8 Weeks Old +Memorial Day Fun (or not)

We went hiking at Quarry Hill, just a few minutes away from Grandpa and Grandma's house

Grandma and William get ready to hike
The start of the hike (it wasn't all paved, I promise)

We saw turtles! And birdies! How exciting! William was so excited to look for animals on our hike. When we asked what he would be looking for, he replied "Cows and sheep". Bummer. It is too bad that I know going in you are going to be disappointed. He later updated his list to include frogs, monkeys, tigers, cows and sheep. Too bad we only saw birds and turtles.
Looking into the water for some frogs. Or fish (we didn't see either)
Our hike took us right by an old quarry. Grandpa climbed down and took a picture of us looking us: Daddy, Grandma with a death grip on William, Mama and Mia

Day #2 of dandelion blowing instruction: still no success

Grandma, William & Grandpa after hiking!
Grandma, William, Grandpa & Amelia after hiking. This could make a cute Christmas card...


....................................................
Later in the day, I realized two things:
1. Amelia was 8 weeks old today
2. I didn't really get any pictures of Amelia in the baptism dress because she couldn't wear it in the carseat. I had to put it on her at the church and take it off of her before we went home again. So, I dressed our girl up again and got to work. As always, there is a great deal of editing to be done, but I'm tired. If I waited to edit them, you would never see them.



Hiking, shopping, playing are all in a day's work! She is still smiling close to bedtime - what a great girl!
8 weeks old with the baptism dress on
Trying to make herself look bigger than she really is by spreading out.
When she smiles, she smiles with her whole body. Her arms and legs wiggle around! She is so happy!
Serious baby
Thinking about smiling again

8 week old, such a sweet baby girl
Her face is so expressive!
Not happy in this position - the dress was so slippery, she slid right off the pillow
Still not pleased, but willing to chew on the thumb for a few minutes

the end of our session...the beginning of a grumpy face

*Gah! I should have taken a picture of my grandma, mom, me and Mia! The days just went by so fast, we took pictures so we could remember WHAT we were doing each day. So busy! Why didn't we take any of our generations pictures this time? Putting it on the list of things to do!

Baptism

One of the things we were hoping for was to have Amelia baptized at the church where John and I both grew up. John and I were married at the church and William was baptized here as well. We considered having Amelia baptized at our new church here in Missouri, but then most of our family wouldn't have been able to be there. So, Rochester it was!

One of the reasons we needed to schedule a baptism is this dress (the lines on the window were making me so mad! I just wanted the dress! Argh!). This dress was purchased by my Great Grandma Myrtle for my mom's (Kim) baptism. We'll go ahead and say that was a few years ago. She wore the dress and I also wore the dress when I was baptized roughly 30 years ago. My sister and girl cousins all wore this dress as well. It was very special for Amelia to wear this dress on her baptism day for my family - which means we needed to hurry up and do it before she grew!

William has three godparents (Aunt Kaye, Jessica&Chris Gaedke, so we selected three godparents for Amelia as well: Joe & Cathy Moore (John's sister and husband) and Jeff Conderman (our very good friend and my former coworker). I don't think we could have come up with better godparents - words can't fully express how much we admire and respect Joe, Cathy and Jeff. We were so thrilled that all three of them were able to make the trip to Rochester with just a few weeks notice (Jeff from St Louis, Cathy & Joe from Chicago). It made Amelia's day so special to have all three of them there with her.

In addition to her godparents, all four of Amelia's Great Grandparents from North Dakota were able to attend as well as Great Aunt Kaye, Great Uncle Kevin, Kelly's siblings and parents. We were lucky enough to have high school friends Jessica(with baby Cana) and Jesse there as well as one of our mentors from high school youth group, Randy in attendance. A lot of people drove a lot of miles to be with our family and Amelia. For such a busy holiday weekend without much notice, we had quite the crowd! It really was a very special day for our family to be surrounded by our family and friends.

Amelia's name on the bapitismal wall hanging (left side)
It was a little chaotic because there were 2 other baptisms during the service
It's dark, but it's the best one we have of everyone during the baptism
Handing her over to the pastor...she had been sleeping very peacefully
The baptism itself was pretty quick...
Which was good because Amelia was NOT happy about being woken up with the water. She was SCREAMING. And if you've heard her cry, you know that Amelia has a very big voice.
Lighting the baptismal candle. Amelia is still unhappy...

Mama and Mia

Daddy, Mama and Mia

Us with our daughter

Amelia and her sponsors (L-R): Jeff Conderman, Daddy, Mama, Amelia, Joe Moore, Cathy Moore.

The godparents: Jeff Conderman, Cathy Moore, Joe Moore

Same picture, Cathy holding Amelia
The same picture, a little clearer and a little darker

Cathy and Joe with Amelia. Amelia LOVED Cathy. She was all smiles in Cathy's arms and even laughed out loud! It was just smile after smile after smile! Very cute! I am pretty sure in this picture she is charming the pants off both of these two.
Jeff and Amelia

Our family! William would NOT put down the snack trap
It is fun to try and get a picture with a wiggly two year old!
Our family! William, John, Kelly, Amelia. Finally let go of the orange cup for the big red Bible
Jeff admiring his goddaughter

John and his sister, Cathy

After the baptism, my parents generously put together a lunch for everyone. It was WONDERFUL and I didn't have to do anything! I got to enjoy our family and friends without worrying about the food, kitchen or anything work related. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Amelia's cake (just turn your head, sorry!)
Grandma Kim (aka Baby Hog) does what she does best
The McGarry Kids (L-R): Mike, Kelly, Megan
William coloring with GranGerry

It also got to be Daddy's birthday for a few mintues on Sunday! Thank you Grangerry and Grandpa Tom
A nice picture of Amelia and Grandma Kim. Note Amelia's pretty pink outfit. This outfit was a gift from the Gravdahl's when I was born. According to my mom, I wore this outfit when I was 6 months old. It just barely fits Amelia right now (8 weeks) because she is SO TALL. Crazy! Now, watch, she will be 5'1''.

Friends!

We had a lot of family anxious to meet Amelia, but the friends were lining up also! We were so excited to bring out baby girl to meet some new friends! Again, in no particular order...

First up is my best friend from high school, Jessica. In the background is her wonderful husband Chris and her adorable daughter Cana.
Better picture of Jessica, although it doesn't have the cutie in the background (that would be Cana, not Chris for the record)
Our girls! I still get a little teary with disbelief when I look at these pictures. I STILL can't believe we have a baby girl! We couldn't get over how tall Amelia is next to Cana. Cana is almost 6m months old and Amelia is almost 2 months old. We grow 'em tall 'round here!

These two are going to be friends for sure! At one point, the girls were almost holding hands. Of course, I did not get a picture of it! I love the fact that both girls have the crazy hair going on.
We also got to meet another awesome friend from high school with her new baby at the park. Here is Robyn and Mariella. Mariella is 27 days older than Amelia.
The girls (same blanket, different baby on the right)! As you can see, Mariella has discovered her feet recently. I don't think I have any pictures of her with her feet down!
We met Robyn and her family at a local park so our big kids could play while the mamas and babies visited. I was so happy to have some helpers with us at the park: Aunt Megan, Uncle Mike, and Daddy. I really got to enjoy my time visiting with the babies while the big kids could play.

The big kids! Jacob on the left and William on the right. Jacob is 5 months older than William. And, yes, William put his own hat on and wouldn't let anyone fix it so it was straight. He really is 2!

Jacob and William do a high five. The boys were not at all interested in meeting each other or having their picture taken together. They just wanted to play. It took a lot of work to get these few pictures of them together!

Uncle Mike shows William how it is done. It sure was nice of him to come with to keep an eye on William...seeing as he didn't enjoy himself!

Uncle Mike decided it was time to instruct William in the blowing of dandelion seeds
The lesson begins...
First attempt...

Second attempt. If you look carefully, you will see the dandelion seeds stuck to William's mouth. I think more went in than blew away!

We also were able to meet up with another high school friend, Jesse. We haven't seen Jesse in over a year and he drove in to see Amelia be baptized at our old church. What a special day for us!