Amelia Takes On the World

My baby Amelia – you are growing up so fast.  Christmas Eve marked 17 months old and I don’t know where the time is flying.  You are at an age where you pick up new things every day.

You really understand quite a bit of what we say – we need to be more careful now what we say around impressionable ears since you often try and repeat words.  My favorite thing right now is I can tell you ‘go give this to daddy’ or substitute another name or couch and you will bring it to that person – it makes a great way to get you on the go back and forth, and you love the game.  You even help bring laundry to the couch, its great!  You then throw the socks everywhere on the floor but its a start.

I already wrote about all the cute things you were doing lately.  Its hard to remember to capture it all for one monthly post, so I am going to try and write more throughout the month. 

We learned that you knew who elmo was – I have never shown you, so it was kind of funny!  We pointed to a book he was in and you just said ‘Elmo’ – so we asked Nonni to get you an Elmo for Christmas and she got you two – one for bath and one for play.  Thanks Nonni!  You probably say 20 words well but I’m having trouble keeping count.  You repeat a lot of words now but I’m not sure you know them on your own, but you constantly surprise me. 

You eat well still – except when not feeling well.  You love your oatmeal and yogurt for breakfast – we still have to bring you right down to eat from the crib or else you get upset.  I want you to hopefully have snuggle time in bed with us on weekends, so hopefully you outgrow that soon.  Peas are still the best thing in the world and the only meat that hasn’t gone over well was pepperoni – probably a little spicy.  I can’t figure out how to get you to eat real fruit – you’ll only eat fruit from fruit cups – with the exception of maybe some melon or berries but now that they are out of season and its been awhile, you may not eat that anymore either. 

You sleep well as long as you aren’t sick – we had to go back to 7pm from 7:30… and you sleep until 6:30.  Sometimes I still have to wake you up for daycare but not as much as when you went to bed at 7:30.

One of our favorite games, you know your head, eyes (sometimes confused with ears), nose, feet, mouth and my favorite – belly!!! She lifts her shirt, too cute.

Probably the best part is that you are very loving – your hugs and kisses melt my heart – and you melt the hearts of others as you are very giving of your hugs.  You hug Ms. Heather, Mr. Chris, Ms. Ginger, the teachers at daycare… you love to hug!  And you give the best hugs.  I hope you keep that spirit throughout your life.

I love you baby girl – you make my heart feel full of joy and happiness.

Love,

Momma

We hope everyone had a safe and fun July 4th holiday. Amelia highly enjoyed being in the mountains with her cousin – there was grass and toys and waterfalls and flowers to play with. She especially loves her 6 year old cousin Madeline and I think she is trying to emulate her – she really tried to speak a few words (we heard dog, yeah, all done – not quite clearly but…) and was practicing standing on her own as well. I have a feeling we’ll see walking by the end of the month. Here are a bunch of pictures – we were having fun trying to capture the moment.

Let’s see, at this time, four years ago – we were arriving at the hairdresser and my stomach was a nervous wreck. Not because of anything bad- but because I was so excited to finally be getting married. It was one of the best days of my life, and not because of the wedding itself (although it was a great party), but because it was the day I started my marriage with my wonderful husband Chris. I can’t imagine my life without him in it, nor do I want to imagine that.

Since that day four years ago, we bought a house, we’ve both had different jobs, we’ve had Amelia – definitely the most important thing in that list. We’ve made new neighborhood friends and have luckily convinced a bunch of old friends to move to our area of town as well. We’ve taken some great vacations along the way too – Chile, St. Lucia, Hawaii, Bahamas… many of them courtesy of my first job at Delta. Things have changed now – we can’t just pick up and go away for the weekend – but I wouldn’t have it any other way because Amelia is a treasure. I love that I see Chris in her, and I love seeing them together. He is a great dad, which I always knew would be true.

If I had to choose a perfect evening, it would be to hang out in nature, drinking a good wine, with my husband and my child. I can’t really imagine life getting much better than that. (Maybe add in a personal chef and full-time housekeeper but…)

We won’t get a big celebration tonight – Chris is just getting back in town from a business trip – but this weekend we’ll head to the mountains of NC for a relaxing Memorial day weekend. My parents will watch Amelia while we go out for a nice celebratory dinner, and we’ll get some good hikes in as well.

I will say Chris was so cute this morning when we talked by phone – he knows I call right at 7:30 after dropping off Amelia at daycare, and within 5 seconds he had said ‘Happy Anniversary’. He said he went to sleep singing Happy Anniversary in his head so he’d remember to say it first thing. I love my wonderful, cute, adorable husband.

Happy Anniversary Honey! Four wonderful years – many more to come.

Love,

Kelly

Here are a few pictures of us to enjoy – not in order – care to guess the order in the comments?

We had Amelia’s 9 month checkup yesterday (at 9 months, 1 week and 4 days).  She was 20 lbs 8 oz, 27 inches long.  So roughly 50th – 75th percentile on weight and 25th on height.  Her head was also 75th.  But that’s consistent with where she has been at the last few appointments, so no suprises.

She’s really becoming a mover now, realizing she can crawl and get to things.  She tries to pull up and can get to her knees well, but not to her feet so much.  We find her sitting in her crib quite a bit when she should be sleeping.  Hopefully we can get her back to the good sleeper she was before her ear infection.

Now that we’ve given Chris’ mom her mother’s day present, I can post a couple more pictures from the cousin play date a couple weeks ago.  Hopefully later today or tomorrow I can post a video from this past weekend’s playdate.

Have a good day!

Kelly

Amelia ate avacado at lunchtime today – just smushed up – those of you blog readers might remember her earlier reaction to it – ewww!  This time, no problem.  Last night she also suprised me by grabbing on to me and standing up – yes pulling herself up – today her crib gets lowered.  Its a fun time around here – hopefully we’ll get some good pictures in the awesome weather.

 Kelly

I’ve seen Amelia wave now – its too cute!  She did it last night while in her high chair and today when I dropped her off at daycare – it wasn’t really related to saying hi or bye but either way – adorable.  And she’s getting good at going backwards – if only she would get on her knees and try forwards – then I’ll be in real trouble.

By my calculations she’s 20 1/2 lbs (almost 90th %), and just about 26 1/2 inches (oh about 25th %) – we’ll see at her 9 month appointment where she really falls.

Kelly

I just want to share that Amelia used the sign for ‘eat’ this morning to get the last couple oz of her bottle after I thought she was finished and had moved on to dressing her – very proud.  I didn’t expect that, and it took me a few minutes to figure it out.  She’s probably been trying for weeks to get our attention with a sign and thinks we are clueless – at least now I know to start watching for them.  I need to start learning myself!

Kelly

My dearest Amelia,

You were 8 months old Monday. It is crazy how fast time goes by – you are growing so fast. You weigh over 19 lbs and we think you are over 26 inches – but no one would call you tall yet. I love your chunky little thighs – they are so cute and squeezable.

You are close to crawling – however, we’ve noticed you can get to things by rolling, so I’m not sure you feel the need to crawl. You love standing and talking to people, you just squeal with delight.

We mostly just call you by your name Amelia these days – but you are also known by ‘fuss pot’ and ‘crankipants’ if you get in a fussy mood or just ‘cutie-pie’ because you are so adorable. You are still my Amelia-bug and I still love lady bugs on anything for you – but mostly you are just Amelia, your own unique self.

Your favorite games, the ones that can make you giggle and laugh, are playing with puppets or stuffed animals. You really enjoy if we make them dance or if we play the ‘near – far’ game with you. That can really get you going. You save your laughs for special moments, so it is such a joy to hear.

Eating has been an adventure. So far you don’t like texture so only stage 2 foods for you. With the stage 3 fruits you eat the sauce and spit out the chunks – its kind of funny. You did eat your first Gerber puffs on Friday – I think you like them. So maybe the texture-aversion is on the way out. We also unfortunately gave you dairy on Friday – I promise we didn’t mean it, but the packaging was labeled just like your other fruit/oatmeal combos – so I’m sorry. And apparently you are still intolerant as you then were sick all over the car – so I guess we paid for our mistake. After a weekend to recover from that – you seem to be back to your happy schedule of 4 bottles a day and 3 meals of solids. I think your favorite is your oatmeal or barley cereal but pear sauce and the apple sweet potato combos are a close second. The only thing that has made you pause (other than texture) was the chicken mixed with sweet potato – but I don’t blame you there. Chicken? In a jar? I think we’ll wait until I just puree or chop up chicken in small chunks for you -how about that.

You celebrated your 8 month lunar birthday last night by attempting to clap – I’m very excited about that. I’ve been working on it and up until now you showed no interest. But last night, during a couple rounds of ‘If You Are Happy And You Know It’ – you tried to clap with us – yeah! So proud of you.

Its hard to capture your adorable-ness in a blog post – we’ll put some pictures but even those don’t do you justice. You are our precious Amelia and we love you so much.

Love,

Mom

For Easter weekend, we had quite the adventure. Mom & Dad decided to take me down to Nonni’s and Grandpappy’s for the weekend – on the car ride down, I was accidentally fed some dairy and decided to be sick all over – no fun! While daddy graciously cleaned my seat, mom & I had fun watching all the cars go by out in the sunshine. I got to change outfits too. Once we were down in Florida things went a bit smoother. I got to go to the neighborhood festival and meet the Easter bunny – and I got to ride on my first merry-go-round. I even let them dress me up in dresses all weekend for lots of picture taking. Mom was sad that Duke lost, but she dressed me in my pink Duke outfit on Sunday since she is still proud of them. The Easter bunny brought me my first Easter basket – it was great and contained candy for my parents and an Easter book, an Easter bib, a bunny as well as bunny ears for me. I loved it, particularly the bunny – I like to eat the ears of my animals. It was a great weekend all in all and thanks to my grandparents for hosting us down in Florida.

I hope all my good buddies had a good first Easter as well. Enjoy the pictures!

Amelia

For my first St. Patty’s Day, mommy dressed me in a fun spring green dress for daycare.  Everyone was wearing green so I didn’t get to pinch anyone!  Oh well…. I fit into 9 – 12 months clothes mostly now, so mom washed a bunch and here are a few pics of me before school each day.

Enjoy! Amelia