Clean bill of health

This morning, Emilia had her 15-month check up. According to her doctor, she is right on track! She weighed 25 pounds, 9 ounces, which is 85% percentile, and was 30 1/2 inches tall, which is 50% percentile. She didn't leave the doctor's office unscathed, however. She had a total of three shots, including the flu shot. Luckily, she recovered quickly! Her pout in the photo below is not because of any physical pain... she is just staking out the door to the garage until her daddy gets home. Such a daddy's girl!

Across state lines

This afternoon we were up in Maryland to attend a bris for newborn baby Aaron Toby Swibel, the son of our friends from college, Matt and Beth. Since we were across state lines anyway, we decided to grab an early dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant in D.C., Alero. We were regulars there in college, and since Emilia is a big fan of Mexican, we were excited to introduce her to it. After making friends with the waiters and other diners, here she is enjoying her first tamale. Today is also Emilia's 15-month birthday. This seems to be a really important time for her developmentally. Everyday, her vocabularly is expanding. She has finally learned the word "please," although she doesn't use it as often as we would like. She is also charming us now my saying "cheese" when we're trying to take her picture. She knows her eyes, nose, mouth, ears, head, arms, legs, toes and hair. She knows how to fold her hands to pray and to say "amen" (which, by the way she repeated in the middle of the bris today). Her personality is really forming, too. She knows what she wants and is good at making everyone else perfectly aware, as well.

Rainy day things

After a string of really nice fall weekends, it absolutely poured today. Here is the view from our garage.

But, to quote one of Emilia's favorite songs: "there are rainy day things for me and Emilia to do!" So, we took a trip to Dulles Town Center mall to ride the Carousel, along with every other family in Northern Virginia. Don't worry, the ride was stopped when this shot was taken.

Touchdown!

The Redskins managed to beat the Cleveland Browns today and we taught Emilia a new word: "touchdown." Here she is celebrating the first Clinton Portis TD (a big help to my fantasy team). Hopefully, she'll have many other occasions to practice this word during the rest of the season.

Sunday best

Emilia looked super cute for church today, if I do say so myself. I snapped a photo just in time, because before I knew it, she was monkeying around with daddy.

Bubble explosion

Emilia's bathtime is always known as "bubbles." Gee, wonder where she got that?

Funny farm

Today we decided to go to Frying Pan Park to see some "an-mals," as Emilia would say. We didn't know until we got there that today was "Harvest Day." They had lots of fun fall activities for the kids, and yes, some an-mals. She is a natural farmer, wouldn't you say?

Weeeee!

Last weekend was absolutely gorgeous and we ended it with a late afternoon trip with the Hills and Vaughans to the playground at Potomack Lakes Sportsplex next to Alogonkian Park. Emilia loves to go "weee" on the rides. She had a great time catching bubbles with Nay Nay (Nathan) and Yah Yah (Clara). Yah Yah also gave ger a great ride on the butterfly. After the park we grabbed dinner at Baja Fresh. Good to know - kids eat free on Sundays!

Fall fun

While we won't even attempt to recap the entire last 15 months, we wanted to share some highlights of the last few weeks:

Cox Farms: We marked the official kick off to fall at Cox Farms, which is like a mega pumpkin theme park. Emilia and Clara (also known as Yah Yah - which they actually both call each other, by the way) loved feeding the animals, going down the big slides and climbing on the hay bales.

Sesame Place: In September we traveled to Langhorne, Pa., to Sesame Place with our friends, Dan, Sandra and Nathan (Nay Nay) Vaughan. There, Emilia made a new friend - Elmo! Here she is with Nay Nay in Elmo's World and with mommy, daddy and Ernie below.
Apple picking: We went to apple picking at our favorite pick-your-own orchard, Homestead Farms in Poolesville, Md., with our friends, Brad, Wendy, Clara and Laura Hill. Good thing Uncle Corey taught her the word "apple!"
In the last month, Emilia's development has gone gangbusters. She went from having just two teeth in early September to more than we can count now. And, though she was taking a few steps as early as her first birthday in July, she is now a full-fledged walker - and it doesn't look like running is too far off. Check out "Our Videos" on the right-hand sidebar to see her skills.

Finally... we're bloggers!

We've been talking about starting a blog to chronicle Emilia's development since before she was born. Now that she's nearly 15 months old... well, better late than never. We just finished a fabulous dinner at our friends Mike and Megan's house (Emilia loved dinner, too, can you tell?). Megan, being the professional blogger that she is, finally got us set up with a blog. We're excited to use this blog to share our adventures. Enjoy!