Steppin' Out

Sam and I stepped out a day early and went out for a fancy baby-free supper on Friday.

Truth in advertising:

Happy New Year's everyone!

Drum Set

Amelie got a drum set from her grandparents! They mentioned something about pay back. We've got a much bigger, much noisier version in the basement, but I think the kid-sized play set isn't half bad. (I suppose I may re-think my position in the future.)

Here's a video of Amelie and Dada taking turns playing on her drums. (And also of some hitting. Oh my goodness, the hitting.)

Amele's hair is all in her face like a rockstar, too, so sorry about that. And a final thank-you to Great-grandma Pat for the nifty Christmasy shirt!

Bootheel Christmas

Amelie's still too little to really understand what's going on for the holiday, but she did have a very good visit to the bootheel over Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with her great-grandparents in Kennett and Christmas night in Bernie. Amelie got to play with her cousin Rylee, go see the other toddlers at Sunshine School, play Bingo, open presents, and eat entirely too many sweets.

I can't believe we didn't get a big group photo! Uncle Darrin did a good job distracting the baby long enough to get one good picture of just us, though.

Opening a big bag full of goodies from Aunt Lana.

With Great-grandpa and Great-grandma right before we left.

We stopped at a diner in Steelville on the way back up on Monday.

Christmas Program

Amelie's day care had a Christmas program last week.

The kids spelled out "Christmas," and Amelie had the "M." (Amy had the "A," and when she came up to the front, she shouted "A is for Amy!" which I don't think was a part of the official program.)

It was on the first night of Hanukkah, so one of our neighbors came over to tell the kids a little bit about the menorah.

They were fascinated by lighting the candles.

There were also pom-poms.

Professional Photos

The lovely Rhiannon Trask of Lollipop Photography took some quick photos of us around Thanksgiving. The delay in putting them up here was just because we didn't want to ruin the surprise for any grandparents!

As usual, if you'd like any additional photos, or any in a different size, just let me know and I'll order them for you.

These are my favorites:

(If you remember, Rhiannon is the one who took Amelie's one-year photos, too. Here's the link to her blog about it.)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, all! Amelie's grown quite a bit since this time last year, hasn't she? At 6 months:

She was not very enthusiastic about holiday photo-taking right at first. (Bonus: She's actually wearing the same Christmas skirt in both photos. Yes, she can wear some clothes at 18 months that she did at 6 months.)

But she turned on the charm pretty quickly.

And warmed up to the idea more and more.

No lump of coal for this one, hmm? (Even though I think she is breaking one of my nutcracker ornaments in this photo.)

Milk Carton

Amelie has an inordinate fondness for caps that screw off and on.

And also, apparently, of drinking straight from the carton.

There was only a tiny bit of milk left!

18 Month Doctor's Visit

Amelie had her 18-month doctor's visit on Friday. For the second visit in a row, she did not cry at all when she got her shot.

Here are those vital statistics!

Weight: 21 pounds, 3 ounces (8th percentile)

Length: 2 feet, 6 1/4 inches (11th percentile)

It looks like she's up a pound and 8 ounces from her last visit, and that she's sticking right on the same percentile curve.

Dr. Swofford wanted to know how many words Amelie could say, and it took me a little while to name them. I thought it might be fun to try to come up with a list here.

Amelie's vocabulary:
Shoes (This refers to shoes, socks, and feet.)
Dog
Done
Down
Yeah
Diaper
Bear
Bye-Bye
Bath
Juice
Ball
Cheese
Hi
Belly Button
Bink (This is what we call her pacifier. She only gets it at bedtime, but she's still pretty attached to it.)

That's 15 words!

She also has a few signs that Dr. Swofford counted as words, even though she doesn't actually say them:
Shakes her head "no"
Signs "more"
Signs "eat"

Here's a list of the other things Amelie's been doing lately:
• Taking ornaments off the Christmas tree
• Scribbling with pens, markers, and crayons on paper
• Stacking various objects
• Knocking down towers of blocks
• Cheating at the shape-sorter (she can put them in the appropriate holes with some prompting, but if it won't go, she pulls the lid off, puts the shape in, and puts the lid back on)
• Pretending to talk on the phone
• Looking at books
• Pretending to type on the computer
• Running
• Climbing
• Getting off and on the couch by herself
• Taking care of her teddy bear (she carries it, pats it, pretends to put a diaper on it or put it in the bouncer)
• Directing where Mama and Dada should sit
• Having her first time-out (for hitting at Shauna's house)
• Throwing a ball and other objects overhand
• Jumping (somewhat)
• Helping by throwing things away when asked
• Holding out her arms to get dressed and sitting down to put on shoes
• Dancing (though I think the dancing phase has peaked)
• Brushing her teeth
• Drinking from an open cup
• Using a fork and spoon

Updated to add a few photos from our long wait to see the doctor:

What does Amelie do at Great-Grandma's?

Don't mind me, I'm just going to do a little editing for the Bernie Banner.

(Pretending to) play the game. Pretty soon, she'll give Nana Jana and Aunt Lana a run for their money!

Eating grapes with Aunt Holly

Photo op!

I took shamefully few pictures while we were down for Thanksgiving! I'll do better for Christmas.

Thanksgiving Program

Amelie's daycare had a Thanksgiving program last week. It was fun to meet all of the other parents and see the kids sing the songs they'd learned.

Believe it or not, this was the best group photo I managed to get:

You can see that Amelie is the littlest one -- the other girls range from two and half to four years old. Coincidentally, all of their names start with "A"