Bed & P

Sometime in July I decided to move Amelia out of the crib and put her mattress on the floor. 

The first couple of nights were tricky and I finally figured that I just needed to keep the door shut and not give her the option of having it opened.  I felt horrible doing that because it seemed like I was locking her in a prison.  But the more I thought about it, that's what the crib was anyways.  She was more than ready for the big girl bed and only gave me those two nights of grief. 

We did eventually get her a bigger mattress and box spring and she's been sleeping on it beautifully.  Sometimes I have to go in while she's falling asleep to remind her that it's bedtime and no playing with toys.  She usually stays in bed after that.  She loves the freedom she has when she wakes up and loves to play with her toys.  If she wants me to come get her right away, she'll knock on the door. 

She was napping in the pack and play at grandma's house until one day she climbed out of it.  Now she sleeps on a mattress at Grandma's house just like at home. 

Towards the middle of August I felt like Amelia had been doing so well with the bed transition that it was time to try and take away P.  She hadn't been using P during the day for several months and was only needing it at night.  So one night I didn't grab it and did our routine as normal.  She only asked about it once and I ignored her while continuing to read.  She forgot about it and went to bed just fine.  The next night went exactly the same and after that night she didn't ask about P again.

Como Zoo

Our final August event was to go to Como Zoo with godmother Hilary. 

 It was a beautiful day and Amelia liked looking for the animals but was very annoyed that most of them were sleeping. 

Her favorite animal of the day was the large fish.  Yeah we travel all the way to the cities and she is most excited about a fish.  Oh well.  

She did enjoy the monkeys and the gorillas were her favorite.  Her other favorite part was looking at the seals who were waiting to go on for a show.  They were in their own little room with a pool that was right next to the window.  While she was looking at them one jumped right up to the window on the other side of her nose.  She giggled and thought it was pretty funny after she was certain it couldn't come through the window.  

August

Here are some random pictures and stories to finish up August. 

I switched out Amelia's earrings one day and it wasn't as bad as I was dreading.  It helped that I distracted her with Curious George and a comb.  Since then she has pulled on them a few times but I just explained that they are pretties for her ears like mommy has and she leaves them alone.  She is now sporting butterfly earrings she got from Aunt Kait and Uncle Jeremy for her birthday.

Swimming at Grandma's house.

 Kole ended up getting in the pool with her which she loved!  I actually think she has a bit of a crush on Kole.  She has started calling him Koke, I'm not sure where that came from.  Since school has started our Wednesday routine is to pick Kole up from the YMCA and go to Grandma's house for dinner.   All of the cousins end up being there which has been a lot of fun.  Last week on the way to get Kole I was talking about how we are going to pick him up and Amelia said, "No kisses."  I had to laugh at that one.  Then when Kole got in the car he said, "Hi Baby!", to which she responded "Amelia."  I'm convinced she was telling him that she isn't baby, but Amelia. 

Back to August...We went to the ECFE open house.  There was singing and dancing which she enjoyed but she was upset with me that I didn't bring pup pup with us. 

 Sitting in the lockers. 

 Her absolute favorite toy in the diaper bag is the etch-a-sketch.  Then she broke it by stabbing the pen onto the screen too hard.  It was leaking some sort of goo so it had to be tossed and I haven't gotten around to replacing it yet. 

Fork and Spoon

And now Amelia will demonstrate how to use a fork.

She's still refining her spoon work.

Sprout!

Besides my garden I've been working hard on another project this summer. 

 Amelia is going to be a big sister! (Grandma made the cute outfit for her, and if you can't read it, the shirt says "Big Sister to bee")

 Meet Sprout!  My friend insisted that I name the baby something and because I was pregnant at the beginning of the gardening season I decided on Sprout. 

Sprout is due January 30 and we can hardly wait.  We had our ultrasound yesterday and we didn't find out the gender.  That will be a surprise again along with the names we have chosen.  I was pretty nauseous this time but fortunately that went away as I transitioned into the second semester.  Sprout has been just as rambunctious as Amelia was in the womb, but surprisingly was pretty quiet for the ultrasound.  I've also had some very strong food aversions this time which is new for me.  For the first 4 months I couldn't stand the taste or smell of chicken and coffee.  Fortunately these are also starting to diminish.  Instead of having strong cravings that last forever, I'm very suggestive this time.  If I hear something like pretzel M&Ms for instance (by the way, I've never had them before)  I need to have them and then I'm satisfied and move on to something else.  With the last pregnancy I seemed to stick with a few cravings throughout the whole pregnancy.  I've also had some nesting very early this time and have discovered if there are things I should have done during the day I end up losing sleep over it that night.  Therefore I have lists everywhere of what I need to get done now, this week, month, etc. 

Not only is Amelia becoming a big sister at the end of January, but her two girlfriends, Lila and Allie will also become big sisters the same week.  It has been fun to be pregnant together and just crazy that our due dates are all within one week. 

Fun Days

We invited Amelia's friends to join us for the kiddie parade this year. 

 Lila was able to make it and brought her chair.  So of course we had to pull out Amelia's chair and in typical kid fashion they ended up trading chairs. 

Amelia wasn't so sure about running out to grab candy.  When she finally got the hang of picking it up she kept throwing the candy back to the people in the parade.  

We went to the big parade on Saturday and she loved the music and kettle corn!

That night I let her try her first sucker.  She didn't open her mouth back up until the sucker was gone. 

On Sunday we went to the car show and petting zoo.

She loved petting the animals and got really excited when she saw the bunnies. 

She loves to dance!

Mowing

Our neighbors gave us a little lawn mower that their grandson had outgrown.  Since then Amelia loves to "help" Daddy mow the lawn.  It's very cute!