Glamour Shots

Last week Kimberly & Grace, Suzanne & William, and Emma and I continued with our summer excursions.  We purchased a Groupon for professional pictures!  The inexpensive Groupon covered the sitting fee and prints of one pose.  Naturally I was a total sucker and ended up purchasing all the pictures...money well spent in my opinion!  The girls and I thought this was a great time to have pictures taken since the kiddos were all around 6 months.  

Thank you Gma & Gpa Finn for the outfit, blanket, and bear! 

Thank you Great Grandma Schaetzel for the blanket!  This is one of my baby dresses that I wore in some professional pictures too... perhaps I could upload those to the computer someday for comparisons.  

Blanket from my NYC PICU ladies! One of Aunt Julie's baby dresses :) 

To conclude the photo shoot we thought we would try to get a photo of all three of them together.  We were not sure we could coordinate smiles but fortunately the photographer had a fast trigger finger and captured this!  

First food!

Since Emma turned 6 months old this week, it was time to expand her culinary universe with the introduction of her first food.  On today's menu: organic rice cereal.  Yum. This Saturday after her 6 month-old photo shoot, it was time to give it a shot.  It was definitely a messy experience, but Emma seemed to love every minute.

Let's get the party started!  Emma and her dad preparing to eat.

We quickly learned that letting Emma have a say in things with her hands was a mistake.

Yes, that's some rice cereal on her left temple.

After thorough clean-up, Patrick and Emma supported my enthusiasm for extreme sports and we headed out to see the Red Bull extreme cliff divers on the Seaport.  These crazy guys were jumping off a ten story high platform taking them less than 2.5 seconds to hit the Boston Harbor.  Naturally they have to go into the water feet first! You can kind of see the platform in the background. This was so fitting for us after watching with interest the diving competitions for the olympics and were thrilled to see Greg Louganous!  Here is a link with the information:

http://www.redbull.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Red-Bull-Cliff-Diving/001243156279621

Happy Half Birthday, Emma!

This morning we did our monthly photo shoot to document Emma's continuing growth.  She gave us some great smiles as usual!

And who doesn't love bloopers?  

On Emma's actual half birthday her silly mom scheduled her 6 month check-up which included four shots  :( Needless to say we took it pretty easy the rest of the day.  It was fun to learn she is up to 17lbs 4ozs!  Emma had been hanging in the 95-97th percentile for height, weight, and head circumference at her 2 and 4 month check-ups!  My big baby is finally slowing down her growth and came in at the 75th percentile for height and weight.  However, her noggin did not slow down in pace and is now above the growth curve which warranted a head ultrasound.  I've held my fair share of babies during ultrasounds and Emma was a trooper- no tears!  I can happily report that they found nothing unusual.  We can conclude Emma is going to be super smart with her big brain! 

Gma & Gpa come to town!

First, happy 6 month birthday sweet little Emma!!! Check back soon for updates of her half birthday week!

Alright, I know I am WAY, WAY behind in posts :(  Perhaps I am still recovering from a very exciting visit from Grandma and Grandpa!  We were so fortunate that Grandpa found a judicial conference to attend in Boston this year! It happened to be at the Omni Parker House.... you know what that means, Boston Cream Pie!

The first weekend they were here we enjoyed exploring a 'new to us' New England town- Newburyport.  It's located on the water of the northernmost point of Massachusetts and it is picturesque!  Great shopping to be done in Newburyport.

Emma and Patrick are discussing what they wanted to see and do!

When we were all shopped out, we headed to Plum Island.  What a pleasant discovery!  We love big sandy dune beaches and these were perfection :)  

Of course we needed our shades!  Like many other things right now Emma would prefer to eat them!

Here is Patrick practicing his male modeling with an infant for an accessory...

Yay, I'm going to the beach!

Emma's first experience of sand beneath her totsies

She thought it was a bit too cold for her preference

And Patrick did too!

Again with the eating of the sunglasses 

We stumbled upon Emma's favorite playground activity on the way out of the beach!

AHHHHH!!!!!!  

While Grandpa was busy at the conference Emma got in a lot of wonderful play time with Grandma! 

Suzanne and William joined us at the Esplanade wading pool. This was a discovery I wish we would have made a couple months ago :(  But I have a feeling Emma will be spending many summer days there next year!

There were lots of wonderful walks during the week!

Another stop at the swings!

How big is Patrick?

How big is Emma?

Only for Emma would Grandpa agree to a Fenway tour...unfortunately it was sold out :( 

But Patrick and Emma walked away with new hats so the excursion was not an entire bust! 

We frequented Georgetown Cupcakes almost every other night- yikes!

Thank you so much for the fun week!!!!

Come back and see us again soon!!! 

More pics perhaps to come if I can get them off of Patrick's phone!