Christmas Eve

Emma had a great first Christmas Eve. This morning she and I went out to breakfast at the National Exemplar with the entire Ferone family, the Stillies, and the Saxbys (Mike had to work). It was so much fun and Emma was all dressed up in her Christmas dress. After breakfast it was pouring rain and when we got home it was time for Emma to take a nap. I cuddled her up in bed with me and she slept for two hours while I cuddled her, stared at her, and read a magazine and part of a book. It was a wonderful time together! After the nap I put her in the high chair and got dinner ready for after church. She started fussing and I put a whisk on her tray to distract her with its shininess. I looked over and she had picked it up and was waving it around and putting it in her mouth. I was amazed! Finally, we went to the Christmas Eve service at church. What a great day. Emma can't wait to see what Santa brings in the morning!


Emma and the whisk!


Emma asleep in Mommy's bed. If you look closely you can see I caught her smiling in her sleep!


Mommy and Emma at Christmas Eve breakfast.

Emma's First Christmas

I have to admit that this Christmas season has been a blur. We are excited though to celebrate this year with Emma Kate! That is the greatest gift Mike and I could have been given this year. Second to that would be for Sam to come home from the hospital and be completely healed and healthy and stay that way. We are leaving on Friday to go visit Grammy and Poppa in St. Louis. We can't wait! Below is the link to an album of pictures of Emma in her Christmas dress. I was only going to post a few but her facial expressions are classic and the pictures are just too cute. It you want to look through them just click on her picture. Merry Christmas!

Emma's Christmas Greetings

More of Emma Kate

It has been a little while since I have had the chance to post. We have been distracted with the situation with Sam and Emma has continued her night waking and consequently has been the world's crabbiest baby. She is doing some new things, but most of her learning is still focused on finding her fingers to suck on. She is working so very hard to get her thumb in her mouth (and I never thought I would want my child to suck her thumb so badly). She takes the pacifier very little except at sleeping time. She has just figured out how to blow spit bubbles and make raspberries. She is very excited but the amount of drool coming out of her mouth is amazing.

Today one of my very sweetest friends is sending her mom over to help me with teaching Emma soothing mechanisms to replace the pacifier. She is an occupational therapist and part of what she does is help moms of babies with colic. I am so thankful for this opportunity. Although Emma is outgrowing the colic, there are still some areas that she struggles with like soothing herself. She is behind the average baby when it comes to playing alone and sleeping alone because of the colic. When she gets upset she goes into screaming fits that you would be amazed at. We are working on these things and it is difficult for me that she is not where she should be, especially with the sleep, but she will catch up. Aside from that, she is like a different baby and when she is not crabby, she is so sweet and interactive and precious.

Here are some videos and pictures of what Emma is doing now. The video of Emma and Monkey happened last week. Emma always wakes up from her 30 minute naps screaming. On this day she woke up and was cooing and talking to herself. I went in to see what she was doing and she had found Monkey in the crib and pulled him over and was talking to him. I of course could not get the best of it because I had to turn on the light to be able to video. It was so sweet. Then the other video is of Emma at playtime on her mat. It is just a glimpse of her during a normal day as she plays with the toys and gets very excited. She has become so interactive.

We were holding Emma up over our heads and she was just giggling.

This was Emma the morning she and Monkey were "talking" after nap time.

She loves Monkey! She especially loves to bite his face and ears.

I took this picture the day we tried taking the pacifier away. She was so desperate for something to suck on that she found Duck's arm and sucked on it. It was precious and heartbreaking all at the same time.

Grammy stopped for an overnight on her way to Pittsburgh to be with Sam at the hospital. Emma has started to soothe herself by rubbing her head. It is so sweet and so encouraging that she has figured something out on her own to soothe herself. That is a big step in the right direction with overcoming the colic.

Just Another Tuesday

Here are a few pictures from our day today. We set up Emma's highchair so that she can watch me in the kitchen. She refuses to sit in her bouncy seat now because it leans to far back and is on the floor. She sat in the highchair as happy as could be while I made dinner and got a few things done. She is just so observant and social.

We also went to the doctor today and Emma is now 13 1/2 lbs. She has a yeast infection on her neck in her fat rolls. She also has some other skin issues and we left with three prescriptions. Her excessive drooling and spitting up have chapped her chin. The doctor also suggested that we increase her Zantac and elevate her bed to see if that is the cause of her waking up in the night, so we will see. It now takes about 10 minutes to complete all of the powder, liquid medicine, lotion, gels, and drops. Hopefully she will clear up soon and SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT again!

Oh, and just so you know...Emma won. She is still getting the pacifier, although she is not getting it when she goes to sleep, only when she is awake and needing the comfort. The doctor agreed that it was best to keep it at least until Emma finds her finders and can provide herself with something else to suck on.

Still trying to find her fingers. She gets frustrated and curls them up and cannot get them in her mouth. The few times she does get them in, she gets frustrated and ends up digging her nails into her gums...she has quite the temper and little patience!

Happy sitting in the highchair. Doesn't she look old?!

Playing with her toys and watching Mommy cook

I love this outfit from Tante Janet. It has a little girl with tea cups and tea pots on it! How appropriate!

We are working on tummy time. It seems to be the most successful place for her to try to get her fingers in her mouth. Notice the burp cloth under her. I replaced it four time because she spit up so much...thank you Aunt Amy for the extra burp cloths!

Emma's New Tricks

It has been another great week in the Woods' house. Emma is growing up so fast! She refuses to play on her back anymore and insists on sitting up or standing. She can stand on our laps with just the aid of our fingers in her hands. Her head is stabilizing and getting stronger. She is now looking at pictures in a book for a long time and talking at the book and trying to touch it. She also is taking toys from our hands (not very often though).

Her best trick though has developed in the past few days. She has decided that while sleeping through the night she would like to have her pacifier in her mouth. That means that starting at 2:12 for the past three nights she wakes up crying for the pacifier and then goes back to sleep only to want it again in 20-40 minutes until it is time to get up in the morning. I have tried feeding her and that is not the issue. We have let it go for several nights to see if it was a fluke. Last night we put a heater in there to see if she was too cold. We are both tired and it seems as though it is time to say goodbye to the pacifier. As the colic has been subsiding, Emma's desire for the pacifier outside of bedtime has decreased and she has been working on sucking on her hands while awake. I will let you know how the pacifier situation plays out because as with everything with Emma it will be an all out battle. I have really struggled with this decision as to whether it is the right one, especially with the colic. But, Emma is ready to learn a new soothing mechanism that is done by herself and not us.

I included a few highlight pictures but also an album to see all of them. I just couldn't choose so I thought I would let you see them all if you would like...isn't technology great! If you want to look at the album, click on the picture at the bottom and it will open up and you can watch a slideshow. There is also a video clip before it of Emma trying to find her thumb.

Emma's New Activities

Emma's Baptism

Emma was baptized this past Sunday by Poppa (Becky's Dad). It was a very special occasion in which Mike and I were able to dedicate Emma to the Lord and formally pledge to bring her up in a home that loves the Lord and works to teach Emma about God and guide her to the place that she makes a personal confession of faith and asks Jesus to be her Lord and Savior by her own decision.

Many people have different opinions about baptism and since we chose to have Emma baptized as an infant I wanted to explain what that means. First of all, it does not mean that she is a Christian. Here are the vows we took as her parents:

1. Do you acknowledge your child's need of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit?

2. Do you claim God's covenant promises in her behalf, and do you look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for her salvation, as you do for your own?

3. Do you now unreservedly dedicate your child to God, and promise, in humble reliance upon divine grace, that you will endeavor to set before her a godly example, that you will pray with and for her, that you will teach her the doctrines of our holy religion, and that you will strive, by all the means of God's appointment, to bring her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?

I share these so that you, our close friends and family, can understand what we promised before the Lord and help us to teach Emma about God and hold us accountable to these vows. It was such a wonderful opportunity to publicly dedicate her life to the Lord and acknowledge that she is His and not ours. My dad baptized her as have the grandfathers in our family for generations. The legacy of faith that has come before Emma is deep and strong. She is blessed with a wealth of godly examples and people who love the Lord. It was such an emotional day for me to make this promise and realize what it meant when my parents did that for me and just how much effort and intentional work went into my growth and teaching about God.

Here are some pictures from the event along with a link to hear the sermon if you are interested. Dad did the baptism as a part of the sermon in his advent series. He held Emma in his arms the entire time-yes, she actually cooperated better than we had hoped for! It was a very neat and special day although we were sad that some of our family and friends could not share in it with us.

Click on this link to find the sermon from the baptism- http://www.gracepca.net/ When you get to this page, the sermon is on the right hand side and is titled "The Gift of a Child".

Emma's First Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in St. Louis. The Rookes, Perrins and the Dalbeys were all together for the holiday. It was so fun and so freeing to have so much help for Emma. It was really neat to see how much everyone loved her! I did not take many pictures, but we had a great time just hanging out talking, walking, and Mike played cards the whole trip with my uncles and cousins. I was not at all ready to come home. Emma was wonderful...it was like she was a different baby. She was content and happy to be passed all around and enjoyed all of the comotion around her.

Emma also had a big week of "firsts". She did all of the following things for the first time:
1. Got her thumb in her mouth unassisted
2. Giggled out loud at Grammy
3. Grasped and held a toy
4. Reached for toys
5. Reached for Poppa's fingers and when he took them away and brought them back, she grabbed for them again
6. Smiled spontaneously (not at someone's face)

Here are just a few pictures from the trip.

Aunt Sue "the mentor" taught Emma to be content! She also was the giver of the duck for which we are soo thankful!

Uncle Ben and Aunt Erin loved thier time with Emma!

Do you think Emma was the center of attention?

We discovered that Emma LOVES to be naked. She had lots of naked time during the week and was her happiest then...Mike is not sure how he feels about his daughter enjoying that!

Emma enjoyed cuddling with Grammy and Poppa. She also is super attached to Ducky and we discovered that she LOVES to have the duck ontop of her head. That is now how Emma falls asleep with the duck covering her face...it is very comical but WONDERFUL to have something that calms her down.