Things I Desparately Want: Emmett Edition

I'm working on my blog ya'll. Bear with me. (Do we like the new name? Be honest. I think it needs work, but it's getting there.)

I've had my eye on a few things for little Emmett that I plan to buy one day, when I have extra money. (Is there such a thing??) So, I thought I'd share them here as a way to keep track. (Pinterest is blocked at work. Isn't that tragic?) Also you might want to buy these things, which would be great for you and your babe, and great for me so that I can live vicariously through your awesomeness.

First and foremost, I'm dying for these sweet little moccasins from Freshly Picked! I've been oggling these adorable little shoes for months, but my uber practical husband won't let me buy them until Emmett actually needs to wear shoes. I keep telling him the boy neeeeeds them, but he just won't give in. I'm right though. Picture his little legs sticking out of his little shorts and these little darlings on his feet. I. die.

We decorated Emmett's nursery (here) while I was pregnant, and we LOVE it. It's colorful and sweet, and it makes us all really happy to spend time in there. It was perfect when Emmett was little tiny, but I'm starting to feel like it needs a little updating. Since my post on the nursery, I added lots of sweet art to the walls from this shop on Etsy. We've moved the furniture around a little bit (to make room for activities), and I would love to fill the new open wall space with these adorable animal faces from The Animal Print Shop. The little faces above are some of my favorites, but there are so many to choose from!

Can anyone tell me how I can get this image to center?? I've tried everything!

I would love to give Emmett one of these funny little "Pretend" animal tails from this Etsy shop. They are so funny! I can imagine Emmett walking around the house with one tied to his little bum acting like a wolf or a lion or even a little fish. I love toys that foster his little imagination, so these are at the top of my list. So cute!

 

Doesn't this teepee (from this Etsy shop) look like so much fun?! Little boys love forts, and I love the idea of Emmett having his own secret space, just for him. This would be so great for a big back yard (which we don't have), or even for a little boy's playroom, which we also don't have in our current house. So for now, we will just have to keep dreaming, and make forts the old fashioned way- with blankets and pillows!

Emmett has a birthday coming up in a few months, and I'm already starting to think about his party. I'm not sure what the theme will be yet, but I do know that I want to shower him with all the love and affection I possible can. I want him to know that he is special, and that this one day is all about him. And I can't think of a better way to make someone feel special then to give them a crown to wear! Isn't this one sweet? It comes in tons of colors, but I especially love the gold. If it goes over well, we might even make it a part of our family's birthday traditions!

I guess that's all for now, but don't worry, I'll be back with more!

Emmett: 8 Months

My boy is 8 months old now!

You always hear parents of young children say that time moves too quickly- "they grow up so fast" and "before you know it they'll be going away to college.." I definitely understand the sentiment, and I know that it will ring truer for me the older Emmett gets, but for me, these 8 months have gone by just slowly enough. I don't feel like the days are flying by, and it doesn't feel like just yesterday he was a tiny baby. It feels about like 8 months. :) I never posted his 6 and 7 month pictures, so here they all are together:

We fall in love with him more and more and more and more and more every day. When he was really tiny I used to say that I never wanted him to grow. I wanted him to stay a tiny, roly poly baby forever, snuggly and sweet and perfect. I had no way of knowing how I would love him more now than I did then (is that possible!?), or that every teeny tiny new thing he learns makes my heart burst with pride. And he's learning all the time, new things every day, so my little mama heart bursts all the time.

Our boy is crawling! Really really fast. He's up on all fours, moving his little legs as fast as they'll go, but hasn't got the arms and legs at the same time down yet. He does a sort of worm move where he get's on all fours and flops forward onto his belly and then back up on all fours again before you can blink. He moves all over the house like that, chasing the dog, laughing and laughing at Bagel.

He's standing too. Standing! I thought we'd have a little bit of time between the crawling stage and the standing stage, but no, they're happening at the same time. Every time we go to get him in the morning or after a nap he's standing up in his crib, all smiles. He tries to pull himself up on our coffee table, the couch, our legs, whatever. It's so much fun watching him figure out this big new thing!

I say to myself about a hundred times a day that no one has ever loved someone as much as I love Emmett. He's perfect- sweet, funny, wild, silly, so smart, and so so curious. He reaches up to touch my face or my hair while he eats, and smiles the biggest smiles you've ever seen when we come home from work. He cries when we leave which hurts so much.

Sometimes I think time has gone slowly these past 8 months because they've been hard months. So sweet, so wonderful, but hard. It's hard to leave my boy at home every day to go to work. It's hard to pay someone else to be with him when all I want is to be with him myself. It's been hard. But I wouldn't trade these months for anything in the world, because the times I'm with Emmett at home are the best times of my life. I was made to be his mama.

 My parents came to visit last week. They hadn't seen the boy since Christmas, so it was really exciting to watch them watch him "crawling" and laughing and trying to stand up. He eats real foods now too, like avocados and sweet potatoes and mangos, and my dad loved letting him taste some new things. He's such a sweet boy, and they love him so much!

Trying to feed himself.

Strawberries! See those muscles??

Avocados on the patio.

Oranges!

Pickles!

I learned a lot about Emmett while my parents were here. He sort of set his own schedule at about 12 weeks old, and we've always stuck to it. He eats and sleeps at about the same times every day, and we go through the same bedtime routine every night. But this week we were away from the house all day, and going out to dinner almost every night. I was so worried that all this deviation from his usual schedule would throw off his sleep, which was already pretty awful. I was worried that if he missed his afternoon nap, or if we stayed out at dinner past his normal bedtime (6:30-7pm), he would be over-tired and would wake up 150 times a night instead of the usual 100. But he did so good! He started sleeping better than he has in months. Normally he goes to bed at 7ish and wakes up the first time between 9 & 10, but the first night we kept him up late he slept until 12! Then it was 2 the next night, and since then he has woken up at 3 for the first time each night. Then he wakes up just one more time at 5:30 ish, and then goes back to sleep until 7 to 7:30. Ya'll, that's so good. I haven't slept this much since he was born!

My boy is growing up ya'll. He's perfect.