Spring Break Fun in the Pool

Some photos and videos from the pool during our Spring trip to Minnesota didn't get posted right away! Here's a look back:

William tentatively walks into the pool. As with everything lately, he threw a giant fit on the way down to the pool, refused to get in and then proceeded to have a great time swimming! He stood on these steps for a long time before I finally pulled him in against his wishes. He finished the day off by throwing another fit about having to get out of the pool. This boy is exhausted at night with all the fighting he does. When will he learn it is just easier to listen to your Mama? (Or Daddy?)

Grandpa, Amelia, Uncle Mike, and William playing in the pool.

Amelia and Grandpa playing with a ball.

Uncle Mike and William. William had a lot of fun playing with Uncle Mike in the pool. Mike was super patient and let William go at his own speed while still pushing him out of his comfort zone from time to time.

The smile here says it all!

Amelia and Mama in the pool. Amelia spent the greater part of her time in the water trying to either drink the water or lunging for the big ball when I wasn't paying attention. Whatever time she wasn't

William waits with Grandpa for the ball.

Kelly doing some of her physical therapy for her tendinopathy. Therapy required creativity on vacation! What dedication!

William jumping into the pool. If you can call this jumping.

Amelia jumps into the pool.


Do you see a difference? Our girl has no fear!

Tooth #12

That last molar. Finally. At last.

Happy Easter!

We had some beautiful weather on Easter this year! We had a quiet day here at home - somewhat unusual for us as we usually travel over the holidays. Staying home and without visitors made for a quiet day! The kids were up early. Most of the time this would be something we would moan and groan about, but today is was kind of a good thing.

Amelia is Excited! about Easter!

A little smile...

And she's DONE with the pictures

William's "cheese" face

The kids, togetherWilliam picked out the red socks. I didn't argue because I figured they would be inside his shoes...when he left the house.

The Easter bunny came to our house! Amelia was super happy unloading and reloading her basket.William reads his Bunny mail

Mia hunts for eggs - she was pretty good!

Mia's eggs were filled with Cheerios, goldfish crackers, and 1 had a marshmallow bunny inside it.

Two handed shove to get the marshmallow inside her mouth

William's yearly picture with the bunny ears. Both kids declined to have their picture taken with the bunny nose sunglasses I picked up this year. I've already put them away for next year - maybe next year I'll have a taker.

Mia with the bunny ears

The rest of the morning was crazy as John had to go and help make pancakes for the Easter breakfast. I arrived later with the kids and managed the enormous accomplishment of feeding both of them in public. I even ate too. Although, I should probably be honest and let you know there isn't any shortage of people willing to hold Amelia and catch William when he takes off on my at church. Great people at our church! We went to church as a family and then came home for some resting.

We had a lazy afternoon which included our first family picnic in our front yard. No one was very hungry for lunch, so we took out some fruit, cheese and crackers to snack on while we enjoyed some BEAUTIFUL weather. We played, we hung out together - it was a nice weekend.

Tooth #11

Lower left molar! One more left! Will there be sleep in my future?

12 month photos

Amelia is ONE. She is MUCH more difficult to photograph these days. She doesn't hold still for more than a minute and most certainly has her own agenda about what she would like to be doing. And what she wants to be doing doesn't involve sitting still. I think I attempted close to 200-250 pictures of her today and ended up with about three I love. Oh well....

Hanging out in Mama's bed

Ah ha! Sitting still for just a moment.

Peeking at Mama out of the corner of her eye.Laughing out loud - notice I'm trying to distract her with some chapstick.

Standing up on the bed? Always a fun time! (notice new wall color new bedding!)

Cheese - this one maybe should be more of an out take?

Finally! Except for the chapstick in her mouth
Another attempt at distraction with a trucks bookMy girl

Here I am trying to get a picture of her wearing the birthday crown and the 1 onesie I made for her. That isn't too much to ask, is it?

She's already got her own ideas about personal style

I like it better this way Mama!

When Daddy got home from work, we opened up some presents.

Amelia loved all the paper!

Daddy loved the clothes (just kidding, I asked him to hold them up for a picture)

Amelia took one look at this and said "KITTY!!!" She hugged it to her and did not let go.

Checking out Amelia's #1 onesie

After dinner, I finally had an assistant (Daddy) who could help me keep the birthday crown on for more than a few seconds

She still had her own ideas about how to wear it though!

Eating her birthday cupcake

A final parting shot: Amelia getting ready to crawl off the edge of the bed

Happy birthday baby girl!

Amelia is ONE!

(Sniff, sniff)

My baby is one today! It is an emotional day for me, remembering the day a year ago she was born.

Amelia - we are so proud to be your parents and watch you grow. We look at pictures of you from a year ago and can't believe the spunky, loving little girl you have become. We look at you today and wonder what clues you are giving us about the girl you are going to become. You love:

Dancing
Playing with your brother
Water: swimming, bath time, washing your hands, drinking from an open cup and splashing in puddles
Books
Music
Eating anything that looks different on your tray
being held


What a difference one year makes!

hours old
one month old
two months old
three months old
four months old
five months old

six months old
seven months old
eight months old
nine months old
ten months old
eleven months old

twelve months old

Amelia is very observant about what other people are doing. She picks up on every little thing. Rustling coming from the closet? She is there to check it out. Going to the bathroom by yourself? Think again. In the last month she has noticed the rest of us use utensils while we are eating and has decided she needs some too. She is quiet proud to use the fork and get food to her mouth (I put the food on the fork when she lets me, she isn't able to do this by herself except on rare occasions). She has also picked up on that no one else at the table is wearing a bib while they eat. I've almost entirely given up on making her wear one because she can pull it off faster than I can get it back on her. I now only insist on her wearing it when we are eating something super messy (spaghetti, etc). The utensils and the bib are funny/interesting to me because only in the last 6 months did William start using silverware by himself (and still doesn't always use it) and William quit wearing bibs at meals maybe 4 months ago. He probably would still be wearing them if I insisted. He doesn't care - it's about the food/eating with him.

Speaking of William, Amelia still idolizes her big brother. She wants to be right with him ALL the time. Whatever toy he has, she wants it. Whatever he is doing, she wants to do it too. It all gets to be a little suffocating for William and we've had some real struggles lately in sharing toys and being kind to each other. We're working hard at this, but I have to tell you - it is exhausting. Physically, emotionally and altogether exhausting. What did you do today? I refereed the use of a toy shopping cart for nine hours. A process which included multiple time outs, much screaming, crying, yelling, throwing of toys, several attempts at biting and a large quantity of Advil. In the end, the shopping cart is going to spend the next few days resting in my closet. Not that it will make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things. We have exactly 5465465465654651168465461 other toys in this house to fight over.

Amelia does not struggle much with communicating. She says:

Moo (when she sees a cow or horse)
Kitty (any animal with the exception of a cow)
Pretty
Mama
Dada
Ball
Baby
Hi
Hi there
Nono
bye bye
tickle

Signs

Washing hands
phone
hi/bye
up

and when all those fail the ear piercing shriek often does wonders at getting things done in a timely manner. She also entertains us with the silly faces she can make and the mimicking of our actions. For example, when you pick her up? She'll grunt right with you from the effort.


Amelia took her first steps earlier this month and is walking more and more. She is getting braver and choosing to walk herself (rather than me bribing her to). One concern I had about having a second child is that the milestones would seem less exciting or amazing because we had already been through it with William. I will now say without a doubt I am just as excited about Amelia learning to walk as I was when William learned. My worries were unfounded. The milestones are not as neatly and precisely documented as William's were, but my excitement is not at all diminished.

Sleep has been a major challenge this month. I would estimate on average Amelia has slept through the night roughly 20% of the time in the last thirty days. I think I have paid back all of my debt from Amelia's first weeks when she slept through the night so early. She is typically up once or twice a night around 2am/4am. Right now we're not really doing anything about it because she is also getting in all four of her gigantic molars at one time. Once these teeth are fully in, she is going to be in for a tiny bit of tough loving at night. This Mama needs to sleep.