Happy Easter!   It was cold today, but at least the sun was out!  After the 14 inches of snow we got on Friday I think the Easter Bunny had to borrow Santa’s sleigh and reindeer to get here, but he made it!  Emma got some books, new shoes, a stuffed bunny and a sun hat.

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There are A LOT of pictures from today up in the gallery.  Grandma was behind the camera and took lots of pictures of Emma standing up (her new favorite thing to do).  There are pictures of Emma wearing her pretty spring dress and new shoes and pics of her in her snowsuit and shades.

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Emma wants to wish everyone a Happy St. Patrick’s Day! She didn’t seem very happy this morning when I dressed her in her festive clothing, but I eventually got a half smile out of her!

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There are also some pictures from this past weekend when she tried avocado for the first (and quite possibly the last) time. She seemed to HATE it and wouldn’t even eat the cereal that was in the same bowl.

We had dinner at Betsy and Matt’s yesterday and Emma got to swing on the swing set for the first time. She seemed to have fun and really liked watching the neighbor kids when they were swinging high! I forgot my camera, but Betsy came to the rescue!

Emma had her 6 month well child visit today.

Weight: 17# 11 3/4 oz. (75th percentile)

Height: 26″ (50-55th percentile)

Head circumference: 17 1/8″ (75th percentile)

She got three shots and once again demonstrated her shrill, high pitched scream!

I put more pictures in the gallery today. I didn’t realize that I hadn’t moved these off of my camera, oops! You can see Emma trying out her BIG stroller (and wearing her first pair of good boots!). Now that she’s outgrown her infant carrier, we had to move her to the convertible car seat and I had to give up the snap ‘n go stroller. The stroller is really nice and she seems really comfortable in it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit in the trunk of the Volvo, so we had to get a smaller one. The new one is much more compact and lightweight, but gives a little more support and storage room than an umbrella stroller.

We were finally successful in getting good pictures of Emma at six months. We went back to Wal Mart and had a great experience (no bloody lips this time). They have all new equipment since last time we were there and the quality of the photos is better. They now offer a CD of all of the pictures, of course we bought it! You can see all of the pictures in the gallery. Since the CD has high resolution pictures and a copyright release, we can print whatever the grandparents want!

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When I went in to get Emma from her (very) short nap this afternoon, this is what I saw:

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She was swaddled when I put her down, she sure is getting strong!

There are a bunch of other pictures up in the gallery – I took most of them a couple of weeks ago and just forgot to post them.

On Sunday we decided to try Sears Portrait Studio. I am pretty sure we will never go back there again. We have now tried all of the portrait studios we know of in town. I think we will stick with Wal-Mart for most and hope to get the area manager. We will go to JCPenney and ask for the first photographer we had for special occasions. If Wal-Mart gets the new equipment I think we may be able to go there for special occasions. Well here are the untouched rough photos that they almost lost in the system on Sunday. As you can tell, they are horrible. Well, maybe not horrible, but for a cute kid they could be so much better. I was just glad they were able to find the pictures – they were having technical difficulties and we were unable to view them on Sunday.  We overheard the photographer talking to tech support and she said that the computer said that the session was unreadable.  I really think the photographer did not know how to use their system. I guess she had this same problem for everybody on Sunday. The people before us said they were waiting for over 2 hours and never got to see their pictures. When she started down the same path with us I just said call us when you find them and we will come back.  I went back yesterday and while I was waiting, I got to see another couple looking at their daughter’s photos.  They had about 30 different poses.  We have 14 pictures.  Needless to say, I was not pleased.  I was ready to put up a fight if they tried to get me to pay the sitting fee.  Thankfully, the manager went through the pictures with me and saw how awful they were.  To her credit, she didn’t even tell me about their overpriced packages or try to get me to pay for anything.  She did crop two of the pictures so they were OK so I did buy some.  I may take her somewhere else to get some good six month/springtime pictures.

Emma just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day! Pictures in the gallery.

There are some new pictures up.  We bought Emma a highchair this past weekend.  She loves sitting in it!  There are more pictures of Emma eating – she’s had rice cereal, sweet potatoes, squash and now carrots and loves everything!  She also loves to sit up on her own for a few minutes at a time.  She does a lot of leaning and we’ve had a couple close calls with the base of the coffee table, but no injuries yet!  We’ve also started putting her in her swing again from time to time.  She likes it now that she can sit up in it and actually play with the toys.  It doesn’t take long before she falls asleep, she must have very tiring days at daycare!

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Emma has ventured into the wonderful world of vegetables.  She seems to like sweet potatoes so far.  She has gotten much better at eating from a spoon, but still manages to get food everywhere.  She likes to do a lot of smiling and laughing while she eats and not necessarily before she swallows her food!  She also loves to help by wiping her face with her (food covered) bib and smearing her food covered hands in her hair!  There are some new pictures in the gallery.

There are also some new pictures of her in her exersaucer from last night.  She looked like she was concentrating so hard on some of the toys.