1st Birthday!

My little sweetheart is 1 year old today!

Her personailty changes in the last month have been amazing!

She gets very excited about everything and is a very curious baby.  In fact we call her our Curious Amelia since she reminds us of Curious George so much.  Curious George also happens to be her favorite show to watch and she very much enjoys snuggling Daddy or Mommy in the morning while watching an episode.  

 She likes to say "what's that?" when she hears different noises during the day and usually tries to find the source of such noises.  I didn't realize how often trains travel through Mankato until this last month with her always pausing to wonder what that noise is.  She has also started using the "what" gesture.  When she falls her hands will immediately raise up as if  to say why?

One morning while I was eating breakfast she began pulling up the rug.  I scolded her and began to get up from the table.  She proceeded to drop the rug and give me the "what?" gesture.  This lasted several times with me trying not to laugh and finally directing her to something else. 

 She just started blowing kisses this week.  This is a byproduct of her favorite song Baby Bumble Bee.  We buzz the bee, catch it wave it around in the air, and then it stings us so we have to kiss our hands.  She follows along with all of the motions beautifully and tries to sing along with me.

She also raises her hands straight up in the air and screams.  It's her version of saying yippee! 

She has finally gotten pretty good at walking and is trying to move on to running.  She doesn't have to hold her arms straight out in front of herself anymore (much like a zombie) and completely enjoys the fact that she is able to wave her arms like a bird while she walks.

She discovered the baby strollers at school and looks like a race car driver while pushing them around.  I know she really likes to push them because she can go fast without falling down. 

Amelia has also started signing to me!  We both love this!  Mealtime is a lot more enjoyable now that she can tell me that she wants more and what it is she wants more of.  If she doesn't want what I'm trying to give her she will mutter "no,no" and wave her hand in front of herself as if saying take it away.  Otherwise she'll grin and say yeah, yeah.  She figured out how to drink out of a sippy cup and is so proud she will drink and entire cup full of water and every meal. 

She likes to check out lights wherever we go and will point them out to you if you ask.  She is trying to say light but only Daddy and I recognize what she is saying.  She also likes to poke her eye out and say "iiiiiii"  I'm trying to get her to learn her nose so her poor eyes get a break!

Daddy really really wanted me to put her hair in pigtails.  It worked for two days but her hair is still a little short and too fine for them to stay in.  Plus I'm just not fast enough!

I've been finding her caught in her crib like this quite a bit lately.  It's no surprise since she has become obsessed with sticking her leg through the gate by the kitchen. 

Amelia is part of the Barnes and Noble Kids Club so this week she got to go have a free cupcake.  As you can see she enjoyed it very very much and was upset that it was all gone.  She wouldn't even take a drink of water the entire time we were there.  I'm sure it's because she thought she wouldn't get anymore cake.   

We are looking forward to her birthday party next weekend!

Music & Reading

Just some proof that my girl is doing fine.

 

Amelia likes music a lot!  She likes to dance all the time and actually has more moves than she shows in the video.  I leave the piano open and she likes to go play some notes throughout the day.  Many times if she's upset I can get her to relax by singing her a song.  Singing is how I kept her calm in the car on the way home from the oral surgeon.  

The other thing she really enjoys is reading.  I have piles of books around the house for her to play with and look at.  Many times she will choose to look at them rather than play with her toys.  I added reading to our bedtime routine a few weeks ago because it seemed like the day would pass and we hadn't read any books.  Since doing that she has started bringing me books during the day that she wants me to read to her.  Our days are now filled with reading!  She loves to turn the pages for me and likes to open all of the flaps on lift the flap books.  I'm actually amazed how she can figure out which way to open the flaps.  They don't always go the same direction you know.

We've also hit the jackpot at the library recently.  We found two books that are her absolute favorites!

 

 

I can actually say to her, "Amelia, let's read Tubby!" and she'll drop whatever she's doing and comes running. 

Yesterday I was reading a book on the couch while she was playing and she brought me a book.  So I read her a couple of books and she wanted to leave again.  I kept reading and she came back a few minutes later with another book.  This time she didn't want me to read it to her, she just wanted to snuggle while we both read our own books.  Melted my heart!

ER

We had our first trip to the emergency room on Sunday.

My beautiful baby was walking around in the kitchen while I was making breakfast and she headed for the back entryway.  She fell and hit her upper gum on the bench.  There was a lot of blood and when it finally stopped bleeding we could see that her front baby tooth that was just breaking through last week was sticking straight out towards her lip.  We tried to not panic and fortunately Lucas and I each lost it at separate times.  I called the nurse line hoping that there was some other option than the emergency room during the snowstorm.  There wasn't, so we packed our bags and carefully drove up the hill. 

We waited for several hours (about 10-2) to have a doctor look at her.  She was such a good girl.  She couldn't have a bottle or a pacifier and fortunately I had a sling along that I put her in and she was able to take a short nap.  I hadn't even given her any pain medications and she was smiling and laughing.  The doctor there couldn't do anything for us but check to see that she was alright and there wasn't more damage than we could see.  She contacted an oral surgeon for us to go see on Monday. 

It was a long night with no bottles or pacifier.  She definitely wanted more snuggles than usual. 

Monday morning we were able to get into the oral surgeon immediately.  What a blessing considering she wasn't supposed to have anything to eat in case they had to give her anesthesia.  (I've mentioned before how she really likes her food.) 

The oral surgeon was wonderful and we were impressed at how he answered our questions and reassured us.  After checking out her x-ray there was really no way we could save her tooth.  The good news was that the surrounding teeth were not damaged and it looks as if her permanent teeth were not really formed yet so should also not be damaged.  We might have problems farther down the road, like having to have teeth pulled down surgically if they won't come on their own.  She'll most likely have to have braces (who doesn't now a days?)  For now things are very good.  She was a trooper when her tooth was pulled and really enjoyed getting a Elmo sticker (except for the fact that it kept sticking to her hand.)

By looking at her you wouldn't even know that it happened. 

I'm still trying to recover and continuing to have a hard time letting her walk.  She seems even more determined to walk or maybe she was already walking more than I realized.  I have a feeling it will be awhile before I don't flinch every time she walks towards something hard or falls. 

Wedding

My friend Julie got married January 29th.  It was a wonderful weekend and beautiful wedding.  On Friday Amelia and I went to a shower for Julie.  Of course I had to dress Amelia up for the occasion.

After the shower Amelia went to stay at Grandma's house until Sunday morning.  I got to go have nails done that afternoon with the girls.  That was very exciting for me!

It was another time where I didn't bring my camera so I don't have any pictures of the wedding day other than a couple of quick family shots before Amelia was wisked back to Grandma's to go to bed.

One last picture to share.  Hopefully Julie has opened her present before she sees this!  I made them a quilt for their wedding gift.  I hope they enjoy it and are not afraid to actually use it!

Birthdays

We've had several parties in the last couple of weeks.

First was nephew Dominic.  He received a vest that matched the hat he got for Christmas.  Unfortunately it is big so hopefully he'll still want to wear it next year.

Kallie and Kole's birthday was this week.  Kallie got a knitted hat which she was glad to model.

For Kole I cut out t-shirt vinyl on my sweet cricut, and found a book that he already dove into and is enjoying.

Millie's birthday is next week but we had her party last night.  She got a Hello Kitty hat.

I also had my Fat Quarter Challenge project for quilt guild due this week.  This year we had to make a quilt on a stick.

Update

Amelia has been keeping herself very busy lately.  I already shared how she was walking but here are some of the other things we've been up to. 

Someone from church let us borrow this baby sled.  We've only went out once and she wasn't sure she liked it.  After she flipped and ended up face first in the snow she decided that it definitely was not for her.  Maybe with warmer days in the forecast we'll try it again.  

She now has two bottom teeth, which she is showing you here.  She had one top tooth break through tonight and I'm thinking three more on the top are trying to pop through.

We like to go to Panera for coffee with Grandma and Papa after picking up our monthly stock of meat from Painted Hill Farm.  There are always a lot of things to look at and people to admire her.

 She is very much into discovering her surroundings and the way things work as well as trying to copy what we do.  She will try to copy actions - placing items where we place them, or opening doors.  She copies faces we make at her - the current favorites are to scrunch her nose and sniff loudly and making an "O" face.  She also tries to copy sounds - she likes to say hi, mama, dada, whastha (what's that), and pupu.

 This is "pupu."  He is her absolute favorite thing to snuggle.  She gives him kisses and hugs and loves it when we also kiss and hug him.  We call him puppy but she can only say pupu, so he might end up being pup pup one day.  I have caught her snuggling him in her sleep several times.  So cute!  She has also started throwing him out of the crib when she wakes up so she can haul him around the house with her. 

Puppy might be the ticket for her to get over her "mommy is leaving me here?" anxiety at Aunt Kait's house.  She had begun crying when I dropped her off Thursday mornings so a couple of weeks ago I brought puppy with us and the drop off seemed to go much smoother.

I'm finally able to put her hair in a very small ponytail this week.  So I've been having fun putting clips and bows in her hair.  I haven't been able to do that much lately as she figured out how to take her headbands off.  This flower clip came from Grandma as a Valentine's Day present.

I had her all decked out for school this week and she ended up being dressed the same as her friend Allie.  The funny thing is that they followed each other around that day.  Of course it was the only week I haven't brought my camera to school so I didn't get a picture.  

I did manage to get a picture of my new haircut.  It feels so nice to get rid of some of the weight!  Now I'm adjusting to styling shorter hair. 

Walking

Here's our new trick for the  week.