Our little garden

Gavin and I have wanted a garden for a few years and we finally built one in our backyard. I am so excited to eat some veggies we grew ourselves! We started out small and hope to be able to add to it each year, but for now we just want to make sure I don't kill everything. It was less work than I anticipated, which is always nice. I have a tendency to over think things so I was very pleased when we were done with the garden and still had most of the day left. It's now all planted with tomatoes, zucchini, and green peppers. 

Here's Gavin, hard at work laying the cinder blocks:

 Wish me luck in my vegetable growing.

Houston Zoo

 A few months ago Emery and I went with some friends to the Houston Zoo. It was a beautiful day which was a nice respite from many days of rain we had. I forgot my camera but my friend snapped a few pictures of us. 

This is a picture of me with the girl I babysit every few weeks. Her name is Bella and Emery and I love having her at our house (just so everyone knows, her mom is ok with me posting pictures of her on here. Thanks Stacia!). She's a big helper and fun for Emery to watch and play with. Here she is all tuckered out:

I think she's faking exhaustion though because most of the time my friend who brought her double stroller let  4 kids ride in the stroller while she pushed them all! It was a funny sight to see: two five-ish year olds, one 4 year old, and one almost 2 year old all crammed into a stroller with my friend who's maybe 5'2" pushing them through the zoo. But the kids loved it and we had a good laugh at how funny we looked.

I love the tree in this next picture. This was my first fall here in Texas and I'll admit that I missed the brilliant autumn colors you see in Idaho most years. This tree was very beautiful, but one tree with fiery colors wasn't enough to satisfy my heart and I missed a good, crisp, colorful autumn.

The Houston Zoo is pretty big and I've been multiple times and still haven't seen the whole thing. Maybe it just seems big because now I have a young child so everything takes longer. Either way, it makes for a long, but fun, day. 

Ward Campout

A few weeks ago our ward had a campout at a park. We had a BLAST! Emery loved playing in the dirt and I think she was won the prize for dirtiest kid. Here she is in all her glory:

She went to sleep really easy, which was fun for Gavin and I because we had a chance to stay up late with other people and play games. That doesn't happen very often for us these days and I really enjoyed it. We made some great memories and love our ward even more after that weekend.

Saturday morning they had an Easter Egg hunt for the kids. Emery found one egg and that was all she needed to be happy.

Sometimes it's apparent that Gavin and I aren't fully adjusted to Texas life and Saturday morning was another reminder that we are Idahoans at heart. We got up that morning and Gavin donned a sweatshirt (which is a lot of layers for him) and I put on sweats over my pants, two shirts, and a sweatshirt, in anticipation of the cold morning air that would greet us as we left our tent at 6:45 am, after all, we were camping in March! But it only took about 30 minutes before we both realized we were sweating in our layers. Better too warm than too cold, I suppose! We'll figure out Texas camping one of these days. 

Double naps are for wimps

A few weeks ago Emery decided she only needed one nap a day so we adjusted our schedule and got her to take a nap from 2-4:30ish every day. Well lately she has been so tired around 10 which makes her really whiny so I just put her to bed or this happens:

...and she just falls asleep. But then she'll only sleep for an hour, hour and a half if I'm lucky, and won't go down for an afternoon nap, which means she's super whiny in the evenings. If anyone has a  magic cure for "the child who thinks they only need one nap but really they need two", please let me know. 

Newest project

Here's my latest sewing project:

I love how it turned out! It was my first adventure with bias tape and it went pretty well; I learned a lot and the next time I use it will be much easier. Here's the tutorial and pattern: reversible bag. I'm not a big purse person--I think it's a bit of a pain to carry one around--so this bag is a perfect size for Emery's things, my things, and I can just sling it over my shoulder and go.

The wealth the the internet is so helpful for a beginner like me. If I don't know how to do something or what something means I just google it and without fail there's a blog tutorial or youtube video about it. It makes learning a new skill much easier.

My little Valentine

"Hi Everybody! Merry Christmas!!!"

"Pppfhfffhf, JUST KIDDING!"

"Ummm...I do have a question for you though..."

"Will you be my Valentine?"

I'm a bit late on posting these (what's new?) but as usual I couldn't resist because she looked so cute on Valentine's day. Gavin and I aren't big "celebrators" but we did take Emery and went out to eat with some friends and had a great time. I think that's the first time we done something on Valentine's Day. Maybe we'll even celebrate our anniversary this year!

Popcorn popping!

This video was a few weeks ago and I forgot to post it. We've been practicing "Popcorn Popping" and she's getting pretty good at it!

 It's such an incredible experience to watch Emery learn new things. Just a little while ago she was completely helpless and only knew when she was hungry, tired, or wanted to be held. Now she is saying words, throwing her own diaper away (woohoo!), cleaning up toys, playing games, following instructions, and finally giving back her dad some of his own medicine because she's learned how to tickle him. I feel like as a parent I am witnessing a miracle in Emery every single day.