Do you Glow?

Every year in St Louis, there is a balloon race. The day before race, all the balloon-ers gather together in a big field and light up their balloons. Which, doesn't sound that exciting. But, when there are 30+ hot air balloons glowing in the dark night sky, it really is an amazing sight!

This is a HUGE event. I'm going to go ahead and estimate there were at least 1000 people there. Or 10,000 people. Tons and tons of people. So, right now I'm going to have to take time out and thank my wonderful husband for agreeing to this at all. He isn't a fan of crowds and certainly not with this many people in a smallish area. Add in the 2.5 year old with no fear and a whole new level of anxiety is reached.

But, I really wanted to go and he agreed. Thank you, wonderful husband.

Because it was our first time attending and because the timing of the event didn't especially work out well with the kids' schedule, we needed to be creative with our timing. So, we got there super early to get a parking space. The glow started at 7pm and we got there at roughly 4:30pm (in fact, we would have gotten there sooner, except I was running late as usual). Our game plan was to park the car somewhat far away from the actual balloon event and facing out of the park so we wouldn't maybe have to sit in so much traffic. The kids are usually tucked into their beds by 8pm and when there aren't....it isn't pretty. Playing with bedtime is like playing with fire. You just aren't sure if you are going to get screaming, crying, angry, naughty or a combination of them. But, regardless, it isn't pretty. Just picturing us sitting in a looooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg line of cars waiting to exit the park while the kids screamed/cried/etc was enough to raise my bloodpressure several notches. So, we were trying to avoid this scenario.

Because we were so early, we hit the zoo first and found....everyone was not on display or sleeping. We managed to peek at the penguins and watch a sun bear go to the bathroom (William is still talking about this - consider yourself warned: he is only capable of talking about this at one volume. THE BEAR WENT POTTY. ON THE GROUND).

After a short visit at the zoo, we wandered over to roughly where we thought the field was located. We found it super funny that about 10 different people asked us for directions. Because we looked so official and we knew where we were going. Several times it was the people in front of us asking and we had been following them. It was probably close to a two mile hike to the balloon field from the zoo. We had packed a fabulous dinner, drinks, snacks, toys, blankets, diapers, and other emergency items so the stroller was VERY heavy and I ended up pushing it up two gigantic hills in the grass. My legs were burning. Luckily, there was another woman pushing a stroller up the hill and my competitive side wouldn't allow her to reach the top before me. I crowed with delight (or groaned with the pain, maybe?) when she had to stop halfway up the hill to let her toddler get out and walk.

When we got to the field, there were people EVERYWHERE. I knew it was going to be crowded, but it was SO CROWDED even at 6pm. I couldn't even see balloons or where the event would be happening. So, we found a semi vacant spot and squeezed ourselves in to enjoy our picnic. And even though I wasn't planning on it, I quite possibly Amelia in front of the most people ever (discretely, of course).

William is so excited!

People were like this on all sides of us.

William enjoying his PB&J. I am the mother of the year people.

Daddy entertaining Mia while Mama plays with the camera - how FUN it was to play with the camera again! I didn't realize how much I missed it.

I'm not sure what this is all about. Amelia's been doing this awhile. You'll be holding her and suddenly without warning she will flop herself over and smile.
Daddy and his kiddos. The woman behind John on the left was laughing at William's antics while I was trying to take this picture!

Finally it was time to start! William was captivated!
The first balloon up from our vantage pointJohn and William enjoy...
I was trying to take pictures with very little light with the little Miss on my hip. She kept grabbing the camera strap and pull, pull, pulling on it to get to the camera. We finally had to swap kids so I could get some pictures. But, not before I took a picture of the little troublemaker!
The balloon lit up
The energizer bunny balloon
There are at least 6 balloons in this picture - can you see them all?
I loved how the balloons looked with their lights on....so pretty!
In the background of this picture, you can see the movie theatre popcorn balloon! (It is purple) Eight other balloons in this picture.
Suddenly, balloons started popping (not literally popping) up everywhere! It was amazing!
As the sky got darker and darker, the balloons stood out more and more. It was so beautiful, I had a hard time taking my eyes off of them!
The soda can balloon
Nine balloons in the picture by my count
So pretty!
I totally fell in love with the patchwork design balloons! They were gorgeous!
Please recycle!
Look at how funny everyone looks trying to take pictures of the balloons!
Ooohhh....patchwork balloon! I was so inspired by the balloons, I spent at least an hour looking at different quilting patterns when I got home!

I was in heaven: my little family, an absolutely gorgeous evening (mid 70's, slight breeze, no bugs), my camera strap around my neck and beautiful balloons against the night sky. Even more exciting was when a horn sounded, all the balloons lit up at the same time. It was absolutely breath taking.

Sadly, we decided it was time to go about 8pm. I was absolutely NOT ready to leave. The glow officially goes until 8:30 when there is a fireworks display. But, we had a long walk back to the car, a longer drive back home (45ish minutes) and some tired kiddos. So, we packed up and left before everything was over. Which meant traffic was a breeze and the kiddos were tucked into their own beds by 9:30pm. They were tired, and so were we. But, it was a wonderful time - I even got John to admit he liked it and would consider going again next year! Yay!

Introducing...Solids!

Now that Amelia is rounding on the 6 month mark, we've decided she (and us) is ready to start working on solid foods. We've come to this decision as a result of many factors, none of which are probably interesting to you. So, I'll go ahead and tell you. Feel free to skip ahead to the messy baby eating food at the end of this post.

1) She is so interested. Everything goes into her mouth. Everything. Grass. Fuzz. Paper. Socks. If you want to get picky, she's already had her first, second, third, and fourth helping of solids.

2) Our goal was to wait for the 6 month mark. We started introducing solids at 5 month, two weeks of age. Goal achieved in my book.

3)The time between feedings was decreasing and Amelia was consistently waking up earlier in the morning. Instead of going 4 hours between feeding, we were going 2 - 2.5 hours.

4) I am loosing my hair, in part due to the demand nursing is placing on my body. I am proud to provide the sole nutrition for my daughter (since she is stubborn and refuses a bottle, I have nothing against formula) and I will continue to feed her for a long while to come. But, the almost bald patches at the front of my hair are getting hard to ignore as is the horrifying amount of hair I loose on a daily basis in the shower.*

The first day: just milk on a spoon. I wanted to know how well she would do with eating something she was already familiar with: milk.

The answer? She was wonderful. She opened her mouth and made a beeline for the spoon. She was HUNGRY and she wanted MORE. And, would you take a look at the cheeks on my baby. I love, love, love those fat cheeks.

T
I was going to go ahead and keep working on just the milk, but Amelia was WAY ahead of my expectations. So, the next day we went ahead and started with the cereal (first official solid food fed by ME on purpose: 9/14/2009). As you would guess, this cereal was about 5 tablespoons of milk and 1 of cereal. Although you can't tell by this picture, Amelia really, really liked it. She laughed and giggled. She opened her mouth for more. She insisted on holding a spoon and chewing on it between bites.Baby taste tester: tastes like chicken?

Mmmmmmm.....

She was so focused on the spoon and getting that food into her mouth! Look at her opening her mouth like such a smart girl! Also: look at the mosquito bite on my hand. I have 3498736428769124 bites from this weekend. Everyone else total: 3 bites.

Mmmmmmmm...yummy carbs...also, if you don't find messy baby faces fun and amusing, you might want to check back here in another year. I am a HUGE fan of messy baby faces.

And, she cleans up after herself! Yay Amelia! Also note: if you want to build something indestructible, use baby cereal mixed with milk. The stuff is like cement.

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Things are going so well, Daddy stepped in to take a turn feeding the baby girl during her first week of cereal!

Getting ready...Amelia requires her own spoon to use. Or, you spend to whole time trying to get your spoon back from her.

So excited! Eating up the cereal. Also, the cereal is brown because I put her vitamins in it.

The daddy and his baby girl

*This happened with William also, but not to this extent. The hair also grew back after William. It was almost the same length as the rest of my hair when Amelia was born. Just in time to fall out again.

No More Kisses

William has been a hoot, as usual. On Sunday, we ran to the store for....well, something. On our way there, I buckled him into his carseat and then kissed his cheek. Moments later, I turned to see HIM WIPING OFF MY KISS. Clearly he is an early bloomer as I thought you needed to be at least three for this behavior.

So, I kissed him again in the same spot. Twice. He looked at me very seriously and told me:

"I don't like it Mama kisses anymore. I only like Daddy kisses. No more kissing Mama."

I about died right there in the car trying not to laugh out loud. Because, you know, he was totally serious. I tried kissing him again (I was buckled in right next to him because I was too lazy to get out of the back seat and get in the front seat) a few minutes later and he again wiped off my kisses.

There are two reasons I am lucky:

1) William's baby sister might have the most kissable cheeks on the planet, so there will just have to be more kisses for her.

2) This morning I was kissing on those fat baby sister cheeks while she giggled away. William wandered over and plunked himself down next to me and demanded some kisses of his own. No recollection of the kisses ban from the previous day.

Camping Retreat Weekend

You can read about our camping adventure last year here.

With two kids in tow this year, we opted to not stay over at the campground. I'm sure we could have swung it...but it would have been a lot of work for us. Not the relaxing kind of weekend we were looking for.

1) William runs a LOT. In a wide open campground, this is a little scary. You can't turn your back on him for longer than .5678513854 seconds because he has no [very little] fear. He also thinks he is one of the big kids and will follow them anywhere without checking to make sure THEY know he is with they (most of them are pretty good at helping out and keeping track of him WHEN they know he is there).

2)All Amelia wants to do is crawl on her hands and knees. She would practice 27 hours a day if she could. She does NOT want to be held and will twist, turn, wriggle, and general be a nuisance until you finally put her down. Sadly, she does not stay on a blanket anymore either. She makes a beeline for the edge of the blanket and then shoves as much grass/dirt/sticks/dirty objects into her mouth as she can fit. Because Mama is surely coming and will take it away.

So, we made a day out of it. I'm a little sad to not be part of the whole adventure, but I think we'll try again next year!

What a beautiful day! The temps were in the 80's with a little breeze - heavenly! We decided to take a different ferry this time out of Grafton, MO (creatively named The Grafton Ferry). In this picture, the ferry is approaching from a distance.
The ferry: small
William got out of his carseat and watched the boat from the window
Amelia's first boat ride! 9/12/09
Amelia and daddy on her first ferry ride. William was very entertained by the motorcycles behind John while we were waiting for the ferry. Although, I have no idea "What is the motorcycle saying now, Mama?" No idea. What would a motorcycle say besides "Brmmmmmmm!"?
William on the ferry with Mama. I finally got him out of the car, but I was WAY to nervous to let him get down and wander around. The sides of this ferry are waaaaaaaaaaayyy to open for my peace of mind!
Then, we let Amelia drive the car for awhile. John was too afraid to look...Amelia had a great time though! Look at her face!
Just kidding, but the steering wheel is fun to play with!
We met up with the rest of our church group at the apple orchard for some apple picking. Here are John and William waiting for the tractor to take us back to the apple trees. I was REALLY looking forward to this because it is fun. And, also Honey Crisp apples. Sadly, the cooler weather we enjoyed this summer mean the honey crisps aren't quite ready for picking yet. So, we had to make do with the Jonathan and Yellow Delicious. Still yummy!
This is called the pumkinator. It shoots pumpkins, I guess. John was disappointed we didn't get to see it in action. I reminded him we don't need to give our little boy any ideas....
William pickin' his apples - he enjoyed this so much more this year! No tantrums coming off the tractor this year!
Getting daddy's help for an apple up high...and winking at Mama is appears.
Showing me his apple (and watching the big kids run around like crazy)
Mama and Mia picking an apple together. She wanted this apple BADLY. I don't know what she wanted to do with the apple, but she was determined to have it in her hands. Hence, the not super cute picture of us.
I was impressed William wanted to eat the apple whole. Usually he is kind of picky about the peel and how it is cut up. I started the apple for him (actually, he stole the apple out of my hand after I started eating it)
So, I had to go and get a new apple. And hide it from Ms Mia and her brother Apple Stealer.
After he got an apple in his hands, William was pretty set to wander around and enjoy the day.
Still working on that apple
A BIG bite!
Waiting for the tractor to take us back to the farm. Still eating the apple while we waited for the tractor to take us back to the farm. I think he ate close to 75% of this apple (including part of the core when I wasn't looking) without any help from us.
After apple picking and admiring the animals for a little while, we packed up and went back to camp for some lunch. William wasn't interested in lunch. He was fascinated by this block/building set.
He happily played with this along with a couple other kids (they showed him how to get started) while I fed Amelia and then while John and I ate (we also tried to feed him, he just wasn't interested).
One of the best things? Having a lot of people around to hold Amelia/chase William so John and I can do luxurious things like eat a whole meal in one sitting. This is one of our favorite babysitters for William, Paige. We haven't actually left Amelia with a babysitter yet (with the exception of one time for a few hours while we attended a funeral). Which suddenly strikes me as crazy.
Here is Paige's brother Mitchell. I'm pretty sure he is teaching William how to shoot this gun at his sister.
William also got to play a little soccer with another big kid - thanks Josh! to run off some steam.


We haven't had any success in getting Amelia to take a bottle recently. Although, now I think we'll move straight to a water bottle. She LOVED this water bottle and cried when I took away from her. In my defense, my pants were entirely soaked (as were hers)because she wasn't actually drinking it, just drooling it everywhere. This makes me think we should skip the bottles and maybe start working on a sippy cup?
Here Zach and Mitchell are teaching William....big boy things I would guess. What is really means is that John and I got to eat another meal in one sitting. I would have to estimate my calorie consumption to somewhere around 879987938789674898 on Saturday due to all the helpful baby holders/toddler chasers. Maybe it is a good thing we don't usually have that much help?
William played with the dominoes/blocks again before we had to leave to catch the last ferry home again. I think he is going to need a set of dominoes for Christmas...

Morning Secrets

Amelia has been an early bird lately. Like 615am early*. When I hear her crying, I stumble into her room with my eyes shut to get her out of her crib before she wakes up her brother in the next room. With my eyes only half open, I shuffle back to bed while squeezing her diaper to gauge how close to overflowing we are (see here for more on that). Most days, I've been taking my chances on the diaper overflow and popping her into bed with me (John is surely more in love with me now than ever before, right honey?). It is win/win for both of us. John is already long gone at work, so we have the bed to ourselves. She eats, I snooze a little longer. We both snuggle, we're both happy.

What makes the moment a lot sweeter is Amelia's morning babbling is usually a whisper. Pfft. Fffft. Crccccccc... I like to think she is softly telling me secrets or about her dreams from the night before. Sweet, baby dreams, of course**.





*Anything before 7:30 to me is too early. Her early rising may or may not have to do with the fact that she is needing to eat more, so ready or not solids are coming soon***.

**I've been thinking about trying to get this on video. But, then the whole world would know all her secrets. I'm not sure I want to share these sweet secrets...

***Solids were coming in the next week or so regardless of the sleep situation.

Ka-BOOM

On the way home from Minnesota yesterday, William was complaining (and I don't blame him. 7+ hours strapped down into a carseat without being able to run or play very well...boring!). I was attempting to ignore him as it was nap time and I was hoping he would drift off for a Very Long Time. But, I was enjoying listening to him. At that moment, his chief complaint was that baby sister was not smiling at him. She was sleeping at that very moment and I wasn't about to wake her up to smile at her brother. More likely is waking her would remind her about being strapped into HER carseat and oh! but how unhappy she is about her carseat!

Without any help from me, William needed to do more if he was going to get that smile he was after. So, he started kicking Amelia's seat. Amelia continued sleeping (isn't she an angel? Although her halo was pretty tarnished when she cried/fussed/complained for the last 1.5 hours. Again, can't really blame her). He kicked harder and harder. Still, nothing. It got quiet for a few moments and I thought maybe, just maaaaayyyyybeeeeee he had fallen asleep when all of a sudden:

Ka-BOOM!!!!

William shouted "Ka-BOOM!" at his sister....and she woke up...with a gummy grin for her big brother. It was all I could do to not laugh out loud at his persistence and creative solutions to get what he wanted. It still makes me giggle thinking about it. Although, she was pretty crabby for the rest of the trip. That part wasn't so great.

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William has taken to greeting his little sister most mornings with a "Hey Babe!" I'm not sure where he got this one as it is one of the few things we DON'T call the baby sister. But, it is adorable every.single.time.