27 January 2013

Visiting Family

Here is a stream of cell phone photos from our long weekend trip to Southern California. We all had such a great time visiting with each other and enjoying the warm sunshine. It was so fun to see Baby Jude and Baby Amelia play together. I loved it.

It was Amelia's first trip on a plane and she did AMAZING. I'll take her anywhere. Although, the trip was only 2 hrs and I could see how if it was any longer, it would have been a bit more challenging.

Now we cant wait for our cousins, Natalie and David to come visit us here in Oregon! :)

8 awesome months

6:16 PM Carlie: Amelia No comments

I've been trying to write this post for about 3 weeks. We never got a good 8 month photo session in. Its too dark by the time I get home, and we are too busy on the weekends. So I included some cell phone pics, cause everyone knows I have about 1000 of those!

So here goes....

Big news: Amelia is 8 months and on the MOVE!

I remember loving the 5-6 month old mark because Amelia was leaning so many new things, but now I'm pretty sure 8-9 months has been the best.

Here's what we've been doing:

- eating EVERYTHING. She's tiny, but she loves to eat. She can down a 4oz squeezey pack of food in under 2 minutes. She LOVES any finger food. She'll still eat puréed food, but has more fun eating peas and diced veggies, beans or slightly mashed soft foods. She snacks on puffs, creamies, yogis and Cheerios too. Most days she'll eat solids 3x/day along with her milk too. We're glad that she loves food!

-crawling!!!!! Okay, well her own version of it. About 1 month ago, she started pulling herself around, army crawl style. And gradually, she started to get better at it. She still doesn't take a lot of "on all fours" steps. She does a combo of sitting, scooting, pulling, crawling, one leg crawling, rolling....whatever it takes. She's not going super far distances, but she definitely can get across a small space if she wants something. This part has been the funniest to watch.

- standing! She can pull up on most things. Problem is...she's too short to reach the tops of most things. :) If she does get up she can balance for quite awhile too. And she is just barely experimenting with trying to take steps and cruise. Shes nowhere close to it yet, but i can tell shes starting to think about it. I've also found her multiple times standing up in her crib....and it terrifies me. Will she fall out? Someone help me not go crazy about this....

-talking! Just kidding! :) She's basically just figured out MAMAMAMMAMMAMAAAAAAA. It's pretty awesome though. She mimics our "hi" and "hello" sounds too. And we can get her to wave goodbye or hello with her arm sometimes, if we're lucky. It's totally precious and it makes me want to squeeze her because its so darn smart of her. But she mostly does it for Dan. He gets the most smiles and giggles around her too....

-still no teeth (edit: right after I wrote this, her first tooth popped through! YAYA!)
-still no hair.

Other than those big things, we are just enjoying growing up over here. There are still lots of smiles and gummy grins. We are so blessed to have such a happy little one.

Now we can't wait for summertime and sunshine so we can go play outside. Can't wait for all that fun...

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

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The best head-laying moment that has ever existed

8:53 PM Carlie: Amelia, motherhood No comments

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I've been cherishing every single moment with my girl lately. The moments are getting sweeter and sweeter. Lately, Amelia has decided to not fall right asleep as I nurse and rock her each night. Instead, she picks up her little head, sticks her thumb in her mouth and then gently lays her head on my chest.
The amount of love I feel in that moment is intense.
Sometimes she lifts her sweet self up and looks right into my eyes. We stare at each other in that quiet darkness. Quite often I can see a quick, gummy little grin, thumb still in her mouth, and a small glint in her eye.....then it's back to the best head-laying moment that has ever existed.

(sigh...)

I read this blog post this morning about getting in the picture and how fast motherhood flies by. I feel like I'm on a bullet train. I'm desperately clinging on to so many wonderful moments. I've decided that I need to write more of them down, even the small little ones. I really enjoy looking back, reflecting and remembering what's important in life.

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.