Milestones

Amelia is crawling. Full-out crawling all over the place! She loves to crawl over to the computer tower to push the buttons, to the TV case to kiss the glass, and of course, to the foot stool to play with mommy's book. How do they always find the things that aren't toys? She also has been trying to stand up at the chairs, foot stool, toy basket, etc, and today she stood up at her Leap Frog toy (all by herself!). And the most exciting thing of all is that she has a TOOTH! It must have come in last night or this morning sometime, beacuse after I picked her up from the day care I happened to feel her gums and there it was! It's her bottom left one! So today she's been drooling A TON, and I think it push its way through the rest of the way. So this new tooth may explain the fussiness, runny nose, cough, and awful sleeping habits. It all makes sense now!

Runny nose

On Tuesday, Mia started showing the early signs of getting sick. Poor girl now has an awful runny nose and is coughing because of all of the drainage. Nightime is the worst, and for the last two nights, she's woken up 5 to 7 times. She HATES the little nasal aspirator and has learned what is, so of course, she jerks her head away when she sees it coming. I bought these great "Boogie Wipes" and they do work great at cleaning and moisturizing her nose, but she doesn't like those either, so she turns herself away. I'm hoping that she starts to feel better, simply so she can sleep better at night (and I can too!). She's still in good spirits during the day though, and is enjoying being a crawler and getting into all sorts of things!

Changing WAY to fast!

A few days ago, we took Amelia to North Park, which is a few blocks from our house. She is now big enough to swing in the tot swings, and she liked it! It's hard to believe how fast she is growing up. At 8 months, she has been in 9 month clothing for about 2 months and will soon be growing out of it. Now that it's cooling down, she's wearing long sleeves and bib overalls, which make her look like a big girl, not a baby girl. It's hard for me to fathom how much she has changed. Her hair is much longer, and much blonder (the thing EVERYONE notices). She's starting to crawl, or shall I say, army crawl around the room. She can get up on her knees, but hasn't figured out how to actually crawl, so she just kicks and pulls herself to where she wants to go. Suddenly, she's across the room and I have no idea how she got there. She's maneuvering herself under tables and foot stools, and I've already started changing the room to "baby proof" it a bit more. I wish that I could stop time and enjoy her a little big more at this "just-before-mobile" stage. Soon we'll have baby gates everywhere (Mac will probably go crazy), and I won't be able to leave her in one place and come back to find her in the same place. She's eating all sorts of foods now too...cereal, fruit (her favorite is apples & blueberries), vegetables (squash is still her fav), meat (beef, chicken & turkey), and I think soon we might start cheerio's. Except she still has NO teeth! A friend told me that the later they get them, the better their teeth are, so hopefully that is true. I'm thankful for no teeth as I am still nursing too! We are also on an excellent routine with morning nursing, playtime, cereal & fruit, then nap. Then more playing, vegetables & meat at dinner and another nap after mealtime. She sleeps through the night AND for the most part, always sleeps past 8:00 am. She's starting to say "mama" and "dada," but I don't think she's connected that that is who we are. Just cool sounds to make. So basically, she's growing too fast. Make it stop!

School Starts

Today is the first day of school for Joe. It has been a great summer having Joe home more than previous summers. With only 5 weeks of 1/2 day summer school, and 1 week of training, it allowed Mia to spend mornings and a few weeks having daddy home. Plus we were able to do a lot more this summer, and I feel like we were always on the go. We are so thankful for the nice long summer, and will try to keep ourselves busy while daddy's at work. On Wednesday, football will start, so I need to get started on Mia's "cheerleading" onesie. Her and Parker (Coach Stecher's son) are going to be the team's and their daddy's biggest fans. Today I also will continue my training to teach a deep water fitness class at the YMCA. I'm excited, because it will give me a break in the day from 24 hour baby care, and will be a good way to get into shape. The pics are from our last minute trip to the Quad Cities for one last fun day before school.

St. Louis

Early Monday morning, we took a trip down to St. Louis to visit the St. Louis Zoo as well as Grant's Farms. We arrived around 1:00 pm, and spent 4 hot hours at the zoo. They had great exhibits, including the elephants and the penguins which were our favorite. Mia even had her first ride on a carasel.

After the zoo, we checked into our hotel, ate dinner, then spent the evening in the indoor/outdoor pool swimming. We had a great stay in the hotel, and then left to go to Grant's Farms, which is where the Budweiser clydsdales are. They had lots of cool animals like tortoises, goats, elephants, yaks, buffalo, etc. Joe's favorite part were the 2 free beer samples per person! We invited the Marlin family, and had a great time spending time with them too. It was fun seeing their two girls get excited over the animals.

Summertime

Yesterday I got a few cute pictures of Mia with Taylor. She loves that girl!

Just a little while ago, we got back from a photo shoot with Jodie McNally! We got some family pictures, Mia pictures, and even some Joe & Amanda pictures. Just from looking at a few on her camera, I know that they turned out awesome, and I can't wait to see all of them! Mia was a great little model, and looked beautiful in all of her outfits. She didn't start to fuss until we got into the car, and then crashed when we got home. Smiling and looking pretty wears you out!

Tonight is Mia's first Maple City Cruise Night. We're going to go to the car show to volunteer at the Rainbow Riders food booth, and also to hang out with friends. Joe wants to get a picture of Mia on the hood of a car...we'll see about that! The summer is slowly fading away, and soon Daddy will start school back up. His official first day is a week from today. But we have had a fun summer, and it was been great having him home more compared to summers in the past. Next week we're taking one last mini vacation to St. Louis before school starts.

Amelia's Dedication

On Sunday, August 1st, Amelia was dedicated to the Lord at River of Life International Church by our new pastor Robb Duffie. We had over 20 guests in attendance, including my parents, Joe's parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and close friends. It was great to have everyone there, and Amelia looked absolutely beautiful in her dress! We were able to get lots of good family pictures, and afterwards, we had all of our guests over for lunch. Amelia had a busy weekend with Grandma & Grandpa Havens visiting, and now she's taking a long nap to recover!