Breakfast with Santa

Emma at 32 months

Halloween 2007

State Fair of Texas

Wisconsin Trip 2007

We traveled up to Wisconsin for Mike's cousin, Ted Seiberlich's wedding.

Emma at 29 Months

Happy Birthday Max

Emma at 28 Months

4th of July

Trip to Charleston, SC

Mother's Day Out pictures for March and April

Here are the pictures from Emma's Mother's day out at CDC.

Easter 2007 Pictures

Emma's 2 year portrait

Emma's 2 Year Checkup

Today was Emma's 2 year check up. She is on track developmentally and everything looked great. She should know 2 colors, be able to stack 10 blocks, and jump with two feet by age 3. Keep trying vegetables, but it is ok that she just eats fruit as long as she get fruit everyday. She can have 2% milk now and should be drinking 16-20 ounces a day. The doctor thinks she has a mild cold and that is why her nose is running which in turn caused the coughing because of the drainage. We are going to get a special lotion for her face and arms and do that for 1 week and then put Eucerin on it everyday for the rest of her life...no matter how dry the skin feels. We also need to put sunscreen & bug spray on Emma when she goes outside no matter what time of the day and and for how long...especially this summer! I think that is it.
Here are her numbers
Weight: 30 pounds 6 ounces (85%)
height: 34.5 inches (70%)

Emma at 24 Months

Emma's 2nd Birthday

Here are all of the pictures from Emma's 2nd birthday. Nana and Pappy flew down from Chicago to join in the festivities! Nana and Pappy took Emma to Little Gym on Friday morning to see how much fun she has there. We had a kid's party on Friday, March 9th and then a family party on Saturday March 10th.

Mother's Day Out pictures for January and February

Here are the pictures from Emma's Mother's day out at CDC.

Bubbles!!!

Emma at 23 Months

It's snowing

Emma at 22 Months

Mother's Day Out pictures for December

Here are the pictures from Emma's Mother's day out at CDC.

Emma with Santa

Today it is 76 degrees and we went for a horse drawn carriage ride with Santa in the shopping center where Emma takes Little Gym. Click on the picture to see the slideshow at Kodak Gallery.

Emma at 21 Months

Mother's Day Out pictures for November

Here are the pictures from Emma's Mother's day out at CDC (Children's Discovery Center).

Thanksgiving at Fall Creek

We had a big group out at Fall Creek this year for Thanksgiving. There are some good pictures of Emma playing with cousins Charles, Georgia and Yates. From the Auler side of the family, we had Ed, Susan, Chad, Stacy, Charles and Yates. From the Wright side of the family we had Stan, Laurie, John, Sheila and Georgia. Here are the pictures from the weekend (note how low the Colorado River is at the winery as well).

Emma at 20 Months

Mother's Day Out pictures for October

Here are the pictures from Emma's Mother's day out at CDC (Children's Discovery Center).

Emma at 19 Months

Mother's Day Out pictures for September

Here are the pictures from Emma's Mother's day out at CDC (Children's Discovery Center).

Emma's 18 Month Dr. Appointment

Emma had her 18 month well visit this morning. We went to a different doctor in the practice and she is my favorite. She has 2 young kids and very down to earth.

Everything looks great and Emma is right on track developmentally. The only thing to be concerned about is if she won't say any "m" words in a couple of months to call the dr. (If you did not know Emma calls me dada and Mike daddy). Emma is feeling better and nothing is coming out either end for over 24 hours now. She will be on the BRAT diet for today and if she keeps everything down she will go to Mother's Day Out tomorrow. She should of had 1 shot today, but I wanted to postpone it for a couple of days since she has not been feeling well. When we go back next week for the shot I am going to have her weighted again. I am not sure how accurate the weight is since she has only been on crackers and water for the last 36 hours.

weight: 27.2 pounds (85%)
height: 33 inches (85%)
head: 18.25 inches (50%)

Emma at 18 Months

Mother's Day Out pictures for August

This month we started Emma in Mother's Day out at Children's Discovery Center, a ministry of Christ United Methodist Church (CUMC). This church and their Mother's Day out program was recommended by Will and Lisa Stokes who have sent both of their children there.
Here are the pictures from the first month of the program.

Emma at 17 Months

Emma at 16 Months

Emma's 15 Month Dr. Appointment

Emma had her 15 month well visit today and everything looks great. We will go back in 3 months for the 18 month well visit. The doctor said she is probably hitting herself in the head to get attention so we should try to ignore her or distract her from doing it. When she is screaming/fussing for food we just need to ignore her or distract her. All of that is typical toddler stuff. We should only do time out for hitting and biting (which she is not doing).

weight: 26 pounds 9.5 ounces (90%)
height: 30.25 inches (45%)
head: 18 inches (50%)

Emma at 15 Months

Emma at 14 Months

Emma walking with her walker outside

Here a video we took while taking a walk outside with the entire family.

Easter 2006 (13 months old)

Here are the pictures from our Easter lunch.

Walking with her walker inside

Here's a video we took of her when she first started walking with her walker.

Emma at 13 Months

12 Month Doctor Appointment

Today we went to our new pediatrician Dr. Michael Franks at Willow Bend Pediatrics. He seems really nice and laid back. The office is really close to the house. The office has giant stuffed animal heads on the wall (not the real thing, stuffed animals). It is very cute... kind of a safari theme. I only waited a few minutes for the doctor and nurse. Emma weighs 22 lbs 15.5 ounces (80%) and she is 30 inches long (80%). The doctor said we are right on track on growth and developmental. We go back in 3 months.

In 3 months we will talk about getting rid of the pacifier and bottle. (fun times ahead). The doctor suggested for discipline doing time out for a minute if she hits or bites anyone. She will know what it is. We need to designate a spot for time out and leave her there for a minute. Eventually, we will leave her alone in that spot for a minute. He said to pick our battles, but not too tolerate hitting or biting. Unfortunately he said just deal with her biting the furniture. Do not punish her for that. Just make sure she has a pacifier or something to teethe on instead.

He also wants us to start Emma on vitamins one time a day, but not with milk. Milk takes away the potency of the vitamin. We also need to start brushing Emma's teeth with water. Emma needs to keep drinking only Whole Milk until she is 2. It is crucial for her to drink only whole milk because she needs the nutrients and fat. She should be drinking about or more than 15 ounces a day.

Emma's 1st Birthday Party

Here are the pictures from Emma's First Birthday Party.

Emma at 10 Months

Emma's Crawling!!!

Take a look at the below video to see Emma crawling. It's a pretty long video...
Emma crawling...

Emma's first toboggan ride!

Here'a video of Emma and Stacy riding down the toboggan down the hill at Becker Bay...
A fun surprise ending...

9 Month Checkup

Although it is a few days early Emma had her 9 month checkup today. She received 1 shot and everything else looked fine.

Weight 21lbs 4ozs 86% percentile
Height 28.5inches 79% percentile
Head 44cm 50% percentile

The doctor is not concerned with her weight or height. We have a healthy girl. We need to start giving her more finger food on the table. I am not looking forward to that mess, but Max is. Max already is right by Emma's side when she is in her high chair.

We don't go back until her 1st BD.

Flu Shot Round 2

Emma had her follow up to the first flu shot today. She weighed in at 20 lbs. 9 oz. so it looks like her growth is slowing down a bit.
She is also teething right now. There were some aspects of the teething that we were not prepared for (the diarrhea), but hope that the first tooth will pop out pretty soon.

Nana and Pappy Come down...

Nana and Pappy (Mike's parents) came down for the weekend. Take a look at these 2 videos:
Emma in her Activity Center (Narrated by Nana)
Emma in her Bouncer (Narrated by Pappy)
And it looks like someone got into Daddy's beer (just a joke, CPS)... A true Packer's fan...

Halloween Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures from Emma's first Halloween.

Flu Shot Round 1

Emma had her first flu shot today. She will need to come back in 30 days for the second part of the flu vaccine. She weighed in at 20 lbs. 7 oz.

Emma's 6 Month Photo Shoot

Videos of Emma

Emma's first football weekend

Emma at 6 Months

6 month checkup

Emma got to spend her 6 month birthday with the doctor today. The nurse gave her 4 shots and she only cried for a minute. She is weighing in at 19 lbs 9.75 ozs (96%) and 27 inches long (87%). Her head circumference is now 43 cm (65%).

The doctor is not concerned with her weight or height. We have a healthy girl. We get to start vegetables this weekend & fruit in a couple of weeks!

Around 7.5 months we can have finger food like cheerios, rice, pasta, bananas, peaches out of the fruit cocktail cups & get to go up to stage 2 baby food (that just means the jars are bigger). When we start a new food we will only have that food for 4 consecutive days to make sure Emma is not allergic to it and then we can try a new food plus the previous one.

Our meals will look like this:
In the morning we will have cereal mixed with a little apple juice in it & a formula bottle. Mid-morning a formula bottle if she wants it. For Lunch she will get a jar of baby food and a formula bottle. Mid-afternoon a formula bottle (if she wants it). Dinner she will get a jar of baby food and a formula bottle.

4 Month checkups

We had our 4 month check up today at the pediatrician's office. Emma received 4 more shots. We are clear at this point to go to the pool with sunscreen on, though, so that's good news! We think she will really like that since it has been so hot! We can also give her rice cereal, but we don't have to ... so I think we will wait a little longer. At 6 months she will be introduced to all baby food. She is weighing in at 17 lbs. 12 oz (98%) and 26.5 inches (97%). Dr. Tran was not concerned with her weight since her height & weight are in the same percentile range.

2 month checkup

We had our 2 month check up at the pediatrician's office. Emma got a couple of shots, but handled it very well. She is weighing in at 12 lbs. 11 3/4 oz. (84%). She is now 24 1/2 inches (96%) and a head circumference of 39 cm (49%).

4 week checkup

We had our 4 week check up at the pediatrician's office. We got a clean bill of health and Emma did pretty good with her shot. She is weighing in at 9 lbs. 9 1/2 oz. (66%). She is now 21 3/4 inches (74%) and a head circumference of 37 1/2 cm (63%).

Emma's First Easter

Today was Emma's first Easter. We had lunch over at Stan and Laurie's and here are some of the pictures. Here are Wendy's pictures.

2 Week checkup

We have our 2 week check up at the pediatrician's office. She is weighing in at 8 lbs. 8 oz. (54%). This is back above her birth weight which is great! She is now 21 1/4 inches (81%) and a head circumference of 36 1/2 cm (61%).

First Pediatrician visit

We have our first appointment with Dr. Trung D. Tran, Emma's pediatrician with the Clinical Pediatric Associates of North Texas, today. Everything is looking good and Dr. Tran reassures us regarding Emma's Jaundice and weight gain. She is weighing in at 7 lbs. 12 1/4 oz. (48%) and still at 20 1/2 inches (73%) with a head circumference of 36 cm (66%).

Finally Released

We are released from the hospital today!!! Emma's weight is climbing back up (7 lbs. 11 oz.) due to the diligent efforts of Stacy and the on staff lactation consultants at the hospital. We are so glad to be going home and were greeted by both sets of grandparents, Wendy and her boyfriend, John. Check out the immense photo album from the first week of Emma (we still have yet to organize it all).

Check out delayed...

We are supposed to check out of the hospital today, but due to Emma's Jaundice levels, and excessive weight loss (7 lbs. 8 oz.), the pediatrician wants us to stay a couple of extra days.

Emma is born!!!

We check into the hospital right after midnight. After enduring 18 hours of labor (including Mike almost passing out during the epidural) and 2 1/2 hours of pushing, Emma Marie Becker was born at 4:59 pm weighing in at 8 lbs. 4 oz. and a length of 20 1/2 inches. Mom and baby are doing good and Dad gets to call his parents to announce Emma's name and birth. Dad then gets to go outside and announce her birth and name to the the family at the hospital. There is quite a large group of supporters at the hospital including Grandma and Grandpa Wright, Aunt Wendy, Memaw, Nan, Sally Tobin and John Wright. Dad then gets to call his brothers (biological and collegiate). At about 7:30 that night we get to go up to our postpartum room.

Here she comes...

As we are laying in bed watching the news at about 10:30, Stacy starts mentioning that she is having some stomach cramps on the top of her stomach. Around 11 or so, Stacy's water breaks and we hop in the car to head down to the hospital. Of course today was the first day of Stacy's OB/GYN's vacation, so we call in to the service to talk to Dr. Payne (a little intimidating talking to a Doctor with that name...). We call our parents on the way to the hospital to let them know what's going on.

Ebby Baby Shower

We had a baby shower at Stacy's office today. They were so generous and gave us a gift certificate to Babies-R-Us so we could finish up the items on our registry.

Archon Baby Shower

We had a baby shower at Mike's office today. They were so generous in providing us with a lot of the stuff that we needed including big items like the Pack 'n' Play, Diaper Champ, Baby Einstein Activity Center and a bunch of baby care items.

It looks like she's going to be a big one...

We had another ultrasound today and it looks like she might be a big one. From the initial measurements, the baby is now 6 lbs. 13 oz. This will make her a 9+ lb. baby if those measurements are accurate. Since the baby was breathing in and out so much (a good sign that she is relaxed), the Doctor isn't sure how accurate the measurement is. We're starting to get the house setup and are trying to setup the babies stuff.

Baby Shower

Stacy had her baby shower which was hosted by Regan, Gini, Carol, Amanda, Lollie, Mary Beth and Lindsey. Here are some pictures from the party. Everyone at the shower was very generous and we received a number of useful items including outfits, blankets, the stroller, the baby swing, and numerous other things off the registry.