Baby Steps

Friday after work, both Jeff and I were at my mom's house to pick up Emma. I wasn't sure if he was picking her up or if I needed to and he wasn't answering the home phone. Turns out he was at Mom's. But I stopped by her house before I got home and the three of us visited while Emma cruised around the coffee table. My mom got Emma the cutest stuffed elephant and she loves it. She kisses it and grins at it and carries it around.

Well we three were sitting there chatting and Emma, clutching Elephant, took two steps from the coffee table to the couch. The only thing she was holding on to was Elephant, so it's official. Write this down in the books, people, June 12th, 2009, Emma Elise Parnell took her first steps.
She has yet to have a repeat performance, and I'm wondering if she even realizes what she actually did since she was holding onto the stuffed animal, but whatever. I saw it. Jeff saw it. Nanna saw it. She walked.

17 Weeks and 11 Months

At 17 weeks I am occasionally tired but I think it has more to do with juggling Emma, work, Jeffrey, myself, and the house.
At 17 weeks I definitely need maternity clothes but I think I'm still in that "is she fat or is she pregnant" phase.
At 17 weeks, I am noticing it is harder and harder to get Emma out of the tub or her crib. Especially if she's not really ready to wake up and I have to lean in and get her. Someone tell her it's easier if she stands up please?
At 17 weeks I am beginning to feel Baby P moving. While it's not regular, I enjoy it immensely when it happens.
At 17 weeks, I am counting down the days until July 10th, when we will find out what color we are painting the new nursery.
At 17 weeks, I think about what will it REALLY be like to have two babies.
At 17 weeks, I now have to take a thyroid pill since I have hypothyroidism. It's not a big deal and the doctor doesn't seem worried about it.
At 17 weeks, sleeping is becoming more uncomfortable, but I have a sweet husband who lets me get lots of it!
At 17 weeks, thankfully I am still sleeping through the night!
At 17 weeks, it's thrilling to think of expanding our family of three to a family of four!


At 11 months, Emma is pulling up on everything and surprising us with her strength.
At 11 months, Emma crawls quickly and will be off and around the corner before we know it.
At 11 months, Emma stands on her own for long periods of time without falling.
At 11 months, Emma is able to simply sit down from a standing position instead of crashing down to the ground and crying.
At 11 months, Emma enjoys her toy that spits balls out of an opening while playing music.
At 11 months, Emma also realizes that she can put the balls back through the opening where they shot out of all by herself.
At 11 months, Emma enjoys going to the pool and splashing in the water and looks mighty adorable in her bathing suits!
At 11 months, Emma now has 4 upper teeth and 4 lower teeth, although some of the teeth are at varying stages.
At 11 months, Emma says things like "mama" "dadee" and "nananana" as well as nonsense words that sound very similar to words we use. She "talks" all the time and we are fascinated by her use of different tones and the inflection in her voice. She speaks beautifully, we just don't really know what she is saying!
At 11 months, Emma will eat anything you feed her. She loves beets, lima beans, squash, and all kinds of fruit. This weekend we are planning on trying mini Emma sized burgers to introduce her to beef.
At 11 months, Emma adores Kylie. I mean adores. If she is crying, we ask her "where's the big fat dog?" and she'll stop and look for Kylie. She crawls to Kylie and buries her head in Kylie's fur and squeals in delight.
At 11 months, Emma is tolerated by Kylie. :-)
At 11 months, Emma's first birthday and first steps are just around the corner.


At 17 weeks and 11 months, it seems impossible that Emma was once a newborn and that in a few months, we'll be starting the process over again with a new baby. YAY!!

Pretty vs Preeee

My little Emma Bug enjoys talking to all things outside. She has this adorable little whispery voice (which I can only assume means she is full of secrets, just waiting to come out) that she uses and it is so fun to watch her stand in the window and talk to the flowers outside. Or the squirrels, or the birds, or whoever her friends are out in the back yard. But we've been saying "pretty" to her quite a bit. Pretty flowers (consequently my first words), pretty necklace, pretty hair, you get the picture. So yesterday morning, before I had to hustle off to work, Emma was looking outside and I said pretty flowers. She mimicked me and said "preee". OK, so I know what you're thinking. Preee is a far cry from "My, look what pretty flowers are growing in our garden, Mamma," but she repeated after me 5 - 6 times.
Heather: Pretty
Emma: Preee
Heather: Pretty
Emma: Preee
You get it. So if you were MY mom, you'd say to run to the baby book and write that one down officially in her book. I'll wait, because I'm trying to be objective. But inside I'm stoked because conversation is around the corner folks! I'd much rather my sweet little girl be able to converse first. We can work on walking later. Bring on the words!!

10 Weeks and (apparently) Counting

I receive weekly updates from a really cool website, babycenter.com. They send out a picture of what little Baby P probably looks like and each week, I am given a better idea of how big Baby P is by a comparison to a food. It is always food. At week 9 Baby P was the size of a grape. This week, it's as big as a kumquat. It's fascinating to read and be able to visualize how big that little baby is getting.
By now, our little kumquat Baby P has completed the most critical part of his or her whole development! Isn't that amazing? At less than a quarter of an ounce (LESS THAN ONE OUNCE!) Baby P is a baby. Just a teeny, tiny, here come the Littles, baby, but a baby none the less! At this point, Baby P will just get bigger and more developed. Tiny finger nails and toe nails are forming and it's little feet are no longer webbed. There are tiny tiny baby toes in my belly! Can you even imagine?
I also noticed the banner at the top which touts: You are ten weeks pregnant! Only 210 days to go! Seriously? We're excited about 210 days to go at this point? I'm thinking we shoudl slow down a bit and, say, wait until we get down closer to the due date before we get all worked up about X number of days left. Are you with me? I mean, lets be honest, I am excited. Over the moon. We are ready (well, not physically ready like the room isn't ready) but we are ready to have baby # 2. But if I'm counting down from 210 days, it's going to be a looooong wait until November. We all know how patient my sweet Jeffrey can be...let's not make matters worse for him by starting the count down today.

And because I am a super proud mamma of a beautiful little Emma, here's my new desktop picture. Love her!!

I wonder.....

If I'll ever get sick of watching this. Or of wishing I could have participated. Hmmm....

Family Portraits and the Deluge of 2009

This was an old post, originally started two weeks ago...


We had our family portraits scheduled for today. Our church is doing a directory for the first time in a while and I scheduled this appointment about a month ago; carefully choosing a time that wouldn't be during the week - trying to look our best after a long day of work didn't seem smart. So a weekend it must be. Not too early - I am not good at getting up and ready and getting a little monkey ready as well. Not too late - we need to respect Emma's bedtime. But can't make it too close to a meal, that way she won't be hungry and fussy...not too close to naptime...so I picked 12:20. After lunch, before a nap, plenty of time for Mamma to get ready and PACK the dress to change Emma at church. Perfect. I knew what we were wearing, we matched, should be a good day. Until the deluge of 2009 started. It was just a beautiful rain. Some thunder, a few strikes of lightning, but mostly just good, delicious rain. Now that PG is hungry all the time and exhausted (should I confess that after Emma went to bed at 7:30 last night I was not far behind, falling asleep at 8:00??) a snuggly, sleepy, rainy day was perfect for reading and falling asleep on the couch. Hmmm...seems quite parallel to last night. So I fall asleep reading during the wondrous rain only to awake and realize that it is 11:30, Jeff and I need showers and Emma needs lunch. We managed to get everyone ready and be out the door ontime. And then we backed out of our driveway. The rain had fallen so much y'all, that it was OVER OUR CURB! I have not seen so much moisture collect - even during hurricane Ike! I worried as we drove away what our 10 minute commute to church would look like. The roads were soaked. Drenched. And filling up fast. We picked our way to the church while others were pulling over and managed to get inside relatively unscathed. Jeff dropped Emma and I off under some covered parking so the two of us ran in while he repositioned the truck so that the next car could drop off their passengers. We made it inside at 12:15. Looking good. Until we found out that one of the other couples there for pictures had an 11:50 appointment time. Yikes. I hadn't eaten lunch, I realized we somehow forgot to refill the wipes in the diaper bag, and Emma was drooling on her new dress. I pulled the dress back off of her and let her run around in the bloomers and no shirt. She was a hit and was very well behaved while we waited. I didn't keep track of the time, but when we were completely finished it was 2:05. Our friend was having a Sundae party for their daughter who will be baptized tomorrow. They live right by the church, so we drove over there for some delicious ice cream (and berries and sauce and whipped cream and sprinkles and candy...they had the SPREAD let me tell you!). One of their neighbors had to move their car because it was flooding! We had a lovely time, and by the time we decided to leave, the water had receeded. The drive home was just like any other wet drive home after a rain storm. What a weird weather day! Tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful...

UPDATE:
The weather the next day was beutiful. We saw our pictures, however, and they are NOT beautiful. With the insane weather, my attempt at curling my hair fell flat. One just one side. And I don't really look pregnant yet, just a lovely sort of fat. Jeff, however, looks handsome and I think Emma looks adorable. I would post the link for you to look at our pictures, but I think I am too vain. You will have to wait and see us in the directory.
...would it be too much to ask the church to put a small asterisk by our picture and note that it was a horribly wet/windy/floody kind of day when we took our picture AND that Heather Parnell is expecting a baby? Too vain? Sigh. OK. Laugh it up people, it's gonna be one for the books.

Oh the Joys of the First Trimester

Lord forgive me, but I was not a happy Pregnant Girl this morning. I thanked Him profusely for this sweet Baby P that is growing and for the beautiful baby girl He has already given us. But darn it, I (blissfully) had forgotten these feelings that accompany the first trimester! I think I touched on the queasiness yesterday so I'll leave that one alone this morning. But the hormones. And the endless hunger! I think I did mention hunger yesterday, but it bears repeating. :-)
See, I have several blogs that I follow and this morning, I was reading one that discussed the delicious spaghetti recipe she made last night. Y'all, I don't like mushrooms, but her recipe sounded good. And to make matters worse, I checked out another blog which detailed the culinary discoveries of a recent trip to New Orleans. Think warm french bread, crawfish poboys, and other yummy delights. So I'm reading along, and it's 8:57 in the morning and now I am craving a crawfish poboy. Or shrimp. I could do shrimp, too. Yummy french bread, fried shrimp...oh baby there is a Rajun Cajun within minutes from here...what are the odds they are open at 9 am? None. So there will be no poboy this morning. Sigh.
But on a better food note, my sweet husband had dinner with the board members of We Care last night. At Chuy's. Really? He got Chuy's?? There used to be one of those by my office but for some reason closed about 3-4 years ago. I never understood because it was always packed. Always. Like you'd have to take an early lunch to make sure you had enough time to eat and get back before the office shut down at 5:00. So why close such a booming location? I haven't had Chuy's in years. But their queso blanco quesadillas...oh baby!! So anyway, as I struggled to feed Emma and get her to bed last night (our evening was shortened and it sort of got away from me) by the time it was my turn to eat, it was almost 8:00 and I was beyond hungry. Nothing sounded good anymore, I was too tired to cook, so I had a bowl of cereal. I know, lame. Particularly in light of this morning's post! But get this. My man is the best! He finally gets home right before 9:00 and says he has something for me. It seems they were given a sack lunch and he saved his sandwich as long as possible so that he wouldn't be terribly hungry for dinner. And he brought me his leftover fajitas. Thank you Jesus for this sweet man who would be so selfless to prolong his lunchtime hunger just so that he could have extras to bring home to his wife. Lord, if I haven't thanked you today for the sweet man you prepared for me, Thank You!! So as I sit here drooling over shrimp poboys that are not meant to be today, I have beef fajitas waiting for me in the refrigerator just down the hall. [insert LARGE grin here!]