10 month pictures

A couple weeks ago, I got Amani's 10 month professional pics taken. She wasn't in a very good mood that day. And right when we got there, she puked all over her shirt. So I had to run to the infant/toddler department (we were at jcpenneys-luckily) and find a new shirt to go with her pants. So I missed the first pics in her blue dress so I didn't get her bow in her hair. It was quite a day. But they didnt turn out too bad. We got a couple good ones, so here are a few.







We had to give her Mickey towards the end to keep her happy. She usually isn't happy if she doesn't have Mickey close by.

This is her personality shot. She is always rocking her wrists.

Halloween

Yeah, I am a loser and am not posting Halloween til Thanksgiving Day! I know! We got to do some serious Halloween celebrating this year. On Oct. 25, we got to go to a Halloween party with some of our friends. It was awesome! We had so much fun.

The family getting ready to go to the party. Amani would not look at the camera. She was so confused at what we were doing. She probably thought we were crazy!

At the party!

We did lots of fun things-like bobbing for apples. Everyone did awesome-except for me. I can't do it and never have been able to. I got soaked and never got my apple! I finally just grabbed it with my hand and said, "That's it! I quit!" The party was way fun. We played games and just hung out. And there was great food! Thanks for inviting us, Lundyn, Jeni, and Jen!

October 28th we had the annual Empey family Halloween party. Mama Empey always comes up with fun games for the kids to play. They wrapped up like mummies and then broke out. It was fun to watch. I don't even know which kid is which in this picture. I can only pick out a few. We didn't do Amani. She might not have liked this game too much.

This is my little girl trying to be big. She always has thought she was older than she is.

I worked on Halloween so we got to dress up. This is me and my friend, Teresa. She dressed up as a inmate on a work release program and a former meth addict-hence the funny teeth. It was hilarious! Although, she took out the teeth when patients were around. :)

On Halloween night, Dave had to work until 8 so Amani and I went trick or treating with my little brother and sister. She wouldn't smile hardly at all. She was stone faced all night! At least she wasn't crying though!

Here is my little ladybug and her only smile I caught on camera!

Our trick or treating party. Justin, Ami, me and Amani!

This year, Halloween was a blast. It is awesome to have a kid so you can really get into celebrating it again! I love holidays!!!!

Another tag

Yeah, I know. Another one. I never do these. They are kinda fun. This one is from my cousin, Kira.

Random Facts About Me! (Kira did 7, we will see what I can come up with)
#1 - I think I only want 2 kids. Before Amani was born, I thought I wanted 4 kids or so. The older she gets, the less I want another child. Usually girls start getting baby hungry again, but I am the exact opposite! I was baby hungry when she was like 4 months but the older she gets, it is getting less and less. The only reason I am thinking 2 kids is because I don't want her to be a snot! She is spoiled as it is!
#2 - I have very little sense of taste or smell. I lost it in a 4-wheeler accident just after high school. It has come back just a little but I can only taste and smell some things. It is weird, I am weird, and I have accepted that. It isn't as bad as it sounds. I can't smell bad smells. All good smells smell the same. I can taste sweet, sour, and bitter. Pretty good to me after having nothing for so long!
#3 - I can speak sign language and I actually get to use it sometimes. I got to translate for a patient at work a couple months ago. It was amazing! I taught myself over the years and it is a fun language.
#4 - I got to go the temple for the first time when I was 10 years old to get sealed to my little sister, Sydney. We adopted her from Chicago. She is half black, half white and gorgeous! It was an amazing experience for me. I was then able to get married to Dave in the same sealing room. It was awesome!
#5 - I am a little obsessive-compulsive. I have to have things in alphabetical order and organized. I love baskets! I have everything in baskets. But, the one thing I can't have out of place is my movie collection. I have lots of movies (no, this isn't a pic of mine) and they are in alphabetical order (of course.) It drives me crazy if one if out of place or if they are messed up! Yeah, I know, I need mental help!

Tagged!

I got tagged by my sister, Brooke. So since I had never responded to a tag before I figured I would respond to it. For this tag, you go to your 5th folder in your pictures, and then pick the 5th picture and then blog about it.

This the picture, I came up with. It is my nephew, Jakey. He is so hilarious. Jakey and I were eating celery (I think) with easy cheese. Yum! So, then Jakey took the lid to the easy cheese and put it on his head like a hat. It was so funny. He just looked at me like I was crazy for laughing at him. He is so adorable, Kari! I love his guts! I tag whoever wants to do this. It is actually kind of fun to see what you come up with.

We Are Back!

I finally have the internet back, so I can finally update. I guess I have a lot to catch up on. We moved to a different apartment on August 1st. It is actually just down the street from our previous apartment but the management is better and it had more to offer so we couldn't pass it up. I haven't taken any pictures so here is the link to my complex and it will show some pictures of what it looks like. http://www.eagleslandingapartmentcommunity.com/ Anyway, since the last time I posted was the 4th of July, I have 3 months to catch up on. Um....where to start.....at the end of July, we were able to take a trip to Utah with my family. We went to Lagoon on Monday. It was fun, even though 2 of my favorite rides were closed that day.

Amani was so good all day. We are so lucky sometimes!

She was even happy most of the day!

We got to stay with Dave's brother, Mike, while we were in Utah. It was good to see him and his family and to be able to spend some time with them. Tuesday, we went to Hogle Zoo, and Wednesday, we went to Temple Square. I love that place! There are so many beautiful paintings and sculptures to look at, and the peaceful feeling there makes you never want to leave!

I love this wall mural up on the roof! Really makes ya think, huh?

This is definitely my favorite sculpture in the world! I love this room. It is so peaceful. I could sit here for hours. The ceiling is so beautiful too!

Our Utah trip was definitely the highlight of our summer! We had a blast. It definitely wasn't fun coming back and trying to move in 2 days. :( As for August we didn't do much of anything exciting. Dave got a new job mid-September at the Behavioral Health Center. It is the psychiatric branch of the hospital I work at. He is working as a psych tech. He goes with the patients to their therapy sessions, keeps track of where they are at all times, and makes sure they don't do anything stupid. He is really liking it. As far as Amani goes, she is growing so fast. She has 4 teeth now and is really wanting to walk. She has had the few occasions of standing up on her own in the middle of the room, which of course makes me just cringe because I am not ready for this yet. Here are a few pictures from the last couple months. Most of the them are from our camera phones so they aren't the best quality, but you get what you can, right?

This is Amani's favorite show-Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. If it is on, this is where we find her. She could watch it for hours and just keeps laughing. It is so funny!

She is so gosh darn cute sometimes!

And so crazy other times. She makes the weirdest, funniest faces. They are so hilarious!

Here is my little poser. She did the most perfect little pose for the camera. I couldn't believe it!

I have no words to describe this one. She is just crazy, hilarious, and cute!

Dave sent me this at work one morning with the text-Good morning, mom!-attached. It was so cute. I wish I could wake up lookin that good.

I was tryin to get her dressed and she didn't want to so she pulled the onesie on top of her head. I decided it was the newest fashion so I had better get a picture.

That is pretty much the update of the last 3 months of my slacking. I have the internet now so I have no excuse (dangit!) so I will try and keep my blog updated a little better. :) (I know, I say that every time)

4th of July

We had an awesome and busy 4th of July. I love my job and being able to have holidays off. I can't imagine having to miss them again. On the 4th, we were able to go the the Idaho Falls parade. Nothing too exciting but tradition is fun. It wasn't as hot as we thought it was going to be so that was nice. We were able to cheer on Sydney-my little sister-who was on her middle school cheerleading float. Amani slept through most of it. But when she wasn't sleeping, she was hanging out with my mom's best friend, Brenda Silvester.

Obviously, you can see why Amani loves Brenda. She was in candy heaven!

After the parade, we went to my mom's boss's house to go swimming. I had just bought Amani a new swimsuit and new float toy wanted to see how she liked the pool.

Here she is in her new swimsuit! So cute!

This was her first reaction to the pool. She loved it! Luckily, Dr. Rencher had left the pool heater on so it was nice and warm. :)

This is her new float toy. It is so nice. It holds her up so she doesn't sink and she can kick and play and doesn't have to be held. It will also help build some muscles. Love it!!! And so did she!

At night, we went to the Idaho Falls fireworks. They are my favorite part of the 4th of July. I look forward to them every year. They are so awesome the way the sync them with the music and everything and they get more awesome every year! They were pretty sweet this year too. Amani watched them the entire time! All 31 minutes! She sat and watched in amazement and I watched her in amazement. I couldn't believe how calm and content she was watching them.

On Saturday, we went up to Island Park for the Empey Family Reunion. This was going to be the longest road trip Amani was going to be on (even though it would be only a half hour longer than our usual Poky trip). But she hates the car.

So we stacked her up with all her toys. It was hilarious.

Saturday afternoon, we went up to West Yellowstone so Dave could get extra credit in his Geology class. We walked around the main street and went into a candy shop. Amani was getting cranky so I gave her a sucker I had bought for myself so she could just chew on the plastic and entertain herself.

Oh, how I underestimate her! She got through the sealed plastic and to the sucker! I figured-you were the genius that got it open, you deserve it. I paid the price later with the sticky fingers and face though. Oh well!

This is Amani and her cousin, Maggie. Maggie is Kari's (Dave's sister) daughter who is 3 1/2 months younger than Amani. Obviously, Amani is way bigger than Maggie. They are so cute together.

Maggie was getting sick of us trying to get her to smile so she decided to eat Amani's arm. Amani is trying to sit up and get away. She didn't want her to eat her arm.

Amani was able to meet for the first time and get some bonding time with her Uncle Paul who is on his 2-week leave from the military. He is currently serving a 15-month tour to Iraq. It was great for her to be able to meet him and spend some time with him. We miss him and will be excited to have him home soon.

This is Daddy and Amani on Sunday. They looked so cute in their red, white, and blue!

This is just a random picture I have from last week that I had to post. I was getting ready last Saturday and I looked out of the bathroom and this is what I saw. I just had to get a picture. Dave and Amani were watching "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" on PlayHouse Disney. That is Amani's favorite show. Anyway, this picture was crazy but cute so I had to post it. But that is pretty much all that is going on with us. Sorry for the long post and all the pics. I just need to do this more often!

Almost 5 months!

Alright, I am a totally horrible blogger lately! I always think that I need to do it but then I always find something else to do. So tonight I decided to make Dave take care of Amani so I could do this. This is some of what has been going on for the past weeks. Just a warning now-there are lots of pictures.

Amani and Daddy watching tv together. She loves to watch cartoons with Daddy. Her favorites are 'My Friends Tigger and Pooh,' 'Higglytown Heroes,' and 'Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.' She will watch them forever. It is great!

She is getting much better at smiling for the camera. She laughs. giggles, and talks all the time. She is getting such a fun personality.

She was taking a nap with Grandpa. It was so cute!

We were giving her some belly time on the Boppy pillow. She doesn't like to be on her tummy so she was blaming it on Mr. Bear. He is her favorite stuffed animal and she talks to him all the time. I think she was telling him it was his fault for her being on her tummy.

She was lying on my lap and so was just snapping pictures to see what she was doing. She does funny facial expressions.

Bathtime!!! She looked so serious!

At cousin Eli's flag football game. This is her new smile-closed lips. It is so cute!

We went to Grandma & Grandpa Empey's house this weekend. Grandma gave us egyptian cotton sheets and Amani loved them. She was all tangled up in them and looked so cute. We were also able to see her newest cousin Maggie and a bunch of the family. It was great to see everyone!

And here we have the Queen of Sheeba. She looks like she owns the place!

These are my sisters, Sydney and Ami. They had their gymnastics performance this last week. It is my favorite part of the whole year. They are so awesome. Ami is getting her back handspring down and Sydney is getting really good at roundoff-back handspring-back tuck tumbling pass. She also can do a back layout. She is sweet!

Not much else has been going on lately. We had some fun at the end of April with some more seizure activity but once we got her levels of phenobarbital back up she was ok. We only spent 1 night in the hospital for IV therapy and haven't had any major seizures since. We just have to check her levels more often which requires frequently getting her blood drawn. She is such a trooper. Other than that, it is just work for me and school for Dave. We hope all is well with everyone! I promise I will try really hard to be better at this!