- Hanging out with family is fun: We've been visiting with lots of family members this past month. My cousin April and her family were transferred back to Texas, so they got the chance to come down and visit our grandmother and us while they were waiting on their housing to get setup. So second cousins Patrick, who is 6, and Lila, who is 1, got in some photo ops with Emma. Granny Marjorie had even bought Emma and Lila matching outfits for when they got together. Emma was captivated with watching Pat and Lila - they were people closer to her size! It was fun to see all the little kids together and reminded me of what it was like to have my younger cousins around when growing up. They definitely tired each other (and Lizzy) out.
Speaking of cousins, Emma and I went over to Kevin's parents and got to hang out with Christian and Andrew. Christian is 4, and Andrew is 25 days older than Emma. Grandma loves having all her grandchildren together in once place, and with grandpa and great grandmother there too, there were plenty of people to love on all these kiddos. Christian was great entertainment for Emma and Andrew. Both of the babies loved watching him dance around, and his silly antics made them smile and laugh. Emma also discovered the fish tanks and was content to just sit there and watch the fish swim around.
Lastly, we made the drive out to see my great-great aunt Gebe, my great-grandmother's sister. It was awesome to see 5 generations of our family visiting together. Of course, Emma was the star of the show as everyone talked to her and played with her. And since she's still at the stage where she's not afraid of strangers, Emma loved all the attention!
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- Rolling over is hard work: Emma's new skill is rolling over from her back onto her tummy. It all started when she discovered her feet. They are quite an obsession of hers actually. She finds it so entertaining to reach out and hold her feet or to use her feet to touch (or kick) things. Everything is new again as she explores it with her feet. So since she was laying on her back holding her feet so much, she started to roll to her side more and more, and every once in a while, we gave her a little push so she surprisingly ended up on her tummy! Well soon, she didn't need that push any more and could do it on her own. The first few times she did it, I missed it because it happened so fast, or we'd suddenly find her on her tummy. Now, she does it all the time. For her, it's like a whole new world has opened up to see and experience. The play mat that was getting a little boring can now be seen from a new angle, and as she's progressed, she's started to reach for things while on her tummy.
Now, this new skill has not come without its drawbacks. First, she doesn't know how to roll back the other way, which means when she is tired of tummy time or didn't want to be on her tummy to begin with, she cries. Loudly. It gets kind of frustrating to roll her back over, just to have her do it again. Like seconds later. Multiple times in a row. Unfortunately, cause and effect does not compute in the mind of a 4 month old yet. However, the biggest drawback of Emma starting to roll over is no more swaddling to sleep. Now this is hard for a baby girl who's used to sleeping like a double stuffed burrito. And we found this out the hard way...on the first night in her big girl crib, Emma rolled over while swaddled onto her tummy 30 minutes after being put down to bed. The novelty of rolling had not worn off yet and our usually awesome sleeper kept waking herself up by either rolling over when she roused slightly or by startling herself awake because she had to sleep with her arms out to be able to lift and reposition her head. So, we've moved on to using microfiber sleep sacks, which she's doing better at sleeping in but there's still a learning curve as she slowly figures out that she likes to sleep on her side but not that darn tummy!
- The Boppy pillow has many uses: Now when we were registering for Emma's arrival, everyone said that a Boppy pillow was a must have when it came to feeding Emma. Now, I've never actually had to use it for this purpose since I kind of have my own built version, so our boppy pillow has had to earn its keep by serving a variety of other functions.
Here are some of its jobs: 
A reading/lounge chair
A naptime sleeper
A tummy time television watcher
(We're watching HGTV)
Another comfy place for Lizzy to usurp
