Emma at 21 Months

Emma loves to snuggle and I love to snuggle Emma.  This equals a little piece of heaven on earth every time Emma snuggles me, which is often.  She presses her chubby cheek against mine and whispers, "I yuv you Mama."  It melts my heart every single time.  I also like to say, "Hey, Emma?" to which she responds, "What?" and I answer her, "I love you!"  She loves that game and so do I.  I also love it when she wraps her arms around my neck and gives me a "squeeze tight" which is what she calls a hug.  Here are some of my favorite snuggle pictures from this past month.  

I will admit that I have been known to rock Emma way past her falling asleep because I cannot force myself to put her warm, cuddly body in her bed.

I'm not the only one Emma likes to snuggle.  Daddy is right up there too.

Here Emma is below snuggling with her cousin Ellen, and Ellen's Mima.  We miss Ellen now that the holidays are over and she is back in Minnesota.

Emma inherited Lucy's baby doll Polly, who is one of Emma's favorite dolls now and receives many snuggles every day and night.

 It seems like Emma has slowed down on dare devil stunts this month.  At least I feel a bit calmer about her physical antics.  Granted, we did have another ER visit for her on Christmas Eve when she woke up with 105 degree fever.  Here she is below playing it safe in a lower cabinet.

 It turns out her crazy climbing is subdued by winter clothing.  She can barely move when she has her snow pants, jacket, hat, scarf, gloves and boots on.  I am seriously considering dressing her up in her snow outfit when I take a shower.  Here she is below after she stepped onto the sled for Auntie Cate to give her a ride.  Instead of sitting down, she just dropped like a lead pipe backwards and then decided that she wanted to go inside.

 Emma got to build her first snowman ever this past month after the weather warmed up a bit and we finally got some good packing snow.  The thermometer was heating up so fast that we built the snowman in the shade in hopes of getting him through the day.

After we built the snowman we went for a little walk around the neighborhood.  When we came back, he had already melted enough to topple over.  When Emma saw our snowman laying on the ground she said, "Oh, Frosty!"  Now whenever we talk about a snowman she just says, "Oh, Frosty!"

The weather heated up so much that the day after we had the packing snow to build Frosty, we were able to play outside with no coats on!  During a Michigan January, this is reason to clear your schedule and get outside.  We hopefully charged up our vitamin D a bit too.

Emma is talking up a storm.  Some of my favorite phrases she has said this past month include:

-Will and I did some major cleaning in the basement one evening after the girls were asleep.  Emma came down in the morning, saw the newly improved basement and said, "WOW WEE!"

-Emma loves to chase Lucy and yell, "ROOOAAARRR!"

-Whenever we ask Emma where a missing item is, she always responds, "Um, office."  Most of the time the item actually is in our office too, which tells me we need to clean out the office.  We were out and about the other day and someone asked where her dad was.  Emma responded, "Um, office."

-The other day Emma had a hot dog at Sam's Club for lunch.  The rest of the day she kept burping it up and would say, "mmmm, hot dog."  Now, every time she burps she says, "Hot Dog!"

-Emma is an eating champ and her favorite food this month is sausage.  Whenever we ask her what she would like for breakfast, lunch or dinner she will respond, "Sausage!"

-Emma is obsessed with the little chocolate Santas and mini M&M's that Santa put in her stocking for Christmas.  They are long gone now, even though Emma capitalized on the fact that Lucy was sick and gave hers to Emma.  The other morning when I got her out of her crib I asked her if she dreamed about anything during the night.  She responded, "Two Santas and two M&M's."  She continues to talk about it and holds up both of her pointer fingers side by side to indicate two.

-Speaking of counting, Emma loves numbers.  Whenever we ask her if she would like something she responds with a number.  She knows that five is a lot and she also knows that ten is huge.  She also counts to ten by saying, "One, Both, Three, Five, Ten."  I also get a kick out of the fact that she tells people she is two.

I can hardly believe that my littlest baby is almost two.  She has been such a joy to be around this past month I have even told Will several times that every household should have a 21 month old in it.  The love, the cuddles, and the excitement at things we would otherwise take for granted are so great to be around.  Don't get me wrong, the price for this level of cuteness is running late for almost every appointment, lack of sleep and a house that constantly looks like a tornado went through.  It is all worth it though, and we love having our almost two year old in our family.