Not a Baby Anymore

            We love it in PA so far.  The land here is beautiful, and there is always something to do.  We really enjoy going to the parks, and hiking in the woods.  Amelia is easily entertained with some acorns, rocks, and sticks.  I ask her to bake me something and she piles them up and starts stirring.  The only thing that would make this better is if we had family here.  It’s just the three of us, and sometimes it’s hard.
         My sweet baby is now a 2 year old.  The day she turned 2 (July 29^th), it was as if something took over her. 
She started biting, spitting, and pinching.  It took a few weeks to cure her of that, but she still has her moments….

         

          We made a cake for her daddy’s birthday this week.  She sang “Happy Birthday” all week, thinking she would get more cake.  I’m just glad I could eat this cake guilt-free by taking my sugar blockers.  Each pill blocks up to 20 grams of sugar, so I took 5 pills for one slice! haha!  Josh kept calling it a UFO cake because of the shape (and it was humongous). 

          Happy Saturday everyone!

Already Sweet Enough

      Amelia is 18 months old and the only "sweets" she has is fruit.  She would eat fruit all day if we let her.  We didn't want to get her "hooked" on candy and junk food.  You know, the stuff that I like.

     After Family Swim day, they hand out Lollipops.  I was a little hesitant on letting her have one, but glad I did!  It was so cute seeing her make a sour face.  She liked holding the Lollipop, but didn't care for the taste.

   Do you let your kids eat candy?  When did you start letting them have it?

Puddle Jumper

    We have been taking Amelia to the local indoor pool for Family Swim.  She absolutely loves being in the water.  I have heard great reviews about the Puddle Jumper life jackets from friends, so we decided to get one.  Plus, they are Coast Guard approved.
   Doesn't she look so cute in her floaties?  She couldn't wait to get in the water and yell at the other kids.  There was a guy there with a really long beard and Amelia kept saying "Hey Clause!!".  She thought he was Santa.


The best deal we could find was on Amazon.com (super cheap this time of year!)  

Toddler Bed Try #1

       We have been having a difficult time with Amelia's sleeping for a few weeks.  She doesn't want to nap and she wakes up at 1am EVERY night crying.  I thought maybe we could try to transition her to a toddler bed.  She was a big help in putting her "big girl bed" together.  Notice the tongue sticking out:

     When the bed was finally put together, she realized what it was.  "Oh Wow!", she said along with "Nice!".

    Nap time rolled around and she wasn't having any part of that thing.  Running around the room like a mad woman, jumping on the bed, and crying screaming.


   I decided she wasn't ready for the "big girl bed" yet and back in the crib she went with her backup Binky's.  

       What have you tried for your toddler's transition?

Addiction

       Amelia was a pretty cranky baby for the first 7 months of her life.  The doctor said it was "colic".  We tried everything under the sun. 
 Mylicon Drops, Colic Calm,  Gripe Water , Colic Care Gripe Water Blend, and the list goes on....  All of these products seemed to work for short periods, but this girl's got some lungs on her!  Even the doctors would say "We know her lungs are clear".  

       There was one thing that we forced onto her that quieted her down a bit (and gave  Mommy and Daddy's ears a break).  The BINKY!  We called it "plugging the scream hole".  
     At the time, we didn't care who thought it was "wrong".  Some people are totally against Paci's, but it was way better than her constant screaming.  She loved the Binky and soon began to call it her "NahNah".   I'm assuming it's because we always said "Night Night" when she went to bed.

            She is now 17 months old, and CANNOT go to sleep without her Binky.  I tried laying her down without it, and you would have thought the world was coming to an end.  We don't let her have it unless she is going to sleep, but I have to keep 3 of them in her crib in case she drops one!  How will we ever free her from this addiction???

We Have a Booboo

It's been one of those days....
         Amelia woke up bright and early at 7am crying for no reason.  I didn't even have time to fix a cup of coffee.
         When I was coming down the stairs with her, I slipped and jammed my big toe.  She was cracking up because she thought it was fun (I'm glad she didn't get hurt).  My toe hurt so bad that I started crying.  She started hugging me saying "alright?".  It was so sweet and really made me feel better.
        We decided to take her to the park and let her play.  Bad idea.  She ran and fell onto the pavement, head first.  Well, lip first.  When Josh picked her up, there was a pebble embedded into her upper lip and he had to pull it out.  She screamed as blood dripped. We immediately took her to the MedExpress to check if she needed a stitch or if there was any debris left from the pebble.  Everything turned out fine, but her poor lip will be swollen for a bit.

Wee Read

I took Amelia to the “Wee Read” at Adams Memorial Library today. At first, I was a little worried that she would be pitching a fit the whole time. 17 month olds tend to have short attention spans...

She absolutely LOVED it! There were other girls her age there, and they sang and danced the whole time. Oh, she was a ham for attention. When we began to do the Itsy Bitsy Spider, she got in the middle of the circle and “performed”. I wish I could have gotten more pictures, but I didn’t want to make the other moms feel uncomfortable.

Southerners in the North

Well, we up and moved to PA for my husband’s job. Never even seen more than 2 inches of snow in GA, so this should be different. In the month that we have been here, it has only snowed twice. The people from here keep saying “just wait, this is very mild”. The first time it flurried here, we ran around in it like we had never seen snow in our lives.

The second time it snowed, we were able to take Amelia sledding for a bit. She LOVED it and cried when we had to get back into the car. Now every time she sees the sled, she wants to ride on it. I think we may have a future Hannah Teter on our hands!

14 Months

                      Our little girl is 14 months old and it seems like she was born yesterday.  She has the cutest personality and can make anybody smile. 

            Here are a few words that she can say:

Milk

NahNah (aka ~ her binky)

Dada

Mama

Durt Dog

Turtle

Cow

Fish

Door

Outside

No no (with her finger pointing in the air)

Book

Bye

Hey

Hola

Minnie Mouse

Duck

Nose

Toe

Mouth

Elmo

Love

            She can say a few names too.  I really believe she can understand almost everything I say.  She likes for me to give her a “chore” such as putting up toys or closing doors.  Next step: washing the clothes and putting them away.

            Like her Daddy, she loves making music.  Sometimes she will sit for 30 minutes straight (which is like an hour in baby time) making different “beats” with her toy piano.

Father's Day

      Today is hubby’s first Father’s Day.  I want to dedicate this post to him and let him know how wonderful of a father he is.  We created one perfect little girl that thinks the world of him. 

      When she was first born, everyone said she was a duplicate of him.  He even laughed and said “It looks like I fell asleep and someone shaved my head”.  People still comment on how they’ve never seen a baby that looks so much like their dad.

      Amelia was very colicky for the first 5 months of her life.  It was very difficult, both mentally and physically.  He would rock with her every night for months until 2 am so that I could get some sleep.

     

       He is very ingenuitive and comes up with ideas to make her comfortable.  White noise was the only thing that would calm her down, so he recorded the sound of our vacuum cleaner and made a CD.  The screaming would immediately stop once that sound was played. 

      Amelia’s first word was “dada”, and she knows what that word means.  Every morning when I take her to daycare, I make sure we say “bye bye dada, love you”.  When we get home, she immediately starts looking around for him.  If he is home, her feet kick and she smiles so big you can’t even see her eyes over those cheeks.

 

She is lucky to have such a caring and loving father.

I am lucky and thankful to have such a wonderful husband.

Happy Father’s Day!  You have shown Amelia unconditional love for her first year of life, and we look forward to the many years to come.

Busy Baby

        The past month has been crazy.   Amelia went swimming for the first time and LOVED the water.  I bought a baby float and she screamed the whole time she was in it.  When I held her in the water, she did the doggie paddle swim and wanted me to scoot her around.  She splashed and laughed.  Two days later, I get a call from her daycare.  “Everything is fine, but Amelia has a fever of 102.”  I ran out of work and picked her up to take her to the doctor.  Poor baby had an ear infection L  I will have to get some earplugs for her next swimming event.

 

         We have started going to the park at 8am on the weekends.  This is the perfect time because it’s not too hot and nobody is there.  She’s walking pretty well, so I let her roam around and she loves it.  My baby is growing up!