girls trip to the beach

We started a new tradition with my best girl friends this year - girl's weekend! This year we spent it at the beautiful Imperial Beach (compliments of my bro and sis-in-law and their beautiful condo - thanks guys!). Bekah and Russ, Lacee and her mom Laurie, and me, my mom and Emery were all in attendance, though we missed our Maggi... the glue that holds the rest of us together. We love our "Mama Maggi"! The trip featured yummy food, a beautiful view, talking, movies, no makeup or flat irons, boogie boarding and the best part - just being together! That's one thing that makes growing up stink - we don't all live around the corner anymore. I'm really so blessed to have such amazing girl friends. All 4 of us - Maggi, Bekah, Lacee and I - feel so lucky to have childhood friends that we're still so close with. I don't know what I'd do without my girls!

Russ-Russ and Em - love at first drool

Sand-eater (mom's fault)

Me and Lace-face

Em loves the brown zebra swim suit. Thanks grandpa!

The three boogie boarding babes catching a sweet wave (thanks moms for watching the babies so we could!)

Bek and I boogie boarding at dusk - SOOO fun!

my first day at the crag

Yesterday was my first day rock climbing outside at the crag! For those of you babies who aren't rock climbers like me, "the crag" is the place where you go climbing. I went to Red Rock with mom and dad now that we're moved to Las Vegas for the summer and we had all sorts of adventures... including a peculiar bug bite in my diaper area that mom and dad aren't sure where it came from. I did all sorts of fun things like sleep, eat, get naked because it was really hot (something I've done a lot since I've been here - I don't like the heat much), meet an old German climbing bum who lives in his van and get a flower from my daddy. It was a great day. I'm not sure what mom and dad did, but maybe the pictures below will explain. :)

Hanging out in my dad-made shade

Food and mommy make me happy

Do you like my adventure hat?

Sleeping with daddy

Naked... ahhh... :)

Mommy climbing

Daddy climbing

Thanks for the flowers, daddy!

One happy climbing family... and one exhausted climbing baby. Climbing is hard work.

Life is good!

P.S. For those of you keeping tabs on my fat stats, at my 4 month appointment last week I was 13 lbs 14 oz, 24.5 inches and my big head was 42 centimeters. :)

3 months of Emery and more

Emery hit her 3 month mark last week and for some reason I don't seem to care how long she is or how big her head is, but I did weigh her and she weighed in at 12 lbs 11 oz. Cute little fatling! Inspired by her friend Felicity she took a diaper-only pic in celebration of being alive for 3 months (in the exact same booties - don't you guys love those Kelli and Kurt?). There is one with clothes too for those of you offended by baby nudity.

We took another quick trip to Vegas for my friend Bekah's baby shower and for Aaron to interview with Nevada Power for a summer internship (which he got! yeah!). It was a fun trip and of course we got cute pics.

Bek and I, our babies and the glowing Grandmas

Emery and Baby Russ putting the moves on each other

Sweet moments with Great-mama

Okay... random cute pics as usual. I know... there are lots of them. I can't help it if she's cute a lot!

Emery and buddy Jacob... they kind of look like they're afraid of each other here though

Helping dad study (aka eating his highlighter)

Emery and her spiritual mentor, Bishop Dicou

Stylin' girl

All smiles

Becky Tagged Me!

Here it goes!

A- Attached or single: Attached
B- Best Friends: Aaron, my mom and my girls - Maggi, Lacee and Bekah
C- Cake or Pie: definitely depends on what kind of cake and what kind of pie. Let's say both just to be fair.
D- Day of choice: Sunday! Church, no work, Aaron's home 1/2 of the day and a dinner feast!
E- Essential item: my USB drive - never leave home without it!
F- Favorite color: brown - weird, I know
G- Gummy bears or worms: worms - the sour ones
H- Hometown: Las Vegas/Henderson, NV
I- Indulgences: chicken (and by "chicken" I mean cookie dough that Aaron and I make and keep in the freezer... Aaron likes to pretend I don't know what he's snacking on and calls it "chicken")
J- January or July: July
K- Kids: Just my little buddy Emery
L- Life is not complete without: my sweet hubby, Em, my red heads and my Elkay, good food and laughter
M - Marriage Date: October 14, 2005
N- Number of Siblings: 3 brothers (yes, I'm the only girl, but have acquired 7 sisters-in-law! Lucky me!)
O- Oranges or apples: both, depends on my mood
P- Phobias or fears: Aaron dying any time before me
Q- Quotes: James Therber, "Love is what you go through together" (from the 2008 LDS Worldwide Leadership Training)
R- Reason to smile: Emery, enough said.
S- Season: spring and fall for the opposite reasons
T- Tag three friends: Magg, Bek and Michelle
U- Unknown fact about me: Hmmm... I'm kind of an open book so that is a hard one. I'm a huge nerd. No really, a REALLY huge nerd. In fact, a huge paper I wrote just won an award... and $150 bucks! Wahoo! :) I wouldn't be truly nerdy unless I were more excited about the award than the cash... and such is the case.
V - Very favorite store: Robert's Crafts
W- Worst habit: Repeating funny lines in movies out loud and then laughing. I realized on Saturday night (while watching "Dan in Real Life" with Mag, Bek and our hubbies) that I do that and I was literally driving myself nuts but still couldn't stop.
X- X-ray or Ultrasound: Ultra-sound I guess... reminds me of being pregnant! I love being pregnant!
Y- Your favorite food: Man... that's a hard one for someone who loves food so much. Let's just say anything yummy and delicious! Especially things I make myself because it's fun to see what I can create!
Z- Zodiac: Capricorn

Well overdue updates

WARNING! This will be a rather long post. We've had lots of excitement the last few weeks... which probably explains why we haven't posted and therefore have lots to blog all of a sudden!

Emery's 2 month birthday!

Yeah for our cute little rugrat being 2 months old (on Feb 29th)! Her two-month fat stat was 10 lbs 9 oz so she's still gaining more than an ounce per day. (Meaning she's probably inching up on 12 lbs by now!) Go Emery! She officially declared herself a giggler yesterday so we'll have to post a video of that soon. We love being her parents and constantly find ourselves talking mostly about how cute she is in the limited time Aaron and I get to spend together these days. :)

Em with all of the toys she owns on/near her 2 month b-day

Trip to Las Vegas

The weekend of Em's 2 month mark we took a quick weekend trip down to Vegas to visit my family. Emery was a great little travel buddy... though her wiggliness necessitated a few stops strictly for wiggling purposes (car seat doesn't give her enough room and she gets frustrated). On the trip Emery met her Uncle Bry, Uncle Jer, Aunt Mel and cousins Jacob, Emma and Abe (Em is their first cousin so they were pretty excited!). She and cousin Emma (fondly known as "Em and Em" by Grandpa) had matching dresses and pjs for the occasion. Pic of the matching dresses below. She also met her all three of her great grandparents on my side - Grandma and Grandpa Wimmer and "Great-Mama" Ila Mae Britt (my namesake and her's as well). Great-Mama loved her through a mask since she was sick and we wanted to make sure Em didn't get it! :(

Emery and Great-Mama Ila Mae Britt

Emery and Emma in their matching dresses

Emery and cousin Jacob just relaxing

Emery and Abe

Bryan, Aaron and Jacob on their hike to the top of Clark Mountain (pic is missing my dad, Pink and Van who also went)

A moment of wiggling frustrations for Em in the carseat on the way there. That's a seriously cute sad face.

Meeting cousin Miles
Matt and Amy were in Utah for Amy to interview for a fellowship to do her PhD at Utah State so the day after we got back from Vegas we took a quick jaunt up to SLC so Emery and Miles could meet (Miles is Emery's cousin, just 2 weeks younger than her). They completely love each other... or at least we think so. They laid on a blanket together just wiggling and holding hands and kicking Grandpa in the head. It was adorable.

Grandpa in heaven with his 2 newest grandbabies

Holding hands - soooo cute!

Miles does like Emery, despite his projected tongue shown here

Emery the nun?
The video tells the story better than I ever could. Sorry it's sideways!

Adventures at the Dinosaur Museum... sometime back in February!

Thanks to Grandmama Wilkinson, her grandbabies - even the tiniest ones - get to enjoy the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point! Way cool!

My little buddy and me

Grandma making Emery laugh

Grandma and her grandkids with the ginormous prehistoric shark!

Random cute pics!

Sleeping beauty

Emery's "This isn't funny! Quit taking pictures, don't change my diaper, just FEED ME!" face.

Emery's inquisitive face in her play gym... it's fun to watch her little eyes bounce around and try to decide what is the most fun to look at!

Busted for chocolate consumption... or should I say FRAMED!

Emery and Cami Gourley hugging! We loved seeing Clint, Clare and Cami visiting from Wisconsin last week!

My New Friends

Hi all - Emery here! So, I'm sooooo excited because I've had so many friends born lately and I just wanted write about how excited I am! These are some of my forever friends and I can't wait to meet them!

This is my cousin Miles (my mom's brother Matt and wife Amy's little dude). He is 2 weeks younger than me. We're going to meet for the first time in just 8 days! I'm so excited!

This is Angela. She is just a few days younger than me. Mom and Dad's friends Adam and Rachel are her parents. Dad and Adam served in the Philippines, Angeles Mission together.

This is Jewell. We are exactly 1 month apart and she belongs to mom and dad's climbing buddies Jeanie and Travis.

This is baby Russ. He was just born yesterday, so that would make us 8 weeks apart! He is mommy's best friend Bekah's little guy. Cute, huh? I might have my first crush. :)

A name and a blessing...

Aaron blessed Emery in Church this last weekend. He gave her a beautiful blessing, much of it revolving around spending her life in the service of others. I hope she lives up to the wonderful things that the Lord inspired her daddy to bless her with because it would truly make her angel in the Lord's hands. It was wonderful to be surrounded by family and to see everyone loving our little girl! (And thank's Auntie Summer for letting your neice borrow Missy's dress. I wish I would have gotten a picture of Missy and Emery! That would have been so cute! Emery was also styling hand-knit booties from her Great Grandma Wimmer, her blessing day bracelet from Emily Earl Nelson and mom's first experiment with homemade headbands.)

Beautiful Emery Mae

The proud parents

Sandwich kisses

With Grandpa Wimmer - Grandma Wimmer got really sick and couldn't make it! :(

With Grandma and Grandpa Wilkinson

With Great Grandma Wilkinson