8 months old!

Sweet baby Emma is 8 months old!!!

I recently posted about what all Emma is up to these days. Sweet petite lady is just starting to wear 6-9 month clothes and is still in a size 2 diaper. Emma does eat some solid foods. We've just begun blueberries and broccoli (but not together of course). Emma prefers veggies to fruits at this point. So, we're always more likely to get her to eat some sweet potatoes than apples. This mama is happy about that! 

Emma loves to chit chat with me all day long. She wakes up sing-song talking to herself and will let out a little "Ba" to get someone's attention with whom she wishes to "coverse". She is blowing raspberries and loves to try out new sounds and volumes. 

Emma loves to sit up and play with her playtime vanity set. I think she loves that it lights up and makes songs. Emma is just learning how to pull her bows off. Much to mommy's chagrin...but she's beautiful enough without the bows!

Please note Emma's Piggy Paint pedicure!

Still no teeth in this baby girl's smile, and no crawling yet. She can scoot around somehow though, because she can shimmy around, but no real crawling yet. I don't mind either of those things, and am so proud of our little Emma's growth, development, and accomplishments! We love our little Emma!

{MSP}

The Littlest Sous Chef

Baby Emma is the most darling Sous Chef that ever lived! My little under-chef is so helpful in the kitchen...and by that I mean she is so helpful to play with her toys at the doorway of the kitchen!

Lately we have baked a little bit of bread (sorry no photo, but you can imagine what a loaf of bread looks like). I left my loaf pans at Mom's house, so I had to use a piece of Corningware instead of two loaf pans. That's ok--who doesn't love gigantic bread? So we had chicken sandwiches with pesto and mozzarella. Yummy!

I also tried my hand at parisian macaroons! They were fabulous! This is the recipe I used. They turned out great. I put some red food coloring in half of the batter to turn it pink. For the filling in the pink macaroons I used strawberry jam. Very delicious and a big hit! For the other half of the batter I used a concoction of various food colors to yield a grayish brown and I used a chocolate ganache for the filling. Scrumptious!

Side note: for the macaroons in this photo I ground my own almonds. When I made them again I bough ground almond flour/meal from Whole Foods. Talk about a time saver! I highly recommend buying it already ground! But, if you choose not to, it's just as yummy ground in my food processor!

To be honest I wasn't sure I'd be up to the task of something like this kind of confectionary, but I was and they were delicious! Glad I had my baby sous chef for moral support!

Happy cooking!

{MSP}

Here and There

Lately things have been a little crazy at Patterson Place. Emma was down with a horrid cold, but thankfully has recovered completely (other than learning how to fake cough :) ). Daniel has been traveling a lot the past week, and Emma and I have been missing him fiercely! We did get to go stay at my parent's house, which we were so grateful for! It's nice to have a couple of extra hands around when Emma is getting more mobile.

Just the girls while Daddy was away

During Emma's illness I was reminded how much she loves to sneeze. Not just a little bit. This girl loves to sneeze. Here's a during and after shot of her sneezing while she was sick.

Mid-sneeze

The after-sneeze smile

In other developmental news, Emma is getting more chatty each passing day. She loves to chat with my mom in particular. Ever since she was a tiny thing, her favorite chatting companion has been her Nana. She has always talked the most to my mom--which of course, Nana loves! Yesterday at the grocery store, Emma was at her chattiest and the fellow shoppers loved it! She's really into bi-labial sounds (bbbb-bbb-bbb), blowing raspberries, and gaaa-gaaa-gaaa, as well as a few da-das here and there.

Emma is now excelling at independent play time. As long as someone is close by. (Nursery at church is still not going wonderfully though...) Emma can also pick up objects with both hands and play with them together. I'm working on helping her clap...but so far, she can only figure out how to clasp her hands together in the middle. It's a work in progress!

We're glad to be getting into a regular routine now that Daniel is home and school is returning to normal with the semester beginning. In just over a week sweet little Emma will turn 8 months! Tune in for an 8 month update!

P.S. I got a new video camera for Christmas, and very soon I will learn how to post some video to the blog so everyone can get excited about hearing our little chatty sweetheart!

{MSP}