Hanging Out

I wanted to get a picture of Amelie and Sam sitting on her Elmo couch (which was a present from Great-Grandma Doris -- thank you, Grandma!). Amelie sits on it every day and looks at books or just hangs out.

As soon as I pulled out the camera, though, she had to come investigate.

Sheesh!

Splash Pad

Running through the sprinkler inspired a visit to the splash pad at Flat Branch park.

Dada was elected to supervise, though here it looks like he's convincing her this is a good idea.

In reality, baby needed no convincing at all. She dove right in.

Dada did get a little wetter than we'd anticipated.

Amelie kept running back to the fountain that wasn't quite working. It gave a baby-sized splah.

This is fun!

I did make a video, but it's giving me a hard time uploading. I'll update the post later when it works.

Yard Work

Our yard has turned the depressing tan shade of dead grass in the recent heat wave. To combat the problem, Sam and Amelie set up some automatic sprinklers for the front yard.

Believe it or not, it was nearly 6pm when I took these photos, and that's why the baby doesn't have on a hat, though from the looks of the bright sun in these pictures, maybe she should have.

There was a bit of running through the sprinkler afterward :)

Bootheel trip

Here are some more pictures of the trip Amelie and I took to the Bootheel.

There was cake for cousin Cameron's birthday. Amelie mostly just licked the icing off of her piece.

There might have been some crabbiness.

There was a lot of (pretend) talking on the phone. She liked to get two phones going at once -- one for each ear.

There was some card playing with Nana Jana.

Corn on the Cob

Bubbles

It was worth braving the heat to see Amelie play with soap bubbles for the first time.

What's this stuff?

Nana Jana, this was a very good idea!

Amelie is pretty sure she should be able to catch one.

More Pictures

Upon going through my camera, there aren't a whole lot of pictures from our weekend except from the wedding, so the "more pictures to come" bit was perhaps overly optimistic.

But there were a few. This baby-sized bench invited a photo.

Caitlin lends some perspective.

Surely we'll get her a cell phone sometime soon.

Artiste

We were all sitting on the couch today with a wedding invitation from our friends Ian and Sherry when Sam made the comment that next year, Amelie would probably grab the ink pen and draw all over it.

It sparked an idea:

Someone looks mighty pleased with herself.

First masterpieces:

Skinny Baby

Amelie went to visit a pediatric dietician on Thursday because our doctor was a little concerned about her weight. Sam and I had to write down everything she ate for a week and take in the log to the appointment. We found out that Amelie weighs 18 pounds, 11 ounces (6th percentile) and is 2 feet, 4.5 inches tall (15th percentile!). So it looks like she hasn’t gained very much since her first birthday, but she’s grown an inch and jumped up to the tallest percentile in height that she’s ever been.

The dietician said it looked from the food chart like she needed to eat about 100-200 more calories a day, and she suggested that I give her a sippy cup of juice a day and an extra tablespoon of fat (so maybe butter on all of her vegetables, since we already hand her a spoon loaded up with sunflower seed butter pretty frequently) to get those extra calories in. She also wants us to do a weight check once a month and give her ½ of a children’s multivitamin.

Sam and I aren’t too concerned about it, since we know Amelie’s burning calories all the time walking and running and climbing on things. I didn’t want to give her any juice yet, just because I don’t want her teeth to suffer, but I bought a carton of V8 Fusion at Schnucks today, thinking it might be a little better since it has tomato and carrot juice in it, too. I think she got her extra fat in the form of butter and syrup on a waffle this morning for breakfast :)

Amelie's first cup of juice:

This stuff is good!

Silly baby

And if you're interested, here's an excerpt from the food log.

Day One
Nurse

Breakfast: scrambled egg (1/4 egg)
Applesauce (3 Tbsp)
Whole goat milk (2 oz)

Snack: 2 bites weight watcher’s ice cream bar
12 blueberries
1 Ritz cracker
Sunflower seed butter (2/3 Tbsp)

Nurse

Lunch: 12 noodles (lg shells) in cream sauce (2 Tbsp?)
Tbsp peas & Tbsp corn
Shredded mozzarella cheese (1/2 oz?)

Snack: 2 slices summer sausage
Peach yogurt (2 oz)

Nurse

Snack: 1/5 banana
½ Ritz cracker

Supper: 12 raspberries
1 crouton
3 Tbsp. corn w/ butter
1 slice cucumber & 1 green pepper strip w/ poppyseed dressing
Lamb (1 oz)
Goat milk (1/2 oz)

Nurse

Day Two
Nurse

Breakfast: Scrambled egg (9/10 egg)
Goat milk (1 oz)

Snack: ½ banana
1 oz peach yogurt
17 blueberries
1 frosted mini wheat

Nurse

Snack: 2 bites carrot w/ butter & agave nectar

Lunch: 1 slice Colby jack cheese
1 slice deli turkey
½ chunk cantaloupe

Nurse

Dinner: 40% of a chicken breast, 1 Tbsp olive oil
1/8 cup fried rice (carrots, rainbow chard, bell pepper, onion, egg)
2 ounces goat milk

Snack: 3 oz yogurt
1 ounce of goat milk

Nurse

Day Three
Nurse

Breakfast: ¼ cup of oatmeal
1 Tbsp goat milk
¾ tsp butter
1 Tbsp sunflower seed butter

Nurse

Snack: 1/3 banana
¼ cup pineapple

Lunch: ½ cup kidney beans
2/3 slice turkey
½ cherry tomato
1 chunk cantaloupe
tsp avocado on mum-mum
Tbsp shredded mozzarella cheese

Nurse

Snack: 1/4 apple
12 blueberries
3 chunks of cantaloupe

Dinner: 3 grape tomatoes
1/10 of a medium flour tortilla
Bite guacamole
2 oz steak
6 chunks cantaloupe

Snack: 2 oz. yogurt
¼ cup cheerios

Nurse

June Update

Okay, well, I know it's July 2nd, but I thought now would be a good time to update all of the baby Buffaloe blog readers about what's been going on with us this month.

I’ve had a wicked respiratory infection and was out of commission for a few weeks and so we kind of let the blog slide. Luckily, Amelie was only a little bit sick for a few days, and Sam didn't come down with anything at all.

Amelie did get her first real diaper rash and we've switched to disposables (for the first time in a year!) until it clears up. Sam might be the only dad in the history of diapers to be annoyed with the disposables and want to switch back to cloth.

I’ve started writing freelance articles for Advisors Edge Marketing and Sam’s been hard at work taking a bar review class and studying for the upcoming exam. He's been going to job interviews and we're all anxiously awaiting news of where we'll be and what he'll be doing next year.

Amelie still isn't really talking yet, but she did yell "Dada!" when Sam came walking in from class yesterday and she has been saying "Ma-mam-ma-ma" when she's upset.

Amelie has started eating sometimes with her own spoon or a fork, though it's sometimes a messy process. A new food she likes is yogurt:

Amelie's started taking great delight in giving Schroeder things. She'll offer him her toys, her pacifier, and any food she can get her hands on, then she'll laugh uproariously at the thought of him taking the pacifier or eating the food, even if he ignores it like the good dog he is.

I’ve been out walking the trail and Amelie's come along in the stroller several times. She likes it best when there are lots of people and dogs and bikes to look at. If there isn't a lot of visual stimulation, she insists on getting out to walk part of the way. She's started trying to run some, too, but that trips her up and she falls down.

Last weekend, we went to Little Mates Pirate's Cove for our belated Father's Day celebration. Amelie had a blast walking all over in the foot-deep water, playing in the waterworks, and going down the slide. She wasn't too happy about wearing her hat, though. The bad news is that Sam put the camera in his wet swimsuit pocket and it hasn't been quite right since.

The good news is that we were racking up credit card points and finally bought a new one today, so hopefully there’ll be some new snazzy pictures up soon.

Professional Photos

We went all out for Amelie's one-year photos. Aunt Holly bought a girly-girl tutu in honor of the occasion, and we found a photographer who would come out to the house and provide the digital prints for a reasonable fee. (She's Rhiannon at Lollipop Photography, and you should check her out!)

The night before the photographer came over, I thought, "Hmmm, maybe we'd better try this tutu on first." Lo and behold, she was not having it -- Amelie just sat there, picking at the poof and crying. "What is this stuff?!? Somebody get it off me!!" Something must have changed overnight, though, since she was happy as a clam the next day.

Taking pictures turned out to be quite the event. The photographer was here two hours and Amelie changed clothes four times.

Though one of those wardrobe changes happened to be stripping down to just a diaper.

Who could resist this red-headed cutie?

We walked down to the park to take some pictures outside. Schroeder was torn between being upset that he didn't get to come with us and suspicious of the photographer and all of her equipment.

Amelie enjoyed the swing.

Amelie wanted to walk the entire time -- being carried around is for babies!

Of course, that meant a lot of making sure she didn't fall down.

Family Photo time :)

This one I love:

Somehow she ended up back in the crib at the end of the day.

If you're on Facebook, I think you can see more pictures here.