Happy 1st Birthday Amelia Jade

One year!

May 7th 2013

Amelia is a toddler!

We celebrated her birthday this past Saturday and it was so fun!

Isn't this face the cutest? So pretty and grown-up.

She is a total daddy's girl these days. You can basically guarantee a smile from her when he walks into the room. They are always smiling and giggling together.

Our family was so excited to see her and play! Nana especially. I'm so glad she was able to come up for the visit.

Amelia was a little hesitate at first. I think she was overwhelmed by all the people in the room. She can be a shy, quiet one sometimes. But after awhile, she started to toddle all around and show off her new skill: walking!!!

I'm pretty impressed that she figured out walking before her 1st birthday. Right after she turned 11 months she started taking a few confident steps. The past two weeks or so she's been working up to quite the distance. It's pretty neat to see and I've already gotten used to seeing her stand-up and just casually walk towards something.

Other cool 1 yr old things:

Drinking whole milk (still nursing before bed and weekend mornings)

Taking only 1 nap a day (ugh!!)

Reading books

Teething (still only 3 teeth, but another is on its way!)

Eating everything! Her new favorite is peanut butter. Also, she has now tried sweet sugary things and she clearly LOVES them. Uh-oh!

Playing on the playground...going down the slide BY HERSELF! She did this with no prompting from us. She can also climb up the slide with a little help.

Stairs-- I'm getting pretty tired of the stairs. But she has mastered them. Up and down.

1st birthdays are tough. On one hand I'm so proud of the awesome happy little person she is...but in other ways, I am just destroyed to pieces thinking of how she is no longer my tiny little baby. I can't wait for the next milestones (like talking!) but I also so dearly miss the cuddly, swaddle-me-up newborn phase. It's rough on this momma.

But I am also so excited for her. There is a lot to look forward to. Family vacations. Funny toddler conversations. Riding bikes. You know. Lots of stuff.

We are going to have a good time and I can't wait.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

Cloth Diapers

Most people that read this blog probably know that we are a cloth diapering family. But I've yet to really post about it and I've been meaning to.

I spent a lot of my pregnancy researching cloth diapers and how to best save money. To be honest, I never really intended to cloth diaper. Like most people, I thought it was pretty gross. I remember talking to my sister (who was already planning on cloth diapering) and saying,

"yeah....but what about the poop?....no, seriously....there will be poop in my laundry machine."

After some research I found out the poop is the least of the details.

The most helpful website at first was this blog called allaboutclothdiapers.com. It was super helpful in not only telling me HOW to cloth diaper, but also the different types. Who knew there were so many different types of cloth diapers. I'm pretty sure it took 9 months of pregnancy to figure it all out.

But now, a year has nearly gone by and I haven't thought twice about not cloth diapering. In fact, during my maternity leave I even got into sewing some of my own diapers. If you're into that idea, there is a great group on babycenter.com.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

Best things: a girl with rhythm and carrot cake

It was another gorgeous day. Mostly, gorgeous as in, it was the weekend and I could play stay at home mom. Which, I love. Seriously, do I need to go to work tomorrow? Those kids could teach themselves science, can't they?.....just for a day?!?

 

Anyways.

The best part was watching the little girl dance and shake her body all around to music. The girl can dance. I'm mostly sure that this is due to Dan playing his rap music all day long while I'm at work. But either way...music is her thing. She's got rhythm. Nothing is cuter than seeing her shake her little self and stomp her foot to the beat.

 

We ate quite possibly the best thing I've ever made today. Carrot cake. Mia loved it far more than the patience required to wait for the next bite. So I'll make it for her birthday cake. And she'll love me for that.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

Stories of childhood[parenthood]

It was a gorgeous day. The weather has been so wonderful lately, I keep pinching myself wondering if its real or not. Last year, it rained nearly every day at track practice. We've had maybe 2 very rainy days...that's it!

Anyways, I'm not here to talk about the weather. More so to just relish in the blissfulness of motherhood and the pending status of summer break (6 more weeks!) Wonderful weekends like this, make it difficult to wake up on Monday mornings and leave my little one. Almost every Sunday night I talk myself into just staying at home. Forget work.

She went down the slide today. All by herself [?!?!?!!!!!!!]

Now I know I've been saying this for nearly one whole year, but seriously people, this "time flying by faster than I can blink" thing is starting to really get me worried. I love that Amelia is growing up and learning new things, but its hard to admit she's not a new cuddly baby anymore. I mean, the slide? all by yourself?

And she's walking. More than just a couple of steps too. I saw her take about 6-7 steps yesterday. I had to sit down, I couldn't believe it.

Yet, at the same time, it also feels like ages ago that I was staying at home just staring googly-eyed at my newborn babe. You would think that after 27 years of experience with the concept of time, I'd have it figured out by now. But, nope.

Anyways.

Anyways.

This parenting thing rocks. I know we havent hit the toddler stage yet [or the teenage stage...I want to crawl in a hole just thinking of that], but we are loving parenthood. I'm sure that in a couple months ill be kicking myself for saying this, but Amelia makes it sooooo easy to be her momma. I imagined parenthood being much more difficult. Somehow Mia fits perfectly into our lives. Sure, it's difficult to have to leave her to go to work, but the joy I see her having with Dan makes my heart flutter. She loves that guy so much.

This is my new favorite picture.

So, whats the point of all this blabbering that I've been doing?

Nothing really.

I've got to start writing more.

There is just too much to remember.

This sweet girl deserves stories of her childhood and pictures of how she grew-up and all the silly things she's learned along the way. So I'm going to try and do that.

So I bought the Blogsy app, to try and motivate myself to blog more and record all the little moments in life that keep me going each day.

Wish me luck friends.

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

Gorgeous times

Apparently naked stair crawling is the best. This sweet girl giggled herself all the way up the stairs...and then back down. And then up again. And then back down...and...well you get the picture.

My evenings are now strictly devoted to stair crawling, clapping and encouraging that potential first step and trying my best to convince the girl to stop trying to feed the dog. Gorgeous times, I tell you. Gorgeous.

And speaking of gorgeous. Check out that beautiful sunset [and the giant kale that decided to spring to life in the form of tiny beautiful flowers].



Now straight to bed for me. We put on a new foam mattress topper for Dan's back and I might just never get outta this bed. Ever.

Read More

11 months

***Note: for some reason this didn't post and I actually wrote it right on time too. Oops...so here is a month old update.

Amelia AKA Mia OR Millie-Monster, Millie-Billie, A-milli-A, Ameli-O is officially 11 month old!

She gave me kisses today. Big, wet, open mouth slobbery ones. She's given me kisses before, but it was hard to tell if she truly meant it or rather her mouth just slammed into my face. But today, they were real. And it was sweet.

I swear everyday she does something new. She's racking up a list of awesome skillz. Some of which include:

- pointing!
- waving ALL the time.
- cruising. She's gotten really good at this. She's fast. And can walk with just barely holding on to the coffee table or couch.
- pushing! She can push her toy walker like nobody's business. And the laundry basket too. That's pretty fun.
- standing! This is really cool. She started a couple weeks ago and we enthusiastically cheered and clapped every time. And now she does it nonchalantly like its no big deal. But she can't just standup all on her own. We're working on that.
- paying attention to books for more than 5 secs. She loves touchy feely books and her small dr. Seuss books from Auntie Chey.
- babbling. She can make so many different sounds now, I couldn't even list them all. She is great at mimicking our tones. She still likes to say MAMAMMAMAA the most. But I'm pretty confident she knows and can say uh-oh. And shes finally figuring out Dada. She also knows words like milk and all done. Today we were reading a book with a doggie and she pointed at Lily and tried to say doggie. It was a proud moment.
- grinding her teeth. Oh, it's so awful. Her top tooth is coming in and she keeps grinding it against the bottom tooth. It's painful to hear.
- feeding the dog. Yep, she likes to give her snacks to Lily.

She is still a great eater. We haven't found a food that she dislikes. The past month or so we've been supplementing with formula since my supply has gotten low. She totally loves it. After Spring Break I stopped pumping at school since it wasn't really worth it anymore and so she gets formula doing the day and breastfed morning and night. I had hoped to make it just one more month completely breastfeeding - but it just didn't work out that way. In another month we will start introducing whole milk. That'll be so nice and easy!

Other baby things you are dying to know about:

- She normally wakes up around 8am. And goes to bed around 7:30pm.
- She takes one long (1.5-2hr) morning nap and only sometimes will take an afternoon nap.
- She fits in 6-9month clothes, 9month fits the best. I think some 12mo clothes/dresses fit too.
- She likes sippy cups - the ones with the handle. But she's learning to not use a handle. Big kid stuff, I tell you.
- Her eyes are staying an awesome blue-green-hazel color.
- Still no FREAKING hair!! The longish wisps in the back are a sandy blond color, so we'll see if that EVER?!?! fills in?
- Favorite foods: avocados, bananas, mandarin oranges, puffs/Cheerios, bread (with purées), and basically anything you put in front of her.

We are looking forward to her 1st birthday party. Hopefully she will have all her close family visiting.

And here is a bunch of cute photos from the past month. (I hardly ever have time to grab our DSLR, so most are from my iPhone.)

 

 

Links to months 9-10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, and 3, 2, and 1.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

9 months...10 months?!

The months keep rolling on by...in fact I swear month 9 happened in just one week. Our little Mia baby is 10 months today...now just 2 months away from a year old!

As soon as Amelia turned 9 months she really got the hang of crawling. The girl is fast now! She can get from the couch to the dog bowl in no time. It keeps us on our toes, but we don't really mind because its fun watching her explore. She's quick to pull up on anything. Dan has even caught her standing for just a second or two all on her own. She can somewhat cruise and move from the couch to the table, etc. She'll cruise down the couch as well. But she's still pretty content with just standing, sitting and crawling. We'll see if she figures out walking before her first birthday. We're in no rush.... :)

At her 9 month appointment she finally hit the 20th percentile for weight - wahoo! What a chunk. :) And she's still a little on the short side too. I think that is what makes her look so petite. Because the girl definitely has some chubby thighs. The fat over her knee caps is pretty precious.

And she can eat!!! She never refuses food. She'll eat anything. We are trying to give her lots of healthy finger foods, because she prefers feeding herself over us giving her purées. It's difficult to be creative and healthy in the choices we give her. I'm pretty sure she would eat a whole loaf of bread if we let her...or a giant jar of mandarin oranges. I think she swallows those things whole!

Of course we are still enjoying lots of sleep around here. We truly are blessed with a good sleeper. She takes about 2 naps a day. Dan has her on a good schedule while I am at work. When she was teething (she has 2 bottom teeth!), she hardly complained at all but she would wake sometimes just for a few minutes to cry and then go back to sleep. Not so bad. However, lately the weekends are a little rough because all she wants to do is be held by me. I'm not sure if its because she misses me during the week or if she has been teething this past week. Either way she is definitely in the attachment phase. Hopefully, it'll pass soon.

It's really fun to play with her now. She laughs and giggles and crawls all around. I love how she says MAMAMAMAMAMAAAA when she wants something. And BABABABABAAPP when she's being silly and wants to talk. No DAAADAAS yet, but she does imitate other sounds that we make, just not totally coherently. More like the fluctuations of our voice. We are tying to teach her to clap and I've been playing patty-cake with her.

And last...STILL NO HAIR! Actually, it's a little longer in the back. But it's just not growing. Poor bald kid. I'm trying to put more headbands on her to change it up a bit. I just can't imagine her with hair anyways...I'm really curious what it'll look like once it does come in?

Links to months 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, and 3, 2, and 1.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Read More