A Trip to the Beach

A couple of weeks ago we had the chance to get one last trip in to the beach. While it wasn't bathing suit weather, it was the perfect day to stroll along the boardwalk, go out on the pier, and play in the sand. Amelia had her first opportunity to play in "beach sand".

Back to Square One

As I mentioned in the previous post, Amelia has found all the same spots that Allison used to get in trouble including the dog dish and the CDs. Amelia is obsessed with the dog food and water. We can't keep her in the kitchen anymore because she automatically goes right towards the dish. These pictures were taken when the girls were the same age, right around 11.5 months.

Amelia is also obsessed with pulling CDs out of the rack as you can see. The other day she had help from her big sister. All of sudden I heard a big pile of CDs crash to the floor. I found that they had emptied three sets of shelves. I was trying to put them back in the rack, when Allison thought it would be funny to climb on my back, so I couldn't get to the rack. At the same time, Amelia continued to pull CDs from the rack and I told her to stop. As she pulled the CDs one-by-one off the shelf she kept saying "TOP..." Ozzie was in the corner checking everything out, so between the two girls and the dog, I had nowhere to go. Eventually I was able to get the CDs back on the shelf...who knows if they are on the right shelf...and who cares!

One More to Go!

Only one more month until the big one! Amelia celebrated her 11 month birthday by finally cutting a tooth a few days earlier. Her top front tooth has popped and we think the other one will come through soon.

Amelia is cruising along furniture and can walk with her push toy or anything else that is sturdy but moves. She gets a big grin on her face like she is so proud of herself.

She is starting to hold her own against Allison in the battle for toys. The tables are turning and it is often Allison that is screaming because Amelia stole her toys. Amelia is pretty good when it comes to playing by herself; she likes putting "things into things" whether it is books into a basket, blocks into a storage box, or her magnets into a Puffs container.

Amelia loves food but cannot stand her bibs. As soon as we put a bib on her, she immediately pulls it off. She even figured out how to pull off the snap kind. We have also tried the pullover bibs, but she pulls on them so hard that she has stretched them out leaving a big gap between the bib and her neck, which allows the food to slide down. She is our eating machine and has yet to find a food that she doesn't like. We usually will give her any food that Allison refuses to eat.

Amelia is becoming much more active and is finding new ways to get into trouble. We have to keep a constant eye on her. It is funny because she has found the exact same "trouble zones" that Allison did at that age, including the CDs. I told Brian the other day that I would reorganize the CDs six months from now when Amelia grows out of finding a thrill in pulling them out of the storage rack.

Everyday she brings so much joy into our family and we are so grateful to have her.

A Trip to the Airport

Allison has been very fascinated by airplanes lately. Whenever we are outside and she sees one, we have to stop what we are doing and watch it fly by. If she hears one while we are in the house, she stops playing and points to the ceiling and says 'pane". So we decided to take a trip out to the airport viewing area so she could get an up close view of them.

The trip was a success. Allison really enjoyed watching the planes. Amelia never knew we were there as she fell asleep on the way there and didn't wake up until we were putting Allison back in the car. Afterwards we took them to the park so Allison could burn off some energy before bedtime.

Allison and Dad watching a plane taxi down the runway.

Allison's first view of a plane taking off.

Watching it go high in the sky.

Finally after waiting a long time a plane comes in for a landing.

A landing plane is much louder than one taking off. Allison about jumped into Brian's arms when the plane went by. After that though, she knew to cover her ears.

Two for the Books

Time to pull out Amelia's baby book. As of today she finally has a tooth! You can see it popping out. And, she also stood by herself not supporting onto anything. It was a big day today.

Down at the Farm..

Our friends Jai and Mahrya have a party every summer. You can tell that times are changing and more and more of their friends now have kids. Jai's dad hired a petting farm to come out to the party this year. The girls had fun looking at all the animals. Allison wasn't quite too sure what to make of it all. I think you probably could have put Amelia directly in the pens and she would have been fine with it, especially with the little bunnies.

All the animals were in their pens except a large tortoise. For the longest time, it stayed in one place. I tried showing it to Allison but I don't think she ever caught on that it was an animal. We left the party just as the petting farm was leaving, so we hung out by the car a few minutes to watch them pack up the animals. At this point in time the tortoise had moved half-way across the yard, but Allison didn't notice until it started to move again. Even though the tortoise was a good 10-15 feet away from her she jumped back. Every time it moved Allison took about 5 steps back. She probably thought a "rock" was walking towards her.

Allison's baby that she stole from Jai and Mahrya's daughter. She carried that thing around the whole party.

Checking out the animals with dad.

Allison actually agreed to go on a pony ride, although we couldn't figure out if she liked it or not. The entire ride she was stone-faced. I figured if she didn't like it, then she would probably have been screaming her head off.

Allison had enough of the animals and was outta there.

 Amelia checking out the bunnies, wishing she could pet one.

A Helpful Big Sister

Allison loves to help out with Amelia whenever possible. For all the toy stealing that Allison does she is a very good big sister. She is always concerned about Amelia. If we put sunscreen on Allison, she makes sure we put it on Amelia. If we put her in the car before Amelia, she whines until we get Mia in, as we might forget about her and accidentally leave her at home.

One of the things that Allison loves to do is to feed Amelia. She feels that is her job and gets mad if I try to help. There are times that we don't want to battle with Allison, so we sneak off to another room to feed Amelia.