Shopping and Baths

Last night the kids and I went shopping with my mom and sister at Kohl's. Amelia like to ride in their carts because she can stand or sit down in the basket part. Joe can ride up front.

It would almost be perfect - if Joe would chill out and sit in the seat without crying for someone to pick him up! We had to take turns carrying his big ol' self around the store. It just made looking at anything much more challenging.

(can you believe he is only 5 months old? He is huge!)

After Kohl's we went to Arby's with Nana for a late dinner. At the end I had the camera out and Amelia was in the mood for a picture. She actually asked me to take a picture - a first! It turned out great - bonus!

Tonight, about the only thing that we accomplished was baths. Amelia gave Joe his bath. I was instructed to leave the room. I, of course, stayed but kept a little distance and essentially let her give him his bath.

With a watering can.

I think he was happy with his bath from his sister!

Amelia made her bath last over an hour. She just kept playing and playing and before you knew it it had been an hour. That is when we drained the tub and she got her shower. Yes, she takes both a bath and a shower each night. She requests the shower to rinse off all the bubbles. Her shower is usually around ten minutes - tonight it was fifteen.

Basically, baths took up most of our evening but that is ok. My goal before bed is to clear off the kitchen table. Again. It is a magnet for junk and papers and stuff.

Squeaky Clean

Afternoon baths left me with two fresh smelling kids to spend the evening with!

We had a pretty good night until it was time to get Amelia to bed. Long story short? All three of us were in tears at one point. Joe was screaming in his swing while Amelia cried because she lost her Boots the monkey figurine and I was crying out of frustration. Yep.

We eventually found Boots and she got to bed where she proceeded to pass out almost instantly. I made sure she put her Dora and Boots figurines (from my birthday cake last year...) into her Dora purse. You know, so we would know where they are tomorrow. And tomorrow? I'll tell her, once again, to put them into her Dora purse when they are not in active play. I do not wish to repeat tonight's events.

Play Days

Yesterday, Amelia and I had a pretty serious play day. It all started while I was writing yesterday's post and I let her play freely. I knew she had ventured to her room and after about 10 quiet minutes I figured I had better go see what she had gotten into...


...which was everything!


She just seemed so proud of herself.

Next we played with blocks. There were so many great photos that I decided to make this collage instead of waiting for them all to upload individually :)


(click image to enlarge)

As you can see, Amelia was not a fan of the towers her dad built her once he got home from work (upper left corner of collage)! We had a lot of fun playing yesterday!

Today was a bit quieter around here. Amelia got a lesson in static electricity this afteroon:


The only other excitement we had today was a bath. I got some pretty cute pictures of her in there:




Jason is at our Financial Peace class tonight. Once he gets home we are going to watch disc 2 of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring the extended version. We started the trilogy last night and I think it will take us a week or two to watch the extended versions since they are all 2 discs and we are not home together more than a night or two a week!

Laundry = Bath Time + a Walk

Monday night it was laundry day, again. We have decided to try and go once a week instead of every 2-3 weeks so we aren't there quite as long. We are there long enough for Amelia to make a mess of herself though!


Gross! We let her crawl around because there isn't much else she can do. She will only sit in her stroller for so long before she freaks so we reserve stroller time for when we are folding everything! Laundry day is always bath day for Amelia. She has so much fun in the tub!



Last night, after dinner, Jason and I went on a walk around Bay View since it was a nice night and ended up at Babe's Ice Cream 5 minutes before they closed! We got a treat and walked home. Amelia had a great time:


See the chocolate on her lips? We let her try a bit of our ice cream :)

That has basically been our week so far. Pretty boring!

Heat Wave

It has been a warm day. Way too warm for my tastes, in fact. Our apartment has gotten up to 79 degrees and the current temperature is 81 degrees (it is 7 p.m.). This is not normal spring weather! In fact, 3 years ago at this time we had a blizzard! I am not sure which would be worse, a blizzard or this heat...

Amelia and I needed to get out of the house so we went on a walk by the lake.


We were hoping for a nice cool breeze down by the water but we weren't so lucky today. Amelia, as usual, knew just what to do to relax on the walk:



I can assure you this is a happy face:


Amelia got her first bath in our tub tonight!


I brought a cup in with me to use to rinse her and stuff and she was so fascinated with it!


She's all ready for bed now and I am just waiting for the signs that she is ready for sleep!

Family Fun

Today was another lazy day for us. Those have been happening a bit too often lately... We all napped at 11 until...nearly 3! While we admit that we must have needed the sleep, I still feel like we wasted the morning/early afternoon!

Amelia has been sucking in her lips FOREVER. It is the reason that her chin get all dried-out and red from time to time. I think it is pretty cute:



After our early dinner (of tacos), we all played together. We started out with Amelia's toy piggy bank:


We tried to explain to Amelia that it is more fun to put money into the bank than it is to take it out. She didn't agree with us.

Next Amelia and her daddy moved on to the farm. Amelia hasn't been too thrilled with this toy since she got it for Christmas. Jason showed her that it isn't scary. Here they are on the farm:


They both went through the farm. I am serious. See for yourself:


Once Jason went through, Amelia went through. His plan worked at least!

Once Jason was done on the farm, Amelia kept at it. She decided opening the door was overrated eventually and just climbed right over it:



Here is a short clip of her walking with her shopping cart. It isn't the best example of this skill but it was the best I could get on video :)



(she kept getting stuck at the end of the coffee table today)

We rounded out the evening with a bath and a bottle. Jason gave Amelia some sweet hair during bathtime:



What do you think of her 'do?

That has been our day. Nice and relaxing. We do a lot of that now that school is over! Life has been so much simpler, mostly, for us and I think we are all loving it. This week the spring semester started and I am not there, I had no books to buy, nothing. It is starting to sink in that it is really over :)

Sink Bath

This morning I found Amelia very, very wet...she didn't get into an overnight diaper before bedtime. Poor thing. So, in an attempt to have a quick bath, I gave it to her in the sink:


Well, she really enjoyed her sink bath...so it took 20 minutes instead of the 5 I had planned on. Oh well. We still made it to the bank before they closed, so all is good. (I did have to go in my Paul Frank pajamas though because we were cutting it so close I didn't want to "waste" time changing...)

Here are some more pictures:



Yes, she is sucking on the faucet in the picture on the right. Apparently she was thirsty! Here is a video of her in action:

Chef Amelia!

This afternoon Amelia wore her own chef hat that Jason got for her (and he personalized it himself):




In other news, for those who were aware of our extreme diaper rash situation, it is getting under control. The day that it showed up she was sore all over, bloody and just in pure pain. We were all miserable. She cried through all diaper changes and we were so upset during them as a result (Jason had a hard time finishing them, he felt so terrible because she was hurting). I posted on Facebook for some advice and got a ton of suggestions, some we knew of and others we didn't. We didn't get anything right away and that night we loaded her up with corn starch before bed. We intended to get some new things to try the next day but when we woke up she was no longer bleeding and it looked like a normal diaper rash. So, things are much better and we are now able to treat it as any plain ol' diaper rash. What a relief!

We did soak her bum this afternoon, to help make it feel a little better (that was one of the suggestions we recieved). We put her in the "deep end" of her bath center (this was the first time we have done this):


She really loves her monkey. She wouldn't let him go when it was time to get out:


And the last bit of news...today was my very last, first day of school! If and when graduate school will be a possibility is unknown to me, therefore, I am looking at today as my last, first day of school. Only 16 weeks to go!

Bath Time and Toys!

We had another not so interesting day here. We have been bad at bath time the past few weeks! She gets washcloth baths a lot of the time but today we finally did a "real" bath and she had fun! It had been awhile since we had a bath in her tub and had some time to play in the water. After her bath she was rolling around in her towel, being silly:


We tried to go to Wal-Mart to move pictures from memory card to disc and a few pictures to print out, but after almost twenty minutes of sitting at a machine it shut down. We left. Whenever we are at Wal-Mart for a long time like that (which we normally are, it is a much longer process going there than to Target) I find a toy for Amelia. Nothing too fancy, just something to say, "sorry we are still here honey". Today she got stacking cups:


She liked banging them around! We realize we could have just given her storage containers and it would have been virtually the same, but we use a lot of GladWare and Ziploc containers that often have some sharp edges and since she is sucking on everything she sees lately we wanted something with smooth edges so she wouldn't cut her tongue.

Amelia also did some cooking tonight:


Those measuring cups are one of her favorite toys right now!


*We don't print out pictures to send to people for the most part. If anyone wants a picture of Amelia (or a few), let us know! After today's disaster at Wal-Mart I made an online account with them and we can have picture orders sent to any Wal-Mart for pick-up! There are some sitting at the Hudson Wal-Mart as I type this. So, if anyone ever wants a picture for any reason, you can e-mail us or leave a comment on here (you can do it as "anonymous" and just sign your name at the end, no need to make an account). Just let us know which Wal-Mart you go to...

"Date Night"

Well, we are calling tonight "date night" because I got home from work around 6 (vs the normal of 8 or later on Fridays). Jason gave Amelia her bath and when I got home we ate dinner, ran to Wal-Wart, Dairy Queen and stopped at a Redbox. We rented Paul Blart: Mall Cop ... We both agree that it looks like a 'terrible' movie, but hilarious at the same time...and we both like Kevin James, so we decided that for a dollar to rent it overnight we'd give it a shot! So, tonight it "date night"...ice cream and a movie (plus a sleeping Amelia).

When I got home from work, Jason had just finished giving Amelia her bath and there she was, on the bed, in a full sized towel! I asked why and he told me her towel wasn't hanging in her room (...because we washed it Tuesday), so he grabbed one of ours (which are coincidentally right next to her towels, lol). Here she is using a big girl towel:





Ok, time to start that movie...hopefully it isn't too terrible!

Weekend Photos!

Here are some pictures from last weekend. Some are mine, some are my sisters, they are all good!

She is getting so much better at tummytime!!!




She is looking so grown up already:


She is also starting to hold onto things more and more, as seen in her bath (holding onto her orange monkey toy):


BIG, sparkling, blue eyes:


As if we haven't had enough issues at feeding time, we now struggle because it seems that she wants to hold her own bottle, as seen here:


One time a few days ago she was such a stinker while eating! She insisted on moving her bottle to the side so she could shove a couple fingers in and suck on both her hand and her bottle at the same time! She sure has a smart little mind of her own!