Forgive Me, For I Have Not Blogged...

...in quite a while. I know I said that with a lovely new computer at home I would Blog more to keep you lovely people (who bother to read this) up to date. :::flashed a big smile at my sweetie::: And he made it so...but I have failed along the way. Forgive me, I will be better. At least, I'll try.

So in November Emma and I were once again a traveling pair. Our stop in Cheyenne was brief and good but not filled with much sleep. Emma was teething badly and hit a temp of 102 degrees sending her poor mama into a panic. It was only with the calm voice of her Grandma Bea (a nurse for many years and mother of four that all lived through teething just fine) that we all made it through without me running her to the hospital in a panic. *phew*

After being home for a whopping 24 hours the entire family went down to Las Vegas, NM for some heavy gambling and hard drinking...just kidding! Just outside of Vegas we actually met up with Nana and Grandpa Roger for a few days of visiting, some amateur poker playing at the kitchen table and turkey eating (thanks to Joyce and Jerry for having us). It was really nice to see them and learn that Morgan and I aren't half bad at playing Texas Hold'em. We just won't test that in Vegas for real money. :)

In the meantime, it's been Christmas parties for Emma and for us. Oh, and we got our Holiday Pictures taken, too. Aren't they adorable? Enjoy!

So little time

First, an annoucement: Emma and I (Lisa, of course) will be in Cheyenne the 16th through the 21st visiting my stepmom, Bea. If you would like to get together and visit you can give me a call since I still have the same Wyo number or e-mail/write a comment with your number. I'll delete your comment soon after if you post your phone number so it's not floating in cyberspace. Now I feel like a secret agent giving instrucions for a dead-drop... Anyway...

Thanksgiving is quickly coming and that means Christmas is soon on it's heels. I realized this on Sat when Janelle and I went to a craft show with Emma and all the Christmas stuff was out. "Holy Cow!" says I, "There's so much knitting left to do!" This year I'm trying to knit most of my gifts and I'm doing alright, but I keep coming up with more projects and more people I want to give gifts to and it's getting a little scary. This morning Morgan eyed me and said, "Sweetie, I think you should just stick with trying to finish what you have. You'll be lucky to do that," when I showed him my newest cool project/gift idea. Doubting Thomas. I will finish them all!!! Hahahah!

Is anyone out there?

Seriously, does anyone even read this besides me? Am I simply typing into the abyss of the internet in vain hope of commual adoration of my lovely daughter? I mean, really.

Anyway, here's hoping.

Last Saturday and Tuesday Emma and I (and later Morgan, too) went up to Park City, UT to visit ::::drumroll please:::: my high school English and Geography teachers. Gary and Sherrie are married and such wonderful people that I feel so lucky to have kept in touch all these years. :) They both just retired and have been relaxing by hopping all over the country, and they decided the mountians sounded like fun. Lucky for us, we were able to meet up and explore the old town of Park City and share some great company and excellent food.

Next I was able to have a girl's night out at Angel's house with a bunch of other mommies and it was soooo much fun. We at fattening treats (love that Artichoke dip!) and had too much to drink. Thankfully, I was able to hitch a ride home with Kim. Hehehehe. I just remember showing off my painted toes at one point so I know I had a bit much of the strong stuff.... *blush* Ah well, this is as wild as I get these days so watch out!

Bit by bit we're making friends and settling in here and I'm starting to enjoy my small circle of friends. How long does it take before a new place feels like home? Do we ever stop missing the places and people we left behind? ::::stop and look up with a Doogie-Houser/Carrie-Bradshaw-like pause:::: Okay, now I can't finish with anything semi-deep or it'll just sound sappy. Bye for now!

Lions and TIGERS and Bears, Oh My!

Miss Emma went a partyin' with all the other babies and she went as a tiger! Oh My! But she wasn't the only tiger at the party. And she discovered if she's quick enough she can steal rice crispy treats right off Mama's plate. Who knew tigers ate rice crispys?

Cutie Pie

We just got some pictures of Emma developed and she is such a little cutie pie...even though she's standing next to me screaming right now. Enjoy!

Cranky Pants

Emma has been little Miss Cranky Pants lately when it comes to letting anyone feed her and I figured out why this morning. Kiddo has not one, not two, but THREE teeth working their way out. One of her top front teeth is 85% in but the two teeth to either side of the front ones are also coming in. I would be crabby, too!

Last week I decided to let her try to feed herself...yogurt. What a mess but cute so hence the messy pics. Mostly I think she used it as finger paint.

Also, we have a new record for how many steps she's taken: six. My baby girl is no longer such a baby. *sniff*

She took her first step!

Emma took her first step on Sunday when we were playing with her and since then she's been going like crazy. Just this morning she took four steps in a row!! Wow, how our baby has grown. It seems like just yesterday she was so tiny and look at her now. Next she's going to want to drive.

Also, we bought her Halloween costume today and she's going to be a Tiger!! Sooo cute. :) Lisa is going to be, you guessed it, a witch. Hehehehehe. I'm sure you're all shocked. Morgan is undecided, big surprise. :*

We finally found her little Touch & Cuddle Hedgehog by Fisher Price at the oddest place - K-Mart. The entire family has seriously been hunting for this toy since I saw it in Parents Magazine last November. 11 months later... Geez! The good news is she loves it. The nose sqeaks and it's so bright and soft. :D Spoiled baby.

Off and Running

Life is calming down a bit and Emma and I are getting a bit more settled in Salt Lake City. This morning we went to a playgroup with other mommies and babies and it was a lot of fun but very noisy! Poor Emma felt a little picked on as she got hit in the head by a flying ball (I'm still amazed a what a great shot that was by the other little girl! Right in the front of the noggin!) and then a little boy wanted to play with her ponytail and grabbed her hair. Poor baby! Other than that she had a good time and had to tell me all about it on the way home.

Yesterday we all went hiking up Big Cottonwood Canyon up by Brighton Ski Resort. We were looking for the trail that would take us to Lake Mary and just kinda ended up in an aspen grove somewhere... Hahaha Either way, we had a good time and Emma loved riding in her Kelty backpack. Thanks Matt! :)

In more good news, Morgan's grandmother is coming home from the hospital today. She was in pretty bad shape for a bit and they thought they were going to do surgery to repair her damaged artery (high blood pressure gone unchecked for several years). We're all very glad to know she's headed home and will keep her in our thoughts.

My father passed away

My father, David Troyanek, passed away on Friday afternoon. He was fighting and losing to ALS and thankfully he was spared the worst of what lay ahead. We are greatful that he went quickly and peacefully. His memorial will be on Wed. and I saw him this morning at the funeral home. We would appreciate your thoughts and prayers and kind memories at this time. He was well loved and will be missed by all of us.

I keep getting e-mails with everyone asking how Morgan's new job is going and I realized I might have forgotten to post about it. *blush*

He's really keeping busy at BMW of Murray (the same place he worked three years ago) and it's a nice change. More work equals more money and we can always use that. They are so busy they're even thinking about putting the techs on in shifts (three 13 hour days on and four days off) to get all the work done. Appointments are being scheduled for five weeks out right now and it's nuts! The new building is going up in Pleasant Grove, just a bit south of Salt Lake City, and being built as we speak. I think they're going to have it open in Oct/Nov and they want Morgan to work down there.

Right now we're renting an apartment in Sandy so we're almost halfway between the two workplaces. In about a year we'll know for sure which shop he'll be in and look at buying a house probably. All in all, things are going well for us in Utah. At some point, when I can bear to leave Miss Emma with someone else, I'll look at trying to find some work teaching at one of the community colleges but I haven't really decided when that will be.

Our house in Cheyenne is scheduled to close on the 14th of July and I'm counting down the days. The people who are buying it are being such pains in the tushie that Morgan and I are getting ready to pull our hair out. First it was having to do a home warranty, paint the garage and parts of the house, come back and clean more stuff and now, get this, they're complaining about the ants in the back yard and (she says) the basement. *rolling my eyes* Please. I've never seen ants in the basement, at least not more than the occasional one. Anyway, Dad's our realtor and being so patient about it all. It'll all happen just fine but until then they're just being pains.

Time Together

This morning Emma and I are going to music time at the library and I think she'll really enjoy it since she seems to like music so much. It's been a pretty crazy week and we could use a little fun time together. Here's a picture of her and me at Liz's graduation in May. Such a cutie!

Fun Times

On our recent trip to New Mexico Emma had a lot of fun playing with her Grandpa O. Just look at that silly smile!

Alive and Well, Happy Fourth!

Hi, it's Lisa.

We're all alive and well now in Salt Lake City (Sandy, actually) getting settled in. So far we've been visiting some old haunts, finding new ones and unpacking. With Miss Emma going to bed at 7:30 there hasn't been much time during the week for wild times but our first weekend we went hiking with the dogs. This past weekend we had to come back to Cheyenne to get the last of our stuff from the house and paint the house, too. Fun fun! Of course, we know Morgan and power tools so he thought the paint sprayer was pretty cool and I'm just thankful he didn't try to paint more than the house. *phew* Though we do have some odd blue leaves in random places thanks to Brian. hhmmmm...

This week I'm actually in Cheyenne with Emma and Dad since Bea's mother passed away and she needed to go back to Iowa. Dad just isn't doing well and I'm glad we have time to spend together and that I can be here to help him. For those of you that don't know, my Dad has been diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gereg's Disease (spelling??)) and each day is a little harder than the one before.

Tonight we watched the fireworks from the front porch but it was so gusty and chilly Dad went to bed before they were over and I got a nasty headache from the wind blowing in my ears. Eeack. Anyway, I really should be off to bed, just wanted to catch ya all up on what's been going on in our world. :)

Run Away!

So we're going to run away for a while. Too bad we'll have to come back to pack the house into a U-Haul. :P Tomorrow we head out to go to New Mexico for about a week and then come back for a day, load up the house and then drive to Salt Lake City. I'm trying to look at this as one big happy, fun road trip but man, it's gonna be rough. Wish us luck and happy trails!

Good News

We have some great news! We found an awesome apartment in Sandy, just a bit south of SLC that will let us keep both dogs and the cat...oh, and the baby, too. ;) It's such a relief to have that part all taken care of.

Emma apparently had a great time visiting her family in Colorado Springs. She smiled and laughed and told us all about it. The only bad part was her poor Auntie got sick right before Emma came home. At least Emma has decided to sleep through the night now so there is a break from the never-ending action. I swear that kid must chug coffee when I'm not looking. She's working real hard on trying to crawl and it'll be any day now, heaven help me. By the way she's been eating I'm sure she's hitting a growth spurt, too. She's just growing up too fast!!!

Rollin Rollin Rollin...

Recently Emma has discovered she has toes and can roll over. Since then there's just been no stopping her. Crazy kid loves to roll over onto her tummy now and like to sleep with her face planted in the mattress. Horrifying to her mama!

So tomorrow we (Emma and I) hit the road to go meet up with her Auntie and cousin so they can play for the weekend while Morgan and I go scout an apartment in Salt Lake City. We need to find a place and hopefully we'll sign a lease to get that all taken care of. The hardest thing is going to be finding the right place for the right price since the house here isn't sold or under contract yet. Translation: we're going to be paying for a house here and an apartment there but we have a baby, a cat and one dog coming with us.

Yes, sadly, Johnny will be looking for a new home and it breaks our hearts but he keeps almost stepping on Emma just because he doesn't pay any attention. That and he's a big dog and it'll be hard to walk both of the dogs while I'm carting around Emma at the same time. *sigh* Does it get easier someday? Life in general that is....

So from here on out it's gonna be pretty hairy. We travel this weekend and then after the 8th we'll pretty much be on the road until the 18th. Yuck.

Sock Hop

Liz and I put socks on Emma today and she just went wild! Big Smiles!

Moving

Also, we just recently came to the conclusion that we're going to be moving back to Salt Lake City, UT.

(Quick catch-up: We have our house on the market and were planning to move down to Loveland, CO to be closer to Morgan's work but since we're moving we thought about moving back to SLC. We went back to visit when Emma was about 6 weeks but decided it would be too expensive.)

We thought the SLC option was probably dead but Morgan's old boss called him last week with a firm offer. It turns out he can almost double his hours out there meaning a lot more money for us so it wouldn't be too expensive and we could actually start getting ahead. I might even be able to have health insurance again! Woo hoo!

So as soon as the house sells we'll be moving back to Utah. The only down-side is that the school systems in Utah are not so hot because there are way too many kids for the population...I wonder why...

Maybe she's teething...

Disclaimer: Emma is an awesome baby 98% of the time and not really a crier but...

I swear, some mornings she just wants to make me crazy! At 4:30 am she started her newest trick: cry like she's hungry but scream when I try to give her the bottle and after crying about it for 5-30 minutes, finally take the bottle and calm down. It makes my hair stand on end and my eyes cross.

But here's the real kicker. At 6:10 when she finally ate and then Daddy picked her up, she looks over at me and SMILES! Like she's saying, "Ha Ha Ha, I win!"

And we all can guess there's no going back to bed after an hour and a half of baby wrangling. Anyway, here's a picture of Emma at 6 weeks when she was having a screamin day so I gave her a mohawk and a pacifier just to make myself laugh.

Long Time...

Okay, due to technical difficulties I haven't been able to post on the blog in a looooong time. Very sorry, and hopefully I've found a new place to start posting on the blog (look out Perkins, here I come!) so there should be more updates.

New Suff:
Emma now smiles and even laughes. Her favorite game is to make big smiles at me at 4:30 in the morning hoping that I will pick her up and play with her since SHE is wide awake...even though mama is not. I have to admit, it's really hard to resist baby smiles and squirms. I think I might be a sucker.

If you play with her feet or tickle her sides when she's excited Emma will laugh these little "hhh hhh hhhh" noises and sometimes giggle. Man, is she cute.

She can now hold her head up pretty well and is almost ready to roll over. Those hands are really starting to get used now as teethers and as she's grabbing at her bottle.

It's so amazing to watch her grow everyday and develop. Pictures are forthcoming... :)

Adventures in Baby Land

Sorry it's been so long since posting. Life has been so busy and so quiet at the same time. *phew*

Emma's getting bigger every day and as of her six week appointment she is now 11 lbs 0 oz! No wonder my back hurts so much from holding her all day. Her newest thing is wanting to be held all the time but she's developing so much, too. She can hold up her head now and has started batting at her hanging toys in her play gym. Last week she was crying so I let Morgan talk to her over the phone and I'm pretty sure she recognized his voice. She got all quiet and started looking around for her Daddy. She's so cute.

On Mondays there's a story time for babies at the library and we went last week. We're going to try for this Monday, too but since it's at 10:00 a.m. it can be a little tricky to get there.

Oh, and last week she went swimming for the first time in the cutest little swimsuit we found for her at Toys'R'Us (wow, they have such cute little stuff for babies and kids!!). Pictures will be coming soon.

More Pictures...

Emma as our Best Christmas gift ever, Morgan in bed with a younger woman *gasp!*, all three of us together and Emma at bathtime! Can you tell I'm enjoying showing her off? :)

New Pictures of Emma!

In this post we have pictures of Emma with Lucy guarding her, Emma holding her pacifier, Emma flying like super baby while Johnny checks her out, Emma sleeping like an angel and Emma's first picture from the hospital.

New meaning to "Lil' Squirt"

Another week and we're all still here. Morgan went back to work this week and boy, I never realized how time consuming it is to try to run errands with a little baby. For starters you have to make sure she's dry, fed and packed and by the time you've taken care of one thing another needs to be attended. Then there's the stupid baby carrier. We ran around town yesterday and my back is still aching from lugging that infant car seat around. Today we're trying the baby sling that I made and so far so good. It's a lot lighter than the carrier and I can still use both hands (I'm actually wearing it right now and she's loving it!). We might have found our new solution! :)

Emma is getting more alert by the day and has a new talent...for peeing on men. I never knew little girls could squirt, but Morgan swears she's peed on him twice and last week she managed to get my dad out the side of her diaper when he was holding her. Poor man, his shirt was soaked on the front. Hehehehehe. Let's just hope she keeps her hydraulic talents trained on men and that someday she outgrows it...but not just yet. *wink* I'm having fun laughing at Morgan and Emma together.

More pictures coming this week...my dad is scanning them for me, so sit tight and check back in a bit. Till then!

We're all doing well

All is well in the house as Emma gets settled in. Morgan took the week off work so we could all get situated after his mom left. We need to learn to fend for ourselves more but to be honest, we're just enjoying the time together.

On Monday, Emma went on her first shopping trip. Gymboree was having a huge sale since it's after Christmas and we went and bought her some cute little girly outfits. She now has a little pink and cream striped jumper with bunnies on it, a pink-plum colored courdory dress with bloomers, an "Angel" sweater, and another little girly sleeper for this summer. She's adorable and I can't wait to dress her up in her new stuff. My Uncle Gary and Aunt Connie also sent us some really cute pink and purple onesies that she'll look cute in. As much as I said I wanted a boy, I'm so happy with a little girl. How else would I get away with putting her in four outfits per day? ;)

Also, she's been holding her head up. Not for long periods and not all the time, but when you put her up on your shoulder to burp her she'll push up and lift her head up and look around. Wow! I didn't think such little babies could do that.

Best for last, I think she's learning her name. If you say, "Emma" she'll start looking around until she finds your face. *sigh* I'm so happy with her and Morgan is completely in love with our new baby girl. We really are so lucky. Until later....

P.S. Matt- I'm at the library writing this and Emma is really enjoying running around in her Chariot. :) Thanks again for such a cool gift.