Merry Christmas from the Parks

Some pictures from Christmas day (courtesy of Debby).

Seven Months

Dear Emma,

You are now closer to being 1 year old than 0. It amazes me how quickly time passes. You are continuing to grow and thrive. You now weigh 13 lbs, 6 oz. You love to eat food. Your favorite foods are pears, pumpkin, applesauce, carrots, and sweet potatoes. You like the sweet stuff just like your mommy! You also eat Mum Mum rice rusks and love to hold them and shove them in your mouth. You can get up on your hands and knees and scoot about a foot or so. And o course you love to scoot around in a circle. You can also sit up for extended periods of time now (about 30 minutes)! This is wonderful because you are content to sit and play on your own. Though you have had many milestones this past month, it has been quite a rough month. You have been through three rounds of antibiotics for your ear infection and we think you are now teething. You are quite the fussy little baby! But we still love you and are enjoying each new day with you. This Christmas is sure to be a special one!

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

A few pictures to share

Emma and Liam making out (while the parents applaud nearby)!

Emma holds the reins in this relationship.

And steals the toys.

Wanna hold hands?

Remember that time it snowed in New Orleans?

I do!

Leaving you with a smile...

Six Months

Okay, I better write this letter because she will be 7 months in 8 days and it would be a tragedy to not have a 6 month letter.

Dear Emma,

Six months. You are half a year old. It is hard to imagine that in six more months you will be a year old. Wow, time flies. This makes me realize just how much I want to cherish each moment with you. Each night that you wake up a million times. Each smile and laugh. Each squeal. Each cuddle that you give. Pictures just don't do justice. I want to replay these sweet baby moments in my head forever. And I'm sure I'll need to when you are 16 and giving me a run for my money.

You are such a fun baby these days. You love to be out and about and having fun. You get bored at home, which is nice, because so do your Mommy and Daddy.

You are eating more solids now. You are now eating oatmeal cereal, carrots, prunes, applesauce, and soon we'll be adding more to the mix. You are not a big fan of green beans, squash, or bananas at the moment.

You are really getting into toys these days. You still love to chew on them, but you also like to look at them, shake them, and push their buttons. You can really grab and hold onto things these days as well. Another one of your favorite things to do is to grab your Mommy and Daddy's nose and poke our eyes. :) You think that is quite funny.

Your Grammy and Aunt Kay just spent a week in New Orleans visiting you and you enjoyed their company lots. We toted you all around the city and you were oogled over everywhere we went. You are such a trooper! We then went back to South Carolina and spent time with you PaPa, Uncle Stephen, Grandma Parks, Grandpa Parks, and even got to see Uncle Michael, Aunt Amy, and Cousin Will. We had a fun time and you were wonderful on the flight home. Mommy was so proud of you.

You continue to be the light and joy of our lives. We love you so much. Happy half birthday!

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Long overdue

Now that I am a working woman, I have been slacking on my blogging duties. I am, however, doing well on twittering. :) Here's what has been going on with us lately...

*The nights have been very long in the Parks household lately. Emma is still sick. Now she has an ear infection and is on her second round of antibiotics. It appears to us that her congestion has gotten worse this weekend. She heads back to the doctor on Wednesday or Thursday. Hopefully this won't be the beginning of a journey of ear infections.

*I am sick as well. It's time for my yearly sinus infection. Went to the doctor this morning and got some antibiotics and a cortizone shot. Definitely starting to feel better.

*Work is fabulous. We have so much fun and the kids are great. Some of the cutest kids ever. Emma has adjusted well. Some days she needs to be held more than others, but I think that's been because she hasn't been feeling well. Emma LOVES the other kids and LOVES all the toys to chew on!

*Emma is now eating some "finger foods". Her favorite thing to eat is Baby Mum Mum Rice Rusks. She has also tried some Puffs, but I think only one or two made it in her mouth. She thinks she is big stuff eating like the bigger kids at ESI.

*Emma is now scooting and rocking on all fours. Crawling, here we come! Our lives are about to drastically change!!!

*We will be heading back to South Carolina for Christmas and are looking forward to a spending the week with our families.

*Oh and some big news...it SNOWED in New Orleans on Thursday! How crazy is that?!?! It even stuck and there was enough snow for the kids at work to make a decent sized snow man. So much fun! When I moved to New Orleans, I never thought I would see snow here. I'm pretty much convinced that the world is coming to an end. Especially since two days before it snowed, it was 75 degrees and we were wearing t-shirts and capris. I have tons of pictures, but I left the camera at work (and am praying the cleaning crew didn't nab it).

*I do, however, have some pictures of the cute kiddos at work to share. Sorry they are not the best quality; they are from my phone.

Emma and M (the happiest baby on earth!)

Emma and L (our handsome boy)

P cheesin' it up. This girl cracks me up!

Mouse trap!

When I was little, I used to love the game Mouse Trap. Here's how we play the game at work...

We have mice everywhere in the office, so we have these sticky glue mouse traps set out all over the place. The other day I'm in the nursery with the kids and I hear P (age 1 1/2) say "ouch". I turn around and her finger is stuck to a mouse trap, along with two plastic toy cups and a dead mouse! Gross! I immediately get her finger off the trap and put the trap out of reach of the children. I then call Matt (who was upstairs) to see our little "toy mousetrap". While it was gross, it was hilarious at the same time. Matt disposed of the mousetrap/toys/mouse and little P washed her hands very well. At least we know the mouse traps work!

Back to the blogging world.

Obviously, the past few weeks have been crazy busy for me and my little family.

*My mom and Mrs. Kay came to New Orleans for the re-taping of Beth Moore's Breaking Free Bible study. We had an amazing week full of eating, site seeing, and getting a Word from the Lord (through Beth Moore). God did a work in me and challenged me in new ways to stop being so selfish and just get in His Word.

My mom and I in front of the Breaking Free set.

*I turned 25 on November 15th. It's hard to believe that I'm 25, have been married 3 1/2 years and have a child. I am blessed.

*Emma and I rode back to SC with my mom, and Mrs. Kay so we could visit friends/family and go to Erin's wedding. The week seemed to fly by and I feel like I didn't get to spend as much time with everyone as I wanted, but that's how it goes when you have lots of people to see. Erin's wedding was beautiful and it was fun to see all my old college friends.

Emma taking a bath in Mrs. Carmen's kitchen sink.

Emma and her cousin Will. This is the best picture I could get of them--it's hard getting a good picture of a 1 year old and 6 month old!

College friends--Tara, Shelly, me (and Emma), and Kelly

Paul, Emma, and her "Beat South Carolina" sticker.
We were a divided family because I wore a "Beat Clemson" sticker.

Emma even participated in the bouquet toss!

Jocelyn and Emma

*We got back to New Orleans last Sunday night at 9:30 and I started work the next morning! I had a fun week and work and know that I'm going to love this job. The kids are great and so cute. And of course, it is so wonderful to be with Emma. It will definitely take some time for Emma to transition into this new environment, but I think she will be fine. She had a fussy week (because she's sick), so I had to hold her a lot, which was a kind of a hassle when I was trying to do stuff with the other kids. But, she loves the other kids and they love her.

*Emma has had a cold for a couple weeks now, and it has gotten progressively worse. She has been extremely fussy the past couple days and had a low-grade fever. We took her to the doctor this morning, and she has a sinus infection. She is now on amoxicillan, aka "the pink stuff". Hopefully it will help.

*We went over to the Friendship House for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. We had a wonderful time of food and fellowship. We ate lots and lots for dinner and continued to eat more throughout the day! We also had fun playing Apples to Apples and Imaginiff. Fun times with fun people.

*This morning when Emma woke up at 5am, we decided to get up and head out and brave the crowd at Toys R Us. When we got there, the parking lot was packed and we actually had to park on the sidewalk beside the store. Our goal was to get this toy for Emma for Christmas. There weren't any left at the display where they were supposed to be, so Matt asked a sales associate and they brought one out of the back for us! We saved about $15, so we think it was worth it.

*As of today, Emma weighs 15 lbs, 13 oz. She is almost double her birth weight! She's getting so big!

*I have been wanting a Keurig coffee maker for a while, ever since Kelly introduced me to hers. I hit up the close out sale at Linens and Things today and got the Special Edition Brewing System for $104.99. I'm pretty excited about it and know that it will get tons of use!

*Emma turned 6 months last Saturday and I need to write her letter. I will do that very soon.

Phew! It took me over an hour to write this post! Lots of catching up to do!

Glad to be home

Emma and I just got back to NOLA and I'm SO glad to be back home. I had a wonderful time visiting friends and family, but am completely exhausted and ready to get back into my "normal" routine. Well, my new normal routine, since I start work tomorrow! I do have lots to blog about and some pictures, but I desperately need sleep. So, for now, check this out.

Big News!

Here it is...

I am now a Nanny for Earth Search. Yeah, that's the place Matt works. One of the Nannies is leaving and I got offered the position and it was made final today. So, I will get paid to spend all day with Emma and 6 other cutie pie kiddos (and Karla, the other Nanny). I will start on Monday, the 24th. It's pretty exciting! God is so good to us. We could have never planned or asked for any better of a situation. It's such a perfect fit.

Busy couple weeks!

Posting will be slow around here for the next two weeks. This week, my mom and Mrs. Kay are in town and we are having fun being tourists, loving on Emma, and going to the Breaking Free taping with Beth Moore.

Next week, Emma and I will be back in SC to visit family and for Erin's wedding.

But, I will most likely have some really exciting news to share later on this week.

Praying for your child

I truly believe that praying for your child is important. The moment we found out about our sweet Emma's life inside of me, we began praying for her. Angie, at Bring the Rain wrote about how she prays over her children with seven specific prayers each day. She prays Scripture over her children when they wake, when they are getting dressed, while they are eating, when they go out of the house, while they are taking a bath, when they are going to bed, and while they are sleeping. What a great thing to do! Prayer is powerful and praying Scripture is even more powerful! You can click on the button below to see her post and the specific Scriptures that she prays. I am about to write these Scriptures on note cards and post them in my house.

Just for fun!

Kingdom Coming

Check this song out. It's powerful.

Thoughts on this Election Day

This is quite random, but here's what's floating around in my head right now...

*I am glad that I voted this morning (at 6:30am). I, along with the rest of the country, feel this is a very important election. I know that whatever the outcome, God is in control. I am also glad that I didn't have to wait in line to vote--in and out within 10 minutes.

*Do not place your reflux baby by the laptop when you burp her. She WILL spit up!

*Prune colored spit up is not pretty.

*I love my new jogging stroller I got off craigslist. It's a cheapo, but we're saving up for a Phil & Teds.

*I can't believe that my Mom and Kay are going to be here in THREE days!!! Emma will be so thrilled to see her Grammy & Aunt Kay!

*I hope we are able to get rid of a lot of junk at our garage sale on Saturday. I'm tired of living in a cluttered house. And we need to get rid of the clutter because Emma will be all over the place soon!

*This crazy hot/cold weather is making my sinuses go haywire!

Pictures

*I just added a TON of pictures here!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the past few days. And big news...Emma learned how to roll from her back to belly on Friday. Putting her down for bed is MUCH more difficult now, as she automatically rolls over, but doesn't like to be on her tummy, so I have to keep rolling her back over onto her back. Wonder how long this stage is going to last?

Emma and her friend, Liam, on Halloween.
Emma's pea pod swallowed her!
And Liam was sleeping!

Wearing Daddy's Indiana Jones hat

Life is good...sleep is good!

I can sit up like a big girl AND eat my hand at the same time!

All bundled up!

Babylegs!