Happy Half-Birthday to Amelia!

A half-cake for a half-birthday

(Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper Flavor)
She is not as close to the candles as it looks!
Hey, Mommy, why did you blow the candles out?
First taste of cake!

Playing with her half-birthday present

Today was Amelia's HALF-BIRTHDAY! What is a half-birthday? It means she is six months old. I know it probably sounds funny, but it's totally normal to me, since for many years in grade school, I celebrated my half birthday. My birthday is in August when school is out, so the teachers would let me bring in a treat on my half-birthday. And besides, September 27th is soooo far away! Amelia loved her first taste of birthday cake! (It is pretty good) At first, she made some awful faces, but she never let go of the spoon. And, no, I don't normally feed her cake...this is a special occasion, silly! She is normally on a strict diet of breast milk and pureed baby foods. For her present, I bought her a set of those stackable rings...she actually picked them out herself. I showed her them at Walmart earlier today, and she went wild, kicking and reaching for them. She has already shown remarkable skill with them, lifting the rings off the pole...I think she learned from her Baby Einstein DVDs. She has a little more trouble putting them back on, but she'll learn. Happy Half-Birthday Amelia!

Wisconsin Scrapbook Pages

Grandma Sally's Page
Grandpa Tom's page
Amelia meets Sophie!

6 cousins all together

Great Grandpa Al and Great Grandma Betty (Great-Fish)

A 6 generation page I made using photos from my Grandma Betty.

It's been about 3 weeks since I got home from Wisconsin, and I finally finished the scrapbook pages from the trip, so here they are. While in WI, I went to Joann Fabrics, and picked up a bunch of scrapbooking stuff, and it was nice to be able to shop somewhere other than Hobby Lobby (but I love you too, Hobby Lobby, especially your sales this week!). You can click on the pages to enlarge and you will probably be able to read the text also.

Supermodel

It's obvious that I really like taking pictures of Amelia. She is the perfect model, and smiles whenever she sees the camera. In fact, it's almost impossible to get profile shots of her, since she looks directly at the camera almost every time. I would have to guess I take around 150-200 pictures of her a week. Lucky for me, I have a digital camera now, so I am not paying for film and developing, but I have to stop myself from ordering prints of every digital picture. Obviously, it would make for a really lengthy blog post if I put up every picture that I take, so I am just posting a few of my favorites. (Click on the pictures for a larger image).

Playing with Addison

No better advertisement for Baby Einstein DVDs that this!
Addison helping Amelia sit up
Addison helping Amelia stand

Making music together.

Today Amelia and I went to my friend Ronnece's house so our daughters could play together and Ronnece and I could scrapbook. Addison is 7 weeks older than Amelia, but you couldn't tell from the pictures. Addi is really petite and Amelia is so sturdy that she looks older than her.

The girls played together with toys, and in their exersaucers, and watched Amelia's Baby Einstein DVD. Then they took alternating naps for a few hours, so Ronnece and I didn't get much scrapbooking done...less than one page each, but we got lots of pictures for future pages, and lots of time for girl talk (of which 100% was about our babies!)

First Teeth!

Ignore the spit bubbles!

I was going to post pictures of Amelia's teeth as soon as they came in, but I just couldn't wait. So, here they are. The one on the right side of the photo came up first, and then the other erupted a few days later. I have no idea how long they take to come in completely, but I guess we will find out. I can't wait to see her smile with those first teeth.

What do you call this color?

Here's some pictures I took today of Amelia's eyes. Before she was born, Austin tried to convince me of his "strong genes" so of course she would look just like him and and his dad and Colin and Aidan. I've got pretty strong genes too, considering I look just like my mom. So out comes Amelia, and for a while, she looked a lot like Austin and Colin. Then, for a while, she looked like me, and now I don't think she looks like either of us. You all know that I have pale blue eyes, and Austin has warm golden-brown eyes. Austin wants Amelia to have his eyes, and of course, I want her to have my eyes. All the baby books say that eye color is pretty much set by this age (she is almost 6 months), so it looks like neither of us got our way with the eye color.

What exactly do you call this color? It's not blue, it's not brown. Sometimes it looks gray, but then in these pictures it looks green, which kind of makes sense, because my sister Dana has green eyes (my dad has eyes like Austin and my eyes are just like my mom's). You can click on the pictures to enlarge them. What do you think?

Milestones

Check this out!

Amelia is growing up so fast, and it seems that she is learning something every day. Here's a little of what has happened recently:

About a week ago, she rolled over from back to front (the hardest roll for babies). Once she got the hang out it, she started doing it all the time. Today Austin said that she rolled over from back to front, then from front to back, all in one motion in the same direction. It's great to see her moving around, but we can't set her on the floor anymore, leave the room for a second, and expect to see her in the same place. She will roll over or scoot herself around in a circle on her back.

On Saturday, Amelia was chomping on Austin's fingers and he said he felt a tooth. I felt for it, and then looked in her mouth, and sure enough! I could see the outline of a tooth coming through her gums. Just a few days later, it has come in even more, and it is sharp! Hopefully soon we will have some pictures of it.

Last night, we were playing with her, and I put her in a sitting position, to see if she could stay upright, and she did, for about 2 minutes, long enough for us to get some pictures. Austin warned me that he was worried she would fall over, but I really wanted more pictures, and she fell over and bonked her head on the carpet. I felt pretty bad and she cried; it probably hurt a little and it scared her. She calmed down in a few minutes with some hugs and she was fine, but I won't try that again for a while.

Beautiful baby!

No special news, just these pictures from last week are too cute not to share. We've had some really nice weather lately, so I've been dressing Amelia up in some cute outfits and posing her in her bumbo chair outside for some pictures.

If Amelia was a boy!

When I was pregnant with Amelia, I really, really REALLY wanted a girl. In my mind, I needed to kind of bet against myself to ensure that I would have a girl. So I prepared for a boy. I spent most Saturday mornings while pregnant going to yard sales, and at one, I found a bunch of brand new baby boy clothes that still had tags attached and had never been worn for only $0.25 each. So I bought about 6 outfits. I was sure that this would ensure that I had a girl, and if I ended up with a boy, at least I would be prepared. Even after I found out from my ultrasound that Amelia was, in fact, a girl, I never bought any girl clothes just in case the actual act of buying any would turn her into a boy. And I never really trusted the ultrasound, so the first three questions I asked when waking up after the C-section were: #1 "Did I have the baby already?" #2 "Did they deliver the placenta?" (not sure why I asked that???) and #3 "Is it a boy or a girl?" And it was a girl.

So in the end we bought a bunch of pink girly clothes but I still kept the boy outfits. This one is a 6-9 month size, so I tried it on her the other day, and it fit really good and looked pretty cute on her, even if she does kind of look like a boy in it. In pink and blue clothes, she is adorable.

Trip to the Zoo!

Excited to be at the Zoo!

Amelia and Mommy

Amelia and Daddy

Checking out Blondy the Tiger

The day after Amelia and I returned home from Wisconsin, we went to the Clovis Zoo. It's a pretty small zoo, but it's actually the 2nd largest in New Mexico. (The Albuquerque Zoo is bigger, but 4 hours away. Austin and I went there shortly before Amelia was born.) It's not bad for its size, and the price ($2.00 per adult, and Amelia was free). They have tigers, mountain lions, lynx, a bear, a giraffe, a camel, elk, mule deer, kangaroos, wolves, and monkeys.

This wasn't Amelia's first trip to the zoo; we had gone in October when she was about 2 weeks old when my mother visited. She slept in her sling the whole time, but this time, she was in her stroller, awake. She didn't seem to notice the animals, though, just enjoyed being pushed around in her stroller.

Trip to Wisconsin!

Daddy Showing Amelia the plane
Waiting for the flight with Mommy

First flight...a tiny airplane!

Meeting Great-Grandpa Al

Getting to know Great-Grandma (Great Fish, ha-ha) Betty

with Grandma Sally

Relaxing with Grandpa Tom

With identical cousin Sophie

With cousins (L-R) Austin, Sophie, Ian, Zachary and Random

Bursting with happiness with cousin Zachary.

Amelia and I went to Wisconsin to see my family March 1st through the 6th. The trip was supposed to be a surprise; my grandparents and aunt Marcia, brother and sister in law, my sister, and my mom's coworkers were all in on the secret. Then, a snowstorm hit central Wisconsin, and my flight was cancelled and rebooked to Milwaukee, so I had to tell my parents (so they could come get us from Milwaukee). Still, it was exciting for my mom, since she only had to wait 2 days for us to arrive from the time she found out.

I was worried about how Amelia would react to flying. Since we live in such a small place, we had to take 2 flights before we even reached a major airport (Dallas) and each way there we had 4 segments. On the way there, our flights were Clovis>Amarillo>Dallas>Memphis>Milwaukee, and on the way back it was Green Bay>Minneapolis>Dallas>Amarillo>Clovis. Whew! But Amelia did great! She didn't cry once on the flights, and everybody thought she was so cute and sweet. People even stopped me in the airport, telling me that they were on the flight and said what a well-behaved baby she was.

We had a great time with family. We visited my parents, my grandparents, my Aunt Marcia, my brother Jim and Shelly, and their kids, Zachary, Random, Austin, Ian, and Amelia's new cousin Sophie. We also saw some of my old friends, Christine and her kids, and Tammy and her daughter Tanner.

The trip back was almost a disaster. I didn't read my tickets before we left Wausau for Green Bay, and remembered the wrong departure time. As a result, when we got to the airport, we had 20 minutes to check in, clear security, and get to the gate before the flight left, but we made it, me running with no shoes on, carrying Amelia and the stroller through the terminal in a panic. Then, in Amarillo, I didn't realize I needed to check in at the ticket counter for our commuter flight to Clovis, and never got a boarding pass. Luckily, they found me at the gate and checked me in from there. Whew!

Amelia and I really missed Austin, and we couldn't wait to get home to him. And there he was, waiting for us at the Clovis airport, looking just as handsome as I remembered.

PEAS!!!!

Amelia was about 4 months when we started her on solid food. First we tried rice cereal, then squash and sweet potatoes, then a little fruit. When she was almost 5 months old, I gave her peas for the first time...yuck! Luckily I had my camera ready!

Valentine's Day

Here is Amelia in her Valentine's Day outfit. It was a gift from her Grandma Kathy. She also liked the Valentine's Day card that came along with it. She's such a good sport, letting me change her outfits and pose her for pictures.

She also received gifts and cards from her other grandparents and great grandparents. She and I were busy in the 2 weeks before Valentine's Day, making cards to send out to her family.