Well there was supposed to be the cutest video ever of my CB leading the choir during General Conference, but my lack of "tech-i-ness" now makes this entry only mediocre compared to the super coolness that it would have been!

It's been forever since I've blogged.  My goal was to blog once a month with E's stats and updates, but I have been so busy that this blog has not taken priority.  Honestly, I don't know how hard-core bloggers do it, but kudos to them for keeping updates.

So onto my babies because that's probably why you came to visit my blog.

First, we'll start with the oldest child: CB

She is amazing! I love her with all my heart and soul. It's true. I really do love her that much and each day that love gets bigger and deeper.  She is so stinking smart.  She is kind. She is aware of EVERYTHING, she asks questions; she's curious; her comprehension of conversations and situations astounds me every time. But most of all, she is the BEST BIG SISTER a kid could ever want.  One of the first things out of her mouth every morning is: "I wanna go see my baby E." She can hardly wait to get her foot braces off, change out of her jammies, and go see her "sistuh." Because of that, I love her even more.

She's getting tall...too tall.  She doesn't look like a little girl some days.  Where has my baby gone? She loves her monkey, Koko that K originally gave to me wayyyyyy back when we were still dating.  She loves Doc McStuffins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Peppa Pig (which drives me half crazy), and Elmo.  She can quote lines from all of them, sing the theme songs, and play her own versions of what she saw on those shows.

CB LOVES, LOVES, LOVES her aunties and uncles and grandparents on both sides.  How blessed she is that so many people love her and are patient with her.

This is an old picture from the 2013 football season, but dang it's a cute one! Believe it or not, she looks young in this picture. If you saw her now, you would be amazed how much more grown-up she looks. Yup, my baby is growing up too fast! Oh, and by the way, she's all registered for pre-school in the fall! Whaaaaaaaat?

Now onto E, my little E bug.

Halloween and today.  She is so busy it's hard to get a good picture of her now.  She crawls everywhere and gets into everything.  She loves her big sister something fierce.  She claps, giggles, jabbers, eats like a pro, and snuggles better than anyone else. K and I seriously can't get enough of her! I am still so amazed at how different she is from CB. She still doesn't sleep entirely through the night (though we are working through that) and acts like she's been starved for 5 days when it's meal time. She's not even one and has grown out of her carseat.  This girl is LONG! I think at her 9 months check up she was 29.5 inches--something like the 85th percentile. Her weight was just over 16lbs.--20 something percentile. Tall and skinny like her momma.

Some fun things I love about E bug:
--When you pick her up and hold her under her arms, she kicks her feet to fast it's like she's sprinting in a race.
--She has this weird noise she makes when she sees animals--specifically my parents' cat and my in-laws' cats. It's hilarious.  It's like she's trying to talk to them.  They completely ignore her!
--She can say "dada" in the cutest voice ever!
--We are considering buying stock in those little puffy snacks.  She goes through them like a maniac (see above note about being starved for 5 days!) and LOVES feeding herself.  If we are feeding her, she gets mad, but oh well.  She can't completely feed herself yet. Silly girl!
--Did I mention she loves her big sister? Yeah. She does.

That's about it. More later.

Half a year later...

...this is what she looks like! Isn't she too cute for words?????? I love this girl!

She makes me so happy and I miss her while I'm at work!  But I know she's in good hands with Grandma and Grandpa and Claire during the day. :-)

Wanna know more about this munchkin? OK!

Weight: 13lbs. 13.5oz. (11th percentile)
Height: 27 inches (89th percentile)

Again, tall and skinny!

Likes: EATING! Being held, watching Claire, playing with Claire, her family, toys she can hold, sweet potatoes and green beans, blowing raspberries, going for walks (around the house), being outside, wiggling, and being rolley polley!  Seriously, you put her on the floor and there's no containing her.  She LOVES to roll around!

Dislikes: Being done eating! Burping, anyone sitting while holding her, and seeing the empty bottle when she's done eating. Poor girl!

Mommy and Daddy dislike being spit-up on, ALL THE TIME! This girl is so spitty we change her clothes at least 3 times a day.  We could do more clothing changes, but then we wouldn't ever get anything else done. So sometimes if it's minimal, we just leave her be. She's never really cranky about it though which is why we decided with the doctor that we would hold of on any meds for all the spittiness and see if she grows out of it.

I think I mentioned before how much I love her cuddles.  She is so snuggly. I love it!  She likes to just bury her face in your shoulder when she's finished eating and it melts me.  Here's a peek at that:

I'm sad that I've stopped with nursing her now.  I wasn't producing enough and pumping at school was taking most of my prep time, thus leaving me feeling unprepared all the time!  I miss nursing her, but at the same time it's a relief and I'm less stressed that way.  There's nothing quite like the bond of baby and momma during nursing time.  I will miss that.  BUT, maybe Emma misses it too cuz she loves to hold my hand when she's drinking her bottle and I love holding her hand right back and staring into her brown eyes.

Claire is such a good big sister to this little one.  I think she is growing to love Emma more and more.  She always wants to "hold" her and has even tried picking her up a few times. AGH! Heart-attack for momma. They love each other, but they couldn't be more different.  It seriously amazes me how different the two of them are.  It's like being a first-time parent again.  It keeps us on our toes. ;-)

Okay, here are my girls, then I'm done for the night.

Oh, P.S.--did I mention Emma LOVES her grandpa Cummings? Yeah, she does. Just a little, though. :-)

4 and 5 months

My girl is just growing so fast I hardly have time to keep up the blog. Here are her stats from her 4 month check-up.

Weight: 11 lbs. 2oz. (barely 2 oz.) -- 2nd percentile
Height: 25.5 inches -- 87th percentile

I have a tall skinny baby! Hmmm, I wonder where she gets it?? The doctor said it would be better to start her on rice cereal sooner than later.  I think she's trying to fatten up Emma.  If that babe is anything like her momma, rice cereal isn't gonna do anything except fill her tummy and even that's just an assumption. :)

Other fun things about Emma:

* She is talking up a storm
* We finally got her to really giggle...by spitting at her!
* If we put her down on the floor on her back, she doesn't stay like that for very long.  In fact, if you blink, you might miss her crazy rolling and she'll just automatically be on her tummy.  After that, Claire will declare that baby Emma is having her tummy time!

* Because of her long, skinniness it's hard to know what fits her and what doesn't. Some things are too short, others to big around the waist.  I'm currently stretching her 3 month size clothes as far as they can go and hoping that her 3-6 month sizes don't fall off her. 

*The way she looks at you will just melt you, right where you are, on the spot!  Those light brown eyes and intense stare just gets to your core.  That makes it so hard to leave her (and Claire) in the mornings and go to work.

*She still just loves to watch Claire.  It usually calms her down if she can be held and watch Claire play or eat or whatever. Baby Emma loves her big sister.

*When she goes down for a nap, she has to be swaddled and rocked and she likes momma to sing "I Am A Child of God" and "Edelweiss".  Sometimes she hums along.

Claire is doing some great things too.  She is so darn smart, we sometimes don't know what to do with her.  Our favorite thing about Claire right now is how obsessed she is with the Temple (a sacred building for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to go and make covenants with the Lord).  They're building (reconstructing) the old Provo Tabernacle into a Temple and she LOVES it.  After she sees any temple she boldly declares "I goin dere (there) someday."  *MELT* How happy I am that she desires to go to the Temple.  It makes me love her even more which I thought couldn't be possible because I love her so much already!Part of the reason why she loves it so much is that she got to be outside the Mt. Timpanogos, Utah temple when Uncle Kevin married Crystal.  Claire remembers that experience and I am so grateful to Kevin and Crystal for making that choice so that Claire could have yet another positive influence in her life.

Something else we love about her is when she needs a tissue to blow her nose, she stands there and says "oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh!" Not sure where she got that, but it's cute. She is also obsessed with "Meena Mow" (Minnie Mouse) and has to watch "Meena Mow Cuh-how" (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) at least once a day.

That girl loves her family and talks about them every day. I just love both of my girls so much.

3 months ago...

...I gave birth to my 2nd baby girl.  She has blessed our lives in so many ways.  We thought we were so blessed with just Claire, but having the two most beautiful girls in the whole world has completely enriched our lives!

Here's a 3 month update on Emma.

We don't know her weight or height, but I would guess she's definitely over 10 pounds now, since she was 9 lbs. 11 oz. at her 2 month check up.  She's also just long; a long, skinny girl!

She's wearing NONE of her newborn clothes anymore.  SAD!

She is so alert, now and everyone comments on her big, bright eyes. She is such a beautiful baby.

Emma chatters like crazy.  If she's fed and changed, she'll smile and coo until your face hurts from smiling and cooing back at her.  What a social bug!

Speaking of social bug, she loves to be around us.  If we have her in her bouncy chair in the Living Room during dinner, she'll get cranky until we move her into the eating area. Sometimes she gets cranky if no one is talking to her at the moment.

She still loves to watch Claire play and is a trooper for handling all of Claire's kisses, lovies, and Claire petting her while chanting "sof, sof, sof" (soft, soft, soft).  She also has her daddy wrapped very tightly around ALL of her cute little fingers. :)

I can't believe she keeps growing so quick.  I love her to bits. Check out the pictures!

Auntie Kali was babysitting.  Such a tough life being tended to by someone who loves you tons! :-)

Emma, are you praying or sleeping?

Keep watching and she'll eventually get that entire fist in her mouth!

She loves to hold her clothes and get kissed by daddy!

Independence Day

The holiday is called "Independence Day" not "The 4th of July".  That's something that totally bugs Kory.  It doesn't bother me so much, but he has a point so I say Independence Day.  It's true--we don't go around wishing people a happy 25th of December or 14th of Februrary.  We use the names of the holidays and so it should be for Independence Day as well.

That being said, my baby girl turned 2 months old on Independence Day.  So, here's a picture (or a few) and some stats:

Weight (as of July 3): 9 lbs. 11 oz.  little porker!  I was NOT expecting her to weigh that much by any means.
Length: 22.75 inches

Favorites: Bathtime, swaddles, Big Sister Claire, being held (this is becoming somewhat of an issue...) and of course, eating! :-)

Non-favorites: being burped in the middle of eating!! (How dare I do such a thing!); spitting up (result of not being burped in the middle of a feeding) and having to wait too long to be fed. UGH!

Milestones: Smiles and coos; mommy and daddy are loving this.

She's a good baby, but very different from Claire as a baby.  I don't remember Claire crying as much as Emma does which truly isn't often but when she does cry, she CRIES! Also, I don't like that she has grown out of the majority of her newborn clothes and is into 0-3mo. clothing now. *sigh*

Snuggles with Daddy! She is so spoiled.

Giant smiles for cousin Amber who had to put forth zero effort to get smiles from Emma!

Double chin = love!

Birth announcement

 So we finally got Emma Bug's birth announcements made!  She's six weeks old today.  I can't believe she's growing so fast.  These photos were taken by my dear friend Laura Johnson when baby was 10 days old.  She is so talented and I'm glad she captured my girls smiling.  The feet are Claire's and Emma's.  It's sentimental because Claire's feet look so great from her treatments for club foot and Emma's feet were perfectly perfect when she was born. We are so thankful we didn't have to go through the club foot experience with Emma.

Enjoy looking at those beautiful faces.

Photo Card

View the entire collection of cards.

1 month

I can't believe my baby Emma is 1 month old today.  It seems like she's just been part of our family forever, but the time has also flown by.  We're still adjusting to being a family of 4, but it sure is fun.  Here are some fun facts about Emma (along with pictures, of course!):

June 4, 2013

Age: 1 month
Weight: not sure, but definitely over 7 lbs.  Birth weight was 6 lbs. 5 oz.  At her 2 week checkup she had gained 11 ounces, putting her at 7 pounds even.  Judging by the chub in the 1 month photo, I would say over 7 pounds is a safe bet!

Favorite Things: EATING, sleeping, being swaddled, escaping from swaddling, looking at and listening to my big sister Claire, being kissed by big sister, sticking out my tongue, curling up and snuggling on anyone's shoulder!

Not-so-favorite Things: diaper changes, losing the binky, spitting up, clothing changes

Still on the fence about bath time! :)

What mommy and daddy love the most: how do we choose just one thing?  We love her beautiful eyes, mommy loves Emma's lips, kissing her, how much Claire loves her, snuggling her, heck what's not to love about the most beautiful newborn in the whole world?

Each day I'm so thankful that Claire loves baby Emma.  She constantly rambles on about baby's eyes being open, baby crying, or who is holding baby Emma.  It's never just "Emma."  It's "Baby Emma!"  Claire is such a great helper with Emma, too.  I hope they will be the best of friends.

Claire just loves this girl!

Birthday!

1 month old today!

Making faces

Why is it that we just can't get enough of this girl?  I pray often that both Emma and Claire will be able to feel how much mommy and daddy love them.  It's indescribable! There aren't sufficient words for this kind of joy and love. I'm so glad Emma Kawailani (kuh-why-lon-ee) is mine and that Heavenly Father has entrusted me with her care. Love you baby girl!