She's growing up

A couple of weeks ago Amelia finally started being able to wear 12-month clothes (which means 9-12 months). This is about how things have worked all along - she seems to run about two to three months behind. This works for me because we've gotten a lot of use out of all her beautiful clothes! And of course they're going to get even more use in a few short weeks!

Here she is in a sweet dress that my mom gave her in her Easter basket. (Speaking of my mom, I think she looks JUST like my mom in this first photo especially.)





Hard to believe she'll be one year old a week from today!

She found her smile!

To think that just a few days ago, we were here...


Our little girl didn't even want to play.


Here she tried to give a weak smile for the camera.


But really she just wanted to lay around and cuddle.

While the cuddles were certainly wonderful, we were sad to see all the joy gone from our little girl's eyes. She just wasn't herself.

Thankfully, Friday she seemed a good bit better, and by Saturday, she was back to all smiles...




We put shoes on her for the first time since she's been walking, and she thought they were fun!


In her big girl car seat for the first time. (Big girl may be a stretch, since we found out at her doctor's appointment this week that girlfriend's not even 18 lbs yet!)


We went to a park that's super close to our house, and she had fun swinging.


But she especially dug being able to walk so freely. She didn't walk so well on the mulch, but she loved the grass.


She hasn't liked walking on the grass barefoot, but put some shoes on this little thang, and she can motate! It was a really fun time for us all, and we followed it up with a quick coffee shop run where we let her do some more exploring. Now that we've got shoes on her, it's nice to let her down to explore the world more.

We're so glad to have our little smiley girl back!

In other news, hop on over to Mike's blog and give him some encouragement. This has been a hard couple of weeks with his blood sugar, but with a renewed commitment to be meticulous about things, plus a plan to see a new doctor, he's feeling more optimistic. I'm always very, very proud of how disciplined he is, and how determined he is to control this disease and not the other way around.

Also, while you're there, be sure to check out his name poll. We're thisclose to picking out a name, but we need your help. ;)

Smiles and a special dress

Amelia was all smiles when she got to wear this super cute dress sent all the way from Cambodia from her mommy's friend Lisa!







We can't wait to see our little girl smile again... this has been a rough week for her and for us. She got even sicker when we got back from our ill-fated vacation. Apparently cutting two teeth on top of a stomach virus equals a very unahppy little girl. We're glad she won't remember this tme, but we'll never forget it! Just praying it ends soon and we can see some more of those sweet smiles...

I'm proud to be an American, but...

So as my Facebook friends know well, our 4th of July trip was not so much a success. This is par for the course where the 4th is concerned for us. We historically have the worst experiences on the 4th. There are the disasters - like when our car was broken into (window smashed) at the Braves game during the fireworks. Then there are just the lame ones - attempts to find a lake when instead we end up somewhere one step above a cesspool.... that's happened more than once. Don't get me wrong, I love the day - or at least the idea of it - but I think next year we'll probably just lock ourselves in the house and hope to survive. ;)

It was going to have to be a short getaway anyway. Since I don't get any paid maternity leave, I have to save all my leave at work for our upcoming life change. This was our last trip for goodness knows how long, so we were really looking forward to it. It was also our first chance to show Amelia the beach - one of our favorite places to spend time.

We had seen a couple of signs that Amelia might be getting her next tooth in before we left, but nothing seemed all that bad. We drove the six plus hours on Friday, and she did great in the car. That night after dinner, she fell apart. She cried and cried, no matter what we did. After a rough night's sleep, we did get a brief reprieve that morning. We headed out really early to the beach, and thanks to our friend Jill who frequents the area, we found the best beach access - it was so beautiful and I was amazed how few people were there on the 4th of July.

Amelia loved the beach. I was surprised she could walk so well on the sand - even I have a hard time walking on the sand sometimes. :) She lasted about 45 minutes before the crying began again. And that was basically the beginning of the end. She cried hard, most of the day. She wouldn't nap and she wouldn't eat any solids (she was still eating her bottles okay at this point). And being in a small hotel room, knowing the paper-thin walls were leading our neighbors to believe we were torturing our little gal eventually got to us. About 3:30 in the afternoon of the 4th, we realized that we could risk another night there, which might be a sleepless cry-fest, or we could head home and get her back to her comfortable surroundings. At least at home if she cries all night, we're the only ones she's keeping up!

I'm not gonna lie - the weekend completely bummed us out. We didn't see any fireworks. We didn't even get to walk around St. Simons or show Amelia the awesome parks by the pier. But we know we made the right decision because Amelia is just feeling terrible. Since we've gotten home, all she does is sleep or lay her head down on the floor. It's just so sad to see her feeling so badly.

Then we tried to go see a movie yesterday when my parents were gracious to come over and babysit Amelia, but of course, it was sold out. (We did still have a nice afternoon together.) Then today, when we were trying to unpack from the trip that wasn't, do laundry, etc., we heard a loud noise. That noise was our closet shelf collapsing. Lovely.


So Mike spent the entire afternoon picking everything up, making two trips to Home Depot and getting the closet put back up. (And before you pick on me for having too many clothes, remember that the reason I do is because I've gained so much freaking weight. :( I've got my pre-baby clothes, my maternity clothes and my in-between clothes. Plus we've been vacated from our other closets due to the new additions to the family!)

With all that said, we did at least get to make some memories at the beach with Amelia. And in order to leave this post on a positive note, here are the photos from that morning...


















(This one cracks me up because we had to take a pic of Amelia in her "4th attire." But the only place we went that afternoon was Zaxby's on the way home...)

Hope everyone else had a much better 4th!!!

Dive-in movie at the neighborhood pool

Mike and I were talked into joining our neighborhood's social committee by our friends Christy and Justin, who are actually chairing the committee. It's turned out to be a lot of fun, and I think our group has planned some really fun activities! Saturday night was a "dive-in" movie night at the pool. We showed "Bolt" and sold popcorn and sodas. We had over 50 people come, which is our largest turnout yet - yay!


Amelia, getting ready for the fun.


Hanging out with Christy...


...and Justin.


Some of the neighborhood boys help inflate the screen.


Dancing with daddy.





Since the movie didn't start until dark, we didn't make it to the end, but Amelia was a trooper and had a blast people-watching. In a few more years, she'll be all about nights like this!

Baby's got blue eyes

I show you those eyes to explain just two reasons I'm excited about my news. Some of you already know this, but many don't since I wanted to wait until more of the details were finalized. The news is that when I return to work after baby #2, I will only be returning part-time!!! Yay!!!

I'm so very excited. We've been praying, soul-searching and spread-sheeting until our eyeballs hurt to see if I could stay at home. It became obvious after a while that being at home full-time just wasn't going to work for us financially. And honestly, once I started considering part-time work, I realized it might actually be the best thing anyway. I really do love what I do, and I was a bit concerned about my sanity level, being at home all day with TWO babies (especially since I've never even stayed at home all day, every day with one!). We feel like this will be a great mix for our family - the girls will get the social and, eventually, educational time at "school," and I'll still have a creative outlet and adult time.

The plan is that I'll work Monday and Wednesday in the office, and the girls will go to Weekday (which is at Mike's work/our church) with Mike. Then I'll work another four hours a week from home.

This means that we're searching for another part-time person to do the other half of my job. I'll be retaining some of the writing and all of the graphic design, and the other person will do some writing, proofreading and special events. If you know someone interested in a part-time position who has PR writing experience, send 'em my way!

Sorry for the length of this post, but there was just much to share. As a final reminder of why I'm so excited about this news, here are those eyes just one more time.



Yep, we'll get through this next year. :)

Our dancing queen

(By the way, no idea why she has her fist clenched - there was nothing in her hand.)