Auntie M

On Tuesday, my friend Marie came down to Milwaukee to visit us for a few days. We have been having some awesome weather this week, so we went on a walk right after Marie arrived so we could enjoy the weather and she could stretch her legs after the long drive. We walked about 5 miles and near the end Amelia fell asleep:


I couldn't even get her to wake up when we got home. She was out cold!

Tuesday night I wowed Marie with my domesticity. I cooked dinner. Complete with apron and baby:


Wednesday, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, Amelia wore an adorable dress and a shamrock headband:


Can I share a secret? The "headband" is actually a garter from the dollar section at Target! See:



It works, right?

Around lunchtime, we went over to Marie's grandma's house so they could visit while Marie was in town. After that we went to the art museum. We had a good time! I am so glad that we have a membership so we can go often and not spend a ton of money.

We parked down the street, where my sister and I parked over the weekend, again. It went better this time as it was sunny and beautiful out. Amelia didn't like being ocvered in her blanket though. She kept uncovering herself:


She also wasn't a fan of me lowering the canopy of the umbrella stroller so it would block the sun.




As you can see, she didn't like the sun in her little eyes!


We had a great time with Marie. Thanks for the visit, Marie!

Sister Weekend

My sister drove down on Saturday morning because she was off for a couple of days. She got here at 10 on Saturday morning and we went to the art museum since she had never been there before.

I had this bright idea that I didn't want to pay for parking so we would park on the street. For free. There is a small strip of road a short walk away with free parking. You guessed it, it was full. So, still not wanting to pay for parking, I drove us down the lakefront and parked. It really wasn't that far, just a quick 15 minute walk in the cold wind...

Amelia sure does like going to the museum:


She loves looking at all the colors!

Now that she is a little older we went down to the chair park:


Amelia picked the yellow chair to sit in:


Downstairs they also have a new area about green furniture. Amelia tried out a chair made from bike parts:


Then she fell off of a low couch and we headed out... On our way out we stopped in the store and Amelia got two new books. We gave choices. We would hold up a stuffed animal or a toy and she always wanted a book. Here she is checking out one of her new books in the car:


Then we got home and saw daddy:


He requested that I explain this picture, well. Amelia was still in her carseat and Jason was making faces at her through the window. Then he started blowing on the window to make her laugh and I was able to capture the moment. Quite well, I think.

Saturday night we went to Wal-Mart to get household items and groceries. Yes, we grocery shop at Wal-Mart. This was our second time. One stop is just so much easier than two and the prices are also nicer (usually) at Wal-Mart. After getting home and eating dinner, Kim and I went to see the new Alice in Wonderland at my work. Gotta love free movies, free popcorn and free soda! Now if only we could find a free babysitter...then Jason and I could see more movies!

Sunday morning we woke up and were all mixed up with the time and didn't end up making it to church. We played for a bit. Amelia's toy piggy bank was the big hit of the morning:


At one point, Amelia just sort of slowly leaned back with one of the coins:


When it was time to move, she would just shove the coin in her mouth and leave it there:


What a funny girl!

Kim left late in the afternoon yesterday. I picked up the house, kind of, and got ready for work. That was our weekend! It was full of girl-time!


Thanks for the visit, Kim!

What a Wednesday!

Man, we were busy today. We got up at 9 and never stopped. Until now that is.


This morning we went to the art museum (above). Over the weekend a new exhibit, Street Seen, opened so we checked that out. Amelia dicovered that her little voice echoes in the museum today, so we had to let her out of her stroller. She followed us around, crawling, through the exhibit. It was pretty funny. We walked around the first floor for a little bit too. That's one nice thing about being members, we can go for a short period of time and it's not a waste. We don't have to "make a day of it".

After the museum and lunch, we headed home to get Ludo. He had another vet appointment to see check on his bladder issues. Of course, it wasn't perfect so more tests are being run etc. While Jason ran up to get the little guy I stuck my arm in the backseat to snap a picture of Amelia:


What a happy little girl! (I changed it to black and white because the original picture was really dark and it looked so much better this way!)

After the vet we stopped at Downtown Books on our way home. Well, we still had Ludo with us but figured he would be ok for a half hour or so. We plugged our meter for 35 minutes and headed in. Well, an hour later we realized we needed to get going! We got in the car and started to head home when we decided that we wanted dinner out. We had cashed a Christmas check (mainly to have some cash to pay for parking at the museum) so we thought we could treat ourselves, somewhat guilt free. Well, as we were searching for where to go we realized we still had a fourth passenger:


Oops! Don't worry though, we didn't get too far of course before we remembered him! I still can't believe we forgot to bring him home! He is so quiet in the car these days. He is fine. He isn't even mad at us :) All those 5-7 hour trips to MN have him trained well!

We finally found a place for dinner, Villa Roma. We decided somewhere new would be best since it was special Christmas money and all. We just had a pizza and some cheese bread. Pretty simple! Amelia LOVED marinara sauce:


Yes, that is a knife that she is eating off of...

We are home and very tired! Amelia is in bed and I think that we will be headed there very soon.

Relief?

I am not sure if I feel relief. My paper is "done". I am fed up with it. I have spent over 100 hours on it, at least. I am hitting the wall. Whenever I try and "dig deeper" or find more information I am met with the same stuff. I just feel like there isn't much more I can do at this point. I wrote up a bibliography just now and tomorrow I will get my figures (pictures) in order and then I am dropping it off on my way to work. I e-mailed the professor and told her where I am at and that I would like it if she could look it over this weekend and let me know what she thinks and where she thinks it could improve. I just want to pass the class, you know? That'd be nice. That would mean I would get the diploma.

This afternoon we went to the art museum for the current exhibition: Andy Warhol: The Late Years. We didn't look around at the permanent collections too much but we did make sure to get Amelia's picture with the Brillo box:


She has a picture with this from every visit of hers to the museum. I got a little worried when we headed for it because it was gone! Then we realized that they now have an entire room dedicated to Andy Warhol:


I am not sure if this is a permanent thing or if it is just for the time that the exhibition is open. We'll see.

Here's Grandpa showing Amelia how her hat looks on him:


We also tried to get a nice family picture, for Christmas cards, while we were there but that didn't work out too well. Oh well. I made a little "photo studio" at home and got some ok pictures of Amelia, including this one:


What'd ya think? Is it a keeper? I think so!

A Lot of Random Stuff

This post will probably be all over the place, sorry. I just have a lot of things I'd like to share and there is no theme to them at all and no particular order to them.

WACKY HOUSE:

This is a house that is in Cudahy, which us just south of Bay View. We stumbled upon it some time ago but this week we happened to have the camera with us! Can you imagine living next to this house?:







SHE'S ON THE MOVE:



Amelia seems to have her own crawl, an Army-type crawl. This is how she gets around the house these days, much to my dismay. We are looking into a baby gate already, to keep her out of the hallway that leads to the bathroom, kitchen and stairwell.

MAM NEWS:

Tomorrow is opening day of the Milwaukee Art Museum's (MAM) newest exhibition, Andy Warhol, the Late Years. Today was member preview day but we didn't make it.

In honor of this weekends Susan B Komen 5K race, MAM dyed their fountains pink! It is pretty neat. Here are some pictures (it has been really cloudy and gloomy, so the pictures aren't great, but you get the idea!):





MOM'S GROUP:

Tuesday this week was the first meeting of the mom's small group at Epikos. It was myself and 4 other moms. Our kids range in age from 5 weeks to 3 years. Amelia stayed at home with Jason because I ran out of time to get her ready to go. Next week I will try harder to bring her so she can socialize with the other babies. There are two 4-month-olds, Stella and Josiah, that I think she might be pretty interested in. The 2 and 3-year-old girls might also be pretty interested in her :)

I had a good time getting to know the other moms. We met for almost 2 hours but normally it will only be about an hour, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes. We will be talking about exactly what is talked about on Sundays in church (Ezra) and so will the other small groups. I think it will be nice to get to know some other moms. Maybe eventually we will have "playdates".

SNEAKING A PEEK:

Amelia is getting smarter and smarter... When she wants out of her crib this is what she does now:




When one of us walks in, she lets go of the bumper (usually) and starts talking to us, in a very excited way. It's pretty cute.

SPOTLIGHT ON LUCKY:

Lucky had his second birthday on September 16th :) He is quite annoying a lot of the time (especially when it is bedtime) but we love him dearly. There is not another cat as affectionate as he is with EVERYONE he meets. Here he is on his new blanket from my sister:


PILLOW PETS:


I just think these are the cutest thing. We got these at the MN State Fair. They are pillows that fold up into animals when you are not using them. The larger one (moose) is for our couch. My mom got it for me and brought it down last weekend. The smaller one is a wolf and it is for Amelia. Once the time comes for her to have a pillow in her bed, that will be it!

FIRST COLD:

Amelia is sick for the first time. Tuesday night she had a hard time falling asleep Jason said and she had the sniffles. Wednesday she was all congested when I left for school. Jason picked me up, I dropped him at work and when I got home I found a very sad baby in the backseat. She had her first true "blowout" (ie- the contents of her diaper were all over her and her carseat). I know most other people have "blowouts" often, but this is honestly the first time we have had one. We have had leaks here and there a few times, but nothing like this before.

Anyways, I got her cleaned up, went to draw a bath for her and she went to the bathroom again. So I then had a baby, her clothes, a carseat and a changing table to clean up. Joy.

I started to realize how sick she was feeling at this point and I was cursing myself for not picking up Johnson & Johnson's "Calming Vapor Bath" months ago. I saw it and thought, "hm, I may need that one day". I decided I'd get it when that "one day came". It came and I had to then run to the store and I got the very last bottle on the shelf (thankfully). I also picked up saline drops for her nose and a Vick's Vaporizer and some VapoSteam.

When I called the pediatrician, the nurse told me to put a vaporizer in her room. I assumed she meant to use the medicine in it too. Well, maybe not. The bottle said "ask a doctor for children uner 2". I took one look at Amelia and knew she needed something. I put in under half the recommended amount and kept the vaporizer in her doorway, this way the Vick's VapoSteam wouldn't be overpowering (as we all know it can be, Vick's is a strong scent!) but it would be there.
*From reading on the Internet, the only reason I could find posted for babies not using Vicks was because the smell often burns the eyes of infants. (well, also, the Vicks that you rub on your chest is too strong for babies, but that is not what I have been using with Amelia. You just add VapoSteam to the water in the vaporizer) I figured if that happened, I would adjust from there. I also figured if that was the only reason they don't recommend it for babies, I would try it out. It did not happen and I think it worked wonders on her, so I would not tell another mom not to try it. I would recommend using a very small amount though and keeping it away from the crib.

I absolutely made the right decision! Amelia is still a little stuffed up but she is feeling MUCH better. She was her normal self, rolling and scooting all over the place, talking and laughing. I have the vaporizer running again tonight, with a smaller amount of the VapoSteam stuff, and think I may have Jason hook it up again tomorrow night while I am at work.

And hey, if/when Jason or I get sick this winter, this Vick's Vaporizer with VapoSteam will be wonderful I think!

...Some people say that babies get runny noses when they are teething. Maybe that is the reason for all this trouble? The doctor told me it could be, but to treat it as an illness and call today if Amelia was worse. Only time will tell if there is a tooth on it's way :)

MILWAUKEE FILM FESTIVAL:

Today marks the start of the Milwaukee Film Festival! Last year there was no festival because the group that put it on (Milwaukee International Film) fell apart (basically because of politics...) and the new group (Milwaukee Film), formed of many of the same members, didn't have time to get a festival put together.

I stopped in there this evening to pick up my work schedule and man does the place look different! The next week and a half are going to be crazy around there... There are some films I would like to see but they fall on all the days that I am available to work :(

You can go here for a complete listing of the films being shown, if you are interested.

PICTURES:

Lastly, here are some pictures from today:

Super Sunday

Today was super for many reasons. First, I made breakfast this morning which is something I never, ever do for Jason. Hopefully it wasn't too terrible. After that we went to church as a family for the second week in a row (normally just me and Amelia go in the evening). After church we stopped by the art museum for an hour or so. It's nice to be members and be able to just stop by when we feel like it, even if it is just for an hour or two. Today we went through the featured exhibitions, The Eight and American Modernisms and the Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs.

Here are some pictures of Amelia from the art museum:



This afternoon Amelia and I went on a nice, long run. We went from Bay View all the way to the East Side. Our destination was the Oriental because I knew ice cold water would await me there, plus, I know that it is about nine miles fom our house. We went around nine miles in about 90 minutes, not too shabby. I think we could have been quicker but I kept hesitating at first, not sure if we should attempt it (there was rain on the way, the news said so and so did the skies). We made it though and only got rained on a little. We stopped for shelter once, but got going again within 5 minutes. After we reached our destination we hopped on the 15 and it brought us back to Bay View.

I had a hungry baby this evening, even her fairy looked good:


Lastly, we worked on the whole sippy cup thing again tonight. I know it might be a bit early for this but she is so adament on holding her own bottle (somewhat unsuccessfully I might add) that we figured we'd let her try. We just put water in it. She seems to know what to do with it:


Now if she would just tilt her head back and lift the cup, she'd be able to get a drink!