Emme's First

A few firsts for Emerson this week:

First off, she is getting the her 2 top lateral incisors (on either side of the top front teeth). They haven't broken the skin yet, but I can feel them and the gum is sort of white-ish and that's how hers always look before she cuts them!

Wednesday, July 7th, Emme FINALLY learned to drink out of a straw! We have been working on that one forever!

Saturday, July 10th, Emme pulled herself up on the door frame and walked 19 steps across the playroom at my parents' house. Before this she had increased slowly from 2 or 3, then to 7 and then to 12.

Way to go, Em! We ♥ you SO much!

Good News & Bad News

The Good News....Emme took her first, official unassisted steps on Saturday! She has been taking one step for a while where she then just falls into whomever she is walking to, but Saturday, she let go of the chair and took 2 steps to Aaron. Right after that, she took 3 steps from Aaron to me! Pops & Brennan got to witness this, along with Mommy, Daddy and Jackson! We were so proud of her and she is proud of herself!

Now to the Bad News....With all of Emme's crazy, kamakazi, no fear climbing, it was only a matter of time until she took a major fall. Friday evening, as I was making dinner, I hear a donk. Whaaaa! I ran to see Emme falling.down.the.stairs. Donk da donk donk. I caught her on the very last step before she hit the bottom. I had forgotten to put up the gate! {Bad Mommy - very bad Mommy!} She let out the smallest of yelps and then was prefectly fine! I, on the other hand, cried for the next 20 minutes! It's a good thing Aaron didn't answer his phone when I called because he would have really been freaked out if he answered the phone to hysterical crying! From what I could tell, she was about 7 or 8 steps up and was tryng to reach for our dog, Leyla, who I remember seeing race down the stairs in a blur during the fall. Emme is one tough cookie and the fall has not discouraged her stair climbing AT ALL! I am now the gate nazi and draw the gate EVERY.TIME we come downstairs! It was so scary!

She can't STAND TEETHing

1. Emme has 2 more teeth that popped through the gums yesterday (5/20/10). The top middles. This has caused massive diaper rash and misery! Poor pumpkin.

2. In addition to this development, Emme stood on her own for a few seconds yesterday! She did it over & over and was so proud of herself. She even did it once while drinking from her sippy with her head leaned back. It wasn't for more than 30 seconds or so, but she had never even attempted it before. So exciting!

3. Finally, Emme has grasped the concept of No and has decided she does NOT like it! She bursts into you-hurt-my-feelings-big-crocodile tears everytime! She also will shake her head no if she doesn't want a particular food.

It's all happening so fast....

Emme Crawling

Emme is now crawling - of course, as soon as I post my concerns about her lack of crawling, she does it just to make me look silly. I should probably get used to that, lol! Anyway, she IS crawling now in the Emme way. She crawls with one knee and one foot, so it is some sort of funky hybrid crawl, but she can go! This is not the best video, but it is the best I could get - it is very short. Both Aaron & Jackson kept screwing up the others with crying or saying stupid stuff. Aaron has a knack for sabotaging videos!

New For Emme

Spring '10 school picture

Emerson has officially switched to sippy cups. We are no longer giving her bottles - all formula is drank from a NUK sippy. She won't take any other kind, which is sort of a pain because the NUK ones are sort of hard to find and the ones that we can readily find only hold 5 oz. I think eventually we will be able to work into different brands, but for right now she is meeting us half way!

We also had to move her crib mattress down to the 2nd setting. I heard her playing in her bed yesterday at the end of naptime and just happened to glance at the monitor only to see her standing up leaning WAY over the rail looking at the floor. I have never ran so fast up the stairs and when I busted through the door, so just leaned back and grinned from ear to ear at me. Aaron was right behind me with the tools to lower the mattress - he knew what was coming!

Emme has also officially started sitting up from a laying position - we'll say her official date was April 17th.

Still no official crawling yet, but we are making progress. Her problem is that she tries to move both knees at the same time or she tries to use her feet & ends up standing up. She definitely can get where she wants to go, but just not in a graceful manner. When she gets frustrated, she just resorts to rolling. We will continue working on crawling since it is such an important skill/milestone! My mom was reading some child development reserach the other day for a module she is writing for the teacher alternative certification course she teaches and the research was saying that not all children that don't crawl are dyslexic, but almost all dyslexics didn't crawl. So we will keep working on this!

When Jackson was about Emme's age, this was the time we were living with my parents until we could close on our house. They have an excersaucer thing that has the seat that travels around the stationary piano/magnadoodle/activity center thing, so he got really used to zooming around & around in that thing moving his little feet. So I am wondering if we should bring that to our house or get something else that gets Emerson accustomed to moving her legs & feet to move. I know that there are warnings from everywhere about the dangers of walkers, but I also know that I had one, Aaron had one and many of you probably had one and we all lived to tell about it. Does anyone have any thoughts about them - merits, horror stories, or even just that your kid has one?

A few new firsts for Emme

Emme is showing signs of starting to pull up. She will grab my thumbs and push right up. She gets so excited when she does it - I can tell she is really proud of herself. She tries to pull up on other things too, like her Pottery Barn chair and one of those wooden bead toy things (what the heck are they called?). Of course, the thing just toppled over on her and made her mad! Funny that she is reaching this milestone before she can even crawl. Maybe she'll skip that step all together.

Emme is also getting her first & second teeth. They are both on the bottom and they just cut through the skin today. This would explain her nose continuing to run after she has recovered from the RSV & double ear infections she had earlier in the week. It also explains her extreme fussiness and clingy behavior. As I type this, she is sitting in the floor screaming. Guess I should go give her some Tylenol.....

Emerson Lately

Emerson is officially a consistent roller! She has rolled over here & there before now, but not at all consistently. As of Monday, December 28th she has started rolling over everytime we put her on her tummy. I know this is weird, but ever since we found out that she hadn't gained weight since her 4 month check up and she only grew half a inch, I keep thinking she is behind. I know Dr. P said it was no big deal that she didn't roll over on a regular basis and that when she wanted to, she would, but it was still weighing on me. So I feel a little better now that I am seeing her roll. Here she is in all her rolling glory!

All smiles after a bath

I took this same picture of Jackson - I'll post a comparison next

Matching PJs

Kicked back in her new duck tub!

Look at that mouth - this girl is a serious eater. An aggressive eater!

Emerson is 6 Months Old

Emerson has officially been in our lives for half a year! She turned 6 months old on the 16th. We had her well check on the 14th (hers and Jackson's- boy was that fun!). Developmentally she is reaching all her milestones - she can sit unsupported, she can roll over both ways - she just doesn't care to all that often, she is eating well, sleeping well, napping well. The only thing she is not doing well is growing. Not too sure what is up with her, but she LOST 3 oz since her 4 month well check. She weighed in at 14 lbs 6 oz and was 25 inches tall. This is like 25% for both, I think, down from 75% at 4 months. Not too sure how she lost those 3 oz and it is only 3 oz, but still - in 2 months??? Of course, I am very worried about this, but Dr. Pielop says he is not overly concerned. He saw 3 other babies do the same thing that day, but we are going to do a weight check on Jan 11th when she goes for her H1N1 booster. I'm hoping that since she has a big jump from 2 to 4 months when she was in the 75%, that now she is leveling out. I have been praying that this is all it is and there's nothing more to it. Like I said, she eats well, doesn't complain/scream that she is hungry or anything, so I don't know what it could be. I had already planned on her starting to take 1 formula bottle a day since I cannot pump 12 oz to keep up with her and I'm only pumping 6 oz. She will still breastfeed in the mornings, evenings and at night and she will get one breastmilk bottle at school along with her one formula bottle. I'm was sort of bummed about this, but it is what it is. I made it 6 months with Jackson too before the stupid TAKS test got me - I was tutoring and had no time in the day to pump, so we say Jackson was the "one kid left behind" since it made my milk dry up. Maybe my body can only do it for 6 months, who knows, but right now I'm still feeding her what I can and supplementing the rest.

Emerson is the sweetest baby girl. She still loves being snuggled and prefers not to be put down. She sleeps through the night from about 7:30pm to about 5:00am. I would prefer she sleep just a bit longer, but I can't complain about nine & a half hours! She naps well too - I can just lay her in her bed and if she cries it is usually for only a minute or two. She takes 2-3 naps a day. Dr. Pielop said she could start eating small, soft bits of table food, so...
December 19th she had her first solid table food - asparagus & baked potato - LOVED both!
December 21st - avocado
December 22nd - blueberries
Looks like I won't have to be in the baby food making business too much longer!

She is an absolute joy to be around and she brings such laughter and music to our hearts. Her smile melts my heart. She has her Daddy wrapped around her tiny, dimpled little finger! Jackson adores her and ligths up when she is near. She has completed our family that I didn't realize was incomplete!

Emerson Kate Hiler - 6 Months Old

She was not really in the mood for chair pictures

Showing off her sitting skills!

Playing with her yoddeling bear

Uncle Brennan brought her from Austria.

We love you, Emme Kate! Happy 6 Months!

'round here...

Here is some pics of what we've been up to lately:

Mommy's Little Deer

Aaron's aunt & uncle came to visit before Thanksgiving
and brought Jackson some underwear. He
thought they were hats. Guess he's not ready for PT yet!

Emme can sit on her own - 11/23/09

We were thinking warm weather thoughts & playing dress up

12/3/09

More dress up - she won't be able to wear this one when it

turns warm again. ;(

This one is so sweet! They adore each other!

Jackson checking out the Houston snow - 12/4/09

LOVE it!

Recent News....

Emerson has been doing FABULOUS at sleeping lately! As I aid before, we started the "sleep training" on Monday night. Both Tuesday & Wednesday nights have been E.A.S.Y! Tuesday I put her down, she cried for maybe 5 minutes and then was out like a light until 5:30am. Only then did she wake up because I woke her. I HAD to feed here before I exploded. Last night, same thing. Aaron put her down. She fussed for a few minutes and then slept for 9 hours before I woke her again at 5:30am. She is the best baby! Love her!

Here is her First Day of School picture:
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Sunday we went to the Oil Ranch. This was our first time and we were very impressed with it. Jackson had a blast! Emme, of course was oblivious to most of it, but she just enjoys being outside. There was tons of stuff to do & look at, so much so that we learned this is more of a spend-the-day-there type place instead of a couple of hours like we did. There was a pumpkin patch, hay rides (didn't get to do this), a train, an Indian village with teepees and some sort of swing thing that my kids were too young for, bouncy houses (didn't do this either), petting zoo, pony rides & cow milking. It was super-fun! Jackson was so excited to see the cow until we actually got to it and then I think he was intimidated by it's size and just buried his head in Aaron's shoulder the whole time. He did say "Bye bye cow. Moo. Bye Bye" as we walked away. He cried on the pony ride too. Last year, he loved the pony ride at his school - this year, not so much. All in all, we had a wonderful time with Gabby & Papa!

Well Hello Scarecrow!

Jackson kept throwing the pumpkins down. I was so afraid he was going to smash them.

Aaron caught a piglet - it was pretty tough & I have never heard squeals like that before! Yikes!

And, here's how he was on the pony. ????

Let the record show..

Jackson said "I Love You, Mommy!" last night (8/22/09) as we were going upstairs to bed. Aaron asked him if he could say I Love You, Daddy and he said Mommy instead. ;) He may have meant Daddy but my heart melted immediately!

He also cut his last incisior - top left - yesterday too. Hooray! It doesn't seem to be giving him too much trouble either.

Emerson wore her very first pair of jeans today and I must say, she looked pretty darn cute!

New Words

Jackson is quite the talker these days. He starts talking immediately when we get in the car and doesn't stop well, ever! He has added many new words lately, but the most impressive are cashew, cactus and railroad. He uses them appropriately and everything. He also told his uncle Bryan "I love choo choos" twice on Saturday. Aaron then asked him "What about Daddy? Do you love Daddy?" and he said "choo choo." Ahh...poor Daddy.

I didn't do a 21 month post on the 28th so here are his stats based on when he was sick 2 weeks ago: weighs 26lbs 5oz and is around 33.5 inches tall. I measured the height on our growth chart at home and he wouldn't stand real still, so I don't know how accurate it is. I think his weight may fluctuate because he has wanted nothing but bread products lately. Saturday he ate a biscuit for breakfast; 2 diced pieces of tomato, 1 bite of fish, and loads of chips and tortilla for lunch...the only saving grace was the chicken slathered in ranch dressing he ate for dinner. If it wasn't for milk, there would be days he wouldn't eat protein at all. Does anyone else have this problem? It makes me crazy! Dr. Pielop told us we need to cut Jackson's milk intake back to a cup with his 3 meals only, none in between. He normally is a quart a day kind of kid, so this has been hard for him. But I just keep telling myself that if he is truly thirsty, he will drink the water I offer.

He is definitely hitting the terrible twos. Last night we were at my parents and he was in to EVERYTHING! By the time we left, all 4 adults were exhausted! He was digging in the trash, the dog bowl, my purse, dragging all the toys out of the playroom, playing with the needle on mom's sewing machine, trying to play with scissors, chasing the dog and the list goes on and on. It was crazy and the poor kid heard No! more times than he has ever heard it.

We love the little booger more and more everyday though...I can't get enough of this kid! He lights up our life!

Labor Day

This Labor Day we had a BLAST! We went to Canyon Lake and met my mom's side of the family at a friend's lake house. The house slept 12 and we had that many people and then some! Jackson got to play with his cousin, David who will be 3 in two weeks and with William who is 9 months old. We refereed many a fight over toys, but they loved each other's company. Emerson played a little with William, but was mostly held and loved on by older family members, which is just the way she likes it! We journeyed into Gruene one day, went out on the boat & jet skis, ate like it was going out of style, and visited. I got to meet my brother's girlfriend, Megan. I approve! She is super sweet and was quite helpful with Jackson. Overall, it was a relaxing and enjoyable weekend. The ride home was less than relaxing - Jackson is still having bouts of car sickness. Thankfully, he never actually got sick, but he was sure nauseated! He was crying and swallowing hard. I kept feeding him crackers to settle his stomach and we stopped to take breaks. I don't know what we are going to do with a car sick child....I got nauseous from riding backwards looking & tending to him. It's awful! I'm hoping he grows out of it and grows out of it SOON!

Me, Nana, Clay, Yaya & Emme in Gruene.

Aaron, me & Emerson - Jackson stayed home with Pops so he could finish his nap

Megan, Brennan and Emme

My cousin, Jennifer and Emerson shopping in Gruene

Feeding the deer outside the lake house

The boys playing with baby toys

My little life jacket with legs!

Aaron on the jet ski

Jackson's first lake experience - he's not a big fan!

David & Jackson pouring water on each other in the bath

Uncle/Cousin Brennan = hours of fun!

Cheesin' it up!