A Long Trip + Meeting the Great Grandparents

We made our first trip home to Minnesota to visit over Memorial Day weekend. This trip was a big deal for a few reasons. First of all, this would be our first long trip with Amelia in the car. Second, this would be our first long trip in the car with two kids to entertain. Third, this was our first trip after our car accident after Christmas. So, a lot to contend with. But, we were ready. Or as ready as we were going to be.

Amelia is dressed and ready to go...until she spit up all over her outfit. Note the color differences between the left and right side of the overalls. Yes, we have a spitter.
How are you supposed to entertain a 7 week old baby for 6 hours? Carseat toys worked for awhile.
Amelia studies her toys hard
Amelia is so tired
William had the whole backseat to himself. He did a GREAT job! I was so proud of him! He did a wonderful job keeping himself entertained for most of the trip which was good because he was just about out of reach from mama.
William is tired too
So handsome
And here is what John was doing.

With this being our first trip north, we had a lot of people excited to meet Amelia. They were practically lining up and down the street. I think we could have made a bundle by charging admission. So, here are the new family members Amelia met, in no particular order (can't be playing favorites)

Great Grandpa Budd is always a favorite with the M&M's in his shirt pocket
Great Grandpa Budd snuggles in with Amelia. A special note about Amelia's outfit. This is an outfit given to me when I was a baby by my grandparent's friends, the Gravdahls.
These two look mighty comfy together here!

Great Grandpa with his Great Grandchildren

Amelia charms Great Grandma Nona
Such a precious moment. Great Grandpa takes pictures.
Great Grandma Nona works to get a smile
Our first attempt with Great Grandpa Tom didn't work out so well. For the record, this was bad timing on my part. Amelia was tired AND hungry...not the best time to get a great picture.
Now that is better! Amelia works her charms on Great Grandpa Tom
She loved looking at Great Grandpa. I could have gone away for a long time and I don't think either one of them would have noticed.

Great Grandma Gerry finally gets her hands on that baby!
The Great Grandparents McGarry admire Amelia while she works her charm on them. I think it is working!
So sweet! Remind me to tell you a not so sweet story about these two later. Hint: It involves poop.
Look at how happy they are!

All smiles for the Great Grangerry

And Auntie Kaye...
What attitude from the peanut!

And a few other pictures with family:

Snoozing with Daddy

Snoozing with Uncle Mike

So tired!

But, it isn't always easy to get your hands on her with our resident baby hog around: Grandma!

Being cute with Grandma! Amelia the Lamb!

And finally, William was so in love with this truck, he took it to bed. He didn't want it out of his sight for even a moment! Thanks for sharing your trucks Uncle Mike!

Wrapping Up the Week

Here are some random pictures from the last week. I'm working on several posts about our big Memorial Day weekend as well.

Do you cut coupons? If you do, you maybe saw these in the paper a few weeks ago: Marinades and BBQ sauces in different beverage flavors. Orange Crush Marinade? Umm...no thank you.

This cat's name could be Garfield. Antisocial, likes to eat, orange, loves to sleep in the shoe box...
And we paid a visit to our friends at West Middle last week to congratulate them on finishing out their year.

Amelia goes to school and meets up with her friend Lily. And look! Lily is happy this time! William is not pictured. He was busy trying to figure out how to jam the copy machine or break into the soda machine.

The Wiggler

I remember William doing this as well. But, the first time he moved, it wasn't this far! I don't know how she did this while swaddled. For reference, her head started out on the cloth at the top of the crib.

7 Weeks Old

Amelia is 7 weeks old today - she is getting SO big! I've had to pack away most of our 0-3 month clothing. She is just so tall that her legs can't bend inside most of the one piece outfits. So, we're on to the 3-6 month set! This week Amelia is really starting to show her sunny personality. She is talking up a storm, smiling like crazy and even starting to laugh. We are eating it up around here. And so is she. We were at the doctor's office last week (yes, both kids had a virus it turns out) and Amelia tipped the scales at 11 lbs 8.25 ounces. Even the doctor was impressed. No more worries about our slow to start eater (still a post brewing about this one)!

Before she was born, John and I unpacked our baby stuff leftover from William. We were shocked by how many bibs and burp clothes we had in our stash. After going through some old pictures, the memories came flooding back. William spit up ALL.THE.TIME. We held out a small amount of hope that this time things would be different and this child would hold down their dinner. We were initially excited because there really wasn't much spit up. Just a little here and there. Turns out, she really wasn't eating enough to show her true force of spew. Also turns out Amelia is also a spitter. At this time, it appears Amelia is in the classification of the happy spitter. Totally happy, just messy. Only time will tell if she is going to flow with the same awesome-ness that her brother demonstrated.


I took the time for a very quick shoot today with Amelia. The outfit she is wearing is particularly special as it is an outfit my mom made for me before I was born. Only she never finished it by putting the buttons on the sweater or the ribbons on the hat. So, some 30 years later, she decided It Was Time. Time to finish this project and hand the sweater and hat set off to me. It is beautiful and special. And Amelia was darling in it. As always, the photos are unedited and should be fixed up. But, they're not. Oh well.

Her facial expressions are becoming so interesting!

And a few with just the hat...

New Stuff this Time!

We didn't need as much stuff this time around since we would be reusing most of our baby gear we got with William. However, there were a few items I wanted to get this time around becasue I've heard good things about them. Here they are, along with my 100% honest opinion!

Item #1 is a sling carrier for the baby. Amelia is tucked up in here nice and snug. And I have two hands free to do things like: eat, put laundry in the washer, pick up a crying two year old, put shoes on the two year old, unload the dishwasher and grocery shop. It also keeps her out of the sun, doesn't allow anyone to touch her, and is easy to get off and on. Not especially easy to get her in and out, but not bad. So far I am loving the sling carrier and Amelia is too. Our sling is this one.

Amelia snuggled into the sling

Happy baby, happy mama

Item #2 is the boppy pillow. I registered for this item with William and didn't receive it. Then I was too cheap to go buy one for myself. This time I really wanted to have one. While I'm not finding this item to be indispensable (as it describes itself), it is mighty handy. It is nice for nursing Amelia, but also great for holding her for tummy time and making her feel nice and snug while on her back.

It also makes for a great picture as it supports the baby's head and body nicely!


Item #3 is a nursing bracelet (mine is green and copper). I thought with two kids running around, it might be hard to keep track of how long it had been since I fed the baby. This cute bracelet has a charm you move to the time you last fed the baby and you switch it from left to right arm to remember which side you started on last time. I'm finding this to not be as useful as I thought it would be. First, I have to remember to wear it. Second, I have to remember to move the little charm. Third, William can't see me wearing it or he wants to wear it. After he is done wearing it, it is usually a few days before I can find it again. Fourth, the beads are pretty uncomfortable for Amelia when she ends up laying right on the bracelet while I'm feeding her.


Item #4 is our double sit and stand stroller. We are liking this stroller a lot. But, HELLO! It is a HUGE workout pushing this thing around! When you take into consideration a 30+lb toddler, a 12 lb baby, a 10lb carseat, and 20ish lbs of stroller, you are getting quite the workout pushing this thing up a hill! It also is a little challenging to keep William's hands off of Amelia, although very cute to watch as he reads her books or shows her his toys. Not so cute when he is pulling her carseat strap tighter or yanking the sunshade so the sun shines right in her eyes.

There are a lot of people out there...

who don't want to see Amelia wear her brother's trucks outfits or anything else that is blue! The ladies at church were insistent that Amelia needed a welcome party/baby shower. Sunday afternoon was a beautiful day for a party - these ladies really do a great job!

What a beautiful day to be outside enjoying the weather! There was a pretty good breeze, so Amelia didn't get to enjoy it very much, but otherwise it was a gorgeous afternoon!

Grandma and Megan fuss over Amelia
The church ladies (and a few gentlemen)

The food - yummy!

Special cake for Mama: We went to a Christmas party at our friends' house. I personally ate about half of this chocolate brownie raspberry cake that night. So, when Charlene asked me if I had any requests....this was it! And it was WONDERFUL!

The boys exploring
Cute favors with Amelia's name on it!

Look at all that pink!