25 December 2012

A First Christmas Day

9:14 PM Carlie: No comments

Love this little family of mine.

Hope you all had the merriest of Christmas days!

We slept in a little.

Opened stockings full of baby food.

Exchanged gifts.

Found a new friend in Raggedy Anne and Scout the Puppy dog.

Skyped with family members.

Took Christmas naps.

Cooked a small feast.

And put the baby down for bed early (poor thing has a cold on her first christmas...)

Onward to 2013!

Amelia is 7 months

9:30 PM Carlie: No comments

Look at those tiny little rolls in the pictures above. Eeek. I can't believe that was 7 months ago?!

This past month has been such a fun one. It's been hard, as I went back to work, but Amelia is growing and learning...and it's so great to watch.

These little, big round eyes are my favorite.

Even though A can't talk, I swear we have conversations all day long.

She's still a baby, but she's gaining some serious skillz.

Like finally rolling over.

Hello- it's about time!

She finally figured out how to do it all.the.time. She now sleeps on her belly...sucking her thumb.

We have total thumb sucker on our hands. It's entirely too precious.

I'll encourage it for the rest of forever.

She can also mostly pull herself up to standing.

She pulled herself up a lot on me ~~the human-jungle-gym~~ but has been practicing pulling up on toys and the stairs lately. She can easily hold on to most things now, while standing.

In the past week or so she has gotten closer to crawling, but probably won't figure it out for awhile longer. She can turn all around while sitting, scoot forward/backward a little and sometimes army crawls backward (super frustrating!).

Recently, her favorite thing to do is suck on her toes during her diaper change. I nearly die every time, it's so adorable (am i going to think all my kids are this cute?!)

She sleeps all the way through the night. [We are so lucky] and now takes two longer naps during the day, instead of three shorter ones.

This girl has finally gained some weight too- she's over 15 lbs and has gained 2 lbs in the past month! She's gotten a few inches taller too. Despite her petite little features, she's definitely got some chunky thunder thighs though. She has been a little pickier with what/when she wants to eat solid food, but will still eat most things. Avocado is her current favorite.

Basically, she's the sweetest thing ever.

I'm not sure what we did to deserve such an amazing child.

The past month has been a breeze.

She can play pretty independently now, and it starting to really like music and anything bright with lights.

She's great during the day with Dan and when she's with our friend on Tuesday/Thursdays.

I miss her like crazy, but I get pictures during the day and lots of snuggles once I get home. I have such a greater appreciation for the evenings and weekends.

And one day that hair will start growing too....

Links to months 6, 5, 4, and 3, 2, and 1.

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Amelia: 6 months

12:40 PM Carlie: 1 comment

Ok. So these aren't her 'official' 6 month photos. They were taken on Halloween just a week or so before she turned 6 months. But they will have to do for now!

Isn't she an adorable little gnome?

I made her this green dress (and repurposed a tshirt to make the leggings), but it was a wee bit big as you can see in the picture below. But it was still fun to wear to our church trunk or treat. Next year, she might be big enough to walk around the church parking lot herself (sorta. maybe.)

How is this little munchkin 6 months old already?! Half a year! I keep saying this...but this is the best time of my life. Also the quickest. How the heck has 6 months gone by? It's pure ridiculousness.

I think we have had the most fun this past month. As soon as she started sitting up on her own, I gained two free hands and she was able to really play with her toys.

Also.

the baby smiles.

so many baby smiles.

We can actually play and laugh together.

We are a little ~~a lot~~ biased, but we think she has amazing eye contact and social skills.

The past couple weeks I've noticed that she is starting to imitate me (already?!?). She can stick out her tongue and make funny raspberry ~~fart~~ noises. I do that to her all the time and she has started to catch on. This morning she was copying me making a high pitched squeal then the raspberry noise. It was hilarious. In fact, I laughed so hard it scared her and she almost started to cry. Oops! So now, I'm trying to teach her to make kissy noises. We'll see...

Still no teeth. But lots of drool.

Still can wear 3 month clothes. She's petite!

No rolling over yet. That weirdo. No matter how far she goes on her side, she won't commit to the complete roll over.

She is sleeping amazingly well lately. I love it.

Still likes her pacifier, but mostly to chew/teeth on.

Still prefers to eat every 2 hrs (ugh!).

Loves her exersaucer (a free 20 minutes for me!!!)

She's really good at standing (with support) and can balance pretty well.

At her 6 month check-up she weighed a whooping 13lbs 10oz, which is barely in the 10%, but that's where she's been most of her life! She is 25.5in and in the 36% and is 31% for her head. Her doctor says she is healthy and even advanced for her development (because she can sit up completely on her own)!

It's also been really fun the past two weeks or so to start feeding her solid food. She has tried: banana (her favorite), rice cereal, applesauce and just tried avocado yesterday. We can't believe how good she is at eating. Just opens her mouth and gobbles it up. Not too messy either. We are proud.

Here's to hoping that 6 month growth spurt everyone talks about isn't too unkind to us...

Links to months 5, 4, and 3, 2, and 1.

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Sewing for my little

9:47 PM Carlie: sew.baby, sewing No comments

Okay, so I did good sewing for Amelia last week. I've just done a terrible job posting pictures!

This is the bubble skirt re-do.

As you can see, I made it extra big, just to make sure it fits!

I'm pretty sure I'm going to make about ten others for her to wear too.

I'm also almost done with a little green dress.

It will be her baby gnome dress for Halloween.

We are going to be a family of gnomes.

Not sure what we are doing yet, or where we will wear our costumes, but we'll figure it out.

Pumpkin Patch

9:39 PM Carlie: Amelia, fall No comments

Nothing is cuter than this little one at the pumpkin patch!

We are having so much fun with her!

Month 5

10:24 PM Carlie: Amelia No comments

Hello, drool face.

Hello, sweet cheeks*.

*Don't you just want to pinch these?

Can't believe this little one is 5 months. In fact, October has flown by and she is practically 6 months old!

She is getting so big! Ok - that's a lie. She's still a petite little thing. So tiny.

But, she can do so many cool things now...

this is my favsies.

Like sitting up all on her own. It happened literally the day she turned 5 months old.

All of a sudden, she had balance.

At first, it was only for 30 seconds.

But within 2-3 days she could easily last for 5 minutes or more. ~~Yes, I timed her.~~

At first she really depended a lot on leaning forward.

And there were quite a few smacks to the head, as she learned to gain balance.

But she is a balancing, sitting-up machine now!

Other exciting baby things:

still lots of drool. incredible amounts. no teeth.

no rolling over yet from back to tummy. but sooo close!

she gave us a whirl when she decided to randomly not go to bed easily for a week (although, this might have been because we kept her up while we decided to do cool adult ~~kid~~ stuff like cosmic bowling and other date nights)

she still sleeps most of the night, until 4-6ish and will sometimes randomly wake-up around 1.

we snuggle most mornings in bed until 9-10ish (pure heaven!)

she's getting good at her cooing, giggling and shrieking.

she likes to hang out in her activity center too. she can actually play with the toys and bounce all around.

she can grab her pacifer and put it in her mouth, although not always correctly. :)

and she's finally wearing some 3-6mo and 6mo clothes, but happily fits into 3m still.

she tasted one tiny tiny bit of homemade applesauce and basically thought it was the grossest thing on the planet. of course, i kept giving her more, just to see her facial expression.

(we are waiting to feed her solids until she is 6 months, but i couldn't resist!)

But most importantly, she is still the sweetest, happiest girl.

Truly happy, all the time!

I love her little personality.

She is so quiet and content when we go places, but loves to giggle and laugh too.

Amelia is a happy, social girl.

She smiles at everyone and tries to get them to smile back.

We love it.

We love her.

As soon as I saw these two pics below, I immediately recognized them! She looks just like Dan with these awesome facial expressions. I love it!

While she is really attached to me, she seriously loves her Dad. He makes her giggle and smile the most. Whenever he enters the room, she looks over at him and can't wait for him to come play with her.

It's cute to watch.

So until next month...

See ya later, alligator!

Links to months 4, 3, 2, and 1.

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Photo Love

3:12 PM Carlie: Amelia, photography No comments

What do you do when you take over 100 pics of your 5 month old and love every single one of them?

Hmm?

Sewing

10:52 AM Carlie: sew.baby, sewing No comments

Now...don't think I started KCWC and then just forgot about it. I've actually been so busy sewing, I haven't had time to blog! Awesome. I don't have tons of pics to show off for it though, so I'll get on that today.

But here is a shot if the little trousers I made from some of my old pants with a cute peachy gathered pocket. I surprised myself and figured out how to do this all on my own.

And this is my first block for my quilt. I made it and didn't like it and gave up the quilt-along for nearly a week -haha! And then just decided yesterday to just go with it and made some more.

KCWC DAY 1 & 2

11:17 AM Carlie: sew.baby, sewing 1 comment

I've been so lucky as to find lots of time to sew lately.

So far I've made:

- little blue leggings from an old tshirt
- A flowery skirt from an old vintage sheet (although it turned out WAY TOO small and I'm going to make another!)
- a tiny striped cardigan (almost done!)
- grey baby pants from an old pair of my pants. I'm going to add little gathered pockets to them tonight!

ADHD

11:13 AM Carlie: sewing No comments

Okay...the crafting is getting out of control! In efforts to clean up my sewing area I think I'm going to try and follow along with this scrappy quilt a long and make a little lap quilt.

Or I could finish the quilt I started for A while pregnant....?

Hmmm- I totally have crafting ADHD

KCWC!

8:34 PM Carlie: sewing No comments

One of the best things about my maternity leave so far, besides hanging out with the sweetest girl ever, is the free time I have to be crafty. I've really gotten into sewing. And thanks to Pinterest and all the blogs I follow I have lots of ideas and projects to do. Also, for my birthday I got an amazing Brother serger from Dans parents and a giftcard to Joanns! I am so excited! So now I can join in on the sewing fun that goes on all over the Internet. Things like Kids Clothes Week Challenge at Elsie Marley.

I often see cute things that I like at stores like these cords from the Gap. But there is no way that I'm paying so much for them!

So I'll do my best to try and sew for an hour each night and make some cute stuff for Amelia. These are the things I have in mind....

Source: gap.com via Carlie on Pinterest

Source: emmyloubeedoo.blogspot.com via Carlie on Pinterest

Source: makeit-loveit.com via Carlie on Pinterest

Plus, I have like 10 other amazing ideas...

Hopefully, I'll find time to post what I've created each day/night.

Now...to that Apple crisp I made (then I'll get to sewing!)

Apple crisp!

2:07 PM Carlie: food No comments

It's nap time. I have a solid 40 minutes to myself - maybe 1.5hrs if I get lucky?

I've got a lot of rambling thoughts today.

But mostly I am just thinking about the delicious apple crisp I made last night. I basically had it for dinner...and breakfast too. Is that bad?

Fruit crisps beat a pie every time for me. They are much yummier. Yes, yummier is a word.

I think this one was so delicious because we added practically a whole stick of butter. Yum-o!

I followed the basic recipe off of this blog. And we added blueberries towards the end...because, well...I just forgot to put them in to begin with! :) And Dan smartly sprinkled some walnuts on top to make it extra crunchy.

Don't think I'm lying when I say I'm probably going to make another tonight. Hey - it only took two apples and was SUPER quick to make (which, is really important these days!)

Raspberry peach freezer jam

11:51 AM Carlie: food, harvest No comments

Last summer, before we found out that little miss Mia was joining our family, I made the goal of wanting to learn how to preserve and store food.

I got a dehydrator for my birthday and promptly started drying loads of tomatoes and zucchini.

Being pregnant I didn't have too bad of morning sickness, but smells REALLY bothered me. The smell of drying tomatoes...well the thought of it now makes me want to gag. So I had to put the dehydrator away for a little while.

Thankfully, it's come out again this summer, but I haven't been too great with getting on the goal of preserving and storing.

So this week Dan and I started making monthly purchases of THRIVE foods to slowly build up some delicious food storage and....

...TODAY I finally dipped my toes into canning. Ok - well, it's not REAL canning, it's freezer jam. But it's the closest I've gotten to learning how to can...for now.

And it looks delicious....I can't wait to taste it!

RASPBERRY PEACH FREEZER JAM

from fresh garden raspberries and farmers market peaches (oh to have a peach tree...)