Pretzels for dinner... SURE!

Has anyone else been tempted by the new Auntie Anne's At-Home Baking Kit in the grocery store?  WE LOVE Auntie Anne's Pretzels, and since we never go to real malls anymore we decided to buy it (with a coupon of course!)

The directions are a bit tedious but man they tasted EXACTLY like if you would buy a pretzel in the mall.  We had a bit left over so Kyle made some pretzel bites and an "L" for me :)

The kit even came with the kosher salt and cinnamon sugar to rub on the tops (after you brush it with butter, you know!)

A close up of the sugar ones:

So what was our dinner last night, you ask? A salt and cinnamon sugar pretzel of course :)  Kyle even recreated the cheese dip sauce, unbelievable!

I'm so happy to be married to my best friend who loves consuming all of our calories for the day on Auntie Anne's pretzels just like me :)

Date Night at Cinebistro

Kyle and I are on a roll with two date nights in 2 months, wahoo!  We heard about Cinébistro from Lacey, a luxurious in-theatre dining experience in the Brookhaven area, and knew we had to try it.  I had been really looking forward to seeing The Vow for almost a year now, since I love Rachel McAdams, so last Saturday night Jeneane & her husband Curtis babysat Emery so we could go!

Cinébistro was SO.COOL.  If you live in the Atlanta area, it's a must!  Everything was decorated so elegantly, and the service was superb.  The food was amazing as well.  We ordered crab dip with pull apart rolls for an appetizer, then a chicken BLT and roasted chicken with mash potatoes and asparagus for our main meal.  I also tried a fruity drink, I can't remember the name but it was delicious!

The movie was really cute too!  Afterwards we walked to Swirl, a frozen yogurt restaurant for dessert.  Kyle went the chocolate & peanut butter route, while I went fruity flavors with gummies & sugary cereal.  YUM!

What a wonderful date night, so thankful for these force-yourself-to-relax kind of nights every now and then!

Sweet babies!

I think I've mentioned on here before how so many of our friends were having babies in January and February!  We are so thankful each baby has been perfectly healthy, with safe deliveries... something I hope to never take for granted.

This past week & weekend we got the chance to visit some of our friends and bring them meals.  Trying to make and bring by 4 meals and 4 desserts while trying to work and watch an 11 month old is just a recipe for exhaustion, but it was completely worth it because we know how helpful it is to not have to make meals for the first couple weeks!

We met Chris & Kathleen at a nearby park to see how their doing and visit with Myer for a while.  They are embracing parenthood with absolutely no hesitation and are just so cute with Myer.  Here is their new family of 3, plus Finn! 

Can't believe how big Em looks compared to these babies.  Pretty soon we're going to have a 1 YEAR OLD on our hands... WOAH!

I also got to finally go meet Max, my friend Jen's baby!  We were out of town while they were in the hospital, so I was so excited to see him in person.  What a cutie pie he is!

Loved catching up with you Jen, you're doing great!

And a close up of Max, puckering his lips for us!

Congratulations Lauren & Patrick, Stephanie & Chad, Kathleen & Chris, Jen & David, Mada & Cory, and Whitney & Scott!  We are so happy for y'all!

Back in the game! (of soccer that is!)

I just have to show Ky's latest injuries from playing in this new soccer league.  He's having so much fun playing again, but who knew he would come home with new injuries every week?

(Left pic: huge bruise from getting elbowed 2 weeks in a row in the same spot, we thought it would never heal! Right pic: his torso... can you see the soccer ball indention?)

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day this year for us was pretty low key, partially because we weren't at our house to really plan much and partially because Em was just starting to feel sick.  Either way it was perfect and we had a fun day spent with our family of three!

Here is Emery dressed in her Valentine's Day gear...

I surprised Kyle by planning ahead and bringing some candy and a card which I put on the kitchen table in the morning before he came down.  He surprised me by actually remembering to buy and write in a card! (Last years card is still empty and sitting on his dresser!)

We had a delicious french toast breakfast too!

The rest of the day was a normal work day but that night we headed to the outlets then came back for a yummy spaghetti dinner with toasts of sparkling grape juice.  I just love our family of three, it was a perfect Valentine's Day.

Boone with the "Big Kids"

Two weekends ago, we met Nick, Tara, and all the Dew kiddos up in Boone!  We had such a great time relaxing, watching the snow fall outside, and staying warm in the cabin.  It was a low key - let's order Pizza, Black Cat and Hokaido- kind of weekend... no dishes and lots of quality time together... absolutely perfect!  Here are a couple pictures to recap the weekend!

Swinging on the porch... a must every time we go up there!

Playing with the cousins inside:

What we did in between nap times... games, books, playing outside!

Sledding with Uncle Nick & Uncle Kyle:

Nick & Kyle also went snowboarding on Saturday night... it was 1 degree outside with wind gusts up to 50 mph!  Needless to say they only stayed for 2 hours or so, but still had fun!  The camera wouldn't even turn on to take a picture of them!

Emery LOVED girl time with Natalie and Samantha.  I mean loved it.  She followed Samantha everywhere, it was so cute.

Naked time before bed every night!

And lastly, toasting to Nick who shared his BIG NEWS of getting into UNC School of Dentistry with us a couple weeks ago.

We are so unbelievably proud of you Nick! Congratulations again!

I am so blessed to have such amazing siblings that both Kyle and I are so close to and absolutely love spending time with.  Thank y'all for an awesome weekend, we can't wait to do it again soon (with Jamie of course!!).  Love y'all!

With Sickness Comes Sweet Cuddles

I'm sorry we've been a little MIA on our blog this week.  All of our spare time has been spent holding our sweet baby.  She woke up Tuesday morning drenched in sweat and had a fever of 101.6.  Since she still does not have teeth, so we just assumed it was the beginning of teething since anything around 102 is considered low-grade.

Valentine's Day night was rough.  She couldn't get comfortable to sleep on her own, started not wanting to eat very much, and still felt so hot.  We were alternating Motrin and Tylenol, which was working to reduce her fever to around 99 or 100.  This is a picture I snapped of Kyle and Emery that night.  Sleeping in that chair with Kyle was the only way that she would get restful sleep... so sweet.

 

Wednesday morning she still had a fever, but when she woke up from her morning nap it was 104.1.  She cried anytime we put her down, and had her head resting on our shoulders constantly. We immediately called the Pediatrician but since they were out to lunch we went straight to Urgent Care.  Here we are waiting for the doctor.

 

After a flu test came back negative, the doctor said most likely she caught some kind of viral infection and we just have to wait it out, hopefully only 7-10 days.  She slept on and off the rest of the day, drank a lot from her sippy cup, and that night we saw some adorable smiles during a 5 minute energy burst.  Oh man we love her so much.

 

Then the night came and once again she woke up drenched in sweat, and this time throwing up the little bit she had eaten for dinner.  After a bath at 5 am, she fell back asleep again on daddy for a couple hours.

 

We are so blessed to have a healthy baby girl 99% of the time, and so we are enjoying these sweet cuddles from Emery.  Hopefully in a couple days she'll be feeling much better, thank you for your prayers!

Emery turns 11 months old!

Emery, this month has been so much fun with you!!  She turned 11 months old on February 8th... we just can't believe in 1 month we'll have a ONE YEAR OLD on our hands! Where has this past year gone?!

Thanks Andrea Wood for capturing these of my girl and I!

PERSONALITY!

We absolutely adore watching Emery's personality come out with each passing day.  We are loving that she knows sign language as she uses it ALL THE TIME.  Her favorite sign to do is "more", meaning "I want".  She did actually say her first word this month (other than momma and dadda) and it is BALL!  She points directly to balls and says it which is so cool!  She still loves music and dancing, so we started a music class this month at a local kids gym.  So fun!  Oh, and she still waves and points like crazy to everybody/thing that she sees!

EATING!

Emery is still such a great eater, we are so thankful!  We've moved to stage 3 foods this month, going chunkier and with proteins.  I couldn't keep up with making it all myself, so for the most part we bought this kind of baby food.  She did start finger foods this month as well and LOVES being able to feed herself.  Strawberries, bread, avacado w/ chicken, pasta, and greek yogurt are some of the ones we've introduced this month.

I'm still nursing Emery, having 4 feedings during the day with around 4 ounces per feeding.  The feedings are starting to get so short as she's so quick eating, and would rather be up doing something then sitting down eating.  Plus, eating solid food is totally what she would rather fill up on!  Still NO TEETH!

PLAYTIME!

Emery is still army crawling, but is getting faster and keeping her head up so she can see where she's going!  She absolutely loves to stand and cruise on furniture and walls, it makes her feel so big!  She's pulling up to standing no problem now too.  Her newest trick is walking behind her cart and pushing it to go places.  Since she's still not a crawler she's graceful with sitting, so she just lets go and plops down hard on her bottom.  It cracks us up!

SLEEPING!
She's still on the same schedule as the past couple months, which makes for a very predictable and happy baby most of the time! Up at 7:30-8am, eat, play, nap from 9:30-11:30am.  Eat, play, nap at 3:00-4:30pm.  Eat, play, down for bed at 7:00pm.  She still was waking up randomly some nights at 5 am, doing the sign for "eat" then once she nursed she would go right back to sleep.  Still not sure if it has a correlation with how much she's eaten earlier that day or what!

RANDOMS!

- Emery and I modeled again for the Boba carriers.  Emery wanted to point at everything the entire time which was cracking us up!

- She loves bath time, and playing with all her toys. Kyle has always poured water directly on top of her head and she could care less if water goes in her eyes.  She actually sticks her tongue out to lick it sometimes haha.

Such a cutie!

 

- Her hair has started to grow so fast! Ky loves to shape it into a Mohawk in the bath!

 

- We started going to a music class this month and Emery loves it!  We sing, dance, use shakers and sticks, and play with parachutes, bubbles, bean bags and balance beams!  Here is a pic I snapped of Em and her cousin Gunney before class started!

And lastly, here are my iphone pics from the past month:

We love you so much Emery Katherine!