Making Cookies

We had Caleb, Monette, Jacob and Boaz Eames over for dinner recently and after dinner Matt decided to have the kids help bake cookies. They had fun molding the cookies into different shapes.

Using your hands can get kinda messy!

Emerson was so excited about holding baby Boaz.

Since when is my child the old one?

An afternoon in the backyard

These pictures are from a couple of weeks ago and I finally had time to put them up. It was a beautiful day outside. I just couldn't resist getting my camera and taking a massive amount of pictures of my cute little girl! I am usually always looking through the viewfinder, but this time a lot of these were taken without even seeing what I was getting. A different perspective at least. She is growing up so fast!

Photography By Emerson:

After seeing me take so many pictures of her she wanted a piece of it. So, she grabbed the camera and off she went. She actually got a few.

Matt in the hammock

Her shadow

Our tirp to LA

Matt was asked by Thaddeus and Mellisa to perform their wedding in January in Oxnard, CA which is about an hour north of Los Angeles. It worked out for me to be able to go also, so we made a trip out of it and went out a little early and stayed later. We are so blessed to have my sister and her family here in town! Emerson stayed with them while we were away and she even got to spend a day with Grand D (JoEtte) too!

We had a great trip and got to see and do a lot of neat things. Below is a slide show of some of the pictures I took. We also got to see a taping of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That was a fun surprise and really neat to see the behind the scenes action. Matt was able to catch up with a friend that he grew up with all through school. It was neat to finally meet him. We also met up with Chase and Haley West and went to the Farmers Market and Hollywood. I don't know why I forgot to take a picture with them!

We had a great getaway but were definitely ready to get home!

Video from Emerson's birthday

This video has a few different clips. She is singing along with a birthday card she got from Papa and Nana, having happy birthday sung to her at her party, sharing her ice with Brooks and skipping.

Happy 2nd Birthday Emerson!

We had Emerson's 2nd birthday party today. We just had a small party at our house with a few friends, but it still seemed too overwhelming for Emerson. She definitely has my personality and does not like a lot of attention. Opening gifts did not go so well, but overall I think she had a good time. I will try to get some video up soon. I wanted to do the pictures quick so the grandparents could see at least.

Blow out the candles

Cousins: Katie Beth & Mason

Mason was so sweet taking care of Emerson almost the whole time. Notice his mouth as he is feeding her cake.

I think she likes it

It was warm enough to play outside a little.

The only decent picture from opening presents.

Uncle Greg, Aunt Sandi, Mason & Katie Beth with Emerson

Bowling with the teens

Last Saturday night we got together with the teens and went to eat mexican food and go bowling. It was a great excuse to get together and as you can see, if you watch the video, we had a lot of fun! (Don't forget to pause the player below)

Baking cookies

Matt wanted to make some cookies from scratch the other night so we cleared off the counter and put Emerson right in the middle of the action. She had a lot of fun, as you'll see, and found something pretty yummy.
There is a video at the bottom (I finally got it to work). Listen to what she says at the end and don't forget to pause the player at the bottom. We're making cookies!!!

Stir it up

Flour on the foot

They're ready for the oven

Hmm....what's this?

Pretty good stuff!

Enjoying the fruits of her labor. Notice the chocolate on the tooth.