July Update

I've fallen behind in blogging a bit...but hopefully will be all caught up by the end of this post. In the past 2 weeks, Emma has had several "firsts."

- On 3 July, Emma went to her first German Fest: Darmstadt's Heinerfest. Although she couldn't partake, we had bratwurst and beer in her honor.


- Emma celebrated July 4th with her buddy Calvin and a few other friends at a barbecue. Carrie was most excited about the watermelon and had quite a few pieces!


- On 8 July, Emma met her Aunt Kelly and Uncle Mike who visited with us for a few days before heading off on vacation. While they were here, we took Emma out to dinner for the first time. Luckily she slept the entire time. On Thursday, Emma went on her first day trip. We went to Rudesheim and walked around for a few hours. Since she handled Rudesheim like a pro, we went to Mainz on Friday. One downfall of the day trips though, was that Emma slept all day in her car seat, and as a result, was wide awake until midnight!

- On 11 July, we put Emma to bed in her crib for the first time. While she has taken a few naps in her crib, thus far, she sleeps in a pack 'n play in our room every night. She's a pretty noisy sleeper though, so we thought it might be time to try the crib. She slept in the crib until her 2am feeding and then stayed in our room. The following nights though, she stayed in her room all night.

In the past few weeks, Emma has been smiling more and trying to figure out how to 'talk' to us. She watches our mouths move and looks perplexed when she moves her mouth but no sound comes out. She's been making more and more baby coos though and we absolutely love them and encourage her to make more! She's also getting stronger, she can hold her head up when we sit her up and when we have her on our shoulders to burp her. We've found that we really have to hold on to her when we're walking around because she can (and does) throw herself if she would rather be laying down instead of upright.

Our little girl isn't so little...she had a checkup on 4 July, and she was just shy of 11 pounds. She's quickly out growing clothes that are 0-3 months and the 3 month clothes will not be far behind. She's so long that the legs are a bit short and her feet stretch the feet in her footed rompers! We think she might be getting ready for a growth spurt because she's been fussy for past 2 days and has been eating a lot and with greater frequency.