Baby Emma Turns ONE!

Emma is finally one whole year old today! We had a family celebration with grandparents. My parents flew in from Kansas this afternoon, and Curtis' parents stayed over the weekend from their weekly trek to the temple on Friday to be here for our little fete. Matt, Cassie, and Erick, who live in Mesa, also came. We had a Korean dinner, which was very yummy, as well as Korean rice cakes, and finished off the meal with triple chocolate cupcakes and ice cream.

Halmoni ("grandmother" in Korean) ordered a traditional Korean dress, hanbok, from Korea, and we tried to get Emma to model it for us, but she was not all that interested. The dress was a little big, and the long sleeves really bothered her. The hat bothered her even more! She still looked very cute. We'll have to wait until she grows into the dress and have some nicer (happy!) pictures taken.

Emma loved her chocolate cake and ice cream (and apparently, the candle, too, because she kept trying to grab the flame.) She took a bite from the bottom first, but once she tasted the icing, she went straight for a huge bite out of the top. We thought she seemed quite satisfied (and sleepy) when she was finished.
We are excited for Emma's second year of life, and very grateful for a mostly healthy and safe first year.

Year of the Ox

My sister-in-law once told me the first year of her baby's life was a bit of a blur for her, and I absolutely agree about mine! When I look back on the dates of the calendar, I see where we were, what we did, but to be planning for Emma's first birthday already is utterly unbelievable.

We finished the Year of the Rat (2008) by spending a week in Kansas City with my folks, and then Christmas Eve on with the Busbys in Tucson. It was a memorable first Christmas for Emma and us, and we're glad she was able to spend the holidays with extended family. She loved hanging out with her cousins who fawn over her and play with her. We saw snow in Kansas - lots of it - and enjoyed sunshine in Tucson. Emma was not too pleased about getting bundled up for the snowy cold. Good thing her Auntie Hyeyoung knew how to get layered up nice and cozy because her mama's kind of useless these days in the cold weather.

Emma and her cousin Naomi dressed like twins for their first Christmas photo, and Emma got to be baby Jesus for the Busby family nativity. She was a wee bit too big for the manger, and poor Mary (Emma's cousin Annika) had to feed her finger snacks to keep Emma quiet and occupied during the whole thing.


Emma (whose middle name is Virginia, after her aunt) met her Aunt Virginia for the first time. They got along just great. After Christmas, we celebrated Grandpa's 70th birthday a week early with a special Mexican dinner and pinata.


The whole family contributed to create for a book of memories for Grandpa, which brought tears to his eyes. (I used Blurb to publish the 40-page book of written memories and photos - about 140 of them. I highly recommend their services for publishing your own books.)

Once we returned to Phoenix, we were lucky Curtis was able to take a few days off around New Year's to spend them at home with Emma and me. We were sad about taking down the Christmas tree, but glad we were safely home after a wonderful time with our loved ones.

On January 1st, Emma turned 10 months old. She is now almost 17 pounds and 28 inches long, and despite catching the sniffles from her cousins, she is pretty healthy overall. She rolls around like a tumbleweed when lying down and has had a couple of falls off our bed already; scoots around on her bottoms to get where she needs to go; and becomes very frustrated that she can't just get up and go wherever she wants to go. She will be turning 1 in 6 weeks.

As for what we look forward to in the Year of the Ox:
- Curtis has a busy trial schedule this year, with 4 trials currently scheduled for latter half of the year. We hope his work will be manageable, so we can still have some time together for family activities.
- I am still employed at the hospital, but in an on-call project manager role. It will be just a few hours per month (or zero hours as is the case now). I continue to teach at University of Phoenix, too, and have been working on other home and personal projects (although I never seem to make as big a dent as I think I should). I am hoping to become more proficient in digital photography, scrapbooking, and finally (start and) finish the wedding album, and Emma's first year book.
- Emma: walking, talking, and singing; going to church nursery in the fall (she's been there a few times - see photo below from Kansas where my mom works in the nursery - and she loves it in there with all the kids and toys); more trips and "firsts"; swimming lessons; and going to the beach.

Happy birthday to my hubby

Today was Curtis' birthday. That's him blowing out his make-shift (votive) birthday candle. It's his "enjoy this next year because it's the last one in your thirties" birthday. Curtis' mom went into labor while they were at a U of A basketball game. He was born at 11:11 pm, weighing 7 lbs. 7 oz., my father-in-law says.

We celebrated with his parents and youngest brother Matt's family after work. My in-laws surprised him by driving up two hours each way from Tucson, just for the dinner. I'm so glad they were able to make it because this birthday dinner almost didn't happen with Curtis' busy work schedule. My father-in-law thought Curtis "deserved a surprise or two in his lifetime" and I agree with him. Curtis is a wonderful son, father, husband, brother, and friend. He's an inspiring person to live with, and I'm glad he picked me.

We had appetizer and entrees from Buca di Beppo and salad, sides, and dessert a la moi. We had brownie pudding cake with peppermint ice cream from Baskin-Robbins, Curtis' favorite ice cream. (Thank you, JJ, for sharing your family's brownie pudding recipe in our cookbook! It was yummy and very easy to make.)

Happy Half-Year Birthday, Emma!

Emma turned 6 months old yesterday. Golly, we love her. She's so cute - we got lucky! We had crepes with berries for breakfast and went to see the Batman movie, "The Dark Knight." That movie was just so dark and depressing - it left a sick feeling in my stomach. Fortunately, Emma slept through the movie, but I will think twice about bringing her to another movie like that. I don't think she necessarily understands what's going on, but I'd rather not expose her to the doom and gloom.

In the afternoon, we had a barbecue with Matt's family. Emma's crazy cousin Erick was a hoot, as always, to have around. He's the most energetic two-year-old I know. He's a curious little fellow, and gets into anything and everything. He's very careful around Emma; I think she's just puzzled by how loud he can be! Here they are together.

It's hard to believe our little baby is 6 months old already. On Saturday night, she had marathon vomiting sessions after she went to bed. She had not been sick or fussy at all, so it caught us by surprise. We ended up bathing her 3 times because she kept vomiting after we cleaned her up. We thought she wouldn't feel very good the next day, but she seemed fine. Go figure.