She was faster than I'd anticipated..

As you can see I was off by one week. Little Miss Mischief pulled herself up to standing today and is VERY proud of herself. I love that we had the camera nearby!

Little miss mischief

Zoë has transformed from baby-content-to-eat-a-spoon-on-the-floor to baby-we-can't-keep-in-one-place.

I am estimating she is about 2 weeks away from pulling herself up. She tries with everything she can...

"I think I"ll mosey on over here to check out some stuff I shouldn't get in to..."


Again attempting to stand up... Yoda keeps a close eye.

Contained! Ready to go for a car ride...

Evidence!

Here we have evidence of:
1. Zoë's cuteness.
2. Zoë's crawling.
3. A lifetime ahead of sibling rivalry.

We love our girls! :)

WE HAVE A CRAWLER!!!!

pictures to come ... but someone is very proud of herself...

SIX MONTHS!

Zoë is 6 months old today - wow hard to believe it has been half of a year and she is halfway to turning ONE. Sheesh. She is really turning into a fun little person. She is:
1. Eating sweet potato, peas, bananas, squash, and rice cereal. She gags up the green beans so that is a no-go as of right now.
2. She is screaming in her bed right now as I write this because she is learning how to get herself back to sleep - she wakes up every night around 9, fusses for about 10 minutes, goes back to sleep until 12 or 1 and then I just give in and let her sleep with me. Soon this will no longer be do-able as I am getting more exhausted by the day -- Wish us all luck!
3. She LOVES her "day-home" and is socializing with the older kids and eating and sleeping so well there (figures). Haha.
4. She is absolutely in LOVE with her sister. This makes me so happy - I have always felt like the best gift a parent can give a child is a sibling - because it means they will always have someone who will have known them from the beginning and who will always know where they came from. I love that these two will have each other for always!
Update: Zoë has stopped screaming as of now :)

Our picture round-up:

July

August

September

October

November

December

JANUARY!!!! Sitting up all by herself!

Update: She's crying again. Oh well!

Some happy little girls

Zoë is trying hard to crawl. She is SO close. My 5 month old is almost crawling... oy....

Hiiiiiiiii! I sit up so well now! :)

I love this one. The look on her face is fantastic.

Zoë could not love bathtime more... she sits in her little seat and laughs and squeals and talks to her big sister. It is so fun.

Amelia agreed to have her picture taken... sort of...

A new bed for Amelia

Amelia had a big day / night today - she got a new bed and she loves it. Of course everything you read says NOT to transition your older child out of a crib right before a baby comes, but Amelia was ready. She was becoming a gold medalist in the Crib Jumping Olympics - and starting to specialize in the balance beam / crib rail event. Yes, those are Spiderman sheets on her bed and yes Tom asked if we could get them for a queen bed.

After we set it up, she played for awhile and told me to "get off" when I tried to sit on the bed with her. At bedtime she did let me sit and read with her and cuddle. I think she is going to like that new routine - and so will we!

She went to sleep without a peep. You can see the destruction she caused before deciding to lie down and sleep, but that is fine with us. It beats finding her standing on top of the crib rail and saying, "HI MOMMY LOOK AT ME!" as I enter the room.

First Day of School = SUCCESS!

Amelia had her first day of school today and she did great! She cried for a minute or so when we left her, but was not crying by the time we waved good-bye to her through the "bye-bye window." When I picked her up her teachers said she had a wonderful first day. She went on a buggy walk, dug around in the sand for a very long time, and then took a two and a half hour nap. Wahoo. We can't wait to hear what she's up to tomorrow!

Amelia gets ready to get in the car. Note our already stacked two cords of wood.

She carries her packpack to the car. Note our charming walkway. It is a Crumrine design - totally unique to this area. When there are mountains of snow in the yard we are able to safely walk to and from the car without breaking our necks. Patent pending.

"Hmmm... are you guys leaving me here?"

"Well I guess I"ll push this chair around to keep busy." Note those nice blue chairs behind her - they made the parents sit on those during back to school night. Talk about feeling like a giant!

Some cute word stories

Amelia is talking up a storm and has added some new words to her repertoire. Since I already list the new words on the sidebar on the right, I thought cute stories about those words would be more fun:

1. Amelia asks for DA-EEE all day long (Daddy). She plays on her phone and talks to "Da-ee;" when we went to the pool today she stood by the spot where he had met us before and asked for "Da-ee;" when I put her to bed tonight she asked for "Da-ee" because he is off hiking with his friend Gooch.

2. Amelia tells me when she is happy and it is SO CUTE. Today on the way home from the pool she chanted from the back seat "HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY" for about 10 minutes straight.

3. Our friend gave us one of those little tikes "cars" and Amelia spent about 4 hours playing in it today (no exagerration). When Aunt Becky came out of the house right after getting here, Amelia stood up, looked at her, and then pointed at the car and said CAR - as though she was saying THIS IS MY NEW CAR!

Pictures to come....

She Speaks

Well our little nonsense yammer-er is starting to make real words. And it's happening fast and some of the words are not words that I ever thought we used a lot...so I wonder where she learns them (like ball and baby). As of now, her repertoire of words includes:

NO
hi
mama and dada (she uses them intentionally most of the time)
ga (dog); da (yoda) - she tends to use these interchangeably
oooof (woof)
rowwww (meow)
baby
ball - today while we were walking outside Concord High she looked up and saw a column outside the school that had a ball shape at the top of it, and she pointed and said, "BA!" I couldn't believe it!
I also think that "da" is diaper because she does it while patting her diaper (and today she did that and then pooped. Like she was telling me... oh and by the way, last night she pooped in the tub for the first time. Ha! Tom was home with her while I was out at dinner - lucky daddy).

we'll keep you updated - when will she start talking BACK?

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!

Happy Thursday!

Here is Amelia in a new spring outfit that we got from her real life fairy godmother Margie.



Amelia's skills now also include:

• signing that she is tired
• signing that she is hungry
  
• signing that she wants a bath
• signing that she wants more--of anything
• signing that she is done eating
• sticking her tongue out on command
• pointing to her belly
• she can throw things in the trash when asked

We will probably just put her in kindergarten next year.

Wow.

So the last two days with Amelia have shown me that HOLY #$%! we have a small person in our house, not a baby. Sigh. My baby is not a baby.

Situation #1: Amelia and I went out to lunch yesterday because we didn't have any food at home (yes, you read that correctly, we finally made it home despite much foot dragging on our part...) Anywho, she is sitting there in her high chair being adorable -- she kept waving at another woman who was having lunch there and she would give this big toothy grin at her every few minutes. She's slowly eating (she's a slow eater like her momma) and after awhile starts throwing food on the floor. I do the usual, "Are you done?" and I signed the sign language sign for "done." I have been doing this sign language thing since she was six months old and will admit I have grown weary of it. I know she understands what we say to her and I do the sign OVER AND OVER and she DOES NOT SIGN BACK. It has gotten annoying. Well, yesterday she looks me dead on and does the sign! I couldn't believe it! So I pull her out of her high chair and we get ready to go home. I wondered if it was a fluke?

Situation #2: This morning Amelia is getting fussy and it's time for her morning nap. I did the sign for "nap/bed" and she also did it back to me. When I see her do it I realize she has been doing this one for awhile, but I didn't realize it. I again wonder if this is a fluke...

Situation #3: This afternoon around naptime she was acting fussy and so I do the sign again. She doesn't sign back. I decided to give it some time and about 15 minutes later, I tried again. Nothing. I decide to give it some more time - after all, she is not THAT fussy. About 15 minutes after that, she looks at me across the room and SHE DOES THE SIGN all by herself! I could NOT believe it. So I scooped her up and we went into her room and she took a nap! Recently we have realized how much she understands what she says to us - but now she's showing us that she can communicate back. I'm going to find two new signs to introduce this weekend and see how long it takes her to pick them up (hopefully not another 6 months :))

We'll put some new pictures up soon...

Gu Gu Gu Gu Gu

Amelia has spoken! Her first "word" is "gu" which means dog. Every time she sees or hears the dogs she says "GU GU GU" and we say, "Yes, Dog" over and over again. When we get home she immediately looks towards the basement door (where the dogs are barricaded) and says "Gu." When she's in her high chair and they aren't hovering attempting to catch some food she will say "Gu." In the first video you can hear her say it while she watches Yoda play outside. And in the second video (admittedly a little too long) she is playing on and around Fudge - who, by the way, is a 14 year old lab. He's a rockstar. (minus going to the bathroom in the house).

"I'm stealing this potato off the floor...they can't see if it if I hold it like a football..."

"Now I am going to chew on it. Haha you can't catch me! "

"Wait, hey guys! This thing tastes terrible!"

We've got the "big girl" car seat installed complete with drinks for Amelia! What do you guys think? :) **

**Tom thinks people won't realize we are kidding in this picture. We're not going to put her in the way back with a 6 pack of beer...

Amelia on the move

For those of you who are still grossed out by Tom's previous post, I am hoping to win you over with cute pictures and video :)
Amelia gets ready for her first superbowl with her terrible towel...

Grammie tries to get Amelia to hold her own terrible towel. Nope. She thought we were nuts.

And lastly, she practices walking with her new walking toy! :)

One Small Step for Amelia...

A big day for Amelia today! She took what we are calling her first step. She has really been thinking about it for a long time - she will stand by herself and then put her hands above her head and look where she wants to go...but then get down on her knees and crawl. Today, she put her right foot forward and reached out for me at the same time. So we think that counts!

As is evidenced in the second video, it is nearly impossible to get any photos of her standing or attempting to walk because whenever we get down on the floor to take pictures she makes a beeline for the camera and swats at it... so we're working on it. In the first video we are just showing off Amelia's love of having her teeth brushed...it's unrelated to the walking milestone :)