7 Months Old!

Amelia is 7 months old! We had such a busy day today, we had to squeeze her picture taking in between all of our other activities this afternoon after her nap. I was very concerned about the lack of natural light due to all the RAIN! I think it has rained here every day for the last month. But, it turned out we had one little sunny corner in Amelia's bedroom. It just required moving a several piles of stuff larger than the girl herself and sprucing things up a little.

Amelia in her room in her rocking chair. A big thanks to my friend Angi for scoping out this cute slip/dress recently at the thrift store we frequent.
Being entertained by daddy and her big brother
Sweet baby girl
Happy girl - my favorite part of this picture is the sweet little dimple on her elbow!
One of the tricks in our bag - the monkey finger puppet held by the big brother
Two bottom teeth made it into this one!
Checking out the 7 months sign
Laughter!
The lighting isn't as great, but the face is!
Sweet neck rolls
Peeking at her DaddyEverything still goes into her mouth
A quiet moment

Watching her brother play with trucksPeeking over the edge of the chair at Daddy
Looking out her window
Amelia has thousands of expressions. Even when the lighting isn't great.
Peeking at her toesAmelia gazing in adoration at her big brother and he is looking right back at her.

These two....there aren't any words to how full our hearts are.Blurry kisses! I am so sad this picture is blurry (and not well lit)! But their kisses are so sweet. Especially when they are

Other Amelia news: We've added lots of foods to her meal time and she appears to be enjoying and tolerating this well. She now puts Cheerios in her mouth by herself (way earlier than William on this one) and anything else you put on her tray. We've also started a little bit of finger food with her to occupy her while we are eating as a family and in between bites from the spoon. She has a VERY loud screech that will let you know it is taking too long for that next bite! So far she has been eating Cheerios, puffs, tiny pieces of bananas, tiny pieces of pears, tiny pieces of [over] cooked carrots and of course, romaine lettuce (and whatever else William has put in there). I don't have a real plan when it comes to her eating solids, but she is eating twoish meals a day at the table with us. While we eat breakfast, she plays/eats Cheerios. At lunch time, she eats some oatmeal and usually some pieces of William's banana either in pieces on her tray or mashed up in her oatmeal. At dinner time, she has been eating several tablespoons of vegetable puree and occasionally a fruit with it if I remember.

Physically, Amelia is crawling full on hands and knees, pulling up, cruising a little bit, and generally finding trouble. If there is a cord on the ground, she'll chew on it. If there is something plugged into an outlet accessible to her, she'll pull on it (and then chew on it). If it is something out of reach on a table, she'll reach and reach until she gets her hands on it (and then chew on it). I have removed more pieces of paper from her mouth in the last week than I'd like to admit. She has no fear and has almost fallen from a variety of high up surfaces in our house with only one real tumble off of her brother's bed a few weeks ago. She is babbling up a storm and has added the sweetest mamamamama to her favorite sounds. I don't mind one bit because her mamamama is so sweet - even if she isn't exactly talking to me yet.

We've had some sleeping regressions on and off in the last month. Our consistent sleeper has been getting me up at least once a night for the past few weeks. She gives me a few days off and then starts the cycle up again. I'm counting on this being a passing phase due to either teething or a growth spurt. If not, I'm not sure what we'll do.

Other than the night wakings, Amelia continues to be a good natured baby with a ready grin for anyone who glances in her direction. Although in the last weeks she has been more particular about her personal space. Those people who greet us and go directly to her face are no longer rewarded with a gummy grin. She is happy and smiley in her mama or daddy's arms. But, approach her too quickly or pick her up without warning and she isn't likely to be happy.
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In Big Boy news, today was William's first day of preschool. Our school district offers a preschool at the high school. Students at the high school have the option of taking a child development course with a lab. So, there is a high school teacher in charge, but the high school students are supposed to do all the planning and interacting with the kids. I think it is kind of a win/win situation. They get to learn about preschoolers, the preschoolers get a mini preschool experience as the class is only 6 weeks long and three days a week. The only negative is that it starts at 7:50am. It is quite the undertaking to get all three of us out of the door at 7:35 when the little ones get up around 7:15am. But, we did it successfully today, so I think there is hope!

Today was an open house style session where families and kids of all ages were welcome to stay and participate in the activities. William played at the train table, drove a bucket full of diggers, colored, played with playdoh, ate a snack (juice and graham crackers....then walked by another kid's snack left on the table and shoved all the other kid's crackers in his mouth also). The kids saw a puppet show, sang songs and danced before saying goodbye and coming home. Based on today, I think he is really going to enjoy it - and so am I. After today, it is a drop off only program. I am supposed to drop him off and leave, returning only to pick him up at 10:30. That is just over two whole hours! The classroom where the preschool is has a back meeting room that has a two way mirror. So, I think on Monday when I have to drop him off again, I'll hang out for a little while to make sure everything is going smoothly. Since I haven't ever left him in this type of situation (where he really doesn't know the people who are caring for him), I want to make sure we have a good transition.

Here he is
I realized on my way out the door that I needed to document William's first day of school ever. Not the best picture, but we were in a hurry (see early beginning time) and on the run.

New foods today

Romaine lettuce & oatmeal cereal 10/28/2009

It isn't as bad as it sounds. Or maybe it is.

We've been eating the rice cereal for awhile now and the box is almost empty. We haven't started a new food in a few days so I decided to give the oatmeal a go at lunch time. I think the texture is a little different as Amelia kept pushing it out of her mouth. She willingly took more and ate it, but was pushing it around in her mouth a lot more than usual.

John has been working late several nights a week for the last few weeks. I'm not a huge fan of this because when he works overtime, so do I. The day can be pretty long when you don't get out of the house on a regular basis and most of your conversations are pretend between the dump truck and digger.

Anyway, John was working late and I was getting dinner ready. William walked by and pulled a very small leaf of romaine lettuce out of the bag. I watched him out of the corner of my eye while running in 70 billion different directions. He examined the leaf, turned it around and then....well, I'm not sure what happened exactly because I got busy with sometime cooking over in the microwave. Moments later I turned around in time to see Amelia pop that piece of romaine in her mouth and gum away on it. My first instinct was to take it away. But, then I couldn't really come up why. So I let her eat it.

These two are so cute most of the time!

Look how much Amelia adores her big brother! He is the best!

Especially when he feeds me Cheerios instead of eating them off my tray!

What a great helper! (Or, oh dear. I guess I'm going to have to start looking at what else he is putting in her mouth...)

Fall Leaves & It's not A Fair Mom!

After what feels like 100 years of rain, we finally had a nice day to get out and take some pictures of the kids in the fall colors. I'm not a huge fan of fall - with less sunshine I am noticeably crabbier, but I love having the pictures in the leaves. I guess any reason to take pictures makes me happy.Taking pictures is fun and exciting for me. For the kids, not so much. For the first ten minutes, William refused to look at me. He was fascinated by the tree.

Turns out it was covered in ladybugs
Playing peekaboo behind the tree
This one might be my new favorite of him
Peek!
Reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaach up for those leaves!

Serious, blue eyed boy.

So handsome - I think he is watching John and Amelia
Technically, Amelia is a better subject because she has an easier smile (for now) and kind of stays where I put her.

But, it was hard work keeping the leaves out of her mouth! Good thing I had assistant Daddy!

No no! No eating leaves!

Serious Mia
This one might be my favorite of Amelia's shots.

Checking out those leaves

And a few tries of getting a cute on of the two together

This one is probably the best, but still not a great shot

My two pumpkins sitting in the leaves!

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We had some friends over last week. That seems to be the only way I get to see anyone these days - if they come to us. The nap time overlay has been very difficult for me to work around. The choices are:

a) Go out during Amelia's morning nap time. As a result, she does not nap in the morning. Or afternoon. Or evening. In fact, she becomes so overtired she never, ever sleeps again. Honestly, when the girl is overtired, she will NOT sleep.

b) Go out directly after Amelia's morning nap, AKA lunchtime. William is a complete pill and fights every step of the way, making a 3 minute errand into a forty minute experience that leaves me wanting to poke myself in the eye to make the whining/crying/flailing of limbs stop.

c) Go out after lunch, AKA someone is usually sleeping, but not two somebodies. Here, take option A and combine will a slightly reduced options B. Add a half a cup of harried mama from the ordeal of hustling two small children out the door who are not in any hurry at all and it sums it up. Also, when returning from our outing, neither child is interested in napping.

d) Don't go anywhere. Ever. Never ever.

e) Become the hostess with the mostess and invite people over on a regular basis.

We happen to do a mix of option D (when I haven't had time to put anything together or people are out of town) and option E. We occasionally throw in some option A, because that is when storytime at the library is and I love storytime.

Anyhow, we had friends over in the morning and William was playing with the five year old daughter of my friend. I was enjoying some adult interaction and I missed any conversation between the kids. Later on, I was certain where this phrase came from:

"But Mooooom (emphasize with whine), it's notttttt a faaaaaaaaiiir!"

Which cracks me up. I know we'll hear plenty of this soon enough. But, I love how he tries on phrases and things he hears from other kids. Even when he doesn't get it quite right.

Monday, Monday

Amelia= cruising 10/26/2009. Because, you know, she needs to. So far she has cruised her way along the pointy edged coffee table and along the bathtub to the toilet where we have ceramic tile. She has also attempted IN the bathtub, but I quickly put an end to that. Mean mama.


Also, over the last few weekends we've been working hard on redoing our room. When it is all the way done I'll post before and after pictures for your viewing pleasure. But, here is where we're at now (this post is really for my mom & Nicole).

And yes, I rarely make our bed. You never know when I'll have the opportunity to get back in the bed and I don't want to waste time unmaking it again...

My internet friend, Nicole put together an AWESOME plan for redoing our bedroom. I can't tell you how excited I was about her ideas! However, when it came time to do it, I had major cold feet. We started painting this brownish color in our room and I was so worried that I was going to HATE it. I even thought about not doing it...but then I came into our room and John had already started painting. So, we were committed.

However, I have news for you people. This brown (officially Studio Taupe), is terribly romantic. It is soft and relaxing. It makes our furniture pop and somehow our room is more bright. Even with brown on the walls. One hundred percent unexpected. We are now supposed to take another brownish color and paint some horizontal stripes. I'm not sure that is going to happen because we spent close to 7 hours trying to get just ONE strip taped up on the wall without success and several....well, disagreements.

Please keep in mind this is not done! We still have to get the new window treatments up (by the way, Nicole, we broke one of the blinds in the bedroom while painting. Should I get something totally different for both windows while I replacing the one? Or should I just stick with the white mini blinds? Currently in place is a cardboard box cut to fit in the window borrowed from our guest bedroom). We are also going to be doing some organizing/rearranging and picking up some new bedding and items for the walls. So, not done.

Applesauce, Cookies

William's first time helping me make cookies: 10/23/2009

During Amelia's naptimes, I am working to try and do some kind of activity with William a few times a week that is special. Last week, he helped me make cookies for John to take with for a trivia night.

Stirring up the cookies

It's tough to stir at the end!

Proud helper

Enjoying the end result!

Applesauce for the first time on 10/25/09

Applesauce

Please note: she ate peas or green beans before this. Applesauce did not get this messy right away.Biting the spoon. Amelia REALLY likes to use those front teeth. Be warned: no finger is safe!

Cute, messy smile
Yay! Yummy Applesauce
I like to feed Amelia at meals times. Because otherwise things get crazy and she doesn't eat on any kind of schedule. I cannot manage that many things these days. But, the down side is she is VERY easily distracted by the Big Brother. She loves to watch his antics and giggle at his funny faces. This makes her feedings extra messy - her mouth is a moving target as she bobs and stretches to get the best viewing angle. Also - we had BEAUTIFUL leaves this year in our backyard! It was awesome!

Pumpkin Carving

What a busy weekend! John played trivia on Friday night with our friends (I, sadly had to stay home with The Baby Who Will Not Take a Bottle) and we had two pumpkin events this weekend on both Saturday and Sunday!

Saturday was a Pumpkin Carving contest at my former coworkers house. John and I make a great team. I don't really like the carving of the pumpkin. I always have an elaborate plan that doesn't work out because my arm gets tired before I am done. In the end, I'm disappointed because it doesn't look like the idea I had in my head. John strongly dislikes scooping out the pumpkin guts, but doesn't mind carving. I scoop, John carves. Perfect.

William is finally old enough to kind of understand what is going on. He was very excited to be a helper...although he wasn't really a fan of the gooey insides either.

Amelia and her godfather, Jeff. He is showing her the first beer he brewed himself. She was very excited about tasting it and worked very hard to get as much of herself in it without any luck.

Carved pumpkins lit up

Carved pumpkins with a flash. After everyone at the party carves their pumpkin, they get lined up outside on the step for judging. We couldn't stay that long this year though!

On Sunday, our church hosted a Pumpkin Carving Party/Chili Cook Off for families. We had a LOT of fun!

It is wonderful how the big kids let the littler ones in the group. William did not have anyone tell him he wasn't allowed to be with them. They all gave him jobs to do and let him help. Although I wasn't thrilled to find him with sharp objects in his hands every time I turned around, it warmed my heart to see how much fun he was having with the big kids.

Again, tag teaming. John carving.

Kris was so patient with William!

William wanted to have a "happy" pumpkin (L) and a "sad" pumpkin (R)

The chili tasting set up - there was a LOT of chili! People voted by putting money into the jars in front of the crock pots. The person with the most money won the cook off! All the money raised was given to a family in our congregation struggling with medical expenses.

Daddy and Mia. I think she played with this cup more than most of her toys we've paid for with money. Also wearing her cute Halloween pajamas!
Daddy & Mia
Guess what? I am the Chili cook off winner*! I won a ladle trophy and a Halloween set of towels/potholders! Yahoo!

*I found out later, my husband significantly "fixed" the vote. So, I know where the votes came from now!