Hello again!

I've drawn the brilliant conclusion yet again that it's been a while since I've posted some updates and/or pictures so I hope to treat you today.

I'm sitting here at lunch today with a smile on my face as I think back over our progress and all the fun we've had the last couple of weeks. Here are a few more pictures from our playday at Aunt Michelle and Aunt Laura's.....

Here's a picture of Emily snuggling with one of her favorite toys. This ball came from Jack and Amanda Albert as a shower gift. It flashes lights and plays music when you move it. When she first got this toy, she liked it when it was across the room. ;-) Now, she loves to touch it whenever she gets a chance because she loves to dance to the music it plays. She likes to look up at us as soon as it starts playing music to see if we're smiling and dancing with her.

I don't think I got this picture included on the last post... if so, too bad. It's too cute not to include again.

Miss Hollywood and Mom before she tested the waters. Thanks to the staff at Liberty Elementary for her swimsuit. She's made good use of it this summer!

Here's Emily with lifeguards, Papa and Grandma Gaston.

Here we are in Aunt Shell's pool... Emily loves the water and loves making big splashes.

In other news...

Emily and I went for a walk around town last week and who did we run across in the final stretch but our friends Dave and Mary as they were driving through. Mary stopped by and met Emily for the first time shortly after we came home from Kazakhstan but this was Dave's first introduction and he made a big impression on Emily.... they both did. I'm so glad we got to see you guys! (I know you're reading our blog regularly!)

After catching up with Dave and Mary we continued around the block and ran across our neighbor and friend, Amy. Amy watched Emily for several days before I was done with school last "year" and she always clicks with Emily. They had a deep "conversation" for a few minutes and Amy taught her to talk with her hands. The funny part is that now Emily sounds like The Godfather when she's "talking". She still doesn't say many real words but she sure thinks she's talking! She tips her head down and looks at you with a very serious face as she "talks" away. And, to top it off, when she gets real serious she starts throwing in a bit of the Italian hand gestures. She cracks me up!

Speaking of talking, Emily is still working on verbal skills. She has gone through phases of saying some words and then not using them again. Words that she says now (usually with a little prompting)include: hi, RaRa (for RyRy... Ryan), and DaDad. She uses "mmmm" for food or time to eat or anything else along the lines of putting stuff in your mouth. ;-) She also says something that sounds like "oh, sheesh" although I'm not sure if it's intentional or whether she's still playing with putting sounds together. Oh, and for kicks... Tom and I were in the living room last week as Emily was cruising along the furniture and we heard an "oh, sh@$". I looked up with a puzzled look on my face at the same time that Tom looked up and we both wondered if we heard the same thing. We're pretty sure we did, but thankfully we haven't heard it since and we're really not sure where she would have picked that up.

Emily is doing very well with physical therapy but the PT would still like to continue with at least 4 more weeks (or more if we can get it paid for somehow). She has made amazing progress but there's still a good shot that whenever Em has a big growth spurt that we'll have to work on stretching those muscles out again. She's still tight in the pelvic area but nowhere near as tight as she was when we brought her home. We also probably won't know if or how this tightness will effect her until she starts reaching some more physical milestones like jumping, skipping, etc. If other kids her age are easily doing those skills but she has difficulty we may need to hop into PT again. We just don't know for sure.

In the world of walking, Emily is so very close to taking off on her own. She's still crawling at turbo speed and has managed to cruise around the furniture everywhere at pretty rapid speed. I've positioned her between Dad and I several times and she will teeter a few steps back and forth between us in Baby Frankenstein fashion. She thinks it's great fun, but hasn't initiated those steps on her own yet.

Not sure where to fit this one in, but Emily now has a total of 4 molars coming in. She's been avoiding nap times like the plague and has been chewing on everything she can get into her mouth... including my elbow, my knee, my finger when I was looking and every toy and baby gate in the house!

And, the sweetest update of them all - I got my first real baby kiss this morning when I dropped her off at Grandma and Papa's house. I kissed her on the temple and she spun around and kissed me on the cheek. Ahhhh, motherhood. (It makes up for agony of the crying she did when she pulled the screen door closed on her finger this morning!) I love my little snickerdoodle.