Go Hawks!!

Amaia and I are ready for fall.

Fall food, fall WEATHER, fall football.  Bring it on!!!  

Blessed

If I had to pick one word to describe my current stage of life, I might pick "confusing".  Being a new momma coupled with a strong desire to do what is right results in quite a bit of that unsure feeling.


When should Amaia's bedtime be?  How should I balance being out and about with her vs. being at home? Is she getting enough to eat? Is she getting enough sleep? Is she ready for solid foods? Why is she crying? Did I do something wrong?  Is it okay for me to have the TV on when she is up right now?  How can I communicate that it is not nice to pull mommy's hair constantly? And on and on and on...


How blessed is the one whom You choose and bring near to You 
To dwell in Your courts. 
We will be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, 
Your holy temple. --Psalm 65:4


I read this verse yesterday and it reminded me that I may be a little unsure about the details of life, but I am not confused about the big things, the important things.  I am confident that I do know what is most important for Amaia and I.  I know this because God has graciously told us what is most important. He has drawn me near to Himself and given me his word to provide the answers I need to navigate this crazy world we live in.  And for that I am so blessed.


I am sure mom's of older little ones are laughing at my silly, simple questions.  I can only imagine that those questions will get MUCH more complicated :)

5 Months!

My sweet Amaia-
Oh my goodness these summer months seem to be going by SO fast.  You are officially 5 months old.  You have changed so much over the past month.  You are no longer my sleepy little newborn. You act more and more like an older baby every day.  You perfected the rollover this month.  One night about a week ago you rolled over and over and over and since then it seems like that is all you want to do.  In fact, that is the only way you sleep now.  I put you down on your back but you immediately roll over onto your tummy. Remember when you used to absolutely hate tummy time??  I do :)  Those days are gone.

You are also getting to be quite the good sitter - with some support.  We have to keep soft things around you though.  As you can see, you fall over quite frequently.

You have also grown out of your playmat this month.  It just is not that interesting to you anymore, but you are one loved little girl and your grandma bought you a fabulous new toy and you love it so much! You were even staring at Daddy as he put it together the other night.  You light up every time I put you in it.

We tried to start giving you rice cereal this month.  You are still skeptical about it and not really sure what do with a spoon, but we are working towards making more swallows.

I love seeing you grow and experience new things.  You are my beautiful, sweet girl.  To many, many more months together!

Love,

Mommy

Steve Comes Home!!

So my baby sister is far from a baby anymore.  In fact, she has been an incredibly strong woman this past year while her fiance has been serving our blessed country in Afghanistan.  Amaia and I went on a little road trip today with my parents to accompany her to Steve's welcome home ceremony.  If there are two things that make me teary eyed lately they are babies and soldiers coming home to their famailies.  I guess they both just hit close to home.  I don't think often enough about the incredible sacrifice that so many people endure.  We are so glad that Steve is home and safe.  Needless to say it was a wonderful, wonderful day.

The girls in our family waiting and waiting and waiting....Doesn't Jessica look good?!

I just loved this sign and sneaked a picture.  How sweet!

A few minutes before the ceremony I asked Jessica to show me how she was feeling

Steve's neice Allison and Amaia starting their friendship

Reunited at last

This is total and complete sidenote, but I sat next to Amaia on the way home and I just kept looking at her amazing eyelashes.  Gorgeous!

Not A Baby Anymore

Amaia has decided she doesn't want to be a baby anymore.

I feel like I put her to bed on Friday night and she woke up a pre-toddler instead of a newborn!  She wants to be in the action all the time, which means that she is not really content playing on her own for very long anymore.  I know other moms probably don't have a lot of sympathy for me, but this has been a bit of a shock to me.  It is quite exhausting to take on the new job of baby entertainer!  However it is also very fulfilling.  Yesterday I had Amaia sitting up on my bed while I played some music and got myself ready for the evening.  Occasionally, I danced to the music for her and my oh my did she get a kick out of that.  She even attempted to do a little dance of her own.  It is surprising how such small things from her can bring me so much joy.  If you know me well, you know that I don't laugh out loud very often.  Well I certainly laugh out loud with Amaia :)

Now that she has figured out that she can roll onto her stomach that is what she does every single time I put her down and then promptly starts crying because she doesn't want to be on her stomach any more.  Ha.  I tell her that she can just roll back onto her back, but she won't listen to me.  I think she just likes to have her head up so she can look around and see what is going on.  She loves to be sitting up. She has also started sleeping on her stomach every night, which honestly made me nervous at first, but I think that she is mobile enough that it is not much of a danger anymore.

We also have been attempting to feed her rice cereal.  I would not say that is going well :)  She is not a fan of wearing a bib!  I feel like I can see a bit of stubbornness coming out. Yikes!  She is constantly trying to pull it off, but I am trying to be firm that wearing a bib is not an option.  I can't decide if she doesn't like rice cereal or if she just isn't ready to really know what to do with food on a spoon.  So we are just going to keep trying it.  Maybe I will try carrots in a few days.

Lil' miss also slept until 7:15 this morning!!!!!!  And I think she might have slept a bit longer if it hadn't started getting noisy around the house.  I'm trying to retrace my steps and figure out how that happened.  I sure hope it continues.

I have new pictures that I will post soon.  Happy Thursday to everyone!

New Trick

All of the sudden I look at my little girl and she does not look little to me anymore!  And now I think my life is going to get a little crazier.  Tonight I had Amaia laying on her playmat and she rolled over - woo hoo!  She has done that before but this time she just kept rolling and rolling and rolling practically halfway accross the room.  I had to stop her on before she hit her head on the fireplace. Oh my! I am going to have to start keeping a closer eye on her.

4th of July

Happy belated 4th of July to you and yours!

We started off the day by sleeping in, watching a movie and the Coney Island hot dog eating contest.   After that it was off the pool we went.  It was a perfect pool day and I have been wanting to see what Amaia thought of the water.  She was not overly enthusiastic, but she didn't hate it!  Yea!  We only put her toes in this time around.  She doesn't have a smiwsuit (yet!) and I didn't want her to be out in the sun for more than a few minutes anyways.  We have to protect that beautiful skin of hers.

We grilled out when we got home - surf and turf style! Adam is on a constant mission to prove to me that I actually do like the foods I think I don't like.  Shrimp sort of freaks me out, because it still looks like live version.  But I will admit that it was rather good.

In the evening our church put on a talent show and Adam broke out his saxophone to play with the  concert band.  There were some really funny acts and Amaia sat on my lap contently for almost the entire show.  I attribute that to the good music.   It was so good to remember how lucky we are to live in the USA.  I don't think about that often enough and there are so many people that have sacrificed so much for the blessings that we enjoy in this country.  Including my sissy and her soon to be hubby.

We capped off the evening with vivannos on the deck.  Yummy, yum, yum.

Today my house is a mess and I could use a nap, but I don't care.  Holidays are the best and holidays with my two loves are even better.