Summer is here!

First trip to the library

Doing some light reading in preparation for December ;-)

Taking a break from exploring to enjoy a cucumber.

One of her favorite places to "play".  She likes to pull the fruit out of the basket and flip through the cookbooks.

I have to remember every day to close the pantry doors!  This is the first place she crawls to!  I don't *think* she has actually eaten any dogfood...but I have fished many pieces out of her mouth. ha!  Did I mention our new word is "Nononononononooooooooooooo"????  That translates as "no".  Aaron likes to tell her, "No means no".

Her other favorite place to go is where all of the cool t.v. stuff is (remotes, dvd player, dvd's, cd's).  We got our first battle wound the other day.  She got her finger stuck in the dvd player.  I of course thought she lost her finger.  Just a little indentation and a TINY little drop of blood.  Something tells me that this won't be the first or last "owie". 

Swinging on a beautiful, sunny day!

Enjoying the view at the beach on a nice summer evening.

 Emmeline had a good time watching the ducks walk in the sand and swim in the water.

"There's mommy!"  This girl has POINTING down pat.  She points at everything.  Oh, and waves at everyone (and says, "hi").  It is adorable!

Emmeline loves watching daddy run around and kick a soccer ball.  She has so much fun with her da-da!

Bathtime is still Emmeline's favorite time of the day!  Thank you Great Aunt Julie and Grandma Barbie for my new bath toys. :-)

This little stinker crawls around the tub like a mad woman and also is a dare devil and likes to stand up (holding onto the edge of tub). 

Emmeline's first birthday party

Riding a tractor!!! ;-)

I like to eat, eat, eat, apples and bananas...

Things are getting a little messy over here as Emmeline tries new foods!  She also gets very silly while eating (which daddy says she gets from me as I tend to get a little "energy buzz" after eating meals! ;-) ).  She eats pretty much anything we are eating these days.  We try to make sure she gets a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables as a foundation and then we let her try whatever we are eating.  It is so fun to see her eat so independently.  Her expressions and noises ("Mmmm") are priceless! We've been able to get some good, local produce from the farmer's market now that it is up and running and we look forward to more this summer!  Lately we've been enjoying nectarines, peaches, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries.  Emmeline also likes tortellini and quinoa (pictured below).  Yogurt is another favorite (either yobaby or mommy's greek yogurt).  She tries to feed herself with the spoon which is very cute. Oh, and she loves daddy's cheesy egg scramble on the weekends.  And, steel cut oats.  The list goes on and on!    Let me just say, it is a full time job cleaning up after each meal. ha! 

We use the signs "more", "drink" and "all done".  She picked up "all done" right away which was pretty impressive.  Although she still finds it necessary sometimes to dump her bowl to show me she is all done. ha!  Her first sign was "milk"...she stopped doing it for awhile but now she is back to signing it again and it is better than before! 

Love this little face!

See her teeth??  She has four now.

 Goofball!

Her new big girl cup from Grandma Barbie.

Spinach/Cheese tortellini!

Mmm, Mmm good!

Raspberries and blueberries! Yum!

Breakfast with daddy on the weekend

Brunch with daddy on Father's day. Sharing a fruit plate.

Crawling!

Emmeline has been trying to crawl for some time now.  It was fun watching her try to figure it out and watching the progression of this developmental milestone.  She would get so frustrated because she wanted so badly to move around but she could quite figure out how to work her legs.  Over the last week, she has been rocking and scooting around a little to reach toys but she OFFICIALLY started crawling over the weekend.  We got some footage of her one-legged, crooked crawl.  It is too cute!! We are in trouble!

Here Fishy Fishy...

Emmeline's first trip to the Seattle Aquarium!

She went with some of her favorite baby friends and they all LOVED it.  It was so fun to see them taking in all of the local sea life.  They loved all of the fun colors and movement.

I am so bummed that everyone couldn't make it and also that we didn't get a group photo of those who did.  But, here are some of the photos we did get while there...

Owen and Emmeline standing up at one of the fish aquariums (the one that makes waves!)

Exploring the tidepools where you can touch and feel all of the sea creatures

Dan and Oliver

Brigit and Martin

Emmeline and Keegan just hanging out at the tidepool together

Checking out the jellyfish with daddy

What beautiful colors!

Marcy and Keegan

Here he comes...

There he goes!

Oliver and Owen talking about the big fish they just saw ;-)

Underground!

In the fish dome

Scuba diver in there with the fish...

This is Barney. :-)

Emmeline and Oliver checking out the harbor seals

This guy was so cute...floating on his back while sound asleep.  Made me wish I were floating around on a raft in a pool! :-)

Marcy and Keegan enjoying the view