Boone Hall Plantation, Charleston

We went to Charleston, SC for a couple of days during Matt's vacation. One of the places I wanted to see was this plantation. The Notebook was filmed here among other movies that I didn't know. It was beautiful!

Emma loved being outside this day and did so well to take it all in.

This is the Avenue of Oaks, an oak tree lined street leading up to the mansion on the plantation. It was much prettier than we can capture in a picture.

These trees are hundreds of years old and so amazing! This was one of the best places we got to see on this quick trip.

Random Cuteness

All dressed up for church. Isn't this the utmost in cute? She thought she was pretty cute too in the mirror. :)

Emma has started to giggle. It is the best sound in the world! This an "action" shot of the giggles.

She already adores her daddy! As soon as he walks in the room I am pretty much forgotten. It is adorable to see them interact together.

Halloween

This year I really wanted to find something "fallish" to have Emma experience. Since we now live in the south that proved to be more difficult than when we lived in Michigan. We found this random pumpkin patch to take a few pics and get a pumpkin for Matt to carve.

Doesn't Emma look super enthused to be doing this? She has the most sensitive skin and we put her next to some hay bales to get pics with the pumpkins and the poor thing was totally red by the time we got home...guess we won't be doing that one again.

Matt carved a cute Elmo pumpkin for Emma this year. Sadly enough, we only had one day with the pumpkin because it was rotten on the inside and smelled like something died inside of it and we couldn't stand it so we had to throw it out. It was such a pretty pumpkin on the outside!

Matt told me this was the lamest Halloween we have had so far- well, it isn't my favorite holiday to begin with and he LOVES the scary aspect where I do not! Emma can't appreciate the costume part yet anyways so we will for sure put her in one next year. That part of Halloween I can get on board with- cute and sweet little kid innocence of Halloween:)

Big Girl

She has become very aware of her tongue and sticks it out all of the time!

Emma is gaining weight like a champ! The pediatrician says she is one healthy little girl.

All dressed up for church! She hates texture on her clothes and it drives her crazy so the tulle on this dress just about drove her over the edge.;) But she did look darn cute!

Matt is one proud daddy! Emma loves hanging out with him and and is a ball of smiles when he is home.

Nearing the End

We wanted to get one last pic of just the two of us, but yet notice my enormous protrusion of Emma:).

Matt was wearing the last week of our countdown chain. When we got to the due date and she still wasn't making her debut Matt suggested we add some more to the chain to get to the induction date, which was already scheduled for 1 week past due. Absolutely not! Don't jinx it! Luckily, we went out to a work dinner and had Mexican food the night of her due date and I loaded up on salsa...just doing what I can to induce labor. Whatever it was, I woke up with contractions that next morning starting at 4am. Of course they were all over the place, but I felt like we were making progress!

Not a pretty sight! I was so ready to have her and more miserable with every passing day. I do not recommend driving around 900 miles to move just weeks before having a baby. We made LOTS of stops for me to get out and walk around and also check out almost every rest stop from Michigan to South Carolina. Some states take more pride in their rest stops than others:). All in all, my feet didn't turn into sausages until the 3rd day of driving but by then my belly was killing me and I just wanted to get to the end of the trip and settle in our new place.

My favorite part of being pregnant was feeling Emma move and get the hiccups at least 3 times a day...super fun, and uncomfortable at times- but very cool!

More Emma

Look at her cute blond hair! It is part blond part brown for now. She also has pretty blue eyes that are light in the very center and get darker on the outside...for now. (Who knows what they will be a year from now.) She very much looks like Matt now but looks like me as a baby. I had the chubby cheeks and round nose. These pics are still from her first couple of months.

Emma loves to sleep with her arms above her head and does it no matter what position she is in. Adorable! Her hair is deceivingly red looking in this picture-not true in "real life".

I love her in yellow! She has so many cute little outfits that she really needs a mid-day change to get them all in before we are out of hot days to get to wear the summer clothes.

This is the first time I could catch a smile on camera! That smile is priceless!

Being a mom is so much fun! I am very lucky to be able to stay at home with her and see every cute moment. Since we just moved here to SC and don't really know much about it, we have been learning our area and what is around us. More pics to come...

Emma

I am extremely behind in blogging, but I thought I would at least start with a few pics to show you our cute addition to the family. Emma was born two days late, on July 19 after 29 hours of labor! She decided to come at her own pace and when she was darn good and ready. She weighed 8lbs 3oz at birth and dropped to 7lbs 7oz by the time we left the hospital. She was a little string bean! These are some of the pics of her first couple of weeks on earth.

She has always been quite alert and wide eyed from the start.

I love the sleeping pics! She looks so darn peaceful.

She loves tubby time with the exception of her first real bath at home where she just screamed. In no time we had the bath thing down though and now it is her favorite part of the day.

Well, that will have to do for now because I am missing out on some much needed sleep to figure out my new format for blogging, but I will try to catch up this week little by little. :)