She can say "bird"

Emma does the cutest thing when she is excited. Her eyebrows go up, she opens her mouth smiley and wide and puts her little hands up over her mouth like she is suprised. It is such a genuinely overjoyed face. I have never seen a baby this little make an expression like this but it melts me. Such a feminine little gesture, all girl and so sweet. Emma recently has had a fascination with animals, especially birds. Of course she has loved puppies since she was tiny and has a particular affection for Brenn's dog Wilbur. Lately however she loves birds. If we are eating lunch and one lands on the fence outside the window she starts pointing and clapping and giggling. If we go for a walk and one walks past us she leans as far as she can out of her stroller and reaches for it. It is really funny. Grandpa is down at Good Sam recovering and down at the hospital they have lots of birds. When you first walk in they have a big tree on the walk and painted birds. Everytime we go past it we have to stop and let her touch them and point at them and jabber about them. Last week when we were down there it had been her fourth or fifth time passing the tree and as we approached it she started pointing at it and excitedly saying "bird!" "bird!" over and over again. Deke and I couldn't believe it! She can say bye-bye, no, wow, up, mom, dada, yay and now bird. It was seriously so cute hearing her say it in her little voice. We kept making a big deal about it and so she would look at us, say it again and then wait for our reaction. I can't believe our baby is talking. It is so cool. This stage where they start mimicking and saying all sorts of things is so fun. After seeing Grandpa we took the kids outside with some crackers and fed the pigeons. Emma was absolutely delighted. The more that landed next to her the more excited she got. Hunter and Avery loved it because they could crush up the crackers and the pigeons would eat them right out of their hands.