An explanation

We are very sorry for our lack of blogging this past week. There are a few reasons as to why:

1. Tom's class is still dissecting cats and taking pictures on our camera - GROSS - so I have not wanted to upload pictures onto my computer because it would include cat guts.
2. We can't find our camera cord so even if I wanted to upload cat guts, I couldn't.
3. We (Tom) have been working like crazy to get our house fixed up and it's looking really great! What have I (Heidi) been up to? Her name is Amelia and she has learned how to say "no." Two "no" stories from today:

1. This morning when I was really hoping that she would be ready for a nap because she didn't sleep much last night and was up at 5am, I said, "Amelia, are you ready for your nap?" And she looked me dead on, said NO and then waved good-bye to me as she walked out of the room.
2. After the nap, which she actually went down for quite easily even though she thought otherwise, I asked her to come over to me so I could change her diaper, and , again, she said, NO. No waving this time, though.

So , here are pictures to tide you over until we figure out our camera cord/cat dissecting situation!

New Grill

This post is for Uncle Scott--who is not my uncle but is Heidi's uncle.

Last night we had some problems with the old grill which was purchased by Uncle Scott and Aunt Liz (continuing with the theme she also is not my but Heidi's aunt.) Scott chose a grill which suited his requirements of an expansive grilling surface.

The old grill was a Char Broil--a solid grill and one that served the family well for many years. But after those years it looked like this.The new grill is a Weber Genesis Platinum and it looks like this...

The new grill has a grilling space of 637 sq. in. and the old one had a grilling space of about 500 sq. in. In burger language that means 40 burgers v. 31. Also the old grill was only 12 inches deep but the new grill is 15 inches deep.

And it is very shiny.

Cute.

Do we need a caption for this?

She's turned into a good little sleeper in the car (unlike last summer when car = screamfest).

The entire ride over to Lake George Yoda hovered over Amelia while she slept and tried to cuddle with her.

Amelia's play date last week with her the two boys in her life, Jake & Michael. They spend a lot of time when they are together sharing sippy cups. It made us (the moms) wonder what they do at day care centers about that problem... anyone know?

Jake was too interested in my car keys to join in on the sippy cup drink fest (Amelia is drinking from Michael's cup and Michael is drinking from Amelia's).

Amelia arrives at Lake George

Sampling some local beer at dinnertime...

Here is a video of Amelia arriving at Lake George. She was here last year of course--but since she was totally immobile it wasn't as fun.

She has a lot to say.

I can't wait until these are real words!

Catch Up

Amelia enjoys her visit from Grandpa Jones. We have some more pictures I took on my phone that I'll upload soon. Tom had to take the camera to school so his students could take pictures of their cat dissections (GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!)

Amelia had a playdate on Friday with Jake and Michael. Jake enjoys the Thomas the Tank engine...but Amelia wants to get on it...

"Ha Ha! I got him to get off. It's all mine...Girls rule and boys drool."

Amelia and her first boyfriend of the afternoon...

Here she is with her second boyfriend, Michael.

And here she is showing off her spoon skills. With a very cute face!

We think she might have a personality...

Doesn't she look cute in that hat...she ripped it off her head about 3 seconds after I took this picture. Amelia will prove to be a challenge this summer in the "protecting her head from the sun" department...

Amelia enjoys her horsie that Grandpa C made her - we appreciate that he used a good varnish because it made for an easy clean-up after a situation occurred on the seat...

Amelia enjoys reading herself a book in her toy box... she climbed in there all by herself!

And here she is just being cute!

Our hero

We would like to give a special thanks to our hero - Grammie Perkins. When I got home with Amelia this afternoon we realized we had left her security blanket, OOKIE, at Grammie's house. It was an hour before bedtime and we knew it could be disastrous. Grammie drove over here with the ookie and made Amelia very happy. When she walked in the door, Amelia saw her ookie and started saying "oooh oooh oooh" and then reached up and snatched it out of Grammie's hands. Phewwwww....it all worked out thanks to our hero!

What's an ookie, you ask? Just click here to find out...

Yes, we plan on purchasing some back-ups.

Happy Mother's Day!

We had a wonderful Mother's Day this weekend - yesterday Amelia was well cared for by her Aunt Becky and Grammie while Tom and I went to have dinner with friends and then have the night to ourselves at home.

We think that Aunt Becky is finally excited that Amelia is actually interested in her - although she is a little tired after going down a slide with Amelia many, many, many times yesterday afternoon.

A happy Amelia with her aunt.

The only picture of Amelia with her MOTHER on MOTHER'S DAY. Faithful crumthekid readers may recall the not so fun Mother's Day last year when Amelia cried from 1pm - 10pm and Tom and I spent the day passing her back and forth every hour or so. Not too long after this I cut all dairy out of my diet and she stopped being so fussy. Mother's day this year it was a lot more fun to be a mom! :)

Morning Snacktime

Amelia loves to feed herself snacks out of ziploc bags. This morning she enjoyed her veggie booty snack in a ziploc bag in her lounge chair. Veggie booty is her favorite snack - when she sees us pull the bag out she starts shrieking and clapping her hands. We'll try and get that on video :)


She is LOUNGING for sure! (while fending off Yoda)

Amelia says hi - and shows off her new party trick. The only sign she will do on command is "daddy."

Fun pictures

Here is Amelia in the big halls of Concord High School - maybe when she is 18 and ready to graduate from there (we hope we will be living there by then!) we will take a picture of her standing in the same place...

Amelia fell asleep during a bike ride with Daddy - we couldn't really get a good shot because we knew when we opened the rain shield the sound of velcro would wake her up.

She's really not as uncomfortable as she looks here - also, this picture really accentuates her baldness.

Being silly this afternoon - I like how you can see her smiling through the box!

For your Sunday reading

The Boston Globe ran a story about one of my college roommates today. I'm so proud :)

Click Here!

kiddie pool

One new thing that Amelia likes is crawling into Granpa's old chair. She does this all the time and often she carries one of her toys with her. She puts the toy up in the chair and then struggles mightily to get in the chair. She began with little kid sized chairs but now she can do it in real chairs.
Today we bought Amelia a little kiddie pool. It was well worth the 6 dollars.

Oh--here is how tough it is for her to get into the chair. I finally realized that I needed to pull her pants up so she could get the proper leg extension. When I did that she was able to hoist her right leg up high enough to climb into the chair and provide the drugged look picture above.

Evanston/Chicago Visit

I've been working a tad too much. It was only when my computer bag broke, and I was loading the old contents into a new bag, that I found these pictures from our trip to see David, Heath, Eli, Sophie, Emmy--dog, turtle and cat. (I know they have names. The turtle is something like Molly Daisy and the cat, who Amelia chased but never caught, is named....Ernesto?)

These pictures were taken by a friend of Heath's. We went to school to pick up Eli and Sophie at the end of the day and she took pictures while we wandered around the school yard. Amelia loves watching kids so seeing 300 stream out in front of her was a real treat.

She looks like a little girl now...

September 2008

April 2009

Yesterday Amelia had a fun playdate yesterday with her friends Michael and Jake. It's fun to watch them start to actually play with each other (or poke each other in the eye and/or use each other's heads as stabilizers as they stand up...) Anywho, my friend Leslie couldn't believe how much more of a little girl Amelia looks like than the last time she saw her - 2 weeks ago - and I really have to agree. She really is moving away from being a baby...