Kind of a big deal!

Emily literally just began to bear weight on her legs this past week.

We do lots of practicing with it.

So tonight I stood her up and tada....she took a few steps towards me!!!!!

I yelled for Joe to grab the camera and we did it again.

She is so amazing!!!!



sucess!

Well friends, I did it! I successfully went out of town, stayed the night, enjoyed myself, and came home to what I left.

~~~sigh~~~

I was so very nervous, more than I am afraid to admit.

I have never left Emily overnight. Tried once last year, it ended in failure and a trip to the er.

I can not tell how much this trip to Women of Faith helped my soul.

I missed Emily but I did not worry (Much ;))

She was well, happy and I had lots of pictures texted to me.

She did great and slept ok(ish) and ate most of her food.

All the things I worry about.

To be able to have a girls weekend, enjoy fellowship with 33 members from our church and 10,000 women in one arena was amazing!

Our group!

Michelle, Angie, and myself.

Jordan, refused to conform and wear pink.

My best-friend. Angie, it's a good picture!

At one point they had us all hold hands. In the row in front of us were a mother and daughter, Sha and Vicki. I just love this picture!

Worshipping.

I was so excited to hear Angie Smith speak. She has a blog and has written a book about loosing her daughter. She just started on the women of faith tour this year.

She is a fantastic speaker and so real! She had us laughing and then the next second crying.

I had already read her first book about the lose of her daughter and I bought her 2nd book while we were there.

It is about fear.

How appropriate, huh?

As a mother to a little girl with lots going on, I fear a lot.

What happens to her when I am gone?

What if we loose her 2nd insurance?

What if Joe lost his job?

What if we lost Joe, how will I provide for her?

What if I get hurt and can't take care of her?

What if I have to put her in a home one day?

What is she is a statistic and does not make it though childhood?

How would I live without her?

This list really is overwhelming but sadly I think about these things often.

Telling myself to trust in the Lord, He will provide, does not comfort me as people say it should.

Praying does not take those fears away either and telling me they are irrational will just make me angry at you.

They are mine and they are all real!

I have to learn a healthy way to control them.

So I was pretty pumped when I got to meet Angie Smith!

AHHH, I know right. I wanted to scream too but I totally had to play it cool.

I wanted to say many things but I am afraid it all came out in one word.

Ohmygoshyouaresuchablessingthankyousomuchforbeingsohonestandopen...breath.

She just smiles and asked a few questions about Emily.

I know she is just a person but i got to meet her!!

ok I am over it now ;)

I came home to a happy girl ready to eat her spaghetti!

Bathtime followed!

We even had a shirt made for Emily.

Sunday, Joe let me sleep for a few hours in the other room. Emily was up for a while and he knew how tired I was.

I went to get them up for church and this is what I found.

Yes, I crawled in bed and snuggled!

I love them!



Cast off tomorrow!!!!

We are so excited in the Rollins' house tonight!!!

The cast comes off tomorrow!!! Wahoooo.

Can you tell we are all so excited?

No more silly bar that is in the way of everything!

No more hard cast.

No more shoving diapers in to her cast either!

Since being in the cast Emily loves to pull her shirt up.

Seriously if she is not in a onsie she pulls her shirt up as far as she can get it!

Once she gets her shirt up she then likes to pull her g-tube!

This is a fun battle. All. Day. Long.

Hand clamped on her tube!

I can't get frustrated though because it is fine motor skills, right? :)

I can't wait to see her little legs and give her a real bath! I bought her some goats milk soap for her very dry legs. I used it and I am hooked now! (Just got to convert daddy ;))

I will try and blog with pics tomorrow.



More great things!

Emily's OT left this toy for Emily to play with this week. We decided to try it out after dinner last night, so excuse the messy face. When you have a good thing going you do not stop to clean up ;).

She gets so proud of herself when she pushes the flowers.

By the way, I am not moving the flowers to her hands, she is doing it all by her self.

The next video is awesome because you can see she opens her hand all the way before pushing the flower.

This is another big deal! I am so stinking proud of my girl!



Good Stuff

This is a big deal people!

Emily drank about 10cc from a sippy cup today!!!

We found a cup she will drink from!

You can go here if you want to check out the cup.



So proud of her!

Happy 4th of July!

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

We had a great lazy day!

We have an amazing nurse now, Kathy, and she wanted to work today. Joe and I went out for dinner and spent some much needed quality time together.

Did I say how great Kathy is, because she is that great!

Our neighbour sets off fireworks every year, usually on the 3rd, but it rained so Emily did not get to see those. Spica cast and rain don't mix.

We did have a cookout with some friends and family but I did not get one picture.

I thought Emily may like some of the fireworks so we bought just a couple little ones for her. She liked the sparklers, one of the fountains were very loud and she only liked the first part of those. The squealing sound of those made her giggle.

My camera died after these two pictures of her watching sparklers.

So I had to break out the camera on my phone.

She was still watching the sparklers :)

Not liking that sound too much!

Emily is doing really well. We see "things" that could be spasms every week or so. Nothing major and they never last long. She is cutting 3 molars and they have all turned into teething hematomas and are pretty painful!

She gets her cast off on July 22!!! We all can't wait!!



2nd birthday party (Lots of pics!)

Emily's 2nd birthday party went great! I was nervous because she was sleeping at the beginning and she slept through her entire 1st birthday party. She woke up just in time and had a great time! She was happy and smiling the whole time!



Sleeping beauty before the party began



I made over 75 cupcakes for her party. I was trying to save money this year and it was a success! I even made my own icing! My best friend, Angie, came over and helped me decorate all of them! It was a lot of fun to do!

I love this picture of Sha, the children's minister at my church, praying because if you look all the way to the left of the picture just under the cross you will see Micheal praying. I just love the innocence of a child praying and Micheal has prayed for Emily many times before :) such a sweet boy.

This is Emily's cousin, Sam, "kissing" (more like rooting) Emily's forehead. Emily was still snoozing and we leaned him over and it just look precious!

Emily with her grandma and grandpa Johnson.

 Family pic minus Cayla, again. Dang, we gotta get this girl in some pics soon! Come back from Florida Cayla! We miss you aunt sissy!!

Singing "Happy Birthday". Looks like she is singing too! 

Yummy!

happy girl!

Love my family!

My sister, Amy, and our babes. Love this pic of Emily! She looks very mischievous!

The woman behind all the beautiful photos!

This is Rebecca, she is an amazing photographer. She also took our last family pictures. You can click on her name and check out her blog, which is fantastic too! You can also go here to see Rebecca's photography facebook page.



Thank you so much Rebecca! I love having such great pictures to look back on.

Also, thanks to everyone who helped with the party and came and celebrated with us! We are so thankful for each one of you!!

adapting and playing

Since Emily is in her spica cast she cannot have a bath. We use an inflatable bath basin to wash her hair. It is not easy and she does not care for it either. I have a couple bowls of water and it gets very messy!

So I found this drip feeding bag and I found an old IV pole from when she had her feeding pump. Then viola!

I fill the bag with warmer than normal bath water, because it cools down fast and I can control the drip rate and wash her hair much quicker.

She got this stacking toy for her birthday and she loves it! She played with it tonight before her bath. :)

Emily's bed it attached to mine with the front rail off. I put on the little mermaid for her and tucked her into bed and within minutes she was out! We might have to watch the little mermaid more often!!



Birthday Party #1

We had a wonderful time celebrating Emily's 2nd birthday!

It was just us 3!



Helping daddy blow out her candle.





I don't know about this, mom!





It's not so bad!




She made this mess all by herself! We could not have been more proud!





She also did this all on her own!!





We are having her big party this Sunday at church. Everyone is welcome to come! If you need directions let me know!