat, no purple cast

Some recent snapshots of Emi:

Smiling right before we went to get the cast off

Close up of how much the cast stopped her from walking :)

Wearing her cool jacket that Nana Frohlich bought for her yesterday. The cast has been off for a little over a week and she's going going going. (Not that she wasn't before.)

I went to check on her during her nap the other day and this is what I saw. Isn't she precious?

You saw how she waves bye in the video I posted, but now she's saying "Bye-bye!" with it. It comes out "da! da!" so it took me a while to figure out she wasn't saying "daddy." When she says "daddy," though, she actually says the Y at the end, so it's different. And she always says "da! da!" when she's waving.

My garden is doing well. My carrots have doubled in size in the last couple days and I have two tomatoes about the size of a bouncy ball on one of my tomato plants. My yellow squash took off, too, so it's almost as big as my pumpkin now, and the zucchini plants that I replanted are trying to come up. Gardens are such miracles! I have to go look at mine every day to see what miracle happened over the last 24 hours. I'm silly, I know. But you all like me anyway, so it's okay, right? :)

I had a wedding at Bear Lake last Saturday. The ceremony itself was on the beach next to the water and it rained. There was no pavilion or anything, we all just got wet. It was interesting. Luckily they had a place to have the reception indoors. The weather cleared up before I left for home and the drive home was beautiful. Please check out this link to see some of the amazing pictures I was able to capture. I was so excited!

http://www.sabrinawattsphotography.com/bearlakebeauty

random thoughts

I forgot to mention that Emilia has learned how to pull herself up to standing. I left her downstairs the other day while I ran to my room to get something and when I came back she was standing at the bottom of the stairs holding on to the railing, just waiting for me. :)

I also wanted to mention that I think Steve feels bad about my carrots not coming up, but I was just teasing him. I don't think it's his fault that my carrots aren't coming up. I think the ants walked away with the seeds. No really. We have a bad ant problem in the garden. I'm almost positive that's what happened to my beans. I couldn't even find the original pods. They were just gone. I weeded the carrots today and we actually have a decent little carrot patch coming up. I couldn't weed before because I couldn't tell which plants were carrots and which were weeds. But the weeds are now about twice as big as the carrots (of course!), so I pulled 'em all out. Ha-ha! Take that weeds! (insert Emi giggling. She thinks the word "weeds" is almost as funny as the word "don't.")

Steve offered to put Emi to bed the other night. After about 45 minutes I went to figure out why he wasn't back yet (I was distracted or I might have checked sooner). This is what I found.

I even snapped the shot with a flash and neither of them woke up. They're so cute. *sigh* I have a good family.

so big!

Emilia is growing and learning so fast! Since my l ast post, she has learned to wave goodbye and hello, do the sign for music, say MEOW, and scream when she's really upset. The last one isn't my favorite, but it is kind of funny. :) My favorite thing that she learned is only going to be really funny to the Richaus, so I'll explain. My grandmother scolded her children and grandchildren by saying, "Do, Do!" and shaking her finger at them. My mom does it as a joke. She taught Elijah (my nephew) to say "Do, Do, Grampa!" when he's tickling him or teasing him. It's pretty funny. Well, my mom was up here for a qui ck visit yesterday and she taught my daughter, "Do, Do!" Of course, my daughter thinks scolding is hilarious (literally--I say "Don't!" and she giggles every time), so this is pretty cute, and amazing, if I do say so myself. (P.S. she screams right at the end of this, so watch your ears!)

I have pictures of her with her cast on and off, but I don't have time to upload them right now. You'll get them later.

Great recipe

I made this recipe for Steve and me the other night and it was a really great, really easy dinner. Thought I'd share. If you want to print the recipe from the website, go here.

Bean, Pasta, and Roasted Pepper Soup

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 large carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 large onion, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups chicken broth
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup uncooked ditalini pasta (I love pasta, so I added 1/2 a bag, not 1/2 a cup)
1/2 cup roasted sweet red pepper strips
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Directions:

Heat oil in saucepot. Add carrots, celery, onion, parsley and garlic and cook until tender. Add broth, beans, tomatoes and pasta. Heat to a boil. Cover and cook 15 min. or until pasta is done.

Add peppers and vinegar. Heat through.

I served it with salad and sourdough bread. If you make it, let me know what you think.

more garden pics--with actual pics this time

the captions are under the pictures...
most recent pic of of the whole garden

the pumpkin plant from my dad is the one furthest away. It is like twice the size of all the rest of my melon plants.
Steve helped me by planting carrots. These 5 came up.
My three rows of lettuce. The one furthest away is the only one that came up well.
My LONG row of peas. HOORAY!! for peas. :)
My herbs are doing well.
I have 26 broccoli plants. That's a lot of broccoli.
My potatoes started coming up yesterday. Unlike my beans. :(
Okay, mom and dad; this is the kind that came up. Is it zucchini or yellow squash?

stinker butt

My title does not actually refer to a smell. It refers to her fiercely independent nature that is going to be my undoing. ;)

Some pictures to illustrate:



I was cleaning out the fridge and not paying much attention to what she was doing. I looked up and saw that she had gotten the plastic wrap off the top of the olives, was pulling them out and squishing them between her fingers. She seemed to think i t was quite the fun game. I was going to throw them away anyway, I just hoped her cast wouldn't smell like olives from then on. It didn't. Whew!

More pictures:


Last weekend I had a photo shoot in Manti, so we went down to stay with Steve's parents for the weekend, since it was on the way. My mom made this cute sun hat for her and it had fallen out of her diaper bag, so Nick put it on her head, but it was backwards. She hates things on her head, but for some reason she paid absolutely no attention to it when it was on backwards. I'll have to try that again. :)

forgot the garden picture

I thought I had more than this, but I don't, so I'll have to take some today and post them.

BEFORE:

My talented, cranky baby

Only 6 more days and the cast comes off! My excitement has no bounds. :) Emi is getting around pretty well with it on though. Here is a video of her crawling. It was taken on Steve's camera, so there's no sound.



Miss Emi has a pretty big vocabulary for a 10 month old. She now knows kitty (that one you've seen), daddy, tree, duck, pretty, and keys. When she wakes up from a nap, she often says "Daddy?" wondering if he's home. Steve says the other night she was pointing at all the plants in the house and saying "Tree! Tree!" It actually comes out more like, "tee," but that's close enough.

I was able to set up the video camera tonight when she wasn't looking and captured her playing with the box of wipes. It shows how well she entertains herself (which is nice for me). She tells herself stories as she plays and sometimes tells herself jokes that she laughs at. It's really cute.



She has been REALLY cranky this week. I don't think she's been getting enough sleep. She's transitioning from two naps to one and I'm not doing a good job of transitioning with her, so we're both confused and lacking sleep. But! she's still adorable and we should figure it out within the year, so I just have to be patient and think of the bigger picture. ;)

Also wanted to show you some pictures of my garden. My peas are coming up. (YEA!!) and my herbs are growing well. I killed one cantaloupe plant and bought two more, which are doing fine. My beans didn't come up at all, neither did either zucchini or yellow squash. I can't remember which is which. One of them came up great and the other didn't come up at all and now i don't know which one to replant! Mom and dad had a good laugh about that one. Some of my lettuce is coming up and my tomatoes are growing well too. I asked Steve to help me plant cucumber and carrots and neither are coming up well. I got 4 cucumber plants out of probably 15 or so. My carrots aren't big enough to see how well they will do, but only about 1/3 of the area he planted is showing any signs of life at all. I'm grateful he was willing to help, though. We'll just have to buy carrots from the store. I bought more cucumber plants and my dad gave me one, so those should end up doing okay.

Other than that, we don't have much new going on. I'm still doing photography; Steve's still working and doing school. Emi's still eating and pooping and laughing and generally being cute. Hopefully she keeps all that up. Just with less crankiness. :)