Up up and away!

So its been a month since I've blogged. Time sure does go by fast and slow in the mom world black hole. So here is a little bit of what's been going on in our lives. Last week my sister and my dad came to visit for a few days and we had a really good visit. I made sure we went to this huge nursery thats in town because my little sister is like the plant whisperer. She was in heaven, and we only saw about 1/16 of what they had to offer. She helped me pick out two pots with sturdy plants that I should be able to keep alive. So far they still are alive. Must be a miracle.

Amelia loved that my dad would hold her hand and walk around with her 24/7. I firmly believe that all that walking around with her finally gave her the nudge to walk. Sunday evening she started walking and hasn't looked back. I spend most of my day picking up a mess only to turn around with 3 other messes waiting for me and Amelia no where in sight. The other skill Amelia can now add to her resume is queen bee tantrum thrower. Terrible twos? Try terrible 13 months! It doesn't help that she's decided that her molars need to come in now, ignore the fact that she only has her two top teeth and two bottom teeth. The red tornado doesn't do anything orthodox, and I don't think I'd have it any other way. Check back in a few months and I might have changed my tune. Kidding... or am I?!

Nathan and I are really looking forward to visiting Nathan's two brothers (and their families) in Minnesota this upcoming weekend. It will be Amelia's first time flying. I hope she doesn't cry the whole time. No one wants to be the parents of a crying baby on a long flight. I'm sure most of us have been on a flight with a crying child, and its never a pretty sight. Nonetheless we are excited to be going.

Yesterday we did some spring cleaning. We cleaned out our under the stairs closet and reorganized. I know you may be thinking "Yawn, spring cleaning", but I am so glad we finally got around to doing it. I don't like clutter, it makes me feel claustrophobic. I really like going through a closet and getting rid of stuff, my motto is "If I haven't used it in 6-12 months, I'm not going to, so hasta la vista JUNK." I highly recommend it. Very liberating. So yes, I did just blog about cleaning.

This summer I will be helping teach summer art classes for kids at the art museum. Greek and Roman art here we come! The activities are going to be awesome, I'm really excited about it and the kids are really jazzed up as well. I'm kinda giddy that I will be the art historian for some of the classes.

Well I think thats about it... Hope everyone has a good Memorial Day!

Ps- Glad we all survived "The Rapture" phew, that was a close one. I think I need a t-shirt that says "I survived the rapture of May 21, 2011".

Kites and Sickness

Well the Easter weekend we had planned has been put on hold. Amelia got sick Thursday, not just a little cold, we're talking miserable sick. She had a fever that we couldn't get to go down, even after rounds of the Ibuprofen/Tylenol combo. Thursday night, I took her into the walk in clinic. Turns out Miss Amelia has the Coxsackie Virus, aka Hand, Foot and Mouth. Except she just has the mouth infection. Poor baby has blisters in her throat. We think she caught it at the Kite Festival last Saturday. So Easter will be a chill at home weekend, since she's extremely contagious. Hopefully Nathan and I can catch up on some sleep, the past two nights with Amelia have been horrible.

Speaking of the Kite Festival, it was really fun this year. Besides Amelia licking the school bus seat which is probably where she caught the virus, kites were able to fly this year. Last year there no wind, which made for a lame festival. The other fun part about it was Garrett, Melissa and Olivia Rasmussen were able to join us! It was awesome having them stay with us for a few days while on their way to Mesa, Az. Olivia and Amelia became fast friends and it was hilarious to watch them interact together.

We also had our family photo's done at FotoFly. They are the most amazing photography studio. For those who are curious, they're located in Draper. Loved them. I highly recommend them. And because you asked nicely here are a few to enjoy:

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.