Happenings

I don't want to jinx myself, but Amelia has been so much happier since she got her bottom 2 teeth in. It seems like she was teething for the past 5 months because she was SO fussy and crying/whining nonstop. Just the past couple of weeks, however, we have been enjoying many more days of happy smiles and a fun, fun baby. I hope they continue!

I love these pictures because they show her hair sticking up from where she wiped applesauce in it. You should see her after she's eaten spaghetti.

Gardening

Well, with Andrew's encouragement I put in a garden this year. It's small, but I'm pretty proud of it nonetheless. I have visions of my mom out in her garden with a ruler, spacing her perfect rows and piles, and having a beautiful garden to show for it. Unfortunately, I garden much like I sew...which is to say I skimmed the back of the packages for instructions and then pretty much did whatever I wanted. I made little trenches, dumped some seeds in, covered them up, watered them and then hoped for plants! I am so excited that they look promising already and I hope we'll have beets, carrots, peas, tomatoes, strawberries and squash here in a month or so.

Just for a little perspective, this is what our garden area looked like before I got started. YIKES. Those weeds went up to my waist.

And here is my garden a few days ago. I'm pretty excited!

Of course, Amelia is always very helpful. She likes to taste rocks and then carry them around, one in each hand, as she crawls on the grass, dirt, rocks and cement, sampling all of it along the way. Thanks anyway Dan, but she doesn't need a big brother to feed her dirt, she is taking care of that all by herself.

Funny Story

So the other day, Amelia was crawling around exploring all the drawers in her room and she found this package that I had not planned on opening. She, however, knew exactly what was inside and what she wanted to do with it. Can you tell what it is?

Maybe this view will help.

That's right, it's a binky and she loves binkies so much that she was content to suck on this one through the package! I wasn't planning on opening it because it is sparkly purple and says "Mom" on the front and "Bling" on the clip...not really my thing, but apparently it is hers. So I got out the scissors and helped her and she has been loving it ever since.

And last, but CERTAINLY not least,

Happy Father's Day Andrew!

You are such a good dad and Amelia is lucky, lucky, lucky to have such a hardworking, kind, patient, loving, intelligent and good-looking father :) We love you!

A few random pictures

It seems Amelia didn't think crawling alone was as cool as it was cracked up to be and neither was crawling and standing (because she would get stuck standing up). But now that she can crawl, stand AND get back down, she is quite happy to go from window, to laundry basket, to dog, to chair, to stove, to couch - standing, banging, sitting, licking, standing, sitting, crying, crawling, standing, sitting, etc. She is so busy.

She loves looking out the back window and screams and bangs to her heart's content. When she gets bored she moves on to the oven.
She likes being here banging away while I am making dinner. She especially likes it if I give her a wooden spoon or a spatula to bang as well.

Enjoying a rare moment of sunny weather and doing a little local hike. Gotta love the hot pink sweat suit.

Here we are celebrating after finding out the Ducks made it to Regionals. This picture was taken by one of the reporters. I love the way professional pictures look - even when they are just snapshots like this one. The colors, lighting and quality are so different from what you get with a point and shoot camera. Maybe someday I'll invest in one and learn how to use it!