Giggles

Listening to Emma giggle must be what it's like to hear angels sing.  To me, it is the sweetest sound in the entire world!  When she starts jibber jabbering and giggling I can't help but smile at her and jibber jabber right back.  Unfortunately for Emma, but fortunately for those who enjoy her laughter, I have found her "tickle buttons."  She has 2, one is over her tiny collar bones and the other is just below her arm pits.  The place where she likes to laugh the most is on her changing table with nothing but a diaper on.  This must be her utopia because she will laugh and giggle with me until both of our cheeks hurt.  Here is a great clip of Emma laughing at her Grandpa John.

Emma continues to try new foods and her list has grown to include fruits!  She now eats squash, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots  and recently added avocados, bananas, and finally pears.  So far she has liked everything that she's eaten except the carrot puree we made.  The introduction of fruit has gone well with the small side effect of banana induced constipation.  It is not anything substantial but Emma has to work significantly harder and with more frequent red faced bouts of pushing.  After a few days of pear puree things have returned to "normal." 

On a more exciting food front, Emma has a new throne on which to eat.  A couple weeks ago we got a high hair and she LOVES it!  It has made feedings so much easier for her and us.  Before the high chair, we had her sitting on the kitchen table in her Bumbo seat.  This created a number of problems, first and foremost was safety; you couldn't leave here there unattended to go get more food or a rag to wash up - everything had to be laid out in advance and within arm's reach.  This contributed to problem number 2: distractions - she wanted to look at and touch everything on the table except for what you wanted her to.  Needless to say, the high chair is a welcome addition to our kitchen.

From the techie side of things, I'm very excited to announce the purchase of a new camera lens.  It is a 35mm fast aperture lens.  This lens will allow us to achieve a greater change in the "depth of field" of a photo.  Basically it allows us to manage better what is in focus and what is blurry.  Pictures taken with smaller aperture have a smaller point of focus which are great for portraits because the person (or in this case, baby) will be in focus but the background and foreground will be blurry - thus making the subject appear to stand out more.  A larger aperture will have the opposite effect and is good for large nature scenes of something, like say a mountain, where you want everything in focus.  The other bonus is that this lens will take better pictures in low level lighting which is perfect for the pictures we take in the house.  The down side is that there is no zoom - what you see is what you get, so if you want the subject to be bigger or smaller you have to step forward or back.  This will take some getting used to but I think we'll get by. :)  It has been fun learning the ins and outs of photography and trying to get the extra "wow" factor in a photo.  Next on my list to learn is lighting effects.  It certainly helps to have such cute subjects.

One of my favorite pictures!  Check out the mohawk and her two pearly whites :) 





Chew toy or zylaphone?

Over the last couple weekends we have had a few visitors.  Grandpa and Grandma Stull came up a couple of weekends ago to watch Emma while Melissa and I headed out to her firm's holiday party.  Last weekend Aunt Megan and Uncle Kevin came to spend the weekend so Megan could get her Emma fix.  It's a bit of an addiction, but I totally get it.

One last picture to share is of our trip to Lake Nokomis (our neighborhood lake - yes we have a neighborhood lake) for the US Pond Hockey Championships.  How much more Minnesotan can you get??  We couldn't pass up the opportunity to share this with Emma so we bundled up and headed out.  It would have been pretty good weather if it weren't for the wind.  It dropped the wind chill close to zero degrees; needless to say we weren't on the ice very long.  We ended up spending most of the time in the warming hut.  Emma rose above it all, was a trooper and took it all in like the northerner that she is. 

This blog post (and our clean kitchen) was sponsored by Emma's 3 hour (yes, 3 hour!!) nap this afternoon!  She was a sleepy girl.

With love from Minnesota,
Jason, Melissa, and Emma