Smart monkey

Everyday we're amazed at how much Amelia learns and picks up.  She will be 22 months on May 26th and she can count to 10 on her own and she can now recite the entire alphabet (sometimes).  

And she's starting to speak in full sentences.  Today she said,"Where did Daddy go?".  


Later she grabbed her purse and headed for the front door.  This is the conversation followed: 
Amelia - "Bye bye Mommy"
Me - "Where are you going?"
Amelia - "I'm going shopping."
Me - "Really? What are you going to buy?"
Amelia - "A t.v.".


I don't think her Starbuck's gift card is going to get her a t.v., but she doesn't know that yet.  


Last week I was in Japan for business and it seemed like she was an older kid when I came back.  It's nice to see her learn new things and grow up, but I'm not ready for it.  I love this age and I'm trying to enjoy every second.

Mac fixed - all is OK with the world

This has been a crazy few months for our little family.  We moved into our house, work has been crazy for both of us, I was in Hong Kong for a week and on top of everything else, my MacBook was on the blink.  But now it is fixed!  Praise all things holy!  The Mac wasn't broken but it was doing some funny things and running at a snails pace. The Genius at the Genius Bar helped me figure out the problem and now it is fixed.  Which means I can post photos again.  And let me tell you we have some catching up to do.  


Amelia loves her new house and her new room.  We plan to make the backyard more play friendly but all in due time.  The neighborhood is amazing and she already has a best buddy two doors down.  She even says her name during the day to see if we can go over there.  And she loves their cat!  Some of the new things Amelia is doing these days include a funny habit of checking out her toes.  She could do this for up to half an hour - pulling them apart and checking for lint.  She loves it when she finds some!  Then she tells Martin and I to take off our shoes and socks so she can inspect our toes.  "Mommy socky off!"  "Daddy shoe off!"  It's so stinkin' cute.


She knows all of the letters in the alphabet and can say some of them in the correct order.  She counted to ten the other day all by herself!  Genius!  Seriously - how do I sign this kid up for Mensa?  She's lost interest in using the potty but we're still working on it.  Her new favorite books are Corduroy and Olivia.  She's very verbal these days and is really good at telling me what she wants.  Her eating habits have not improved but I don't let it worry me as much anymore.  She'll eat when she wants to.  Another funny thing she likes to say right now is "Go Giants!"  and she says it anytime she see sports regardless if it's baseball or not.


Enjoy some photos and I will make sure to be regular with the blog postings!

ATX skyline in the back:)

Austin Kite Festival

The big move and tragic computer issues

At Amelia's current age (20 months) new developments happen every minute.  She is changing constantly and getting smarter by the second.  I am absolutely convinced she is a genius!  Don't even try to tell me otherwise - your comments would only be interpreted as jealousy or stupidity.  Just kidding, but seriously, don't try to argue with me. 

Let's recap a bit on how much has happened since the last blog entry and why news has been delayed.  The delay has been due to the untimely disruption in my computer's hard drive.  You should know that I love my Mac.  Love doesn't even totally encompass the feeling I have for my computer but it will suffice for this purpose.  But recently my Mac has been sick.  It's been running slow and I've filled it above and beyond capacity with all of Amelia's photos and videos. So much so that I bought an external hard drive to help store all of the extra data.  Anyway, it has not been working properly recently and I have not been able to upload any new photos or videos; obviously a huge disruption in my blogging updates.  I have consulted a professional (love the Genius bar) and will go the route of wiping my hard drive and reinstalling the OS and then reinstalling all of my data.  This could take a while so I felt the need to at least give everyone some Amelia updates without photos and videos for now.  I promise to get some up soon.  I could use my work computer to do it, but it's just not the same.

What's new in our life?  We moved!!!  Thank heaven it could not have come soon enough.  We moved out of our little one bedroom apartment into our very own home.  It's a cute house in a great neighborhood with lots of neighbor kids Amelia's age.  Amelia has her own room again and she enjoys playing and reading books in her own space.  We just got settled in over the last couple of weeks so don't worry - I will be sending out the updated address to all of our friends soon.

What's new with Amelia?  How about everything!  She knows most of the letters in the alphabet - she can repeat them after you and she can identify more than half of them by sight.  When we're out and about, she'll see letters in signs and repeat them to me.  Yes, I know... Genius!  She's really into associating what belongs to people.  Such as "mommy shoes", "daddy working", Mia milk".  She calls herself "Mia" because she can't yet pronounce Amelia.  She remembers all of the kids and teachers in her class and repeats their names at night.  She loves copying everything we're doing from our hand gestures to our words and facial expressions.  The other day I was loading her in the car and dropped the keys on the ground.  I said "Oh shit!" and she repeated me, "Shit!".  I didn't even know what to say.  She loves jumping and dancing. 

Our little girl is growing up so fast and it makes me a little sad.  I really want her to stay this age for a while.  Minus the temper tantrums.  Other than that, she is amazing and such a blessing.  I want to remember every little thing she does right now.  It's just not the same without photos and videos to show everyone, but I hope this will do for now.  I promise that I will post photos soon.

Potty time!

On Friday morning, Amelia was running around avoiding getting ready for school.  Then she went in and sat down on the potty we bought for her a few months ago - fully clothed of course.  A few minutes later we noticed she was still sitting there and concentrating pretty hard.  When she got up, we noticed she had pooped in her diaper!  Holy crap - she knew that to go sit on the potty to go poo-poo!  Martin and I thought this was pretty amazing but chalked it up to coincidental.  Then, that evening, Amelia was running around naked avoiding taking a bath when she went and sat on her potty again.  A minute or two later when she stood up we noticed there was pee-pee in the potty!!!  Immediately we got so excited and began to praise Amelia.  Seriously - you would have thought she just won the lottery!  It pretty much confirms the thought that we have a genius!  Yes, we're biased, but I don't care.  We haven't been trying to get her to go "pee-pee in the potty" but we encourage her to sit on it with her diaper on just to get used to it.  


Wait, there's more!  Then, on Saturday night, she was staying with the grandparents and all my sisters and brother were over at their house while Martin and I went to a wedding in Houston.  My sister sent me an emergency text: "Amelia went pee-pee in the big toilet!"  Unbelievable!  I called to find out the details and apparently she told my sister "pee-pee" and pointed to the toilet.  So, my sister took off her diaper and put her on the toilet.  Sure enough, she went pee-pee!


I'm not going to get ahead of myself on this one, but it is pretty awesome that she's already understanding when she has to "go".  Definitely a proud moment for Martin and I:)

The Brat Pack

If you've read my earlier posts, you will know that there were 9 kids born in the same year at my office.  Yes - 9!  And we've always done monthly playdates to get the kids together.  One of my co-workers nicknamed them the "Brat Pack" which I think is perfect so I will steal her label for my blog.  The kids are getting so big and the play dates are getting a bit more intense.  One of the mom's travels with her bouncy castle which works out great for us.  Whoever hosts usually allows use of their home.  And that is very gracious since we are talking about 9 running, climbing and screaming kids along with their screaming parents.  Not really though - we're all pretty relaxed.  Here are the photos from the latest play date.  Amelia had fun and played well with little altercation.  She is now the smallest of the 9 kids even though she is the 2nd to the oldest (the first oldest being the set of quads) so technically she's 5th oldest?  I'm not sure how that works.

Sweet Perrine!

Ava with Sophia keeping a watchful eye.

Amelia with her goldfish

Amelia & Ava

Chelsi & Remy

Laura & Jack the heartbreaker

Saoirse, Amelia and Jack

Saoirse and Amelia

Lovin' the juice box

The whole gang - this is a challenging photo to take.