The Whites

Sunday 18 May 2014

Sunny Days

It may be the California in me, but I can't get enough of this sunny weather! Here's a few of our days in the sun...

Friday at quitin' time. Off to the park!

The Hogle Zoo (courtesy of my awesome colleague and mom friend Amanda Butterfield. Her little Thomas has a crush on "Baby Emma" as he calls her)

Bubbles on the porch

Balloons! At the 5k fun run to raise money for the YW girl's camp. This picture doesn't even do justice to how excited she was.

Prepping for swimsuit season. Some exercise for baby girl...

but, she got a little tired and distracted here and there.

Ogden's 25th street to meet Mandi while she's in town!

Twins on accident. A true sign of best cousins.

Only missing a few :(

What an amazing Easter Sunday! I was so proud to see friends, family and so many participate in the the LDS social campaign "Because of Him." If you didn't get a chance, watch this video to learn more. I probably watched it 10 times.

The theme for my Easter this year was truly how impactful the Savior's atonement and resurrection were not only for me, but all mankind. I know it seems like a very basic principle, but this year it struck me how everything throughout eternity depended on this one day. Such a hopeful, beautiful, wonderful day. Because of Him, my family is mine forever and no trial or sin can keep me from returning to His presence.

My favorite line of the song "I Believe in Christ" ran through my mind. "I believe in Christ, so come what may."

Our day was filled with lots of love, a trip to walk the temple grounds and dinner at Aunt Becky's.

My little school girl and her daddy.

Miguel's Big Surprise

Yes, I surprised the unsurprisable Michael Andrew White on his big day. I consulted with TV expert Cade Carter 15 days prior - that's a lot for this procrastinator - ordered it online, hid it upstairs in our landlord's loft, and then came home from work on his birthday to set it up with my babysitter. GENIUS! pure, genius. Oh, and I thought Michael had a hunch, so I printed off a fake receipt showing that we had tickets to a Dodger game when we were out in CA for fourth of July. He was totally deceived... until we got home and I blew it. He said he was going to go charge his phone before we blew out candles. No! You can't! (I left the TV box in the bedroom. ugh). One look at my face, and he knew. Thankfully, I got in the living room just in time to get a video clip of the surprise.

Plus, it was really sweet to celebrate him just the three of us. We missed our extended family and would have loved to have everyone, but I really liked knowing that we're his closest family now. That sounds funny, but I hope you know what I mean.

More birthday celebration with Tyler and Megan

These two.

We love this guy. Happy Birthday, old man.

Spring 2014

Spring has sprung in Salt Lake City, and we couldn't be happier. Utah springs are probably the best around, and this year, they have been full of tender moments and great memories - Michael's birthday, a beautiful Easter Sunday, visits to the park, first steps, the closing of our second year at law school, and my very first real Mother's Day.

The next few posts will take you through them, but just for posterity's sake, here are EmmaJane's best moments:

At 10 months (April 25, 2014) I got a text from the babysitter that EmmaJane has got "standing down." It was so sad to get that while I was at work, but I was still a proud mama.

She will sit on my lap, suck her thumb while I sing her songs and then all of sudden turn around and blow raspberries on my arm.

She started throwing her head back and laughing. I wonder who she learned that from (guilty!), and she usually does it in Costco so everyone gets a kick out of it.

Her favorite foods are still blueberries, frozen peas, string cheese and cheerios. Takes after her mama. A girl of habit. BUT, she pretty much will eat everything under the sun.

At the beginning of 11 months she took her first few steps (May 2, 2014) and it was adorable.

She learned a few more words, except she doesn't say them, she just does them -- kisses (she purses her lips and goes "mmmmm" to give you a kiss), night night (I lay her down for bed and she puts her hand over her mouth to blow me a kiss), popcorn popping on the apricot tree (she puts her hands in the air to act out popcorn popping). Too much cuteness.

She'll walk around just holding your hand. Michael loves this.

Singing! She's started singing to herself and I almost die. If she wakes up in a good mood, she'll lay there just singing to herself and then start laughing. Or in the car. She does it all the time in the car.

We've been trying to teach her "no." So much so, that Michael uses it usually five times in a row. So after a long day of work, I came home to find out that she had definitely learned the word "no," except her version was "ma, ma, ma, ma, ma" while shaking her finger. (May 16, 2014)

Sunday 30 March 2014

10 Months, 5 Teeth and 1 Happy Baby

OK, it has been ages since an update on Emmajane/EmmaJane (we STILL can't decide how to write it). She is now 10 months old today and my heart can't hold all the love I have for this human. Above all, she is a happy, animated, bundle of energy. Her passion for life comes out more and more every single day.

If you want to skip all the milestone details, scroll to the bottom for a picture dump of smiles, naked cottage cheese bums and the bluest eyes you've ever seen...

7 Months

By seven months Emmajane was crawling like a pro and pulling herself up to standing.

She got croup on the drive home from Christmas break, and had it for about 2 weeks. I'll never forget feeling her burning hot head and wishing I could just take it all away. She got up to 107 one day, and we rushed her to the doctor right as the fever broke. It was funny how her personality and energy left, making her an entirely different baby. That's when she learned "mama." So sweet. Except for it was more like "mamamamaaaa" and I loved it. We would rock to sleep almost every night and cuddle on the couch whenever she would wake from a coughing fit. I'd stand with our front door open in my pajamas at 2, 3, 4 in the morning just so she could clear that cough. It made me so happy when we started seeing her smile again.

8 Months

At 8 months she became a self-feeder. I loved watching her double-fist those cheerios, and then palm them into her mouth. Since then, she's been pretty stubborn about feeding herself. No baby food on a spoon. No sir! She's got this, Mom and Dad.

She loves eating asparagus, frozen peas, tomatoes, yogurt, string cheese, green beans, and apples. Whole apples! Just like her mama. We'll let her gnaw on Granny Smiths for 30 minutes.

Between seven and eight months, she became a pro traveler with two set of airplane rides from Utah to California. She was a dream and won over the entire crew. On her second leg for Megan and Tyler's wedding, she was a little loud and the only way we could get her to quite down was to pat our hands over her mouth (Indian style). She loves that and her yell seemed just a bit quieter than if she wasn't playing Indian. Now she's learned to do it on her own, and I love it!

9 Months

Went to the doc. and she was 16.23 pounds (15th percentile) and 27 inches (70th percentile). A string bean! But growing right on track.

She's a little chatterbox! She says her ga ga ga's and da da da's and whole bunch of other random words we can't follow. My favorite thing, though, is that she now knows the difference between "yay" and "hi." If you say one, she'll wave, and for the other she claps her hands.

She thinks she's hilarious. She'll go around the entire room going "ha! ha! ha!" while bouncing front and back to make you laugh.

She got her first taste of what it would be like to live with dogs when we were dog-sitting Cade and Kass's dog when they were in Hawaii. It was a good and bad thing that she loved being around dogs because that's the closest you're gonna get, sister. The White house is canine-free. FOREVER.

She is still super social. She loves other kids like crazy! I took her to City Creek, where they have this massive indoor playground in the food court, and she was so excited to see so many kids. She couldn't do much except stand agains one of the many fake dinosaurs and pound and scream for joy - which ended up scaring off the kids and defeating the purpose. I kept trying to explain, "she's excited and happy to meet you," but they were like, "see ya!"