A Birthday Party!

We had the opportunity to go home to Minnesota to spend some quality time with our families for an entire week! While we were there (as usual), we squeezed in a whole LOT of fun stuff! Today we threw Amelia her first first birthday party with all our Minnesota family and friends in attendance.

Mama and her girl welcoming the guests to the party

The kids playing together - William and cousins Alex and Elena

Amelia looking at her sparkly princess wand

Someone brought William books. He then parked himself with who ever would read to him for the rest of the day.

Cousin Alex - I can't get over how grown up these two have become. Which default means my kiddo must be doing the same thing since he is roughly 6 months older than his cousins.

Yes, they are related. Alex admires the hotwheels collection

The girls play - I was amazed at how well Elena did with the little babies. She was so gentle and sweet with them. She happily shared toys and moved around them so everyone could play. So different from William - I'm afraid to say!

Girlfriends! Amelia and Cana (the daughter of one of my very best friends)

Amelia standing on her own two feet! Even more amazing was the fact we got a picture of the event!

Mama's happy birthday banner got some more useCake for everyone

Amelia had her own little cake I made. For some reason it was important to me that I make the first cake she gets to taste. Even if it did come from a box. I had a pretty white dress picked out for Amelia to wear at her birthday party. We drove a long way to get to MN and after unpacking and putting the kids to bed, John ran to the store to get a chocolate cake and white frosting. Well...as normal with us, John came home with a white cake and chocolate frosting. Luckily I had brought along a brown dress as well. Good thing with all that chocolate frosting. However, when I frosted up the cake, I somehow ran out of frosting. So it was a pretty....ugly first cake. I will vouch for it tasting good though.

Mike and the kids share their cake and ice cream

Amelia's first cake. She was a little more aggressive than William was. William couldn't figure out what to do with the cake when we put it down in front of him. Amelia on the other hand...

Amelia dove right in

She got both hands in deep in the frosting

I felt bad that she really didn't eat any cake so I shared a little piece with her before I stripped her down and bathed her in my mom's new extra deep kitchen sink. It is the perfect size for giving a baby a bath. Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with us! It was a special day for our girl!

Walking!

Amelia took her official first steps today*. We're still working on getting video. So exciting!

*Yesterday's steps were unofficial because she didn't walk to mama. She was walking towards someone else. Everyone knows that the first steps have to be towards your mama in order to count.

Spiders + Dirt

William has really, really developed a passion for imaginative play. He makes up scenarios with his toys and is able to spend a significant chunk of time playing out these "games" either by himself or with one of us. While this is a wonderful development, it can occasionally be difficult to get him to let go of the game to do other things. Like eat lunch, go to story time at the library or get dressed. Luck for me, many of his games can be carefully altered and delicately reworked to allow us to accomplish daily living.

Recently, we've had some guests of the imaginary variety. See, in each of William's hands are a spider. The spiders come and play games, read books and entertain him in the car. Most notably, they are huge assistants in accomplishing tasks William is not interested in doing. They come out and help him put on his clothes in the morning and his pj's at night. They help him eat vegetables on his plate and pick up the toys around the house. They put on his shoes and coat before going outside. A majority of the time, William calls up the spiders and has a quiet conversation with them before beginning a task. Totally adorable to watch, utterly impossible not to laugh. I will admit to calling for their assistance on a few occasions in order to hurry things up. Without the help of our friendly spiders, it can take upwards of 15 minutes to put on his coat and shoes (velcro, one strap for the record). With the spider friends, we have it down to under 5 minutes. Astonishing. Wonderful. And adorable.



Also, Amelia ate dirt today for the first time in big, huge handfuls. We were outside playing/working and I turned to find she had pulled herself up on a planter and was alternately throwing dirt out on the ground and stuffing fistfuls of the stuff into her mouth. Needless to say, outside playtime was over and bathtime began. Immediately.

Words

Amelia's new words in the last few days!

Kitty

Ball

Moo

Finally Spring? I hope?

The weather is finally starting to be warm enough to play outside! Hurray! We didn't get out much last spring with being hugely pregnant and Ms Amelia being born. So, we are enjoying it doubly now! William's been practicing up with his new bike and both kids have been enjoying wagon rides. The only thing cramping my style is my "no walking for exercise orders" from the doctor. So, we've done short, short wagon rides and little bike rides up and down the street. Which has made me pretty cranky. I'd like nothing more than a long walk with our 3 mile loop or taking to the woods for a mini hike. But, those things will have to wait for now. In the meantime, I've been busy trying to clean up our yard from at least a year of half hearted upkeep. I enjoy pulling weeds (really!) and there are plenty of areas that are in desperate need of attention. And hopefully summer will wait for awhile so I can squeeze in some time walking and hiking before the temperature is closer to broiling than baking.

11 Months old

Look at that face. This little girl is so spunky. You can see that little glimmer of trouble in her eye in the above picture. That's my girl! Amelia was a little cheated out of her 11 month birthday being that February only has 28 days! So, we went with March 2nd being the official 11 month mark. The last few months have been so busy with William's birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving and Halloween it is starting to feel like I've been cheating our girl out of some camera time. I wanted to be sure I got some pictures of our baby before she turns 1 next month (or this month, whatever).
In the last few weeks, EVERYTHING has been in her mouth. If you're brave enough to put a finger in there with all her other sharp teeth, you'll feel four HUGE bumps in the back of her mouth where her molars are coming in. Poor baby!

Chew, chew, chew
She loves the game where she "shares" something with you. She hands you an object. You hold it for a heartbeat and she takes it back. And the cackles away. Because she is the funniest baby ever.

Such a happy girl! As long as things are going her way...but don't cross her! She has a temper! I'm still working on getting video proof of her temper. So cute (at this stage anyway)! Her hair is still so soft and fluffy. Something is a little different not though I'm not sure what. It is SUPER fluffy on top and I can't get it to lay down for anything. It looks like it is coming in more and more in a light brownish color, but I suppose anything can still happen.

William's toys make the best teethers!

I have been looking forward to putting Amelia in this polka dot dress for awhile now! With the sun shining in, today seemed like the perfect opportunity!

Dropping things on the ground over and over is also a riveting game. Here she is dropping William's toy, retrieving it, dropping it, etc.

Pretty girl! We haven't been doing many dresses lately because a)it has been cold and b) they are VERY difficult to crawl in. So fun to see her in her dress!

Silly faces!

Tiny fingers. You would not believe the damage these fingers can do! She pinches and scratches HARD!

Cute baby toes in summer sandals (crossing my fingers they still fit!)
Tip toes!

Amelia is quite the efficient climber. The minute she hears the bathroom door open, she crawls like crazy to get in there. We had been keeping the door open to allow W. quicker access to the potty, but no more! William's room is also off limits now as Amelia has figured out how to open his dresser drawer and empty it quicker than...well really fast.

She loves to get up here and look at herself in the mirror. And throw things into the sink. Like toilet paper, tooth brushes, garbage, anything in her reach.

Just standing on the stool isn't cool enough!
Higher! Higher! Must climb higher!

Ahhh....the two kids. This picture is a great representation as to the relationship between the two. It looks all sweet and nice, but William is really with holding the toy Amelia really wants. Because he can. He doesn't care one bit about any stuffed animal or baby doll unless Amelia is playing with it. And Amelia is waiting for him to give it up. We had our first instance of biting recently (A bit W) over a toy.

No Amelia! Amelia then replies "Nonononononono??!?!" So cute!

My handsome big boy

I will not smile for you. Nope, I won't.

William and his sidekick waiting for Mama at the top of the stairs

THIS is what I need to remember about this age. Amelia is a tornado. She can unload/tip/open just about every container we own. I think I pick up the books from the bookcase about 45 times every day. I shouldn't, but otherwise they get stepped on, driven on and ripped. I just can't let that happen to our books. Yet. Anyway, Amelia spends a great portion of her day crawling to and from different areas of the house emptying book shelves, dumping buckets of blocks, cars and play food, unfolding clothes, and harassing the cat. The only time I have to get ahead of her mess making is when she is harassing the cat.

Other stuff:

Really starting to talk. She greets everyone with the prettiest "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii-a!" everywhere we go. She also has been doing a lot of mimicking of other words lately. She has said "thank you" "potty" "van" and "book" recently. All words were one time occurrences which I don't count as words. Amelia is finally starting to come back to books. I just couldn't get her to slow down enough to read with me for the past month or so. Not even a page here or there. Nope. Just way to many things for her to do. Now she is finally interested in sitting for a short while and listening to books. Not like William. William would sit with you and read for as long as you were willing. And then want some more. Amelia especially likes books with real photographs of babies in them and any book about animals. In the last week she has decided the funniest noise is "Meow!" . She laughs every. single. time. I do it. Which means I do it a bazillion times a day. Because I love to hear her laugh. She continues to love baby dolls and stuffed animals. She carries them around with her either clenched in one hand or in her mouth. She kisses them, hugs them and pats them exuberantly. We are seeing more and more standing unassisted for longer periods of time. We've also seen a few steps here and there without any support. So far, it hasn't been her idea to leave the support of mom or dad to go out on her own. But, it's coming along. Amelia loves all food. There isn't anything she has encountered she hasn't tried. From cardboard to vegetables, Amelia is quite the little eater! At dinner time, she has been crawling over to her high chair and attempting to crawl in by herself and when that fails, she busies herself with shaking food off of the tray to the floor to eat. When she has something she likes, she hums "mMMMMmmmn" as she eats. There have been a few occasions lately where I'm certain Amelia has out eaten William at dinnertime. Amazing! Her current favorite is probably spaghetti. She loves, loves, loves it! I think that sums up our Mia!