March Madness (Not Basketball)

It has been a crazy several weeks at our house!  Aaron has been working long hours and Amita and I have been holding down the fort.  But without the extra set of hands around as much as usual, it sure hasn't left a lot of "free time" for things like the blog.

Here's what's new for Amita.  She has started using sign language (finally!) and so far, can signal when she is all done or when she wants more.  We are going to start working on more signs now that she is getting the hang of it.  She continues to improve on her standing and walking.  She loves to cruise around the perimeter of things and to walk back and forth through the house with her walker.  She gets to go to the doctor's next week for her 15 month checkup (hard to believe - it seems like she just turned one!) so we'll find out her new weight.  Early guesses are that she's put on a few pounds - it's not as easy to carry her up the stairs as it used to be!

Amita on one of our early summer days.  This was the only pair of shorts we had for her!

Exploring the pantry.

Walking with her walker.  The hardest part is steering... which is why one of us always has to chase behind her.  She is quick to get the walker stuck on all kinds of obstacles and let's just say she doesn't really enjoy that!

Hanging out with mama.

Bringing the sunshine indoors in a bright new springtime outfit.  One of her other favorite pastimes is emptying out the toy box!

Getting ready for a chilly walk outside.  What happened to all that summer weather?!?!?!

Crawling on her hands and feet.  Such a funny thing to watch her do!

Somehow, she pulled the cymbal off her music table... you can guess what happened next!

Even with the busy pace of life, Aaron and I managed to take a short trip in March.  We flew in to Vegas and drove to California to hike at Mojave National Preserve and Death Valley National Park for a few days.  Those pictures are in the process of being uploaded to turn into a photo book.  Hopefully soon!

Once we got back from vacation, it was a dose of reality for us.  We took care of as many yard chores as we could before we had to go back to work.

We planted 3 spruce trees.  Look closely... the large one in the neighbor's yard is not one of them!

We installed a rain barrel.  It wasn't the most attractive barrel to start with (it was the plain brown color all over) but with a little spray paint and whole lot of time taping off the lines, it turned out pretty nice.

Our daylilies have started to come up.  Aaron's mom started to clean out around them with a hoe in her "free time" while Amita was napping, but we've still got some work to do with these.

We did work to clear out our wildflower areas.  This is the one on the west side of the house.

And here is the one on the east side of the house.  The plants already seem to be thriving and doing so much better since we cleared it out.  I guess it was worth the time investment to do.

And finally, after all that work, we created a place to relax!  We added a rug to our screen porch to be softer for both little and big feet alike.  Then we brought our chairs up from the basement.  Now all we need a is a little warm weather!

St. Urho's Day

I know it's St. Patrick's Day today, but yesterday, Amita wore green and purple to celebrate St. Urho's day (just like last year).  Her purple socks were MIA by the end of the day, but she was representing well at daycare.  She continues to get more brave with her standing and cruising, although for some reason, she likes to push around her music tables instead of her walker!  We're having tons of fun watching her explore our house in new ways... and in finding out just how much those little hands can reach all of a sudden!

How can you resist a face like this?

Playing on her music table.  She often forget to play music and starts chewing on the drumsticks!

Petting Baxter.  He was surprisingly tolerant of the ear pinching!

Blowing raspberries at mama!

Say cheese!  Showing only her bottom teeth.

Exploring the pantry.  The bag of potatoes and the bag of flour make great crinkly noises!

Using her table as a walker and loving every minute of it!

Amazing Amita

It has been so fun watching Amita learn new things.  It seems like every day, she does something new and entertaining.  Lately, she has been very interested in stacking the animals in her barn so that they are all standing together on their feet (before she just liked to pull them out of the barn).  She has also started giving out hugs and that is how she greeted me last night when I got home from work!  That was the highlight of my day, for sure!!  Today, she built a block tower herself... and then knocked it down, of course!  She is still cruising from furniture piece to piece, but she is getting much more brave now.  And she really likes walking holding mama's hands.  Here are few more pictures of Amita's amazing feats!

Hanging on to the wall as she cruises the perimeter.

Folding diapers goes so much faster now that I have help... or does it?

Sampling a little bit of clementine.

How I found her when I went to get her from a nap.  Note that one leg is stuck through the bars and she was still snoring!

A crazy hair day after waking up - Amita could have used Daddy's hat!!

Leap Day

It's Leap Day so I decided that rather than busting my hump for the man, I'd enjoy the extra day this year by not working!  This has also freed me up to work on the blog - something we've been too busy to do for the past few weeks!!  Here's the update.

Amita has been growing and changing like crazy.  She is starting to talk a lot more - babbling to herself mostly - but I think that her words are going to follow really soon.  She has started to say uh-oh a lot.  Very funny!  She is also able to stand/balance much better and she has started crawling on her hands and knees instead of dragging on her belly.  But she can still go fastest on her belly, so she does that when she's excited or in a hurry.  We keep waiting for the arrival of her molars... they have yet to pop through!  So we're back in the throes of teething this week after getting a short reprieve last week.  And now, some pictures of what we've been up to.

Mama and Amita reading together.

Amita winning the messy eating award!

Making a funny face with her bottom teeth.

A few smiles through her teeth pain.

Heading toward her favorite thing - the tv stand.  She's not supposed to touch it... so it's usually the first thing she heads for!

Amita crawling regular style.

Using her drum sticks to break out of the baby gate!

But now the camera is much more interesting!!

Saying, "uh-oh"!!

Having fun on her music table.

Happy Days

Amita has been sick and teething, but even with all she's going through, she's been in great spirits.  Her smiles and laughter warm our hearts and it's been amazing to see all the changes she has gone through in the past week.

Amita has learned how to go from laying on her tummy to sitting up.  She has also started crawling on her hands and knees and using that extra height to pull herself up to standing.  And my personal favorite: she has learned how to blow kisses!  I got home from work on Wednesday night and the first thing she did when she saw me was blow me some kisses - adorable!!!

Here are just a few pics of our happy little camper.

Playing games in her high chair and giggling like a crazy person!

Amita is part of the internet sensation, planking!!

On her day home sick with Daddy - even then, she had some smiles for him.

It was hard to find a serious picture of our little comedian this past week.  Every other picture that I took here had her cackling!

Blowing kisses... MWAH!!!

Lord of the Rings

Although you wouldn't know it from these pictures, Amita has been sick off and on for the past month, so today we took a trip to see the doctor.  She has bronchitis and possibly pneumonia, but either way, she's on anti-biotics to help clear it up.  We get to go back in 2 weeks to confirm that everything sounds ok and make sure there's no other signs of the pneumonia.  The good news from our doctor visit: she is healthy and continues to gain weight, up almost a pound since last month.  My arms can definitely tell a difference... and she's stretching out some of her clothes in new directions too!!

Here's Amita helping unpack a box that was delivered to our door.  She eventually tipped this one over... good thing there was no damage (to her or anything else!).

Looking surprised that I caught her playing one of her new favorite games.  She likes to wear this "jewelry" while she holds other toys in her hands and crawls around!

Life After One

It has been a busy few weeks since Amita's big birthday bash.  She developed a nasty cold after all our guests left and she battled that for an entire week.  On top of that, she started working on her first year molars, so she was pretty uncomfortable.  Fortunately for her, my parents came down the following weekend to entertain her and help keep her mind off of her teeth troubles.  Her teething seemed to subside last week, but this weekend, it is back in full force again!  No new teeth yet, but it sure looks like she is getting close.

And now, a few pictures of what's been keeping us busy.

Playing the new game that Uncle Dave invented.  Grrrrrrr!

Hanging out with Grandma Morehouse.  It was impossible to get both of them looking at the camera at the same time!

Singing with Grandpa after breakfast.

Checking out the special Mickey pancake that Grandpa made.

No need to break it into pieces...

Amita's other favorite new game... putting things to her ear like it's a telephone.  I guess we don't need to get her an actual toy phone - hooray for imagination!

Look out... it's Edward Egg-Hands!

A picture of us eating out with Amita for the first time!  We went to La Chiminea with my brother's family when they were in town for her birthday party.  We lived to tell the tale... and just might get brave enough to try it again sometime!