Lots of random stuff

I finally decided to get some of the pictures up on the blog. These are sort of in random order because I'm too lazy to move them around. The pictures from our North Dakota trip will be in a separate post.

Our neighbor gave Emilia a cloth toy made out of different textured cloths and around the seam had lots of different ribbons. She thought it was great to haul around with her and the other day I set it on her head and said, "What a pretty hat!" She then walked around with it for 10 minutes like she was the prettiest thing on the block. It was so cute! I had to take a picture.

The pretty flowers Steve gave me for our 3 year anniversary. I love you, Steve!

On August 8th, Grandpa and Grandma Watts came to visit us and we went to Tony Grove. Here are some pictures from the trip.

A kind of blurry picture of a sampling of my produce. Pretty, huh?

I took Emilia to DI (thrift store) and she found this toy. She proceeded to push it around the entire store for the next 10 minutes. Then she pushed it out through the parking lot and to the car. Then she made me set it next to her in the car as we drove home. When we got home she pushed it around the sidewalk and parking lot of the apartment complex. She still thinks it's great. And I only paid 3 bucks for it. Ha ha!

Emilia playing outside with her daddy. :)

I'll post the pictures from the ND trip next. Thanks!

What a talker!

Emilia is so advanced for her age (I think)! Here are some videos of her latest endeavors. She's such a cutie pants!







I still haven't loaded the driver for my camera--my hard drive crashed again and Steve decided to experiment and see if he can get it to work, so I don't want to spend the time installing all this stuff just for it to get erased again. You'll get pictures as soon as I trust my computer again. Just be patient! ;)

We're ba-a-ack!

Phew! We made it back from vacation in North Dakota. It was a good trip. Not too frenzied, so that was good. There wasn't too much exciting to do either, but that meant we could enjoy the time we spent with family and friends and each other more.

Emilia was the best little child a parent could ask for on our trip. She went to sleep without too much of a fight for both naps and bedtime every day. She would just play contentedly wherever the adults were and not demand a lot of attention unless she was tired or hungry. She let us put her in the car seat multiple times a day without so much as a whine (most of the time). And she charmed everyone she met with her smiles and laughs and talking and funny tiny drunk person walk. Steve said she flew like a champ, too. And on top of all that, she had an ear infection the whole time that she barely complained about. My parents and I were driving out Saturday morning and Steve and Emilia were flying out Sunday night. Well, on Friday, she woke up from her afternoon nap with a 102+ temperature, so I immediately took her to instacare and she had an ear infection. So we got the penicillin immediately and she seemed to feel better within a few hours. BUT...the pharmacy didn't tell us, and we didn't know, that you are supposed to refrigerate penicillin and shake it well before administering. So halfway through our trip, we had to take her to a walk-in clinic in North Dakota, so we could get some new working medication. But she was still a happy little girl the whole trip. She is such an amazing little girl. I don't know why were blessed with such a little angel, but I hope Heavenly Father can make me worthy of being her mom. I love her so much!

Although we didn't do anything too exciting, our trip had quite a few surprises for us. There was the ear infection thing, of course. Then there was the computer problems. I brought my laptop with me so I could work on my pictures from the last wedding I took and on my writing, and when we woke up Tuesday morning, the hard drive had crashed again. (It crashed like a month ago, so we got a new one that Steve put in, and then it crashed.) Luckily Steve was able to get the vital stuff off the hard drive and then reformat it. So I could work on my writing, but not my pictures because he didn't have the software with for that. It also means you won't get pictures from the trip until we get home either, because I don't have the drivers for my camera. And last, but not least, Steve went to the airport Saturday morning and was told he couldn't get on the plane unless he had the print-out from the original flight confirmation (the airline couldn't find it in their computer system because they had cancelled his original flight and then moved him to a different one.) So, he ended up missing his flight by the time he was able to get that information. (My parents and I were already an hour and a half from Bismarck on our way home when he called, so we were trying to go through my Grandma Frohlich and my Uncle Rick and Steve was trying to get online at the airport and it was just a big mess.) He finally got the confirmation info and they put him on a later flight, so it all worked out. It was just a little crazy when it happened.

I'll try to get pictures up on the blog this next week. Have a good day!

Sabrina

Catch up (not Ketchup)

I have been really busy and have been neglecting the blog. I hope everyone is doing well and that you will enjoy the four plus weeks worth of pictures below.

Emilia turned 1! We had a good party and I made a dragon cake for our little princess. It was a really hard day for her, though. She didn't sleep well the night before because we were in a new place and because I couldn't just put her in a crib and let her scream because there were other kids that would have been woken up by it. The fourth picture says it all. :)

After the party, Emilia and I stayed at Grandpa and Grandma's and hung out with the Watts sisters while poor daddy had to go home and work until Thursday night when he drove back down. We had a Watt's family reunion with everyone but Ryan on Friday at Jordanelle Reservoir. They rented Ski Doos and a kayak and we all wore ourselves out! (And then I had to come home and get me and my house and my daughter recovered from our vacation!)

Emilia enjoying the pool over the 4th of July at Grandma and Grandpa Watts's house
Playing with cousin Haley in Grandma and Grandpa's new water feature over the 4th.
We also spent time with the Frohlich side over the 4th. Ben and Haylee just bought a new house, so they held their first family gathering there for the holiday. It's a nice house! Here are some pics of Emilia with her two cousins.
Emilia is so independent! She will not eat anything from me that she thinks she can feed herself. For example, she eats a banana for breakfast every morning; if I break a piece off and try to feed it to her, she refuses to open her mouth. But if I hold the whole banana up to her mouth to take a bite, or give her the peeled banana, she'll eat the whole thing. Every time I eat a meal with her, she wants to use my utensils. The anal side of me dreads this because she makes a mess of the table and herself and her high chair and the floor. But I push through those tendencies whenever I can and let her try. She has to learn somehow, right?

Emilia LOVES the Baby Einstein Neighboorhood Animals DVD that my mom gave me at her baby shower. She would watch it twice a day if I let her. She was cranky! yesterday and I was at my wits end (by 9:30 am), so I put in the DVD and cuddled her in a blanket. She just looked so adorable watching and holding her little bunny (you can see it poking over her shoulder) that I just had to snap a couple shots. She didn't even look away from the TV when the camera flashed.

She is such a ham! I take out the camera and she smiles. Such a daddy's girl! :) (This was taken at the 24th of July breakfast that our Stake put on. )

Emilia has become quite the little walker over the last couple weeks. I will have to try to get a video of it to show all yous far away people. Tonight though, she did the cutest thing that was reminiscent of her mother. (not that I pay attention to these things or anything) Steve finshed his classwork and grading today, so he had nothing important to do tonight. So we all took a trip to Best Buy and Borders for some window shopping. While at Borders, I was just browsing and Emilia was walking around looking at all the books at eye level. The next thing I knew, she had found a shelf that had some toys and decks of cards and tins that was on the second shelf from the bottom and a wooden step-stool about five feet away from the shelf. She proceeded to take one tin at a time from the shelf over to the step-stool, set it down carefully and go back for the next one. She made it through all five, making a neat little stack on the stool (she even pushed a couple around until they were more evenly balanced). When she turned around to get another one and realized that there were no more, she turned back to the stool to start putting them back! It was all I could do to keep from giggling and ruining the moment! She ended up dropping one and disrupting her walking, so that was the end of it. But it was SO CUTE! I loved it.

I am excited to take Steve and Emilia to North Dakota in a week and a half. They've never been and I think it will be fun to show Steve my old haunts and spend time with my Dad's family and Grandma Richau. We'll see how the traveling goes with Emilia. You just never know with a 1 year old!

Parties, Pictures, and Plants

First off, some business...

Emilia turns 1 on Friday! Since all of the family is getting together the weekend of the 24th, we decided to have a birthday party for her and invite everyone to celebrate then. I'll be sending an email out to immediate family, but I wanted to tell my aunts and uncles and cousins and North Dakota and other friends about it so they would know about it and if they wanted to make a quick jaunt to Orem, we'd love to have you! We'll be having it at Grandma and Grandpa Watts's house (878 S 250 W, Orem) on Sunday, July 26th. We will be providing hamburgers and hotdogs and they should be ready about 4:30. We will also, of course, have a birthday cake. If everyone else would bring something to share, we can have a grand 'ole party. :)

Next...

I've been taking lots of pictures of my daughter lately because I just can't get over all the amazing and extremely cute things she does! Here are some of them: (captions below the pics)

Me and Emi on Sunday

Emilia sitting all by herself like a big girl at the computer. She's playing a game at www.fisherprice.com that teaches her colors and shapes. She also LOVES the ABC Zoo game. Those of you with young kids should check it out. It's a great site.

Grandma Watts bought this doll for her a few months ago, but she wasn't extremely interested in it. Then on Sunday, the people sitting next to us in sacrament meeting had a little girl who had a doll. She left it sitting on the floor and Emilia crawled over there and hugged it and screamed when we gave it back to the little girl. I gave her her doll at home and this was her reaction.

Emilia thinks ducks are great. She yells, "Duh!!" (her version of duck) and points at the canal that runs in front of our apartment every time we go out the front door. The local (really small) zoo has a duck pond, so I took her there this week. She and the duck enjoyed each other's company. :)

For playgroup this week, we had a pool party, but the water in the pools was FREEZING, so I just set her by the slip-and-slide. She wasn't sure what to think of the water spraying up.

I did a photo shoot of her about a week and a half ago at the Logan Tabernacle. The pictures turned out great. Check out my favorites at this web address: http://www.sabrinawattsphotography.com/Emilia_is_1

I finally remembered to bring my camera with me again over to my garden. It's doing so well! The ants and the earwigs are terrible this year because we had such a wet, cool start to our summer. The plants still seem to be doing okay, though, so I'm excited to continue to get produce! We've already eaten some of the cilantro and a LOT of lettuce. Grandma Frohlich, will you show the pictures of the garden to Grandpa so he can see that I got his green thumb? Thanks!

I hope everyone's summer is going well. I look forward to seeing everyone soon.
Love, Sabrina

SHE HAS A TOOTH!

Emilia has cut her first tooth. Hooray! It is the bottom tooth on her left side. I think the other bottom tooth with poke through soon, too. She is getting so grown up. I'm enjoying her so much right now! I would be okay with her staying this age for at least another year. :) Too bad it doesn't work that way, huh?

Emilia always sleeps in the funniest positions. I found her the other night laying next to the side of the crib with one leg down on the mattress and the other propped up on one of the rungs next to her head. She is so flexible. She will sleep on her stomach, her side, her back; I've seen her with her bottom half flat on the mattress and her top half twisted to the side with her arms up by her head like she was reaching for something in a dream. The best though is the one pictured here. I don't know if you can tell, but she puts her legs out in front of her and then lays down flat on the mattress between them. (She has her blanket under her in this picture, but I've seen her do it without the blanket.) I would have to be put in traction if I tried to sleep like that!


Lastly, just a cute pic of Emi. She found the box of wipes this morning and pulled about five of them out and played with them for a while. In these pictures, she's hugging them to her chest like they were the bestest toy ever. :) Isn't she great?

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!