Silly Sleeper

I have been finding Amelia in some strange sleeping situations this month! One night she insisted I put on her silver, sparkly, princess shoes...over her footie pajamas! I expected they'd come off before she fell asleep but I was wrong!

I'm not sure how she ended up pressed against the bed...

The other night she was tired. I kept her up a bit longer and then put her into her room with her gate up. I sat down with Joe to nurse him to sleep and she kept coming to the gate asking to come out. I did not take the gate down because I was busy and, well, she was busy too! She emptied her bed onto the floor and eventually fell asleep on top of the pile of stuff!

She can be sooooo silly sometimes!

Our Day Alone

Amelia and I have been on our own all day. Jason got stuck working open to close because someone is "sick" (read - a likely hangover) and no one would work for said person, so since Jason was there he was conned into it. Can you tell I am a little bitter? We have this one night at home together and now I am here, alone, eating fruity pebbles for dinner because there is no point in cooking for just me.

Amelia and I had a pretty good day. We even rented a movie for Jason and I tonight and then promptly returned it since he wasn't even going to be home. It was one that we both want to see so I figured I should wait for him.

Amelia is turning into quite the climber lately.


This morning she figured out she can reach everything on the end table if she stands in her toy box.

We spent a lot of time following Lucky around the house. He is very tolerant of Amelia and just kind of wanders around, lets her climb on him, tug on him and "pet" him. When he rolls over for belly rubs she takes that as a sign that he wants to be played like a set of bongos. I do work with her on playing nicely with him and petting him, instead of hitting him, and we are making some progress.


She even shared "her" cat toy with him. What a nice girl! She loves that toy so much it is silly! Look at her posing with it:


Told you she was silly!

She also made some messes for me today, as usual. One mess that I have been able to avoid for quite some time is her bookshelf. I put a rubbermaid in front of it, which holds her 12 month clothes - which we are still using, to keep her away from her books when I am not around. Today, she managed to move the rubber maid aside...


...and take all her books off the top shelf. As usual! She heard me coming and I think that is why she is posing like she did nothing wrong! Here is a view of all her books she removed!


I had a pretty good day with my silly girl.


Lastly, here is a video of Amelia's new favorite game!



That's right, she is learning how to put things into things and then remove them. It is fun! I love that she is learning how to "pick things up" (ie-put them away, in a sense).

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!

My Living Room Right Now

Thank you, Amelia. You sure know how to have a good time!

Pick Up Your Room!

This morning Jason and I were a little out of it. He isn't feeling well and I am just, well, exhausted (more mentally than physically). As I went in and out of consciousness this morning I knew Amelia was awake and that she had gotten a bottle. Next, I realized that she was awake and playing in her room. I assumed she was in her bed...nope! Jason let her play in her room like a big girl this morning and this is what we found:

When I first opened the door she seemed a bit upset with me. Probably because she had been locked away for an hour or so...




What seemed like a good idea at the time proved to be not the greatest. I had just cleaned up her room last night and now I get to do it again tonight. One day I will be able to tell her to pick up her own room!

School has been winding down, fast. I dropped off my paper today, returned my library books (for the first and last time) and sold back my books from my last required science class, about caves. I got a whopping $2 back for them. I figured I wouldn't get much since they weren't that much to begin with but I have no use for them, so I took the $2. I didn't even use them for the class, why would I use them in the future?! I only have one class to wrap up. I have a paper due tomorrow and the last test on Tuesday (yes, 2 days before Christmas Eve) and then I am DONE. I am not sure when I will write the last paper...there is a movie (An Education) at work that I would like to catch before it ends tomorrow. It is feeling good to be finishing college, just in time for the holidays.

Bad Blogger

I have been kind of a "bad" blogger lately. There are many reasons for this but the two main ones are: lack of time and/or a lack of interesting things to talk (blog) about. Ludo has been making computer time difficult too...


He has turned into such a lap cat this past year! It is sweet but kind of annoying at the same time :)

School is winding down, fast. In about one month I will be free. Not just free for winter break but free free. Graduated. Finished. I have one major hurdle to jump before that happens, my thesis. I have been struggling with it for a lot of reasons, mainly, lack of enthusiasm for it (despite it being the "key" to graduation) and lack of information out there on my topic (lacquerware from the Han Dynasty). It's ok. I'll get it done. I have to!

Honeypie won for "best new restaurant" and the Oriental Theatre won "best movie theatre" in the 2009 Shepherd Express "Best of Milwaukee". It's voted on by the people of Milwaukee annually. Jason and I did our part and we cast a ballot along with the rest of the city. You can go here to see other winners if you are interested. There are 6 categories to look through. We are glad to be working at some of the city's most beloved places :)

Amelia is still keeping us on our toes! Our entire apartment is her domain these days:


Her things are everywhere!

We spent this afternoon cleaning up the apartment in preparation for our trip "home" this weekend. We leave tomorrow morning, as early as possible. We will have Thursday night "home" as a family and then Jason heads to the cabin for Wisconsin's deer opener. The rest of the weekend Amelia and I will be visiting with people and I hope to do a little work on my thesis, if possible.

Amelia is ready to go to her Nana's house:


She's thinking, "let's get this show on the road, get me in my seat guys, I can't figure it out myself".

As most of you know, Amelia has a fascination with electrical cords. Here is our most recent attempt to keep her away from my computer cord:


I think it is only a matter of time before she figures out how to get past it. I swear, she is the smartest little girl ever. She figures everything out, eventually.

Over the weekend I dropped my phone in the toilet at work. I used to wonder how anyone ever did that because it just seemed like something that should never happen. Now I know it happens easier than I ever thought. It just fell in :( We went to Target and got a prepaid phone for me (Jason got a new one too) and put my SIM card into it. Quick fix! Amelia thought it was a new toy for her:


It has a partial QWERTY keypad, so that has been interesting to get used to! I've had a full QWERTY phone before but this partial business is very different! Can you see that Amelia's right eye has a red spot? (enlarge the picture by clicking on it if you can't and want to) That would be broken blood vessels in the little lady's eye. Why you may ask? Crying.

Amelia's crying has been getting out of control this past week. She gets so upset very often and in inconsolable. We are praying that it is teething but not convinced. In the past we have atributed some of her behavior changes to teething and no teeth have shown up! Hopefully this time that is it. I'd like to be able to say there is a reason for her fussiness all the time lately.

Don't get me wrong. She has had plenty of happy moments the past week, like this one:


It's just she has been upset a ton which is not like her at all. She is usually a happy little baby all the time!

She is even happy upside down:



She is so silly sometimes!

Last night Jason and I had "date night" (with Amelia in tow). We ate at the Tallgrass Grill which is located in our old neighborhood, right behind our old apartment building almost. They serve "healthy" burgers, aka, grass fed beef burgers. They are really good! After that we went to my work to catch a movie. Our first choice was cancelled (which I should have known as an employee) so we saw the next one to start which was New York, I Love You. Jason didn't seem too thrilled to see it based on my explanation of it but he ended up really liking it! We went to the earlier show because we had hopes Amelia would sleep because she hadn't napped all day. She was awake for the start of it, kicking in her seat but Jason rocked the seat and within 45 minutes she was out like a light.

Well, tonight I have lots to do to get Amelia and I ready for travel. Jason got packed this morning since he is at work now. We went to Target last night to get another duffel bag so Amelia and I don't have to share my old swim bag any longer. It's just not big enough! While we were there we picked up some baby food for the trip. Man, I am so glad that we decided to make her food. It is so expensive! I spent more money last night on a few days worth of food than I spent to make about 50 feedings of sweet potatoes. I could not believe it! I will say, the convenience of pre-made food is great but I will definately be making a few batches of food for Amelia upon our return from "home". We are running low right now. She has been living off of avacado and pumpkin and squash the past few days...

Lastly, here is a picture I just snapped a few minutes ago. I was in the bathroom and when I came back I heard whimpering but could not find Amelia anywhere. Turns out she got herself stuck behind the couch! I got her out promptly but not before I snapped a picture to share with everyone:


Does that make me a bad mom? I hope not!

*For anyone who is curious and doesn't know, that red "thing" on the back of Amelia's neck is a hemangioma and it has ceased growing. It is showing early signs of regression (it is graying in color) and we cannot wait until it is gone! It kind of freaks us out and it feels really funny. They can take kind of a long time to go away completely but we hope it is gone by her first birthday!

Wait, one more. I just snapped another picture and uploaded it quick:


I am thinking we might in fact have a teether among us! Why else would someone chew on a coffee table?