St Patrick's Day

I had big, big plans for St Patrick's Day this year. William is finally old enough to kind of understand that it is a special day and I was going to continue my mom's tradition of cooking up a green dinner. As in, everything is green (food coloring). I had some big plans of reading Green Eggs & Ham with William and then making it up for dinner. However, St Patrick's Day found us driving to Minneapolis, MN to spend some more time with family. Green eggs and Ham can be done any day. Family, not so much when they live so far away. Although not what I planned, we still found a few ways to celebrate:


Celebrated with a new word :"Pretty" from Amelia


Celebrated our Irish heritage with Chevy's margaritas and mexican for dinner.

The kids all decked out in their green. Please note William's shamrock socks paired with his new sandals. Nerd in training, right here people. And proud.

Wish us luck tonight as we attempt two kiddos in a hotel room with us for the first time ever!

tooth #9

Tooth #9 popped through today! Molar #1! Weeeee! Bottom right molar. Three more left to go!

A Baby Shower

I've been working on this post for the last week. I think our computer does not like the card for this camera because I get a picture uploaded and then the whole thing crashes. Not that you care. But, I've uploaded this particular set of pictures roughly a bazillion times in the last week. Ugh.

Anyway, we threw a baby shower for my cousin, Ashley who is due with her first baby early summer/late spring. I've been working and working on some crafty goodness for her which I pulled together in a spectacular diaper cake. You'll just have to take my word for it because I didn't take any pictures of the cake or my craftiness. But, it was AWESOME.

Ashley

Amelia shows Ashley how to work the toys

Ashley tries on the sleep sack I made (okay! One crafty item is pictured)

Aunt Kaye and Aunt Mary

Yep! The clothes will fit! Ashley tries the clothes on the belly.

Grandma and Amelia at the shower - I had a lot of help keeping Amelia out of trouble.

It was fun to see baby presents and to catch up with a few of my relatives I haven't seen in a long time!

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