tawbubby

Amelia celebrated Christmas for four days! We gave her new presents to open after she played with one as much as she wanted. Here are some pics from the first two days.

The results of Christmas Eve efforts by Fafa and Daddy:

She has learned to sit on it and push herself backwards. To go forward, she straddles it and walks.

See Fafa, these gloves are cool:

She got into opening paper and even pulling the ribbon as time went on:

A great hat:

Some hair bows!!

And a ladybug wind-up toy, which was one of her favorites.

Amelia loves to walk. If we let her out of the stroller, we are in trouble because she won’t get back in, let us carry her or even hold our hand.

So. Today we got home from Amelia’s GeeGee and Giffer’s house. She wandered around a little, went to the front door, looked at me, and said “Wuck. Wuck. Wuuuuck!” (not too demanding, just nice, with several inflections on the last one). Well, o.k. we went for a wuck. I decided to just go with her, keep her on the sidewalk, and see where and how far she would go.

Here is where we wucked. (This is a bit small. Click here for a bigger version.)

Pink is on the way out, green is on the way home. The highlights:
1. Start.
2. She found a piece of cardboard just off the sidewalk and carried it until 6.
3. The way out was pretty direct, no stopping until this point. Then there was a little back and forth, until we turned around for good.
4. Driveway explorations.
5. She checked out Chas’ light up snowman and driveway.
6. She dropped the cardboard and went up our neighbor’s driveway to pick up a empty brake fluid bottle. Wuck was terminated at this point and I carried her to our driveway (no fuss, she was tired!).
7. She took a slight detour up the side of the car, and then went back around and in the house.

It was great! That little mind. She can be so focused.

Her walking is funny because she goes into the street on every driveway. It’s not intentional. As the driveways slope down into the street, her stride doesn’t adjust, and she ends up in the street. I did a lot of body blocking so she would walk straight.

More holiday updates soon, we promise.

Ethan just said to me “We screwed up the first piece, Al.”

We are all so much more excited about tomorrow than Amelia knows, or will be. : )

11:17 pm update: on my way back to the living room I heard “Maybe we need a scientist.” On my way out, I heard “This hole is off center.”
Heehee!

11:25 update: I don’t have an exact quote but it was something about “I’m o.k. with a nail inside of it.”

11:27: “We spent 20 minutes working on the non-steering handles. They turn but they don’t move the wheels.”

11:30: (Ethan) “I might need a back rub later.” and “Luckily, it says ‘inside’ on the part that goes inside.”

11:33: (Pete) “Good job, Ethan. You saved my Christmas.” Note, the diagram shows how to insert the puppy into the basket.

Those boys are giggling right now looking at this post on my laptop…they didn’t know I was going back and forth taking funny quotes. Merry Christmas everyone!

Young ladies should keep their feet off the table. But they’re such pretty feet. And you can see what we’re doing with her hair lately. Barettes stay in a lot longer than an elastic.

She can say feet, bottle, milk, cracker, and water. I am pretty sure cracker means the noun, as well as “I’m hungry”.

We like her expression in this one.

She can say hat and pretty.

Amelia had 1 Chik Fil’A nugget and some bites of fry for dinner at the mall while Christmas shopping. That’s a big fry!

She can’t say fry or chicken nugget.

We went to the lake this weekend to have an early Christmas gathering with Ethan’s aunts, uncles and cousins. Most of them hadn’t seen her for a year and were surprised at how big she was. And maybe at how loud she could be. Thanks everyone for a great weekend. Here is Amelia with her cousin (Ethan’s cousin’s daughter) Bailey.

When we went to PA for Thanksgiving, Amelia started getting up a couple hours earlier than normal. The lake is relaxing for everyone, and magically Amelia started sleeping to 8:30! We all got a lot of rest.

She slept the whole way home and had a good dinner…making her pretty hyper tonight. She was climbing everywhere!

We have a new ornament. This was Ethan’s teether when he was a baby. I thought it would look pretty cool on the tree.

I convinced her to try on some antlers this morning (they were Milo’s, for those of you who were fans) but not to stand still. Such a cute reindeer!

She liked a bunch of lights we tested.

For fun today I wrote down all the words she says…and we recognize. Ethan looked at it and it is pretty “solid”. In no particular order, and not according to her phonic world:

mama, dada, dog, duck, cow, frog, monkey, turtle, fish, hi, bye, up, bath, milk, bottle, water, shoes, socks, hat, eye, feet, baby, glasses, poop, do, kiss, see, bug, no no no, car, teletubby, Dora, Elmo, don’t touch, wow, cheese, remote, knee, banana, woof, Grizzy, belly button, wheeee, apple.

Wow is my favorite. She says it at the perfect times.

She’s asked for water twice, rather than “ahhhh” whine and reaching for it. She said “Bye Jordi” to another kid at the babysitter’s house today. Watch out MIT!

The great outfit: (thanks Stella!)

The great face: (do I see some future sassy in that face?)

The great smile: (thanks daddy!)

Amelia fell against a wall corner this weekend and got a big 3D lump on her head. It was pretty scary when it happened but our expert friend Laura was a great help. It’s already yellow and almost gone.

Ethan put a “Bonk” sign on AVJ’s door so we wouldn’t forget and be shocked in the morning.

(Tuesday morning) Amelia liked her second snow a little bit. She walked around the deck, touched it a few times, and went down into the yard. When her hands got really cold, she had enough.

She even fell once!

We should get 2-5 inches more tonight!