Allison got her bellybutton today. Yeah, it's a major breakthrough for a baby of 18 days. No more icky umbilical cord remains on her adorable little abdomen. Other than that, she has already learned how to control her parents by crying when we put her down, making cute faces when we hold her, and pooping in her diaper right after we change her. Unfortunately it has been rather foggy and dreary outside, making the indoor lighting poor for decent photographs, but we have tried. The flash causes major red-eye issues and I don't have any photo editing software right now to fix it, but at least you can see her cute face and her funny expressions!
This one (above) is one of my favorites - we call it the bird face.
Emily has been working hard for the past two months to earn her princess pillow and she finally did it! She had a chart and got happy faces for doing good things like getting dressed by herself, washing her hands, cleaning up her toys, etc. It seemed like a long time, but she finally filled up the chart and was thrilled to go on a special trip to Target and bring home her pillow.
I see it's been a month since I last posted....mostly I have quite a few photos, so I'll just put photos and captions to get us up to date:
Emily ate with chopsticks for the first time in early November. We went to PF Changs and she was able to use the chopsticks all by herself with the little chopstick holder thingy. She also used her fingers a lot, but we were very proud. She also found a statue of her favorite horse, Sahara, outside of the restaurant. It was "really big"!
We spent Thanksgiving with Kevin's family this year. Most of my family (except Marianne, who we were very happy to have visit us!) went to UT to see the extended family. We had a great meal and Marianne and I managed to sneak out by ourselves in the evening and go see "Enchanted". It was a cute movie. And I made my very first pies - pumpkin and banana cream - using my own homemade pie crust. The crust turned out probably twice as thick as normal (it's hard to roll it out thin!) but it tasted really yummy. At least I thought so.
The day after Thanksgiving we drove down to Marianne's place in San Luis Obispo and spent a day and a half there. We went to Avila Beach, where I haven't been before, and they had this really fun playground right by the beach. Emily of course decided she would rather play there than on the actual beach, so we hung out there for a while.
Emily didn't want to cooperate for any photos, of course... she dug in the sand (in the park, not the beach) and wasn't too disappointed that her sand castles didn't hold their form when she dumped them out.
Isn't Marianne cute?! Avila Beach has some little shops and stuff and we found a gelato shop and had a treat there. Then we saw a wedding on the beach! Marianne and I thought their color scheme - light sage green and cream - was just beautiful, and they did it so simply just with everyone standing there on the sand. It was kind of neat to see.
The above photo needs some explanation...We've been trying to have more regular family home evenings, and now when we say we are going to have the lesson Emily wants to give her own lesson. This particular evening we had Kevin's brothers over and Kevin gave a nice lesson that Emily chose not to attend. She was being very disruptive so she had to go to her room until she could be more reverent, but then she decided she needed to give her own lesson about Snow White and the evil queen. She was already dressed up in her princess costume, but she got some scriptures to help her (the dark red book on the left), plus her photos from Disneyland and a Snow White story book. She would not talk until we were ALL listening attentively, then she proceeded to give us a five-minute talk about Snow White and the queen and the poison apple and all that. It was quite funny because she was so serious about it and especially about us listening quietly. We try to get her to understand that she needs to listen to us and then we will also listen to her, but she just wants us to listen to her and then does her own thing when we are talking. Yep, she's three.
This one (above) is one of my favorites - we call it the bird face.
Emily has been working hard for the past two months to earn her princess pillow and she finally did it! She had a chart and got happy faces for doing good things like getting dressed by herself, washing her hands, cleaning up her toys, etc. It seemed like a long time, but she finally filled up the chart and was thrilled to go on a special trip to Target and bring home her pillow.
Allison was wide awake after her first bath. 
Emily was very gentle holding her sister for the first time.
Grandma Nelson made it just in time to pick up Emily and head over to the hospital to see her 9th grandchild.
Grandma and Grandpa George stayed in town long enough to meet their new granddaughter before heading back to San Diego.
When we were getting ready to go home from the hospital the next day, Emily was "sick" so doctor Daddy had to do a checkup on her in her hospital bed.
So happy to go home!
The first gift opened...Emily played with each toy as she opened it.
A trunk full of princess dresses - Emily's dream come true.
A warm snuggly "hug" blanket from Grandma...she said "I love it I love it I love it" while she was opening it.
Four generations: Norma Loudenslager, Hope Loudenslager George, Kevin Boam, Emily Boam.
Emily ate with chopsticks for the first time in early November. We went to PF Changs and she was able to use the chopsticks all by herself with the little chopstick holder thingy. She also used her fingers a lot, but we were very proud. She also found a statue of her favorite horse, Sahara, outside of the restaurant. It was "really big"!
We spent Thanksgiving with Kevin's family this year. Most of my family (except Marianne, who we were very happy to have visit us!) went to UT to see the extended family. We had a great meal and Marianne and I managed to sneak out by ourselves in the evening and go see "Enchanted". It was a cute movie. And I made my very first pies - pumpkin and banana cream - using my own homemade pie crust. The crust turned out probably twice as thick as normal (it's hard to roll it out thin!) but it tasted really yummy. At least I thought so.
The day after Thanksgiving we drove down to Marianne's place in San Luis Obispo and spent a day and a half there. We went to Avila Beach, where I haven't been before, and they had this really fun playground right by the beach. Emily of course decided she would rather play there than on the actual beach, so we hung out there for a while.
The above photo needs some explanation...We've been trying to have more regular family home evenings, and now when we say we are going to have the lesson Emily wants to give her own lesson. This particular evening we had Kevin's brothers over and Kevin gave a nice lesson that Emily chose not to attend. She was being very disruptive so she had to go to her room until she could be more reverent, but then she decided she needed to give her own lesson about Snow White and the evil queen. She was already dressed up in her princess costume, but she got some scriptures to help her (the dark red book on the left), plus her photos from Disneyland and a Snow White story book. She would not talk until we were ALL listening attentively, then she proceeded to give us a five-minute talk about Snow White and the queen and the poison apple and all that. It was quite funny because she was so serious about it and especially about us listening quietly. We try to get her to understand that she needs to listen to us and then we will also listen to her, but she just wants us to listen to her and then does her own thing when we are talking. Yep, she's three.
