Happy Birthday Emily - Part 1

Here are a few pictures from Emily's first year. As much as I wanted to put her first few days up, they are the only ones I have done in scrapbook form; seeing that I only have 4 pages done -(in total of any years) I couldn't bear to undo the pictures so that I could scan them. Here are a few of the details:
We were having a difficult time coming up with a name for the baby. We did not find out whether she was a girl or a boy. So, we had to come up with both. I always assumed I would name a child Jordan. I don't know why - it has just always been what I would name a baby - boy or girl. Well, as it turns out, Ryan has a cousin named Jordan and his mother thought it would be too confusing to have two children in the same family with the same name. (I have seen/met the other Jordan approx. 3 times in all the time I have known Ryan's family.) Anyway, we decided against Jordan. I don't know exactly how the name Emily came to be. I have a great grand mother named Emma Lee but I didn't really know her. We had a friend who died in a car crash in college named Elizabeth and we both liked that name. So we decided we would name a girl Emily Elizabeth (no, I had never heard of the Clifford series at the time) and we would name a boy Zachary Ryan. Wouldn't you know it that the Wed. before she was born (she was born on a Friday) a hurricane hit the NC coast - guess what its name was - yep, Emily. There were 3 other baby girls named Emily in the hospital. I was so mad but by that time we had settled on Emily (that is one of the reasons all our other children have more unique names).
She weighed 9lbs and 13oz and was born at 7:00pm.

She was about 3 weeks old here. One great thing about

her being so big at birth is that she could almost hold her

head up when she was born. We weren't overly

terrified we would break her. Ryan worked on campus and

this the t-shirt the ladies sent Emily. All four kids wore

this shirt.

This is Emily's Christmas dress

she was 3 months old.

This is Ryan and Emily asleep on the couch. That was before we knew she wasn't suppose to sleep on her stomach or on/with a person. Oh well, our bad; although, it seems she survived.



This is Emily at 6 months. I loved this outfit, especially the

hat. I think I still have it somewhere...

This is Emily helping Ryan study for the CPA

exam. We were hoping it would give her a jump

start in Math. I think it backfired on us; she

hates math.

We lived in a small, one room apartment and this was her favorite place to be. She would take all of the Tupperware out and climb in. Even when we moved into a bigger house, she still played in the cabinet. Maybe that's why she has a fear of getting shut in places. Although, I never shut her in the cabinet, I promise. :)



Okay, I have to tell you, we were parents that said our child would not watch television. I think it lasted about 6 months. However, Ryan was insistent that she would NOT watch the new purple dinosaur that came on PBS. Well, one day when Emily was about 3 months old, Ryan heard (on the radio) about a 3 year old who saved his family when his house caught on fire. When asked how he knew what to do, the boy replied he did what Barney had told him to do. So, Ryan recanted and said Barney would be allowed. Emily LOVED Barney. Ryan bought her the very first Barney anything she ever owned (and she owned ALOT of Barney things). This is a picture of Emily's first birthday party. We had it at her babysitter's house. Yep, you guessed it - that's Ryan in that Barney suit!

This is her official "one year old" picture. That purple blob on her leg - yep, it's Barney!