Bron's birthday

 Our favorite guy had  a birthday on Friday! We had a little family birthday party at home when he came home from work. Here are a few (mostly blurry,) pictures. 

On Sunday, we had another celebration in Carlisle with the Irwins, at Nana's home. They played with Emmy for a couple hours, while Bron and I had lunch at Cracker Barrel. I think they were hoping we would have forgotten we had a child while we were out, hehe.

So thankful for my husband on his 31st birthday. If it were up to him, the day would come and go without a celebration at all. But I am happy for a chance to celebrate him. He is such a good husband and Dad. (His first birthday as a Dad!) In the mornings, he is up at 5am, reading his Bible, then he is organizing the basement or our storage room and thinking up/planning/charting ways to make our daily life easier, ...not to mention working on our house! And within an hour, he often gets Emmy up out of her crib before I hear her waking, and plays with her for a little while until it's my turn to meet the day.

He is so often encouraging me to have faith for our season in life. He wakes me up in the morning and makes me coffee. He makes me laugh, and lets me choose which documentary we will watch on our date nights. I can't imagine life without him! So happy that God has placed me here, by his side. 

My sisters were here with us this weekend! We were in their area for a niece's third birthday party on Saturday, and we brought them home to Lancaster with us for a friend's Spring party. They came to church with us the next day, and we had a pizza picnic in our backyard while Emmy napped.

Bron took all us girls to the King of Prussia mall on the way back to drop them home. He deserves a Best-husband-ever award. Here are a couple pictures he took on his iphone. The first is my dad reading Emmy a book of nursery rhymes that he read to us as kids. (He pretty much has the whole book memorized.)And the second is from his time hanging out with Emmy while the sisters shopped.

 Maddie took these of Emmy in the laundry basket. She is a zany baby.

Emmy turned 9 months old  last week. We can hardly believe it! I've been telling people that this is my favorite stage so far. She is so fun and interactive. This week, I tried for the first time to take her to a playground nearby. She LOVED it. She squealed with delight to climb through tunnels and go down the slide on my lap. She especially loved checking out all the other kids running around.

Bron was a little jealous that he missed out on all the cuteness, so we met him during his lunch break the next day and we walked to another playground close to his office. We love having him so close!

Another fun thing for me this week- we filled our freezer with lots of meat from a nearby farm! It was their Spring sale, so we stocked up for until the next sale in 6months or so. Emmy played contentedly by herself in her playpen for almost a whole hour while I separated ground turkey into 1 pound portions. It's funny how a quiet moment to focus on an activity like this can be so satisfying and pleasant, hehe. And it's so nice to have it frozen and ready for meals. One less thing to think about.

Recent fun things.

One of my favorite things about living in Lancaster is how easy it is to live simply and inexpensively! Not only is it easy, but it is also lots of fun. :)

With the dining room remodeling finished, Bron is now better able to watch Emmylou on Saturday mornings, while I go out until about noon. I have missed my Saturday mornings! This past weekend was my first day back, and it was a success. (Thanks, Husband!) I went to BBs, which is an amazing grocery outlet that I tell everyone who is not from Lancaster about. My favorite finds were gluten free bagels (I miss bagels sometimes), and a big tub of Breyers natural vanilla ice cream (Our favorite kind! Oh, and I haven't been as strict with limiting the dairy these days...it's ice cream weather! and Emmy seems to be doing alot better with that.) They do not just have food items, I also scored 2 Brita filters, a favorite brand of natural sunscreen, and a Bingo game for babysitting.

Then, on my way home, there were lots of yard sales to stop at. Yard sales in the spring and summer are pretty typical, I know. But I've never experienced such yard sale excitement anywhere else! It must be a Lancaster thing. All of these items of sweet girls clothing were 25 cents each. Can't wait to dress Emmy in these. She wore the yellow dress to church on Sunday, with a yellow bow in her hair. :)

And my major score was this little bath seat for 50 cents! It is a challenge to bathe Emmy without Bron's help, because she stands up and moves around so much. We've been wanting one of these, and now we have one.

This week was a good bit cooler than the week before, but it is still just so lovely out. We went to Roots market on Tuesday evening. That place is special for us because it was where we had out first 'real date' *as opposed to our first 'sort-of date', which was Lyndon Diner:) Here are a couple pictures from our time. I look like my mom in this picture- tired, but smiling because of God's grace, hehe. (Emmy is back to her old ways of getting up at least once a night.)

 

And we are loving the view out our front windows!

This week.

  

We welcomed two new happy changes into our life this week. The first- beautiful, warm (well, hot!) weather! There are blossoming trees on almost every block of our little city. I've been taking walks with Emmy in her red stoller every day, and letting her play for a little while outside. She loves being outside. She looks so in awe of all the new things she is seeing. (And she is getting pretty good at responding to "no", like when I tell her not to eat flowers and grass and rocks.)
*The picture documents the time when her bedroom was too hot for her to fall sleep in, so she slept in her playpen. Doesn't she look enormous? She is growing so fast.

The second welcome change...is our new dining room set! Bron called me at work, saying he had just seen that there was a new set at our local used furniture place. The put pictures up of their new things on facebook as they come. He sent me the picture, and I met him at work, and we bought it for $75. 

We're so thankful! I had found something before Easter that I thought would work, and Bron said he preferred that we wait for something better. I am so thankful for his leadership there, and wisdom. It was so worth the wait- it cost so much less, and it suits our needs so much better. Life is feeling like an adventure lately, as we watch God provide for our needs and make our house more into a home.

Looking forward to more warm weather, and more fun outside with Emmylou, and making use of our new space and table. Hope you are all enjoying Spring!

Our weekend in DC,

I had mentioned to Bron within the last year that I would love to see the cherry blossom trees in DC sometime. And little did I know, that he was planning a weekend away for our little family, as a late birthday present. We stayed with friends, which was such a blessing and we so enjoyed getting to hang out with them. It was so nice to be away, together, with nothing to do but enjoy eachother. Emmy slept well, and even napped on a blanket in the grass when we were out and about. God gave us such a beautiful day! The sky was so blue, and the sun was so bright. It really made it feel like Spring was here. Here are a few pictures of our fun day out.

Spring Mix.

Easter in our dining room was a success! God provided chairs in the form of borrowed chairs from Bron's office:) There were 10 people in all-including Bron and me, my sister Rachel and her husband and two boys, my parents, and my sweet sisters Dot and Maddie, who stayed for the weekend and helped out. (Oh yes, Emmy was there too- who refused to nap in all the excitement. We are thinking she is going to be a social butterfly...)

We ate lunch after church, and chatted while Emmy played in her new playpen close by. My nephews hopped in and out with her. We even managed to have a egg-hunt for the boys, who didn't seem to notice at all how small our backyard is. We played Apples to Apples, and watched Little Rascals. It was a fun, layed-back day.

April is here! It is feeling alot more like Spring around here. We're excited about having a vegetable garden this year and about our new set-up to have friends over more often. We're looking forward to being able to walk to more things in the city in the evenings, since it's warmer and the sun stays out longer. Tonight we are walking to a new cafe nearby for our date night.

It's going to be so fun to watch Emmy grow into more of a little girl in Springtime,- to be able to play outside with her and take walks and things, and to dress her in sweet little outfits without worrying as much about bundling her up.

She is climbing on everything and babbling "Da-da-da" all day long. (video at the end of this post!) She seems to understand when I tell her "Daddy's coming home!" She looks at the stairs until he comes, and she squeals with delight when she sees him.

She has specific favorite toys and books now. She loves pickles and meat and bananas and avocados. She waves and claps, and looks at us when her musical toy plays it's song so that we can dance, and she laughs at us. Her little personality is shining through. Also her little sinful nature! She has an angry cry now. It's all part of the experience of raising a little girl.

Oh, and if we had any hopes of making our home not look like a baby's home, we have given them up. Her playpen came last week, and Bron and I are a little too excited about this thing. You may have even heard us talk about it, hehe. It makes life alot easier! And Emmy is getting better at entertaining herself. Such a blessing to our every day life. It is also kind of fun to go in there with her:)