Cousins & Pizza!

We had a surprise at church today and got to spend some extra time with everyone hanging out after church. Emily got to spend some time playing with her cousin Abby...


... and weeding the church flower bed.


We went shopping for school clothes for Ryan after church and then topped an already exciting day by having pizza night as a family! Does this picture give a hint of Emily's excitement at her first taste of pizza?



Here, we'll share a little more of the excitement of pizza and if you click on the picture below you just might see a hint of one of those new teeth that poked through a little while ago.


On a side note, I recently bought 2 new outfits for Emily and found myself looking at size 12 mos and thinking "Wow, this girl's getting really big!" Then, I caught myself smiling because after all she is 15 mos. old now. (She was 9 mos. old when we brought her home in February and she was still able to fit into mostly 3-6 mos. clothes because her waist was so tiny.) Emily still isn't chunky or pudgy by any means, but she is starting to fill out. Her arms, legs and tummy used to remind me of a teenage girl's - very long and slender (but not scrawny or sickly looking). Her hair is also starting to grow longer and thicker even though most of our pictures in the recent entries don't really look like it. We get a lot of mixed reviews on what color most people think her hair will be. The majority of people say it will be blond, but she has very long, dark eyelashes. I tend to think her hair will darken as she gets older. Her eyes seem to be changing in color a bit too. When we first met, they were mostly gray with a hint of blue... just like Tom's. They still look very gray, but some days they have a little more green to them.

Emily is still a very cuddly little girl. She just recently started patting my back and rubbing my shoulder when I first pick her up out of her crib or as we're snuggling before I put her to bed for the night. She also still loves to give big hugs and now shares them with Dad and Ryan.

She's also starting to develop an independent streak... which is normal for this stage of her development (so I keep telling myself to be patient, it's a good thing). Every now and then Emily decides she wants to go somewhere she knows she's not allowed to go and when she's caught and detained she throws a fit. She's testing her boundaries and learning that they are fairly consistent between both Mom and Dad. This "fit" usually involves flopping herself onto the floor and laying her head down gently in a dramatic show (and sometimes peeking up to see if we're watching!) When this happens she cries hard and sometimes flails around a bit, kicking and twisting. Her face usually turns red, she pours on the waterworks and her head gets real hot and sweaty. I'm really hoping this is just one of those phases she's going through. These little episodes don't usually last that long and my diversion and distraction techniques usually do the trick. Woohoo for child development and all those college classes!