Sunshine Day!

We have had the strangest winter.  It has barely snowed and it been so warm!! I feel so lucky to have this of all winters be my first one with a little baby girl in tow.  I can imagine how real Iowa winters can be challenging.  This week has been particularly nice and Amaia and have gotten out for a few walks. Beautiful weather always puts me a great mood!  I was a bit concerned about Amaia, as she is not a fan of being in her car seat lately, but I think she enjoyed it just as much as I did!

Walk # 1 - Just me and Amaia having quality time.  We talked, we laughed, I tickled, she took her socks off.  It was a great time!

We didn't even need jackets!

I put the shade down to keep the sun out of her eyes and I thought it was fun to play peek-a-boo and then she did it too.  It was too cute!

Walk # 2 - We went out and about with our friends Julie and Oscar this afternoon.

I am looking forward to this spring/summer SO much!  We are going to have lots of fun exploring the outdoors!  

The Big 3-0

This weekend I turned 30!  Woot!  Woot!  I think turning 30 is supposed to be depressing and I am supposed to feel old right about now.  However, I do not feel old and I DO feel super blessed and thankful for all the amazing, loving people in my life, so 30 is feeling pretty great!!

Adam promised me a four day extravaganza to celebrate and he did not disappoint.  I don't know what I did, if anything, to deserve such a wonderful husband, but I am now 100% convinced that he the best husband of all time.  Hands down.

Our festivities began on Thursday night where we went to dinner at an undisclosed location with undisclosed people.  Adam tried to trick me into thinking we were going to Chipotle, but it was actually Centro with a couple of my dearest friends.  It was just pure fun!  Great conversation, great food, great people.

  

I guess I didn't take any pictures on Friday - oops!   I came downstairs in the morning to find Adam sitting in his chair reading.  I was so confused!!  Haha! Adam took the day off work to spend the day with me.  We went to La Mie for breakfast and watched, "the Help" in the afternoon.  The only downside of the weekend was that I was sick pretty much the entire time.  However, it was really, really nice that Adam was home while I was not feeling well.  If you are a mom, I am sure that you understand that is doubly not fun to be sick when you have a little one to take care of.  It was such a blessing to have Adam home to help me take care of Amaia and allow me to even take a nap!!  Friday night we went on a date and it was a wonderful time to just talk and enjoy one another.   It was lovely.

Saturday was my actual birthday and it was actually one of the more uneventful days of the weekend.  It was sweet though.  Adam took me to World Market and let me have free reign to buy whatever I want - within reason of course.  Well....go figure, but I couldn't really find anything when the pressure was on.  I only got one small vase.  Every other time I go there I want to buy everything in sight.  Then we went out to coffee and to lunch.   

My and my little sweetie at Caribou.

I had the afternoon to myself and then we met Adam at church that evening.  Our typical Saturday.

Now, let me just say here that I already felt like this was the best birthday ever on Saturday morning.  In fact, I am pretty sure that I even said that to Adam.  Sunday, we had our typical morning routine...breakfast, coffee and face to face time during Amaia's nap.  After that I was under the impression that we were going over to Adam's parent's house for cake (cake made my Adam's mom is something to be very excited about in and of itself!) and a "special guest" was going to be there.  Well that was the understatement of the year! I was blindfolded and walked into a room of almost all of my dearest friends and family to a surprise party.  I had no idea!  I wish that I would have taken better pictures, but I didn't really think of it until after the fact.  Looking around the room there were so many details, just for me!  I feel...sort of embarrassed/overwhelmed as I recount this.  I felt so loved and so blessed by my family and my amazing husband and friends.  The food included all of my favorites: crepes, pretzel m & m's, chocolate galore!, scones, chocolate crinkle cookies, salted caramel chocolate cake and more!  There were pictures of me all around and even a slide show playing.  There was even a quiz all about me!  It was absolutely perfect and I feel like I cannot say thank you enough to all of my dear friends. 

Several people had left by the time I made everyone take a group picture with me.

 Amaia's friend Lainey (daughter of my dear friend Sarah) clearly shares my love of chocolate!

 Some of the decor in mid tear down mode.

From what I hear my dear, dear friends Allison and Julie had A LOT to do with this.  Ah....these girls....I have no words....they are soooo wonderful.

And now....I have enough chocolate to last me for the next 30 years!!  Of course it will not last me for even close to that long, because I don't have the best self control in this area.  Do you want some chocolate?  I have A LOT!  Please come over and help me eat it!!

I also have beautiful flowers gracing my tables.

They are making the letdown from the weekend and little bit easier to bear.

11 Months!

Dear Baby Girl,

How did this happen??  How did it get to be January and how did you get to be only 1 short month away from your 1st birthday SO quickly?!  I can't believe that you are about to not technically be a baby anymore (although you will always be my baby)!

As you have gotten older and more active, it has become progressively more difficult to take your picture.  Exhibit A:

This month you have taken some determined steps towards walking!!  Of course, you still want to be standing at all times, but then a few weeks ago you started standing on your own for 10 seconds or so.  Your daddy and I were so impressed with you. Your favorite spot it still standing by your jumperoo holding on tightly to your beloved tomato.

You are starting to cruise around while holding on to anything you can get your hands on (the jumperoo, the couch, my hair!) and you are getting much better at pulling yourself up on a variety of things.  In fact, you have gotten so good at pulling yourself up that you had a bit of a rough patch with napping.  You figured out how to pull yourself up to a standing position in your crib.  For a few days in a row you would pull yourself up after I put you down for a nap and then you would cry and cry and cry.  I am not sure if you just didn't know how to get yourself down or if you wanted to play instead of sleep, but it was a sad couple of days for the both of us.  Thankfully, I think we are mostly through that phase.

You are still making lots of different sounds.  You say "da da" a lot.  One night you said "da da" and looked right at your daddy.  I can't tell if you are really trying to say any meaningful words or if you are just making sounds, but either way I love hearing your sweet voice.

You love, love, love pat-a-cake.  It is your absolute  favorite right now and you are starting to do more and more of the actions along with me on on your own at any and every time of the day :)

Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake

Baker's man.  Bake me a cake as fast as you can.
Roll it and you roll it and mark it with a b.
And THROOOOOW it on the oven for Amaia and me!

You also starting to really enjoy looking at books with me or on your own.  Our friends, Julie and Oscar gave you a book with flaps to open for a Christmas present and you seem to particularly enjoy this one.

You are a great eater.  You defeintly have your preferences and you are usually a bit skeptical of new things, but you will give most things a try. The only exception was when I tried to put cinnamon on your applesause - you spit that out pronto :)  I will admit that I have been a bit confused lately about what to feed you.  I can tell that you are more hungry, so I have been trying to feed you more of what your daddy and I eat.  You really seem to enjoy lasagna, fish, soup and little pieces of broccoli.  You also still love your old favorites.  For breakfast you eat oatmeal and a banana or some other type of fruit.  For lunch you have a mixture of veggies and rice cereal, plus greek yogurt or part of whatever I am having for lunch.  For dinner you usually have applesauce plus whatever we are having for dinner or an english muffin with peanut butter.  I am really looking forward to the summer.  We are going to try all kinds of new fruits they are in season.

Oh and how could I forget - you have your two front (bottom teeth).  They are coming in slowly, but surely.  You have the cutest squint & grin face!

Actually you have the cutest face in general.

I love you sweet baby girl!

Love, 

Mommy

Goodbye Sissy

My sister (sissy to me) and her hubby visited this weekend for the last time before they move to San Francisco. It is so weird and really rather sad that she is going to be so far away, but I agree with my dad that I don't think I will mind going to visit her there :)

On Friday afternoon, they came over to hang out with Amaia and I and witness Amaia's new standing skills.  Amaia was very happy to see her as you can see!

On Saturday morning we went to brunch to celebrate "my birthday", which is not actually for another couple of weeks.  In reality, I think it was just an excuse to spend some more time together before they leave.  We even got an entire family picture, which doesn't happen often.

And on a completely unrelated note Mondays are usually cleaning, picking up and laundry days at our house.  Sundays are our family day and I try to not to any cleaning or housework related tasks, so that I can purely focus on enjoying my wonderful family.

Well today Amaia was helping me fold the laundry and by "helping" I mean ruining all of my neat piles in her quest to get herself to the laundry basket :)  I decided I would just give her what she wanted and I put her in the laundry basket.

She looks cute in anything.

Baby girl has been insistent upon standing almost all of the time for a little while now, but this past week we have had some big time developmental leaps!

Lil' miss is pulling up on more and more things to stand up on her own AND...

She is now standing unassisted for 5-10 seconds at a time.  That is right she is standing on her own.  And apparently she thinks it is pretty great, because she laughs almost every time she does it.

She is growing up so fast!!  She even has taken a step by herself, not holding onto anything!!  She promptly falls down right after one step, but still!!  Major progress going on in this household!!

If she keeps going at her current rate, I do believe we are going to have a walking baby girl in the near future.  Exciting and scary all at the same time.

I did not help her stand up in the laundry basket at all.  The only thing I did was hold it so it didn't topple over with my precious girl inside.

She is getting so old and so silly and she is such a joy.  She makes me laugh easier than anyone else I know.  Sorry Adam!  But it is true. 

I do not think it is going to be a boring winter around here.

Fabulous Photo Friday

Christmas 2011

Wow!  Am I behind the times or what?!  I am finally doing a recap of our Christmas celebrations.  Let's see if I actually remember any of the details....

I know that we most likely won't live within blocks of both of our parents forever, but it is oh so nice while it lasts!  We got to have two full days of Christmas celebrations this year.  On Christmas Eve Day we celebrated with my side of the family.  My sister and her hubby came from Iowa City for the day.  We had brunch, opened gifts and then just hung out.  We are always trying to get a good picture of Jessica, Steve and Amaia.  We will keep trying to get Amaia to look at the camera :)

We looked in our stockings first and Amaia helped me.  One of her favorite pastimes right now is taking everything out of a container or in this case a stocking, so it was right up her alley.

 Clearly this is my favorite picture of all time!  I'm only sort of kidding :)   I never get tired of Amaia deciding to cuddle with me.  I only hope that as she gets older it lasts for more than 5 seconds at a time.

After we left my parents house we came home and had our own Christmas.  I knew that Amaia would get many wonderful things from our families, so we only got her two small gifts this year.  The first one was practical: a cup with a straw.  She is obsessed with my water bottle with a straw so I thought she should have one of her own.  She also got her first Bible and I love it!  It is a little beyond her current attention span, but I hope that she will love it someday too.  The illustrations are beautiful.  

Adam and I also exchanged gifts and he gave me a ring with the initial "a" for Amaia to wear on my right hand.  I love it!!  Now I have a ring to represent both of my loves.  For Christmas Eve dinner I had a can of soup and Adam has a frozen burritto - Oops!  With all of the plans for the day I didn't really think about making dinner for us and I felt so bad.  Next year, I want to either make potato soup or learn how to do fondue.  Is fondue difficult??  Either way, we are not having the same Christmas Eve dinner next year.  After dinner we went to the DTC for their first Christmas Eve service!!

On Christmas morning we went to Adam's side of the family for a Christmas brunch.  We brought a friend from church, so I got to sit in the back seat with Amaia.  She was being a sweet, smiling cutie and I was trying so hard to get a picture of her two bottom teeth that are starting to come through, but this is all I got from her.

After brunch we came home and the entire family took a nap!!!  I thought that was a great thing to do on Christmas and as Amaia and hopefully future kiddos get older I doubt I will get to do that very often on Christmas day.    After we woke up we headed over to Adam's parents house for another Christmas celebration.  We opened gifts, ate an amazing meal and just got spoiled in general.  

I didn't get a ton of pictures, but we did take a couple as our family of three in front of the Christmas tree.

It was a wonderful couple of days!  I hope that Amaia understands more next year and we can add more Christmas traditions to our family celebrations.  It really is true that Christmas is more fun with kids!