spring fever

Horray for Banana's! She is 10 months old in this picture (March 22nd) She LOVES her swing in the backyard. She just laughed and laughed! This is March 1st, before we planted the grass.. now it is bright green! :

Bob, Amy, Madison and Robby Jay came to visit the 2nd weekend in March. It was soo much fun! They are the best!

Emma eating "Mel's Mix" out of our square foot garden boxes we put together (March 21st):

(March 26th) Emma is really into books... We'll be having a first birthday "book" party in Farmington June 7th. You're all invited!!

My awesome jogging partner. It was pretty cold for a while and if her hands got too cold she would SCREAM... (April 7th):

Emma LOVES fruit.. here she is chowing down on a plum.. yum! (April 10th):

Emma got a lot of practice walking in Farmington this weekend.. (April 19th.. Happy Birthday Nancy!):

Happy Easter dress.. she's clapping because she knows she looks so cute in her hat! (Compliments of Grandma Shupe..thanks Mom! ) (April 12th):

Our first family trip to the park.. she LOVES being outside.. (May 1st )

I followed her around for 15 minutes trying to get a good picture.. John takes the camera and gets this one with his first shot! :)

I wanted to finish our family update on the last four months.. I did a lot of work on the back yard.. pulling bushels of weeds (for hours and hours) and tilling the ground by hand and mixing in compost and fertilizer and manuer to our sandy new mexican soil.. and only about 7 blisters later and several hundred gallons of water we have some tall, bright green grass growing in our back yard. Horray! Emma loves walking around out there and now I am not so worried about her.. yet we still have ginormous weeds probably because of all the compost and fertilizer... but I am not ready to kill them with chemicals. It is Emma's playground and Truman's (our terrific tortoise) main diet. He woke up from hibernation a few weeks ago and has actually been chowing down on the weeds. Love him for it! Does anyone know of any organic weed killer that is safe for tortoises to eat?
We spent two weekends in a row if Farmington in April with John's family. It was so much fun to be there for Nancy's birthday and to see both of John's brothers and all the grandparents and cousins. We also did a little shooting up there.. and I did a nice long jog in the mud and we went to a performance of Beethoven's full 8th. It was great..

oh.. I'm so out of order.. but another fun thing we did this semester was participate in Albuquerque's TEA Party.. it was awesome. About 4500 people showed up on April 15th to protest our government's big spending and passing the bailouts (without even reading them!) . It was great. It was a lot more partisan than we were hoping it would be, but we were so glad to be there and we hope we helped ! I made a sign saying http://www.fairtax.org/ You should all check it out and write to your state reps to get it moving! Emma also did great at her first protest!! :)

Okay.. now onto more important things.. Emma Jane has two teeth, her lower front anteriors (O and P). It is so cute! She loves to use them too! I am still breastfeeding her and she knows better than to bite me! She also is walking! She took her first steps on April 16th and spent about 10 days only going a few steps at a time, and then spent a couple of days going about 10 steps and now she is a pro! Well..she does look like a drunken pirate occasionally.. :) She is so much fun and still a great baby.. but she does have this increadibly high-pitched scream now... and she can get cranky when she wants to. She babbles all the time! She loves to say Daddy and Dadda... I of course always respond with "Mamma or Mommy." She says that only when she feels especially sad. :( On Saturday she started saying "Baby." I call her that all the time. I have heard her say "Emma" in her babbling too.. She's such a doll. She's been teething lately.. :( but a few weeks ago she went through a good growing spurt.. eating and sleeping all the time. She is about 18 pounds now and will be one years old this Friday.. I can't believe it!!

She is a little climer! (May 6th):

At UNM's Duck Pond on Mother's Day (May 10th):

This is Emma and Truman's first encounter... she just cried and didn't know what to do, it was hilarious.. but then she got very comfortable with him and would slap his shell like a drum. She loved it! Poor guy! .. so I took him outside so he wouldn't be destroyed by our little EmmZilla..

crazy late-night snacking!

Well, It has been an amazing four months since I have last posted anything (besides a few comments on friends' blogs) and I am excited to be here again! I have just realized the connection with my last blog.. it was right before John was starting his semester in school and he actually turned in his last homework today for the semester. Honestly, he being in school makes me feel so busy and stressed as if I was taking the classes and had to complete hours of homework and projects and impossible math problems right along with him.. I guess that is the empathy in me. ..
So, what have we been up to this semester? Well a LOT.
John of course was very busy with school. He is one smart cookie and I am still learning so much from him (he will always be my greatest teacher). He should be getting two A's and three B's this semester.. which I think is awesome for your Junior year in Nuclear Engineering. I do wish it could have been done with a lot less "5 Hour Energy" consumption and a lot more sleeping in bed next to me.. but I am proud of him. He is still an awesome scout master and got certified through the NRA to be a rifle instructor.... so of course we had to buy a gun and go shooting a few times. Fun! Actually, I think we saw a mafia member.. with body guards and all at the gun store.. good times. I am actually a natural good shot. .. a little Annie Oakley in me.. John studied a lot this semester with a Mr. Mario Luigi Luis Migel.. (I'm not sure on the order).. he is mostly "Luis." He is a great guy from Peru... and yes, John supplied the "5 Hour Energy" for all night studying! I am so glad that I get my husband back for a couple of weeks before summer school starts.. (I really sometimes feel like a single mom.... who has a loving husband I get to feed and cuddle with occasionally.. ;)
So.. what else have I been up to? I was just able to celebrate my first Mother's Day, which was awesome. John gave me my gift and card Saturday night (we can rarely wait to give any gift to each other), I got some wonderful chocolate covered strawberries and the sweetest card. We had a nice sausage-y breakfast and a wonderful picnic dinner at the duck pond at UNM (with ducks and baby turtles and giant gold fish). Emma loved it of course.. but mostly loved picking up the gravel. :) I am still the RS Secretary. I love it. It is a great calling. I love the President and the counselors and how laid back it is... and that it gets me out of Sunday school.. Actually Emma is good for that too. How do you get anything at all out of church on Sunday with a toddler? I guess I better step-up my scripture reading at home. :) I have been trying (not very hard or consistently) to loose weight..I've lost about 10 pounds since January 1st. I have a LOT more to loose. I am honestly lazy and addicted to sugar. I miss my athletic days and will have them again. Hopefully this summer John and I will get serious about working out and eating healthy. We'll keep you updated on that. (I really could use some encouragement... pushing.. coaching...training..bossing...) I did actually run a 5K race on April 18th. I think it took me 37 minutes.. It was my second 5k.. but I walked a little during the first one. This one I jogged completely and loved it. I really do love running. I did all my training for it in our neighborhood with Emma Jane in the jogging stroller. She's a great running partner (most days). I hope do do some more races. I love that Albuquerque offers occasional Saturday races (most are on Sundays). I hope to never run a Sunday race. In March we/I built two square foot gardening boxes and made the magic soil mix.. and it is now May and still have not planted any seeds (except for the basil in my windowsill).. we'll get on that soon after our next two long weekend trips.. John just got home from work.. so i am going to finish this later! with pictures and exciting stories of our family's main feature.. little Emma Jane!