Random

This little cutie had a doctor's appointment a couple of weeks ago and at 3 1/2 months he weighed in at 16 pounds which is the 85%ile!  Amelia was 17 pounds at 1 year, so I feel like I'm carrying around a 1 year old all day.  Amelia was still in the 10-25% for weight and height at her 2 year appointment.  Can't believe how different these 2 kids are...in so many ways.  

So sweet.

He is wearing jeans for the first time in these pictures.  I love little baby jeans.  

He is growing up so fast and it is so much fun.

A couple of weeks ago we spent the weekend with some friends in Los Olivos.  They had their town fair that weekend and it was so fun to go to the parade, hear the band and just enjoy being together.

Amelia was won over as soon as the first person in the parade threw her a blow pop.


Which she kindly shared with her dad.

Helping dad put on sunscreen 

Dancing to the band.  This girl loves music and will dance every time she hears any.

Yeah for moments like these!

 I made Amelia this dress the other day....out of an apron.  It was an apron from Anthropologie that someone had given me but I never wore it because it was only a half apron.  I am way too messy for a half apron.  But I loved it, so I have been saving it for years and brainstorming what I could make out of it.   And then it came to me.  I sewed up the back and turned the tie into straps and viola, Amelia had a new dress!  It really needs a zipper in the back to make getting on/off easier, but I didn't have one on hand, and I don't actually know how to put a zipper in anyway, so we'll just slide her in as long as we can :)  I love sewing when most of the sewing is already done for me!

Oh, and do you like her bruised forehead and scraped nose?  She got a little push from a 4 year old while they were playing "chase-tag" as she calls it.  Ask her to tell you the story.  It's pretty entertaining.

The other excitement in my life is that Amelia started climbing out of her crib.  I put her down, shut the door and about 2 seconds later she proudly appeared at my side.   Over and over and over again.  So, that very afternoon I went out and bought door knob covers so she couldn't get out of the room.  And this is where I found her. 

 So I converted her crib to a toddler bed and she is so happy.  Today during nap time she unloaded her entire closet onto her bed.  Awesome.

In other randomness, here is Amelia on our way to go swimming.  She's definitely going to be an over-packer.  Every time we head out the door she grabs armfuls of essentials to take with her.

William loves looking at books and trying to grab the pictures.

Amelia buckled her Pooh bear into the car seat, covered him with a blankie, gave him a tomato sandwich and put him in her car for an outing in the backyard.  All this while wearing the baby's socks on her hands.

Just another picture showing how Amelia is not really phased by the baby.  She still takes her spot on my lap or in my arms whenever she wants.  We are a snuggly bunch around here.

Here Amelia is singing "I am a Child of God" for Family Home Evening  It is a lovely rendition.  My favorite part is when, instead of "walk beside me" she says "walk on sidewalk."  I also like when she claps for herself and when she burps.  Yup, this is pretty much as reverent as she gets.




We got a piano a couple of weeks ago (a key board actually) and it has been so much fun having music in our house.  Amelia likes to put the presets on and act like she is playing.  I love to turn down the volume and play while both kids nap.

Thank you Steve Jobs

While listening to NPR in the car yesterday, I heard the commencement address that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford University a few years ago. In it he said he used to ask himself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" He then said that whenever the answer was "No" for too many days in a row, he knew he needed to change something.

So, I yesterday I asked myself "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I did today?"  And this is my answer:

Yes to hugging my kids
No to listening to their whining/crying
Yes to eating warm cookies with gooey chocolate chips
No to cleaning up under Amelia's high chair
Yes to snuggling with Andrew
No to laundry

So, I think what I can learn from this is that I need to get a maid and a nanny.  If I had a maid and a nanny, then I could answer yes to this question every day.  Andrew can now thank Steve Jobs for his iPhone, his iMac, his maid and his nanny.

Breakfast

This is what Amelia said she wanted for breakfast this morning.

Happy Birthday Amelia

It was so fun to celebrate Amelia's birthday on Friday. Grandpa and Grandma Checketts came down and we had a great weekend together. Amelia looked forward all day to "afer dinner" when she got to eat cake "and i-keam too" and open presents. Her favorite presents were the cake pop from Uncle Joe and her new silver shoes.

Cake pop sent from Uncle Joe all the way from Oregon

I don't have a picture of her silver shoes, but stay tuned because they will probably make an appearance in every picture you see her in until they are too small. She wears them everywhere. But that's okay with me because silver shoes go with practically everything. They go with black, brown, pink, sweats, swim suits, jeans, shorts, church clothes, pjs with stains on them...you know, pretty much everything. That's why I got them for her. I'm smart like that.

As for the birthday cake, I made her a chocolate cake (with beets and applesauce of course) with an orange cream frosting in the middle and a fluffy cocoa frosting on top - it was yummy, if I do say so myself! I saw a cake frosted like this in a magazine and loved the way it looked, so while Amelia is still too young to ask for a Curious George cake, I love making the cake I want for her birthday!

I spared you our singing of Happy Birthday, but here is the sweet birthday girl blowing out her candles. Andrew helped her at the end, but she was pretty pleased with herself as you can tell. Grandma and Grandpa Asay skyped us and it was fun to have them join us! Although the cake was tastier on our end than on theirs.

Here she is telling Uncle Joe thanks for the cake pop


And here is William in the tub. I love how he waves his arms when he gets so excited - it looks like he is trying to make a snow angel.

And here is Amelia snuggling William. She really loves her baby brother and he loves her too! But he is going to have to be a tough boy...

And yes, she yells, "No picture!" at the end. She often yells that when we take pictures these days. Very charming.

I also love that Amelia's not old enough yet to tell me not to post pictures like this on my blog! Ha, I just love this one though :)

Phone photos

So, my phone takes really poor quality pictures, but here are some random photos I just got off my phone from over the past few months.

Right before I took this picture I had taken another one of William smiling but it didn't save. Andrew was lamenting how it was too bad it didn't save because it had caught the perfect smile. I told him not to worry and I looked down at William and took the same picture again - it's so easy because he's always smiling! All you have to do is look at him and this is what you get. He's so awesome.

Do you recognize this grandma?

Neither do we. But apparently that doesn't matter when you are in need of a grandma at the park.

Amelia is really missing having her grandma close. This picture was taken last week when Amelia saw a random kid at the park with his grandma and decided to adopt her for the morning. She kept saying "Dramma tum!" (Grandma come!) and grabbing the lady by her hand, pulling her up the stairs, sitting on her lap and sliding down the slide. Luckily the lady was nice, but I think she wanted to play with her own grandson and not some stranger's kid...so we are so glad that our grandma is here visiting now!

This is when Amelia got dressed by herself for the first time. Her shirt is inside out and backwards, but at least the head and arms are in all the right openings. When I tried to get a picture of it, however, she would not stand up for me to take it and insisted on laying down.

Yes, mom, s'mores are a good snack.
What do you get when you mix all your colors together while painting? Yup, the answer is still brown.

Running on dad's baseball field chasing crows.

Vacation

Really depressing, but Lisa's influence has officially worn off. We just had the best vacation ever, and I took like 10 pictures of the whole thing. Andrew took a few days off and we stay-cationed in Santa Barbara and it was awesome. We spent an afternoon in Solvang which is a Danish-styled town with windmills and traditional Danish food. Amelia enjoyed feeding this bear sculpture the rest of her broccoli.

We went hiking in Santa Barbara and went to the beach at Carpenteria. It was so fun to watch Amelia and Andrew playing in the water at the beach. Wish I had pictures of it...hopefully the images of Amelia clinging to Andrew as she braced for a wave, squealing in delight and the two of them walking hand in hand along the beach will remain in my mind's eye forever.

Then we went hiking in Ojai when we came face to face with a RATTLESNAKE. We didn't even notice him until he rose up and rattled at us about 4 feet away! Andrew grabbed me and we ran (the kids were both in packs thank goodness). When we got a safe distance away we stopped and watched him slither off into the bushes. Andrew thought to take a picture after the snake was almost gone, but he was big, and scary and creepy! Yikes!

The only other pictures we got were of Amelia enjoying Root Beer and wearing a swim diaper on her head. Good times.

If this doesn't make you smile...

So this is pretty much par for the William course these days. If he's awake, there's a good chance he's doing this. In fact, he's doing it right now sitting next to me. And when he's done, he just falls quietly asleep. Like I said, I could do babies all day if they were all like this one...so sweet!



And here is Amelia skipping to her loop before nap time. She has started skipping around the house singing "loop, loop, skip to my loop, skip to my loop my dar'in." Sorry the video's dark, Amelia doesn't like to perform (i.e. do what you ask her to do when you ask her to do it), so I was just lucky to get this on camera.

And one last tidbit, when we were in the car this afternoon with the windows rolled down Amelia said, "Smell food!" I said yes, it does smell like food. What kind of food does it smell like? (It smelled like fast food grease) And she said "Yummy, yummy food!" Clearly a good nutritionist's daughter...

Just call me Martha

Let me just say yum and yum and yum.

We went blueberry picking yesterday and have been enjoying lots of yummy blueberries.

They should have weighed Amelia before and after and charged us for the ones she ate while we picked.

Although she ate some dirt and twigs along with her blueberries, so that would have skewed things.

I also made this coconut granola this week and it pretty much makes my mornings rock.

I also got extra ambitious and made foccacia bread for a picnic the other night. Um, delicious! And the best part is they are both easy recipes.

You can just call me Martha. Or Betty. Or Molly. Or whatever, but just know that if you had visited me this weekend, your taste buds would have been happy. Sorry Dan and Lisa, you will just have to come back.

Awesome Uncle Dan

My awesome brother came to visit this past weekend and it was so much fun having him! Thank you so much for coming. We love you.

So, while he was here, of course, we went to the beach...

Uncle Dan watching Amelia dance on the beach

This girl loves to sing and dance...and she's got some sweet moves as you can see!

He also taught her to bury her feet in the sand

Here Andrew is teaching Amelia how to sneak up on seagulls. This is how they walk right before they sprint after the unsuspecting bird. They have yet to catch one, but that hasn't stopped Amelia from yelling, "Touch it!" every time she sees one. Also, if you tell her to "sneak" she crouches down and walks around the house like this. Pretty cute.

I love Uncle Dan!

From watching other people, Amelia learned to shade her eyes with her hand when looking up at the sky (like when she's looking for airplanes), but the funny thing is that she does it even when the sun has gone down...or we are in the house...or it is night time...:)

We also went to the Museum of Natural History Butterfly garden. There were literally hundreds of butterflies flying around in this greenhouse. They even had people stationed at the exit to give you a look over before you left to make sure you didn't have any stuck to your clothes. One landed on my foot!

You can't see them in this picture, but they are looking at butterflies

Hard to see, but I am standing next to the blue butterfly in the next picture

Dan is such a fun uncle and my kids loved him and I loved having him here. Can't wait until you live close to us!! (hint, hint)

In other news, Amelia is thrilled that our neighbor's cat like to come into our backyard for belly rubs. So far the cat has been very patient with Amelia's attention...even when it involves her sitting on him...I am just hoping he has been declawed!

I know I say it every time, but I seriously can't get enough of this boy! I am constantly in awe at what an awesome baby he is and I LOVE it! He is so sweet. If I could guarantee that all my future babies would be like this, I would adopt hundreds :)

He is so smiley and I often look over to find him just waking up with a huge grin on his face! I tried to get a video of it, but of course he did not perform like he was seconds before. Just imagine this video with bigger, more exuberant smiles and loud squeals of delight. Or just come visit and see the joy that is William.

I just tried posting my video to youtube and embedding it here (like Trina does) and I am so excited that you can now see our videos better! Wish I'd followed Trina's lead a while ago...just another lesson to do whatever Trina does...