Amelia's First Birthday

Amelia celebrated her first birthday yesterday and even though the day was busy, she had a blast. She loved hearing the happy birthday song, so we sang that song throughout the day. We had a few neighbors and friends over for some cake and ice cream. Suzanne and Stuart surprised us by stopping by on their way home from Vegas. Nathan had to work late on her birthday and he was really bummed about it. Luckily he made it home to see her eat her cake (which is always the best part of a party). We can't wait to celebrate some more this weekend with family. Life with a toddler has officially begun.

Our neighbor gave Amelia a baby sock monkey, for those of you that know Nathan you know that sock monkeys are his least favorite thing, so that was pretty funny.

Nathan made Amelia a log cabin out of a box. He believes all kids need are a box to have fun, he was right. Amelia loves playing in her cabin. Her favorite thing to do is to look at her birthday cards in the cabin.

Amelia unsure of the smash cake. I think she was experiencing some performance anxiety.

After a few tastes she realized "hey this is yummy!"

Pretty happy and running on a sugar high.

She loved opening presents

The owl cake I made

Amelia's owlet smash cake

A few pictures are better than none

I can add photos again!!! perhaps my whining to the blogging universe paid off because my toolbar is back and I can add photos again. WAHOO! so here are some photos from our spring break fun:

Amelia and I going down the slide, she loved it.

Amelia loves to up and down the stairs, over and over and over again.

Amelia and Tia jumping and rolling around on the air mattress

Amelia and Tia chillin in the car

Me, Amelia, Joanna and Tia at the dinosaur museum

Spring Break!

After college you no longer get to experience the lovely week of spring break. In fact, I didn't even know it was spring break week until a friend told me. You might be wondering why I'm mentioning spring break because it no longer applies to us, but the most wonderful thing happened to me over spring break. My bestie of a best friend Joanna drove 6 hours to visit, along with her little girl Tia and Momma Maria. They are like my second family. I was so excited to see them that it felt like christmas, I was bouncing off the walls and didn't sleep a wink the night before they arrived. We had beautiful warm weather and we took full advantage of it. Playing at the park and soaking up the nice warm sun. Tia shared her love of dinosaurs with Amelia and we even took them to a dinosaur track museum. Amelia got her first dinosaur toy, of course she picked out a ferocious T-Rex. She loves carrying him around and chewing on him. I was sad to see them go, after trying unsuccessfully to have them live permanently in our guest room and bribing them with cupcakes. Grad school called Joanna home. I'll see them again soon so it was more of a see ya later.


Well I really wanted to upload some photo's to this post but Blogger isn't letting me! What gives?! Well that is frustrating. On a side note, Amelia has taken 3 steps but would prefer to crawl or cruise along the furniture instead of walking. Her birthday is in two weeks and then I will officially have a toddler. I cannot believe how fast time has flown by. I will have to make another post later with more updates and hopefully photos because I'm slightly grumpy at Blogger. GRrrrr....

What's been up

So the reason why we've been such slackers in the bloggity blog world is because I decided to take on a project. It involved transforming our kitchen table. I've been surfing some do it yourself blogs and I snagged the idea of painting our table and chairs. What color? you might ask, DIFFERENT colors. I will say! So Nathan and I sanded down the chairs and table, primed and spray painted them. It was a lot of fun. Minus the sanding part. Not my favorite thing to do. Piece by piece it started coming together. It took us about 2 weeks because we could really only work on it when Amelia was napping or after she went to bed. It sure was fun working side by side. Hope you guys wanted to see photos because here they are:

So thats what Nathan and I have been up to, I know you probably want to know what's new with Amelia. Amelia is almost 11 months old and she keeps us on our toes! She's cruising along with her push along toy. And she's even had some sweets. GASP! we gave her a taste of my birthday cake, SHE LOVED IT (now we have high expectations for her smash cake), she had a mini oreo, and part of a cupcake (I had to share my love of Sweet Tooth Fairy, if you haven't been GO!). Nathan has also taught her how to go down the stairs and give high five's. I can't believe she's almost one.

Amelia loves to read books. Amelia loves to pull the books off the shelf. I pick up said books many times a day. (usually they are all on the floor unlike this pile)

Amelia really likes to play with wipes. She likes to wipe things. Carpet included. Pretty sure she picked this habit up from me. But I don't wipe the carpet.

After the mini Oreo.

Going down the stairs.

Having a taste of my birthday cake.

Amelia's Hand

We have received many phone calls this past week asking how Amelia's hand is healing so we thought we should update our blog. On January 3rd, Amelia had her 9 month appointment in the morning and she was very well behaved. The pediatrician was slightly concerned because she had grown a lot length wise but due to the flu (which she had before christmas) she hasn't put on much weight. So cheese, yogurt and pasta were foods we had the okay to use to put some pounds on her. By the way, she LOVES yogurt now. Two hours after we arrived home we were back at the pediatricians office because I turned around for a moment and Amelia (who was on the other side of the room) crawled to the gas fireplace and touched it, burning her left hand. She had second degree burns, which created a massive blister on her palm and blisters on her fingertips. She was hysterical and I was hysterical. Thank goodness Nathan was calm and level headed.

Amelia was such a trooper, that first day was rough. They didn't want her crawling to pop the blisters so we had to practically hold her the whole day. She ended up popping the blister on her palm sometime during the night anyway. By day two she was crawling around like nothing had happened. She even left her band-aids alone, except she liked to suck on the sock that we put on her hand to protect the band-aids. Its almost been 3 weeks and her hand is almost completely healed.

After we got home from the pediatricians

A few days later, rocking out the sock look

A week later, her finger blisters were peeling

Just a few days ago, you can see how big the blister was on her palm but its getting better!

This morning, looking better each day.

Twilight to Midnight

I was asked about a month ago if I would be part of a group of local artists that would do a sidewalk chalk art piece for St. George's New Years Eve celebration, Twilight to Midnight. First off, I'm really quite shy with my art work. So the fact that I said yes, knowing my piece would be viewed by many people was quite the shock. I have been in nervous anticipation for the past month, my eye has even been twitching, which just added to bucket of emotions. But low and behold on Friday, in the 25 degree weather, adorned in four layers of clothing I completed my piece. Everything went pretty well, except I forgot to bring something to kneel on so my knees are pretty bruised and sore. Kneeling on cold concrete for a few hours will do that. Here are some pics of my piece, and some of the other pieces. My piece is abstract so keep that in mind. It was really neat to see so many different styles of art and the artists behind the work.

Some of the finished pieces.

My piece is the bottom right.

Fellow artists at work.

My piece. Sorry its not a better photo.

Holiday Fun

Amelia turned 9 months old

The tail end of Amelia's cheesy grin. She does it all the time. Its hilarious. AND you can see her two bottom teeth.

We had some INSANE weather. A full week of nonstop rain which caused some flooding and then snow. Never thought I would see white stuff living here.

Amelia loves playing with her little car/walker toy. This pic is especially for grandma and papa willy.

Met up with my best friend Joanna and her family and took the kids to the planetarium. It was beyond AWESOME to see her.

Amelia and Nathan at the planetarium.

For the Evans family: THE PURPLE BIRD IS BACK! (yes this is the original- consider the game BACK ON!) for everyone else, this fantastic tacky creature is a family christmas tradition, and it given to the unsuspecting recipient trojan horse style. I received it this year after many years of it being lost, it was in a christmas platter box. I should have known better. Who gives someone a christmas platter on christmas?!

Amelia LOVED climbing over the mountain of wrapping paper and boxes.

Nathan helped Amelia open her presents, she did a pretty good job unwrapping.

We took luminaries to my mothers grave christmas eve. It was the first year we have done it and apparently it is quite the christmas eve tradition. The cemetery looked beautiful with the snow and luminaries everywhere. There were tons of families there singing carols too.

Amelia in her christmas pj's. She was pretty excited to open a present.

Amelia and Nellie during the christmas eve party.

Amelia even learned to ride a bike. We start them young in this family. (Actually this bike was a present for a little girl in my grandparents ward, Amelia made sure it was in good working order)