3 Months

Our girl is 3 months old. 

She slept for 10 hours straight for 2 nights in a row last week. Pretty sure she was going through one of those mental leaps because it hasn't happened again, but it was nice while it lasted (although of course I still woke up at 4 a.m., worried about her b/c she hadn't woken up yet). 

She generally falls asleep for the night around 8:30/9 p.m. Sometimes it sticks and sometimes she goes in and out of sleep a bit. She wakes up once or twice during the night and often sleeps until around 8. Sometimes she'll go right back to sleep until about 10 or 11 or sometimes she'll be awake for an hour and go back down again. Her morning nap is usually the longest.

She takes most of her naps in her crib now, but occasionally will wake up early and transfer to the swing. 

  Celebrated her first big holiday (4th of July), although it was quite low key this year for obvious reasons.

 Her siblings are always decorating her in some way. 

Belen: She smiled! I knew it, I knew she loved Paw Patrol!

She's getting really good at lifting that head. 

 She met her darling cousin Liam. 

 She LOVES this light up star on her play mat. As soon as it turns on and lights up she can't help but smile. It is the greatest thing. Even if she is fussy, we turn it on and she makes a face like she is trying not to smile, but can't help it. It's so dang cute. 

She is cooing a lot more, starting to fixate on people and objects more, and losing sections of her hair (There were all kinds of little black hairs on her sheet when I looked the other day). She also has some pretty wicked eyebrow cradle cap and the cutest little smile you ever did see.

June Little Things

Black Lives Matters protest at the Commons.

 

  Shae's last week of school happened mid June. For the very last day they all "went to school" in their pajamas and did silly hair while eating their breakfast. So grateful for his sweet teacher and her love for these kids.

 And here we are celebrating our 9th anniversary, so proud of ourselves that we were celebrating it on the correct day this year (June 10th), since last year we were all kinds of confused and celebrated it on the wrong day (June 11th). It was super low key with the unpredictable evening baby on our hands. Darin went and grabbed us some Greek food that we took turns eating while calming the baby, then we watched some Parks & Rec while trying to remember what we had done for previous anniversaries with babies on our hands. Suuuuuuuper romantic.

The best part was the next week while we were talking to my Dad about information you can get off of the lds tools app, and Darin looks up our info and flashes his phone at me in disbelief, showing me that our sealing date was JUNE NINTH! We are unbelievable. Maybe next year we'll get it right. 

 Even though it ended up being the wrong day, I still loved finding all these notes hidden around the house. 

  School vehicle parade lining up to celebrate the retiring teachers (including Shae's teacher).

 We've started having the kids each choose a meal to make for us once a week (that's the goal at least). Belen made us coconut chicken for her meal, but was extra excited about these fancy cupcakes that she came up with. Lemon cupcake with strawberry frosting. She just recently made Bao for us. She really is a bao making master. I love watching her roll our the dough and fill em' up all while telling me, "Don't help me mom. I can do it by my own." 

Shae has been in to noodle dishes, making us Spaghetti Carbonara and Classic Spaghetti with a red sauce.

 Chunky baby doctor's appointment selfie.

   Firefly catching at Beebee lake with our sweet friend Kim. It was so so cool to see the bugs lighting up all around us.

Outdoors

Winter didn't really seem to stop lingering until about mid-May out here. Ever since then, we have been LOVING being outside. It's really hitting me that we are (probably) entering our last year here in Ithaca. We really really love this beautiful town, especially in summer. All I want to do is be outside exploring all the trails and state parks all day everyday right now. That's a little hard with a new baby, but we're still getting out quite a bit which is filling my soul. 

This trip to Taughannock was my first big solo trip with the kids. (Sadly it did not end well as there was construction on the way home and we had to sit in traffic for 45 minutes with a screaming baby, much of the time on a bridge where I couldn't pull off to help her. It was a stressful ending to a beautiful outing). 

 

  We went back again with my parents when they were here for Emmy's baby blessing. Interesting to see the water comparison. The waterfall did seem so much smaller that second time.

 Cornell's arboretum has been closed to cars since March, and walking in seemed like a long walk, but we finally found a closer entrance to go in where we could park outside. So happy that we found it because it is the perfect place for a Sunday stroll. This trip was especially cool because we found a bunch of fish and a large turtle family to feed bread to.

 The predator eyeing her prey.

 We played at a new (to us) state park a couple of weeks ago, Long Point State Park. We were sure that the water would be way too cold for swimming (it was a coolish day in the low 70s with lots of wind), but brought the kids suits just in case. Is swimming ever too cold for kids?

 

 Buttermilk Falls is a favorite. The swimming "pool" at the bottom of the trail is currently closed, but we found a nice little swimming hole of our own on the trail.

 

 

Baby Blessing

Darin gave Emery a beautiful baby blessing a couple of weeks ago. We did the blessing from home, which was actually quite nice in the end because we were able to have family members join us. 

Emery was blessed with a drive to make the world a better place, to brighten the lives of others as she helps fight for justice, equality, and mercy in our society. She was blessed to have a deep testimony of the First Vision. She was blessed with ease in making and keeping covenants. She was blessed with a desire to learn both secular and spiritual matters, as well as with the gifts of charity and grace. It was a really beautiful blessing.

And then we took a ton of pictures and ate yummy bbq pork sandwiches and peach pie to commemorate her special day.