First Steps

Emily is now officially a walker.  Emily has been standing on her own, bending down and picking things up while standing, and cruising very confidently for a while now.  But she took her first independent steps on February 6th, taking two steps walking to Mommy (Daddy, of course, was on a business trip in Florida).  She held steady taking two to three steps for about two weeks, though Daddy didn't really consider two steps walking.  On February 21st, Mommy decided to work a bit with Emily to build up her confidence to take more steps.  It was mostly fruitless until Emily spotted her sippy cup about 3 feet away and decided to walk to it, taking about 10 steps on the way!  Emily was very proud to show Daddy when he got home from work that afternoon!  At the time Emily was holding a snack container of cereal in one hand.  Mommy thinks the feeling of holding on to something may have given her the confidence to walk without furniture.  Who knows?

Mimi and Uncle Trey visited the first week of February (to help out during the aforementioned business trip by Daddy).  They got to do some fun stuff while they were here!  One day, Kara, Mommy, and Mimi met up with Grandma S. and Aunt Amy to have afternoon tea at the Huckleberry.  Daddy and Uncle Trey took Kara sledding, which was a blast!  Mimi and Uncle Trey were also treated to an arctic blast.  The high one day was 4 deg F!

Emily is regressing a bit with night-time sleep.  She has been consistently waking up in the middle of the night (usually between 2 and 4 am) for no better reason than to say hi to Mommy and Daddy.  Emily is weaning herself off the bottle. It wasn't too long ago that she'd be drinking 24 ounces a day, but now she barely will drink 15.  It's great that she's adapting well to eating adult food, but she still need her calories!  Daddy is very excited that the end of bottle cleaning is near!

Kara has become very artistic lately.  She is constantly drawing pictures and telling stories.  She particularly likes to pretend that she's on a boat with Fifi.  Mommy had her first parent-teach conference with Kara's preschool teachers.  Her teachers used the terms "big personality" and "high energy" multiple times to describe Kara in class.  Mommy and Daddy are just glad they're not the only ones who think that.  They also said she is very engaged, tells great, relevant stories and loves playing and talking to everyone.  Ms. Larissa said Kara was telling a story about what was at the end of her beanstalk and she said "there was snow in the castle and I BURST WITH EXCITEMENT to make a snowman!"  So Kara can sum up her own general state of emotion pretty well. :)

Kara's thoughtful quote of the month:
"Emily's family job is pooping." - After trying to explain to Kara that everyone in the family has jobs to help around the house (Kara clearing her plate spurred the conversation).

Link to pictures