The fruit of our labor...

We've been harvesting zucchinis already! They are good size and very tasty. I still need to figure out how to cook the flowers. I want to make quesadillas de flor de calabaza so that I can pretend for a brief moment that I'm eating these in central Mexico.

Emma's Gym

Our neighbors have Emma this baby gym. She's been using it lately and she loves looking at herself in the mirror (the sun above her) and she enjoys kicking the rattles. She doesn't do much with her hands, except to put them in her mouth, but I hope that she'll soon start swinging those arms to move the rattles.

She kicks and kicks until she gets bored:

Here she is smiling at herself:

Thumbs

It seems that Emma prefers to suck on her thumbs and sometimes her wrists. Sometimes before we get up in the mornings, I can hear her wiggling and sucking. I'm assuming she's sucking her thumbs.

The other day she was on tummy time and guess what she tried to do almost immediately: put her hands close to her mouth. Here are a few pictures.

Old Hobby

Last weekend Cameron washed all of his equipment to brew beer. This is an old hobby that he shared with his brother when they were both bachelors.

Cameron bought the ingredients online to brew wheat beer. He was showing me all of the gadgets from the equipment as he was cleaning them and describing their purpose. The process is long, very "nerdy", but very interesting. Cameron said that home brewing will give me a different appreciation and perspective for beer. We should be enjoying this beer in about four weeks.

Rattles

Whenever we hear these rattles, we know that Emma is awake and wiggling.

But for now, she's still sleeping...

Curb Appeal

There's not a lot we can do to a rental house to add curb appeal but adding a splash of color makes a HUGE difference.

Before - picture taken by the realtor when advertising the house:

We added colorful window boxes, lots of flowers, flag pole, changed the light fixture a while ago and we painted the door a rich red.

After:

Sorry, the little windows on the door still have some tape when I took these pictures.

She's THREE months old!

Emma is three months old today. She is such a sweet baby. She wakes up so happy and full of energy every morning, just like her daddy. She's sleeping through the night (huge blessing for mommy), she's more alert, she laughs, she wiggles, she recognizes her name, she "sings", she's a great blessing and so much fun.

Time is going by so fast; it just seems like it was yesterday when we were at the hospital waiting for her arrival. Here's the picture of when we first met:

Whenever we have chilly nights, Emma gets swaddled for bedtime:

Then we wake up in the morning to find her completely unswaddled!

She's now too big for the bassinet and she will start sleeping overnight in her crib. She's changing so much; here she is at three weeks: And at three months:
Sue, Grammy's friend, gave Emma a lullaby CD called Rockabye Baby which includes songs by Madonna, U2, Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, Coldplay, Radiohead, among others. Although it only has music, Cameron knows the lyrics to most of the songs and sings them to Emma.

She loves it when Daddy sings to her:

Gramp's Visit

Gramp came over to visit us and meet his new great-granddaughter. We had a great time with him and he is very low maintenance! Cameron took him to the jobsite, the community garden and to Minute-Man National Historical Park.



These pictures show the first time that Gramp held Emma. She was very comfortable in his arms and fell asleep after a while.

This was taken after church, Emma is in her outfit from Great Aunt Marsha.

The weather was very nice and we decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Emma really enjoys being in the carrier and can only stay awake for about the first 10 minutes.

She was so exhausted after the walk:

Happy Tummy Time

Emma was enjoying her tummy time:

Peonies

Our neighbors gave us a bunch of pink peonies; they are HUGE and beautiful. We have two vases filled with these amazing flowers.

Emma got to wear a new dress that her auntie Jenny sent her:

After we were done taking pictures, Emma started sucking her fist. She still hasn't found her thumb:

That little tongue is so cute: