Bananas

Amelia loves bananas!  She has a grin on her face from ear to ear the entire time while consuming them.  After a week of bananas I decided to try something else with her yesterday.  Green Beans.  She gagged and cried.  Hopefully she'll warm up to them. 

Weekend Fun

I spent all day Friday freezer cooking.  Which basically means that I spent all day cooking and filling my freezer as full as possible with meals for the next month.  Even though the one cooking day ended up being Thursday evening, all day Friday and part of Saturday I'm very excited to have all of the meals prepped and ready to pull out and heat up. 

Saturday was Lucas' birthday.  I've been wanting him to open up his presents all month but he wouldn't.  The suspense was killing me and it wasn't even my birthday!  So Amelia and I woke him up early so he could open his presents.  I got him a magazine subscription, a couple of Twins hats and Amelia got him a license plate with her picture on it.

Later that morning we went apple picking at Emma Krumbee's.  What was going to be apple and strawberry picking turned out to include raspberry picking too.  We can home with a ton of tasty fruit so I got to work preserving all of that goodness.  So far I froze most of the berries so that later next week I can make some syrup with them.  I'm also planning on turning a bunch of the apples into pie fillings, applesauce, apple jelly and apple butter.  So I still have a lot of kitchen work ahead of me but I'll really enjoy all of my hard work later this winter when these fresh goodies aren't so cheap and easily available. 

Amelia really enjoyed herself and was very interested and observant about the whole thing.  She got very tired partway through so I flipped her around in the Moby and tucked her head in so she could nap and we just kept picking.  Have I mentioned how much I love the Moby? 

When we got home she was still tired and had to snuggle Daddy for awhile before actually taking a nap in her crib. 

Today we went up to Matt and Mary Beth's for our annual fantasy football draft party. 

Amelia was able to wear her football attire and loved all of the attention from her Aunties. 

Then she had to have her picture taken with uncle Jeremy because his shirt says "I'm not your kid's role model." 

Baseball

Amelia's doing her part to support the team!

Saturday Fun

You know we had a busy day if Amelia can be blowing raspberries and cooing at the beginning of the alley and sleeping before the car is parked. 

Our day started with Grandma picking us up for some garage sailing.  After several successful sales we went to the food coop in Saint Peter.  Mostly I was on a mission to do some price comparison for different items.  I also had a few odd things I was looking for and knew that would be the best place to find them.  Then we came back to Mankato and went to the farmers market.  Now I have green beans and peaches to make into food for Amelia tomorrow. 

Next we dropped off all of our yummy produce and garage sale finds at home and then went to Garrett's family birthday party.  We had lunch there and I was planning on going home so Amelia could take a nap but she was tired pretty quickly and Stevie took her upstairs to snuggle.  She woke up a few hours later so we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon hanging out and watching movies.  So much fun!

5 months old

My baby is 5 months old already! 

She usually ends up with blankies over her face while sleeping.  She had decided naps are not necessary but mommy is more stubborn than her. 

 She can just about sit up on her own.  She prefers to be held so she can stand or if she must be sitting so she can kick her legs as fast as possible.  She's still not sure she likes tummy time.  She's totally not concerned about rolling and will just sit in whatever position I put her in.  I signed her up for a class this fall called "Creepers and Crawlers."   Maybe she'll decide rolling is good then.

 She loves to be adored.  She will still go to anyone who wants to hold her but is beginning to wonder if it isn't better to just be attached to mommy.  She has different types of smiles depending on her degree of happiness.  The open mouth smile is the absolute happiest. 
 

 She also loves to giggle, squeal and coo.  She's ticklish but will not always give a reaction and isn't totally sure that being tickled deserves giggles.  Usually she ends up grunting. 

 She's really learning how she controls every part of her body.  She still loves to grab her toes and also loves to slap her knee.  She has started arching her back in the bathtub causing her to slip down into the water.  I'm thinking it might be time to put away the little tub and use a chair in the big tub. 

She is most fascinated with grabbing anything and everything!  Not only will she get a hold of things and not let go, she likes to run her fingertips across things like she is scratching them to feel the textures.  I love watching her explore the world and become so confident with her abilities.  We have to be more careful around her since she reaches for everything that we have including toys, books, mail, phones, food.... she wants to have it all!

By the way I'm convinced she has her daddy's appetite and metabolism.  She loves her food!  She's now eating rice and oatmeal cereal and is impatiently waiting to try new foods.  She actually balled the other day because I started eating in front of her.  She felt better after she got a bottle but still looked envious of my food. 

Rainy Days

It seems like it has been raining every other day the past couple of weeks.  My garden is loving it and we have been enjoying the home grown produce.  I remembered that Amelia had a rain coat that we got handed down from Millie.  So I dug it out and she got to sport it probably for the first and last time.  It's already pretty small, but still cute.

 

Sewing

Kallie got a laptop a couple of weeks ago.  So we got together one day to make a case to protect it.  She did a great job!  I sewed part of the zipper for her but otherwise she did the rest by herself. 

Sewing Day

Last Monday I had another all day sewing day.  Aunt Kait came over to watch Amelia and I know they both had a blast.  Thanks Aunt Kait!

I finished the last monthly banner!  There will never be a month where I don't have the appropriate thing to hang on my banner. 

Then I made this Rose Fairy quilt for my Amelia Rose.  She needed it for her room!

 Even with using metallic threads, which by the way tend to break a lot, I had a lot of fun quilting this.  It was very relaxing and satisfying. 

Garrett's Birthday

 Today was Garrett's birthday and we had a cousin party at grandma's house.  We watched "Where the Wild Things Are" and then had pizza and cupcakes.

Some did not enjoy the movie as much as others......

 Amelia tried to stay awake and not miss out on anything but she needed a short cat nap.  That charged her back up and she was ready to party again. 

My Baby

Isn't she sweet?  I love watching her sleep.  Usually I'll tuck her one arm in and her feet while the other arm is free.  I'll tuck her monkey blankie in her free arm so she can feel the fabrics.  By morning she usually ends up like this or with one of the blankies over her face.

I'll just do this......

On Monday I'm going for another sewing day, which means Aunt Kait is coming to babysit.  Amelia and I are both very excited!  I have a banner of the month that hangs in my front entryway.  I made all but two of the banners several years ago and I was motivated to work on them for this Monday.  So I pulled out fabrics and thought, "I'll just cut everything out to make sure I have enough fabric."  Pretty soon I was thinking, "If I piece the top I could quilt it that day and come home with it done."  I finished that and thought, "I'll sew the seeds down so I don't have to worry about losing them."  When then I just decided to finish the project.  So now I'm picking out something else to work on that day.  Does that ever happen to you? 

I've also started working on Christmas presents.  I'm determined to be completely done before December.  I actually have just about everything planned and most of the materials purchased.  I just have to keep on top of the constructing of the projects.  

Here is a hat I made for my niece Athena.  She loves owls and the cabling is supposed to look like horned owls.  Can you see it?

Wedding

Last Saturday Amelia attended her first wedding.  It was my cousin Amber's wedding and it turned out to be a wonderful day.  This was the day before we started Amelia on cereal.  She was a little grumpy and crazy hungry this day.  She tried to talk during the vows but I put her pacifier in her mouth to keep her quiet.  At the reception she was mesmerized by the candles and little bells that were on the tables. 

There was a lot of time in between the ceremony and the reception.   Since everything was in Saint Peter we went to go visit Lucas' grandparents.  Unfortunately they were sick so we went to visit his Aunt Mary and Uncle Scott.  Mary gave Amelia this bear which has become her new favorite toy.  It sings "Wild Thing" while wiggling it's ears.  She laughs every time!

In celebration of me finding my motivation to lose the baby weight I decided to make myself a dress for the wedding.  It has shirring on the top and was a fun quick dress to make. 

Library

On Tuesday I took Amelia for her first visit to the library.  Guess what?  She loved it!  Are you surprised?  I'm not.  (How did I get so blessed to have a baby who loves life so much?)

She was in the sling, because it's what we do.  I seriously wonder how do parents function without a sling or Moby?  She looked around and just took it all in.  While I was looking for a couple of books for me a boy came down our aisle and said excuse me.  So I moved, but that got Amelia's attention.   So she looked at him, then at the books, back at him, back to books, and then squealed!  I think she might have scared him. 

Next we went to get some books for her.  She loved the bright colors and reached for many of them as I was trying to put them in our bag.  Then we went to check out.  She hadn't said anything else since the squeal but decided this was another good time to laugh and squeal.  The librarian then smiled and talked to her, which I'm sure was my baby's motive with that squeal. 

Cereal!

Amelia has pretty restless the last few days and her sleep (and mine) have been suffering.  On Saturday she was ravenous so I decided that it was time to try cereal.  She loved it!  It took only a couple of bites and she had the hang of it.  In fact I couldn't get it in her mouth fast enough.  She was laughing and smiling the whole time.  If was as if she was saying, "I can't believe your finally giving me food! YAY!" 

I can't believe how much she ate for her first time.  I thought she would only eat a couple of teaspoons but she had tablespoons. 

After that excitement she hung out with daddy for awhile.  They were watching the A-team.  She started off in his lap but she kept leaning forward and pushing the mouse buttons so she got moved to his shoulder.  She didn't seen to mind. 

Afterward she took a long nap like normal again.  Yay!