Emma, Emma, Emma....

My goodness, in one week we will have a 20 month old! I fear that soon we won't be referring to her age in months anymore:( And while I love her growing independence in many ways, it also makes me sad that there isn't much baby left in my "baby" anymore either.
I'm hoping that in turning 20 months old, Emma will have a new-found love for sleeping in. (Ya right;) But for the last month she has been consistently waking up at 5:30 every morning with no sleep left in her. She's wide-eyed and ready for the day. We've done some tweaking with her bedtime and that hasn't helped. So we've taken the plunge into 1 nap world! Most days her 2 naps were only about 45 minutes long with the afternoon nap being the longer of the 2. So last week we started skipping her morning nap, resulting in a little earlier bedtime (obviously.) But this weekend when we were in Carroll for Uncle Mike's funeral, she got kind of messed up. So we hit the new schedule hard when we got back on Sunday. And Monday night I was happy to report that she didn't wake up until almost 7! Yay!!! (But this morning she was up at the "new" usual 5:30:( Needless to say Emma's sleep continues to be the most challenging thing about raising her thus far. So all in all, we're pretty lucky:)

current loves include:
-Barney
-singing/dancing
-fruit snacks
-m&m's
-all her stuffed animals (which are continuously drug from her closet-to her bed-to the livingroom-to her bed-to her closet-etc.
-wearing other people's shoes
-the pretty Christmas trees and lights
-books

Emma's current dislikes:
-diaper changes
-being told "no" (of course)
-mealtime
-church nursery ("dislike" would be a seriously understated description)
-playing by herself

I am getting so excited for Christmas! I'm done with Christmas shopping and almost done wrapping everything:) I can't wait to see Emma's reactions to opening gifts and I love all the family time that comes with the holidays! Less than 2 weeks! Hopefully we have a little snow for Christmas too and not just all this yucky rain...

It's feeling like Christmas!

Well after our nice little dusting of snow we had last week I'm starting to really get in the Christmas spirit! We had a tough Thanksgiving with several sad events, and I was wondering if I would actually feel Christmas-y by Christmas. But I know that what happened on Christmas thousands of years ago is still the same no matter what our current status in life is. And that is reason to celebrate!:)
Miss Emma is doing great, she is growing like a weed! Shes's wearing mostly 24 month clothes, and talking so much! She says more words than I can remember, will repeat about anything you say to her, and is putting words together really well. Some of our favorite things she's saying/doing right now and some of her more recent accomplishments are:

* "monkey", "RO-AR", "pretty", " 'noman" (snowman:) "owl" and "ammals" (animals) are a few of the new words she is saying a lot now.

* "tank you" She is getting so good at saying this at the appropriate times:)

* "k K" (She never says just ok, it's always k, k!:)

* "I want!" (It can get old sometime, but it sure beats just grunting angrily:)

* I know that this would not rank high on RJ's list as he doesn't care for Barney, but Emma LOVES him and is frequently singing the I Love You Song. It's so cute and goes something like this, " III YOU, YOUUUU MEEE, WEEEEEEEEEE (then she emphasized a huge hug;)"

* She doesn't get her sippy cup when she goes to bed anymore. She was waking up SOOOO soggy in the morning that we've been cutting back on fluids before bedtime.

* A couple of weeks ago she had a sleep over with Nana, (which are always fun:), and she's starting to sleep better in her bed there.

She continues to bring us more joy than we could have imagined and allowed us to feel more love than we ever knew we could!