I moved

I moved my blog to this address: jennysneverland.blogspot.com . Come check it out! Sorry about the change!

Kissy Face!

Emma will now give us "kisses" when we ask her for one. Sometimes her kisses are really slobbery but they are always cute! She keeps her mouth open and just puts it against our cheek. Here are a couple videos of her giving me kisses.

She's getting so big!

It seems like Emma has been growing up so fast recently. She's started really trying to crawl and I think she is going to be able to soon. She scoots her knees up under her belly and pushes up on her elbows but then she ends up moving backwards if she goes anywhere at all. I keep trying to get it on video but she wont do it whenever I have the camera out. This was the best I could get. She has also started putting her hands out in the air and kicking with her feet so she looks like she is trying to fly. I'm not quite sure what she is doing.


She has also started eating really well so we've started feeding her 3 meals a day. She loves food and gets so excited when I get the spoon out. We've been feeding her little pieces of whatever we're eating which she is so thrilled about. A few of the things she's tried are bread, avocado, rice, strawberries and potatoes. She spit the rice right back out even though I mushed it up with my fingers before giving it to her. I tried (again) a couple nights ago to feed her peas but she does not like the green stuff. She will quit eating anything after that because she doesn't trust me any more. So it took us a few meals before she would willing eat from the spoon again. She obviously got her fathers picky-ness.


She has also gotten really good at sitting up by herself, well when she wants to anyways. We still have to sit behind her because she tends to decide she is done and just throws herself over.

This weekend

we got to meet my future Step-Mother-in-law. Wow, that's a mouthful. They will be getting married in the middle of June. My mother-in-law passed away about a year and a half ago and my father-in-law is now getting re-married. I have mixed feelings about this. My mother-in-law was more like a mother to me and I miss her so much. She was one of those people that makes everyone feel like they are the most important person to her. She was hilarious and so much fun to be around.

(a few pictures of my MOM from our wedding)

I'm also happy that my father-in-law is happy and doesn't have to be lonely now. I really like Tamara (my future Step-mother-in-law). She is very sweet and I know she will make my father-in-law happy. I look forward to getting to know her better soon.

(a few pictures from this weekend of Tamara and Richard)

We've been sick

We've been sick for the last few days and are still trying to get over it. Emma had a fever, her first one ever, on Sunday and was so sick she slept most of the day. Now she has a cough which keeps waking her up while she is sleeping so we haven't gotten much sleep either. I got sick on Monday and Mike took great care of me. He let me sleep most of the day away while he took care of Emma and the house. I feel a lot better now except for the cough. Poor Mike got sick last night and then had to go to classes today. Here is a picture of our poor sick little girl. Doesn't she look sad?


Emma has started talking a lot these days (just baby talk) and it is sooo cute! She just started today saying dadadada. haha. She goes on and on. She also says nananana when she is mad about something. She also loves water bottles a lot and she loves to get little drinks of water from mommy's. She gets so excited whenever she sees it.

She likes to play with any bottle though so Mike let her have his left overs. I guess we are probably starting bad habits really early with this one.


This is just a random photo but Mike got a new hat and put it on Emma and it was pretty cute. She looks a little gangster-ish but still cute. She also happens to be wearing the onsie that her aunt gave her that says "Rock stars don't need naps". haha.

Girl Scout Cookies

Ok, I just wanted to make a quick post but did you know that you can make girl scout cookies at home??? I just found these recipes this weekend for Thin Mints and Samoas (my 2 favorites!) online. I tried out the Samoas this weekend and they are awesome! I'm going to try the thin mints out soon but if anyone tries them out first let me know how they turn out! If only I had known about these recipes when I was pregnant and craving girl scout cookies and there were no girl scouts to be found.

Sitting up and rolling over

I finally got around to putting some videos of Emma on the computer. So here they are. The first one is of her sitting up on her own which she is getting pretty good at. She falls over pretty fast in the video but she can sit for a lot longer when she wants to. The second one is her rolling over. She is so funny because when she gets on her stomach and wants to move forward she just starts kicking her legs really fast. haha. It doesn't get her anywhere but it is pretty cute. (By the way, there is no sound)

Just a ramble

I guess not much has happened recently but it feels like life has been so crazy. Next week Mike has an interview for a possible internship so hopefully that goes well. I get to go home for all of next week. It feels like I was just down there but I get to go back because we found tickets for really cheap through Jet Blue. If you are planning on traveling (I think they only fly inside the U.S.) anytime soon, check them out! I love to go see my family but I really hate traveling by myself with Emma. She's been pretty good ever time we've flown but it's so stressful to have to juggle everything and hope she is not in a bad mood and all that good stuff. I am soo excited to be able to see my family again though!

Emma has started squealing pretty much as loud as she can. She does it whether she is happy or sad and I think she just likes to hear her voice. It's pretty cute at first but after about 15 min. it starts getting old and then after 3 hours you can feel your eardrums splitting. haha. She thinks it is great, though I'm sure our neighbors don't think so. She has also started putting things in her mouth and then letting go of them with her hands so that whatever it is just hangs there from her mouth. It's pretty funny. Here's a picture of her doing it with a burp rag:

For Christmas Emma's grandpa got her a piano that hangs at the foot of her crib so that she can kick it and it will play music. She loves that thing and will lay in her crib and just kick and kick it. There is a chicken at the top though that moves and she tends to aim for that instead of the piano keys.

We propped her up with pillows so that she could actually see the piano but she is just as happy to kick it laying on her back.


My little brother gets home from his mission in about 4-5 months and I'm sooo excited. I can't wait to see him again. Well, that's about it. Not to many blog worthy things happen these days I guess. I'll have to work on making my life a little more interesting :-)

Just an update

I meant to write about this before but I forgot. About a week ago Emma started rolling all around the living room finally. She can roll from front to back and back to front but seems to have given up on rolling front to back recently. This is soo annoying because she hates being on her stomach and freaks out and starts crying and flailing her arms. So I roll her back over and within seconds she's rolled herself back onto her stomach. gah! It's a good thing she's cute! haha. I need to put a video up of her rolling but I haven't gotten it onto the computer yet.

She has also started trying to blow rasberries. It is pretty funny and cute because she sticks her tongue out but automatically it curls up her lip which doesn't exactly work for blowing rasberries. If you blow one at her though she sticks her tongue out and blows. This usually results in drool down her chin but she thinks it is hilarious.

On another note, I was just called as our wards new primary secretary. I am so excited to be in primary because I have always loved being in there better than Relief Society but I'm a bit overwhelmed with the calling. I don't feel like I will ever get the hang of it but I'm sure it will all come to me eventually. Hopefully sooner than later.

Well, sorry for todays lack of pictures. I will try to get that video up soon.

The rest of the trip

Emma and I got back to Seattle this weekend from our 2 week vacation in California. Mike had gotten back a week earlier. It's really good to see Mike again but now I miss my family a lot. I wish that we could live closer to them.

Since I haven't posted in about 2 weeks I just thought I'd share about the rest of our trip. On New Years Day we got to go swimming! It was so awesome. How often do you get to go swimming in January? My parents heated their pool for the one day so that we could go swimming in a warm pool also. We also took Emma swimming for the first time as well. She seemed ok with it but after about 15 minutes she was done. She loved to stick her hand under the little waterfall and play with it.

The water was like 80 degrees and it was so nice. We were able to get in and out all day.

Mike and I also got to go out on our very first date since Emma was born because my parents were so nice to watch her for us. We went to Chili's for dinner and then just walked around the shops. At Chili's I got the country fried steak and it was AMAZING. So if you ever go to Chili's order that! Yumm, now my mouth is watering for it.

The week after Mike left the kids had to go back to school and my Dad had to go back to work so I got to relax and go shopping with my mom that week. At first Emma was a little wary of all the new people. She wanted to be mostly with Mommy or Daddy but as the time went on she got comfortable with everyone. She even stayed and played with Grandma while some of the rest of us went to the driving range and she had a blast! She loved to have Grandpa rock her to sleep at night and would just lay there until she was out and all I had to do was take her up to bed. Darn I forgot to get a picture of that! Oh well... Emma loved her aunt Emily. They would play and play together and then Emma would fall asleep on Emily's lap. Here's a funny picture of Emma asleep on Emily's lap still sucking on her hand. (Sorry if it's a little fuzzy, it was taken on a cell phone)


While we were there we also took a picture of all the girls in our family so here it is:
Emma and Bekah weren't too thrilled at the time so we had a bit of trouble getting them to smile for it. The dog was also licking all of our feet so we were also having a hard time getting everyone looking at the camera. This one is kind of funny because we were all looking at the dog and Mom is trying to push her out of the way with her foot.

Well, now Mike is back in school and I am home with Emma. It's stinks going back to the everyday routine and having no one to talk to most of the time but oh well. Such is life I guess.

The Holidays

This year I had very different Christmas than I normally have. It was the first Christmas that I spent without seeing my family. It was also the first white Christmas I have had. I have had snow around Christmas time before but I've always been in California on Christmas day but this year we stayed in Seattle. It was also Emma's first Christmas. She loved it! Her favorite part was ripping open the wrapping paper and then she just wanted to play with the paper and not so much the toys. Me and Mike and Emma all opened our presents first thing in the morning and then Scully (Emma's aunt for those who don't know) and Emma's Grandpa Hogsett came over and we opened more presents. Then we had the missionaries over and we had a big dinner. I am really looking forward to next year when Emma is a little older and more excited about Christmas. I missed all of the crazy chaos and excitement of all the kids this year.

On Saturday we headed down to California to see my family for my birthday and new years. On my birthday my mom cooked a yummy roast with potatoes and carrots and yorkshire pudding. It was very good. Since my birthday was on Sunday we couldn't do much for fun that day so on Tuesday we went to the San Diego zoo. It was so much fun! We took a bus on a tour around the park first because it is a huge zoo and that way we got to see pretty much everything. Then we walked around to the things that the bus didn't go to or things that we wanted to see again. We even got to feed the giraffes!
We also went to the little petting zoo where Emma got to pet the goats.


And here are just a few more pictures from the day.


Today we got to go see Mike's sister-aunt and Emma's cousin (well he's Emma's second cousin?). It was the first time that we've met him and it was the first time they'd met Emma so it was a lot of fun to see them! They are pretty cute if I do say so myself (and I'm not biased at all).

Snow in Seattle

Before we moved to Seattle I had a lot of people telling me about how the weather is here. I heard that it rained a lot and was frequently overcast. I even heard that it sometimes snows here and there but not very much. Well, I think Seattle must have felt bad that we were in such a new place and wanted us to feel at home so it decided to pretend it was Rexburg. Here are some pictures from my apartment window.


I do find it somewhat ironic though that we had church canceled on Sunday because of the snow that we got. I'm pretty sure that in Rexburg we went to church, school and wherever else in blizzards. Nothing ever shuts down in Rexburg but in Seattle we get a few inches of snow and everyone thinks it's the end of the world and wont leave their apartments. The one bad part about driving in the snow in Seattle is the hills which can be pretty slick at times. I do think that it has been very pretty to watch. I'm going to have to take Emma out in it and take her picture in the snow for the first time. She doesn't have a coat though (afterall I was told that it wasn't really supposed to snow here) so I'm a little nervous that I wont be able to dress her up warm enough.

On another note, Emma has started eating oatmeal cereal at night. I'm not sure how much she actually gets down but she enjoys it and tries to help us feed her. She has had a few small tastes of some fruit that we were eating. She LOVES banana.

Rolling over and Jumperoo

I'm so excited, Emma rolled over for the first time this week! On Thursday she rolled over from her tummy to her back and then on Friday she rolled from her back to her tummy. She only did each once and doesn't seem interested in doing it again but it gives me hope that she will sometime! haha. She has a doctors appointment (which I'm not looking forward to more shots by the way) on Monday and I'm so glad I don't have to tell them that she's never rolled over again.

On another note, Emma's grandma and grandpa Johnson got her the Rainforest Jumperoo for Christmas and she got to open in early because we will be leaving right after Christmas for 2 weeks and they wanted her to be able to enjoy it for a little while. She LOVES it! So really it's a present for us too since it gives us something else to entertain her with. She loves it so much that she wears herself out in it as you can see.


Mike put her in it this morning and didn't get the sound on quickly enough and she started to cry. As soon as he got the sound on she was all smiles and kicking like crazy again.

This thing is such a lifesaver! Thank you grandma and grandpa!

Christmas Time

I just have to say that I love the month of December! It seems that as soon as Thanksgiving is over that everyone starts getting ready for Christmas and I love Christmas! Everyone seems so much more happy and willing to help others. It is such a fun time!

So, to start our holiday season off we went and bought our first Christmas tree on Saturday. We got a small one (5 ft) because our apartment is so little. It was so fun to pick one out and bring it home and set it up. We didn't have any Christmas tree ornaments so we went to the craft store and made a bunch. I found this cool website that had a lot of fun ideas for homemade Christmas tree ornaments. My favorite one is the wishing spool. We are going to make this one each year with our kids so that we can remember what was on everyone's Christmas list that year.

Here is our finished tree except for the star (we have the star on now but I don't have a picture of it yet):

And here is Emma putting up her first ornament:


So now we are pretty much ready for Christmas minus a few last gifts to buy. After Christmas I am sooo excited to be able to go see my family. I get to be there on my birthday since I don't get to be there for Christmas this year. We are probably going to go to the zoo for it (well the day after since my birthday is on a Sunday) and it will be the first time I get to take Emma. yay! I can't wait! Well, Emma is waking up so I gotta run.

Thanksgiving

So I just wanted to put this super cute video up of Emma on Thanksgiving. She was giggling and it was so funny.



Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving as well. This one is of Emma and her aunt (Scully).

Scully made and exceptionally good Thanksgiving dinner (Thank You!!!) so we took a picture of Emma with all of the food. These pictures were actually taken after we had eaten so that is all leftovers, yumm!