2009 Christmas Season

My parents came down to celebrate the Christmas weekend with Clint, Amelia, and me. They arrived in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. We went to Mesa to have dinner at Clint's parent's house. We enjoyed a yummy mexican style dinner with chicken enchiladas, beef tacos, cheese crisps, etc. We took a combined picture of our families together.

Amelia helped grandma Betty open a present from grandma Susie. She started getting into it a ripped the wrapping paper pretty good.

We left after dinner and went to see the Temple lights and hear the wonderful music. Amelia wanted to climb over the wood fence railings that are in-between the walkways and the nativity scenes. She enjoyed seeing the sheep and would say Baaa.

A little family picture with the decorated trees.

Another family was trying to take a family picture and Amelia decided she wanted to get in it too. Luckily she was too short and didn't ruin their picture but we were able to get a snapshot of her.

Opening stockings Christmas morning.

Amelia enjoyed dumping her stocking out after a while because it was quicker than taking everything out one by one.

Her favorite stocking stuffer was this new Tigger spinbrush toothbrush. She carried it around everywhere until we took it away.

Downstairs opening presents.

Eating a snack at my new table.

"Tan-ta!" is how Amelia says Santa.
Amelia loved her new pajamas that had snowmen, reindeer, trees, and Santa on them.
Santa is on her left footsie so she was pulling at it.

Lounging on my new futon couch before bedtime.

Our family

Christmas 2009

MERRY CHRISTMAS

From our family to yours!

Raincoat

Clint came home from work and it was raining so we decided to put Amelia's raincoat to use. We bought it for her at Sam's Club about a year ago in size 2T, knowing she would grow into it. It's a cute yellow coat with ladybugs all over it. She enjoyed getting wet and being outside. I am just glad that we don't live somewhere that receives a lot of rain. I love our dry heat here in Arizona. I feel safer knowing there aren't hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, or earthquakes. Yes we have monsoon season, which can be destructive, but is only for a short time frame during the year.

Flower Girl

Clint's sister got married on December 19th and Amelia was one of the flower girls. All of the neices, Roxie, Londann, Caliann, and Amelia were adorable flower girls. They had cute little ivory dresses with a cream furry shawl/jacket thing. They had gold shoes, bracelets, and necklaces too. The older girls wore cute hair accessories and ivory gloves. Amelia had a cute blue flower on a headband but she refuses to have anything on her head unless I glue it on.

My parents came down so they could be at the wedding and see their gorgeous (yes I am partial) granddaughter be a flower girl. I walked along with Amelia because she wouldn't go alone. I was afraid that since she was the last to walk down the aisle, that she would pick up the flowers from the ground. Luckily she didn't but she didn't really throw the flowers either. I took them out of her basket and threw them for her. She didn't scream or cry so I felt that it was a decently successful attempt at being a flower girl. She was only 17 months old at the time.

Odd Places to Sleep

Amelia is doing better about sleeping in her big girl bed and not falling out. She rolls around a lot during the night and has a higher chance of falling out of bed so I put up a blanket barricade across the front of the bed so she wouldn't roll out as easily. If she wants out of the bed, she can just lay on her stomach and slide down feet first. When I lay Amelia down for her naps, she will immediately sit up and then slide on out after I close the door and leave the room. I have found her sleeping right behind the door, behind the rocking chair, in the corner by her closet amongst her stuffed animals, on the blankets beneath the bed with her box of shoes, in the bed with her head hanging over the edge of the blanket barricade, and in the rocking chair!

Here are some pictures of how I have found Amelia sleeping:

Taking a nap in the bed.

Sleeping on the floor after rolling out at night.

Sleeping on the blankets after getting into her dresser and taking out her box of shoes.

Sleeping behind the rocking chair in the corner..she sleeps here mostly I think.

The other day I peeked in on her and found her like this.

Vrrrrrrr

So many of yoy know that I LOVE ladybugs! I started collecting ladybug stuff at a very young age. I have quite the collection. Amelia's room, our guest bedroom, and the guest bathroom are all decorated with the ladybug theme. I have a ladybug massage pillow that I've had for a long time. I found it in the guest bedroom and thought Amelia would like playing with it. I put new batteries in it and showed her what to do. I pushed on it with my hand and it started vibrating. She took the pillow from me and tried it herself. She seriously played with it for at least 10 minutes straight. She would pick it up, cart it off somewhere, lay it on the floor, and place her head on it for a few seconds so it would vibrate. She did this over and over and over. She took it in the living room, in the kitchen, in the dining room, and by the pool table. Sometimes she will place it on the floor and just sit on top of it while playing with other toys.

I'm Married to a National Champion

Clint plays on a Touch Rugby team, Tumeke Touch. They just hosted the national competition this last Friday and Saturday at Discovery Park in Gilbert. Amelia and I went to watch two of his three games Friday evening. It was chilly outside so we were both bundled up in sweaters. My mom bought Amelia a cute green zip up sweater with a picture of Bambi on the hood and Bambi's ears that stick up above on top of the hood. Everybody thought she looked adorable. I took Amelia home to go to bed and Clint played one more game Friday night. They won all three games and Clint got a try (like touchdown in football). The second game they played was against a team from Portland (This was the team they played last year in Dallas for the championship. Portland won last year and Tumeke took 2nd place). They beat them Friday night 4 to 3!

They had two more games Saturday morning and won both of those games too. They were seeded number one for the semi finals. Amelia and I arrived around 2pm; semi finals started at 2:40pm. It was very cold and rainy. We were both bundled up again and sat under a canopy to stay dry. Their team played the number four team and beat them 11 to 5 I believe. The clouds disappeared and the sun came out and it started to warm up quickly. We took off our sweaters and got to spend time with Clint before the final game at 4:20.

The playing field at Discovery Park is in a basin. There is a decently steep hill to climb up if you want to get out and to the top. Amelia enjoyed walking up and down this hill. We bought a meat pie and sat on the side of the hill as a family, watching the mixed touch team play their semi final game.

Clint had to leave and go warm-up with his team for the championship game so Amelia and I went back down the hill to the canopies where the other kids were playing. Amelia enjoyed following the bigger kids around. Clint's game started a little bit late. The sun was starting to go down and was getting a bit cold so I put our sweaters back on. Before the game started, their team lined up and did the haka (the haka is the traditional dance form of the Māori of New Zealand. It is a posture dance performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted accompaniment. It is supposed to scare the opponent. The New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks, do the haka before their games). Their team was playing Portland for the championship, just like last year. It was a very intense game. One of our players got hurt and possibly broke his ankle. This was the player that Clint would take turns with to go in and play. Since the guy was badly injured, Clint got to stay in and play for almost the entire game. Near the end of the game the score was 3 to 3 and Clint scored a try, making it 4 to 3. Their team just needed to stop Portland from scoring. Time seemed to pass so slowly. Finally we heard the blow horn, signally the end of the game. Their team had won and were the national touch rugby champs! After all their hard work this last year, it finally paid off. Their team was so excited. They did the haka again after the game.

The award ceremony was held after the mixed team had their championship game. Everybody gathered around and the trophies and medals were awarded. Clint's team got a large trophy that they will keep until next year's nationals. Each player on his team received a gold medal. There were select players chosen to be part of the All Tournament Team and Clint was one of them. He received a special shirt. I'm so proud of Clint and his efforts to play hard. I know winning and becoming the national champs meant a whole lot to his team.

I can't wait until next year's nationals competition! They will be playing on the sports field that sits inside the Walt Disney World park in Florida. They will get package deals where the players and family members who come along get park tickets for Disney World. I have only been to Disneyland once as a young child. My family tagged along with my sister's school trip when we lived in San Diego. It was raining the entire time. Our souvenirs were Mickey/Minnie socks. We took off our soaked socks and put the new socks on, put our feet in plastic bags, then put on our shoes. This was so we could have warm dry feet.

TUMEKE TOUCH...2009 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!

Night Two in Big Girl Bed

Amelia was getting quite upset and cranky so I put her to bed around 7pm tonight. She fell asleep rather quickly. Everything was going great until about 10pm. I was downstairs watching tv; sitting on the couch, which is directly below her room. I thought I heard a small thunk. I muted the tv but didn't hear anything else or any crying. I decided to go upstairs and check to make sure everything was okay. I slowly opened Amelia's bedroom door and shone a flashlight to the ceiling to give the room a glow. I was quite surprised at what I saw. Amelia had obviously rolled/fallen out of bed; I'm guessing hit the comfy pink blanket I had on the floor and then rolled a little further. She was lying on her back with both hands behind her head, still asleep! I went downstairs and got my camera. When I came back up, she had rolled over to her side. I took a few photos- pictured below. I went down the hall to set my camera down and when I came back, Amelia was sitting up rubbing her eyes and looking around in a daze. I wonder what she was thinking in that head of hers. I got down to her level and told her she must have fallen out of the bed. I grabbed her blankie from the bed and the kitty from the floor and rocked her for a minute, then placed her back into bed. She went right back to sleep.

I am just so amazed that she fell out of her bed, which is about a one foot drop, and managed to just roll over and go back asleep without making any noise other than the thud from hitting the floor! What a trooper. I hope she doesn't do this in the middle of the night. I don't know if I would wake up if the only noise she makes is a small thud. I guess if she does fall out again, she will just sleep on the floor until she realizes that she is on the floor. Once realizing that she is on the floor, she will come to our room looking for us or just crawl back up into her bed. I seriously doubt she would just crawl back into her bed in the middle of the night though.

While Clint and I were in the bathroom getting ready for bed around midnight, we were very startled when we heard a soft noise and a pink blur coming toward us. I almost had a heart attack! Amelia had fallen/gotten out of bed and came looking for us in our room. I put her back to bed and we went to bed ourselves. Around 3am I woke up when our bedroom door slowly opened and I heard Amelia walking in. I was groggy but took her back and put her in her own bed. Seriously in about two minutes, here she came again, this time with her blankie. I almost wanted to just put her in our bed and see if she would sleep with us because I was so tired and didn't feel like getting back out of bed again. But I knew that if I started this, it would probably happen every night thereafter; she would learn that if she comes into our room in the middle of the night she can sleep with us. I definitely do not want her to start that habit! So I got out of bed and put her back down, and this time closed her door. She never did get back out of bed or make any noise until the morning. Unfortunately she woke up around 7am and since the door was closed, she stood there and tried to turn the knob. I was still very very tired but she had about 12 hours of sleep so I knew there was no way she would be going back to bed.

I hope night three is better like night one; I need to catch up on my sleep!

Big Girl Bed

Yesterday I decided that I wanted to convert Amelia's crib into the transitional bed. I thought about all the big milestones or events that will be taking place from now until her 2nd birthday and I wanted to be able to space them out so they won't all happen at once and possibly be traumatizing for her. Aside from needing to move her into a big girl bed, in the next few months I would like for Amelia to not need a pacifier when sleeping. I also want to try and start potty training around 18 months and hopefully have her trained by 2 years old. At 18 months she will be in nursery at church and I don't plan on having to stay in the room with her the entire time, but be able to go to my classes. She recently got two molar teeth and a lower tooth in all at about the same time and still has more teeth that need to come in. Teething has never been fun for Amelia. So after looking at all these events, the two I felt that I could control were moving her to a big girl bed, and getting rid of the pacifier. Since the pacifier helps when sleeping, especially with all the teething that's been going on, I just don't think I am ready for that battle quite yet. I tried to see if she would take a nap without it a week ago but she just screamed bloody murder forever. I don't have the heart or guts to do it yet. Maybe in the next month or two after she has gotten accustomed to the big girl bed and teething has gotten better.

So Amelia and I went up to her room and got to work. I took the front crib railing off and attached the two little crib 'doors' to the front. Amelia had fun playing in the room with everything while I was doing this. Once I put the mattress back on, she helped me put her toys on the bed. She crawled up on the bed and played for a little bit while I really baby proofed the room. I figured that now she will be able to get out of her bed, anything that seems remotely harmful better be taken out or put out of reach.

Last night I rocked her for a few minutes like usually at about 7:30pm. She was excited to see some new pictures of herself hanging on the wall so wasn't exactly laying down in my lap. I had a nice comfy blanket on the ground right where the opening was in between the two crib 'doors' in case she fell out during the night. (When in the crib, she would roll around quite a lot and kick her feet against the back of the crib railing. She also likes to sleep short ways in the crib with her feet near the back railing and her head near the front railing.) I figured she would probably fall out at least once during the 1st night in her big girl bed.

When I went to bed, she was laying long ways in the bed snuggling with her blankie. Another blanket had been pushed off onto the floor so I picked it up and put it near her feet. I myself had a tough time going to sleep because I was so nervous. I just laid in my bed waiting to her a thud followed by crying. I finally fell asleep but woke up a few times when I could hear her rolling around. Amelie never did fall out of the bed; if she did, I didn't hear anything and she got back into bed all by herself. I highly doubt that though.

Clint got up and went to work around 5:30am. He leaves our bedroom door cracked slightly when he leaves. I always leave Amelia's door cracked so when I check in on her before going to bed, the doorknob doesn't make a bunch of noise and wake her up; she is quite the light sleeper like me. Around 8:40am I heard my door open and the little pitter patter of feet walking toward my bed. I sat up and her comes Amelia with her pacifier in her mouth! It was kind of a nice way to start the morning :) When she was in her crib before, I would wake up to her making noise by playing and talking to her toys, saying uh-oh over and over again because she went poo poo, or by crying. I'm excited that her first night in the crib was so successful!

I was a little worried how she would do during naptime in the big girl bed because it is daytime and she can see the books and toys in her room better. I rocked her for a few minutes and laid her down around 11:35am. I could hear her talking to toys and pushing her glowworm toy, which sings music. I would say she fell asleep sometime before 11:45am. I went to check on her since I didn't hear any noise and this is what I saw:

Her room is actually quite dark during the day due to blinds and window curtains, so I used the flash and nighttime setting on my camera. I hope she doesn't fall out! She has been asleep for almost an 1.5 hours so she will get a pretty good nap. She got around 13 hours sleep last night and with this one hour nap so far, that makes 14.5 hours. According to Babycenter, the average 12 month old child needs 13.75 hours of sleep total for the day and the 18 month old child needs 13.50 hours of sleep. So I figure that since Amelia is 16 months old, she should get an amount somewhere in between. She usually always gets at least 14 hours of sleep total everyday. Maybe that's why, for the most part, she is a pretty happy baby; and why she can get cranky if she doesn't get put down for a nap three hours after waking up in the morning.

I love my little Amelia to pieces and I am so glad that she is growing up into such a smart and healthy girl. It helps me to forget all the tough times I struggled through in the first 4-5 months of her life. I can confidently say that she is going to grow up into a very wonderful and special young lady and that I was an integral part.

Trick-or-Treat!

No Amelia was not a ladybug again this year :( We have a few ladybug costumes for different ages but they were too big to fit her this year and she is waaay to big to wear last year's (6 month size) ladybug onesie costume. I didn't want to spend much money and buy a costume so I decided she would be a bunny. I already had pink sweat pants for her and a white onesie. She wore pink socks and her pink sport-like shoes. My mom gave her bunny ears at Easter and I safety pinned a fluffy white pom pom ball to her sweat pants. I was looking at winter clothes at Wal-Mart the other day because it is getting cold now and she doesn't have any winter clothes really. I found an adorable faux fur white hoodie jacket. It has a little bit of pink where the pockets are and on the zipper area. I thought this would be a perfect addition to complete the bunny look for Amelia! It would keep her warm, look stylish, and still be useful after Halloween.

I couldn't get a picture of Amelia's complete costume without Clint holding her hands down. She always takes the bunny ears off her head in about 2 seconds after I put them on.

My little bunny :)

Look at that cute bunny behind! Hop hop hop

Mommy & bunny

I don't want these on my head mom!

Clint and I taught Amelia to fold her arms and close her eyes a few months ago so she could learn to be reverent and also join us when we pray. She will randomly fold her arms and close her eyes throughout the day and at the end of church hymns. She is getting better at doing it on command. Clint told her to fold her arms and she did so he was able to get a picture.


And we're off to go trick-or-treating! We practiced at our house first. I had Clint open our door and give her candy. She wanted nothing to do with it. We joined our neighbors, Matt & Holly, and we went trick-or-treating together. After watching their almost 2 year old son trick-or-treat, Amelia started to pick up on what to do. When people would answer the door and put the candy bowl in front of Amelia, she would actually pick out a candy. Sometimes she would try to share and give it back to them. But after awhile she learned to put it in her bucket.

I gave Amelia her first ever sucker to eat; I didn't want chocolate all over her white jacket so I thought a sucker was a better choice. She sucked on it for 30 minute sor more and got to the tootsie roll in the middle. Amelia was a very sticky mess! At one point, the sleeve of her jacket was stuck to the tray on the stroller. I had to pull the jacket out from the sticky area. We decided she was done with the sucker and got her out of the stroller so she could burn off the sugar rush by trick-or-treating some more. If you look closely, you will see the sucker stick stuck to the jacket near her left arm/shoulder area. The stroller is sticky all over the tray table and her hands are a nasty mess. We used wipes to clean off her hands and face the best we could.

After getting Amelia out of the stroller, we knocked on a door and got some candy. They had a few white dogs behind a gate past the entryway. Amelia heard the dogs barking, pointed at them, and said her version of 'dog'. She started crawling into the entryway and then walked over to the basket full of dog toys.

Amelia doing her 'I don't know' hand guesture.

I bet this was one of the highlights of Amelia's night...getting to see dogs and play with their dog toys.

Sweet moment...smiling at daddy :)

Her hands and face were still so sticky, even after we attempted to clean it up with wipes. The fur from the jacket stuck to the sticky mess and you can see some of the fur on her hands and chin.

We walked around our neighborhood for about two hours. It seemed very slow at first; like we weren't going to get any candy. There weren't many people home and only a few houses left bowls of candy out for trick-or-treaters. After awhile we found houses that had the Halloween spirit and were sitting out on their front porch with candy and great decorations in their yards. Near the end of our journey we got to a house that had only gotten five trick-or treaters. She gave us three huge handfuls of candy. When we got home our bowl of tootie fruites looked untouched. Overall it was a pleasant evening. The weather was quite nice, I got in a good amount of exercise from all that walking, we accumulated a decent stash of candy, and Amelia wasn't cranky. Happy Halloween!

Schnepf's Farm

My mom and dad came down for the weekend so we could all go to Schnepf's Farm in Queen Creek. I went a few years ago while in college but it's a whole different experience with your family and a child. When you first enter into the farm, there are people painting faces. Amelia and I both got our faces painted with a pumpkin.

Amelia wasn't sure what was going on. She stayed very still and only moved her eyes.

The finished product...a beautiful pumpkin

One of our first stops was the petting zoo area. There was a pen filled with goats of all sizes.

There were some adorable little baby goats roaming around. When we would try to pet them, this one bigger white goat would get jealous and come over to be petted too.

The baby goats were quite soft and the bigger goats had rougher fur.

There was a very large sheep who happened to be standing near the fence of his pen. Perfect photo opportunity for us!

The donkey was friendly but I think Amelia was a little uneasy about it.

Our next stop was to the pig races. We were able to sit in the front row and see it all wonderfully.

Before the show started Amelia was having a blast looking around at everything and other kids. A plane flew overhead and she pointed up into the sky and said 'puh'.

A bird was flying overhead in circles so again Amelia pointed but said 'buh' for bird.

Amelia turned around to see where daddy was and make sure he was enjoying the show too.

This was a very large pumpkin compared to Amelia. She did a great job posing on the hay bale!


We went on the hay ride through the orchards and they stopped along the way so people could see the deer. Clint took Amelia over to the fence so Amelia could pet them and see them better. Something must have smelled bad...the deer or the trash can?

Grandma giving Amelia some love on the hay ride.


We went over to the pumpkin area and let Amelia pick a small pumpkin out. These were more her size and she was able to pick them up.

We couldn't pass up another great photo opportunity of our little family in the pumpkin patch.

Mommy, Amelia, and the pumpkins.

We decided that we were getting hungry so we got some corndogs, cotton candy, and fresh lemonade. Amelia found a large pumpkin under one of the tables. She wanted to go over and touch it...so she did.

Last photo opportunity on the large hay bale mountain.

Closer family photo

Three generations on the hay bale mountain. Clint snapped this picture perfectly as Amelia saw a bird or plane in the sky and had her finger pointing and her mouth open and saying something.