10 Months Old Today!

Precious Emma Kate,

I am so grateful for the last ten months we have spent with you. You have grown so much in the past month! Already you are starting to crawl. You do the army-man thing, where you pull yourself across the floor with one arm to reach a toy that you want (or the TV remote!) You are also pulling up onto your knees when you hold onto something, like the couch. You are making great leaps with your physical development and I am so proud! Miss D, your physical therapist is so impressed with the strides you've taken since she first met you.

Based on my own calculations (aka our home scale), you weigh right around fifteen pounds. I attribute your weight gain to all the new foods you've been eating. You love Cheerios, peach Puffs, shredded cheese, applesauce, peaches, bananas and baby cereals. You don't really like any veggies except for sweet potatoes. We'll work on that. At this point, you are eating and drinking more that you ever have in your entire life! You love to drink water and have learned that you can blow bubbles. You don't like a sippy cup, you'd prefer to drink out of a regular plastic cup and have Mommy hold it.

You have the most precious little "silly face" where you scrunch up your nose and mouth and making a little funny breathing noise--it is so funny! You have learned to say "bye-bye" (but it sounds like ba-ba) and wave goodbye, too. You can also say "da-da" and "ah-buh." (I think you are saying Anna Brooke, but maybe it is my imagination).

I treasure each and every day with you. You make me, Daddy and your big sister laugh so much. You bring our family an enormous amount of joy! We are so very grateful for your life and we will never, ever take you for granted. Happy 10 month birthday, Emma Kate, my little blessing. I love you, my sweet girl!

Mommy

Here's the latest with the girls:

Emma Kate turns 10 months old TOMORROW!  She is getting so big and so beautiful! We are so proud of our little girl! Last week she kind of took off with her eating habits. She now eats 3 meals in addition to all the formula she's been usually taking. I am hoping that she will start packing on the pounds now. I know it's wishful thinking, but I guess we'll see. She is also starting to belly crawl around on the floor. She loves going after the remote control, little balls and other toys. It is so amazing to see her do this! I just didn't think she would progress this quickly. I am so proud of that little angel!

Anna Brooke is fully potty-trained now. Well, I say that and then she goes and randomly wets the bed when she is completely awake before rest time. I know it will take some tweaking until she completely gets it. I am debating if I will put her in a pull up on our trip to Warner Robins this weekend or let her wear big girl panties. Sounds crazy even to me. She is such a smart girl! Anna Brooke is reading books. I got her a couple from the library that are on a 1st and 2nd grade reading level and she can READ THEM! Oh my goodness, I just can't believe how smart she is!

The princess refuses to look at the camera!

We are excited about our jam-packed summer. On Saturday I will shoot my second-ever wedding. I'm excited, but also a little nervous. Then on Sunday the girls and I will head over to Warner Robins for one week! Every morning Anna Brooke asks if today is the day we get to go to Kiki and Lito's! I know we will all have fun. When we get back, I will have exactly one week to get all our laundry done, clean the house, edit photos from the wedding and then leave for Virginia on July 5. We will be at Nana and Papa's for about two weeks! We're so excited!

Update and.... um, hey that's my kid!!

I realize that it has been quite a while since my last update, but that is just because things are going great for us! We are enjoying life and the beginning of what I feel is going to be an extra-hot summer! Today was Anna Brooke's final day of Backyard VBS that Aunt Erin and Uncle Josh's church did. She had a great time! Emma Kate and I enjoyed hanging out with Jackson and a couple others at their apartment every day this week while VBS was going on. Anna Brooke had such a great time singing, dancing, playing games and of course, learning about Jesus! She has come home every day singing sweet songs and even got a CD today with all the songs they learned during the week. It was precious hearing her sing along. I have been trying to capture her with my phone singing, but she will not be having any of that, thank you!

Emma Kate has been progressing well, especially with her physical therapy and her eating. She is getting more mobile, reaching for things, doing the splits practically. She will probably be belly crawling by her first birthday (which is in almost two months!!!) She turns 10 months old next Friday, which is unbelievable to me! Yesterday she finished a jar of baby food and some rice cereal, which is more than she has ever eaten at one sitting before! I was so happy about that. EK is also going to get some teeth soon, I feel. She still doesn't have any, but I can feel the two bottom teeth ready to come through any day (I know Brooks will laugh at this when he reads this because I say that every day!) Poor thing has been miserable laying down for naps and going to bedat night, so I usually just try and give her Tylenol and Orajel before those times and she does pretty well.

So, I wanted to share something that Brooks and I found slightly disturbing. A few weeks ago, Brooks randomly Googled "Emma Kate HLHS." In the search results, he found a YouTube video that had a bunch of details about Emma Kate, like her birthday, her surgeries and her diagnosis (the facts were all jumbled) but the video was of all the pictures from this blog set to music. I was absolutely APPALLED! We looked at the person's YouTube user name who created this video, Brooks sent her a message and she took it down stating that they "forgot" to ask permission to use my pictures. But I just could NOT believe it! It wasn't the fact that it was a bad video or anything, but it just freaked me out a little. Apparently, this girl makes other videos of children who have health issues. I wonder if she "forgets" to ask their parents for permission to use their photos, too.

This type of thing is a little scary and it probably happens more than we realize. How freaked out would you be if you saw your picture (or your child's picture) in some place you never expected? I read a good example of this happening today on Yahoo: This Missouri woman gets a Facebook message from a friend who spotted her family Christmas card photo splashed across the window of a European foods store in Prague! How the heck did it get there? Click HERE to read the full story. It is just insane! You can read more about it by clicking HERE. Like she said, I guess this is the price we might pay for indulging in social media.

After we found that YouTube video, I seriously debated deleting all the pictures off this blog or deleting the blog all together. But the more I thought about it and talked to Brooks about it, I just decided to keep them up for a few reasons. The biggest one is this: we have been getting so many emails recently from other families who are finding my blog, contacting us and feeling HOPE seeing Emma Kate. Emma Kate is giving others hope! I find that so humbling and amazing. The second is that this blog is a documentation of Emma Kate's life, from the very beginning. There is no way that I would just completely delete it all. And if I made the blog private, then, well, we wouldn't be able to reach very many people that way. Believe me, it does scare me that her picture could be taken from the blog and used in some other way. I hope that others will respect our privacy and please, if you would like to use a photograph you see here, contact me and ask for permission before you do so.

Alright, enough about all that. Here, enjoy!