HAPPY 1ST!

Exactly one year ago from midday today, God gave us our beautiful daughter, Amelie.  This year has been one of the most challenging, rewarding, exhausting, humbling, blessed, remarkable, mystifying, intriguing, heartfelt, maturing, exhausting (wait, did i say that already? well it deserves another mention), unpredictable, tender, demanding, delightful time of my life.

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY TO OUR BABYGIRL~

WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

The Best Part of Waking Up is Amelie in My Cup*

I don't know how many people can honestly say this but we SO look forward to our mornings.  I never thought I'd be able to say that because I love to sleep but it's different now.  No matter how tired, groggy and half asleep we are, we get to wake up to a wonderful Amelie who greets us with the biggest smile ever.  How can you not want to wake up at the butt crack of dawn for this?  It's kind of like waking up to see the sunrise. 


Here's our sunrise...








Random thing I wanted to share is how much Amelie loves these Mum-Mum Rice Rusks.  A friend gave one to her and she basically inhaled it.  Amazon is offering 2 day free shipping on baby food and for $14 you get 6 boxes for a total of 144 rusks!

Amelie and the Funky Bunch*

So Amelie is already almost 11 and a half months!  Man alive, where did that time go?!  My friends always ask me what I do with Amelie during the week.  When I'm not running around after her at home and working my part-time job while she naps, we try to go out and meet her friends so she can practice being around other lil' people like herself.  I just cannot get enough of watching the little tikes interact with each other.  Put one cute little person with another cute little person and you just melt and ooze onto the floor because they are so funny and so darn adorable.  So without further adieu, say hello to Amelie's funky bunch crew.

This is a classic shot of big sis Amelie at 5 months old welcoming her new friend, Cana into the world.  They're going to go on missions trips together and share the Gospel.

This is at 6 months old on their first playdate probably wondering a lot of different things...

This is her friend Lexi.  They will probably play doubles tennis together like me and her mom did.

This is the first time Nora came over and hung out when they were 7 months old.  They're only 5 days apart and they're going to play sports together.

This is big bro Lincoln who is expecting a baby sister soon.

This is Daniel who is a couple months younger than Amelie and the only baby lad at church among 3 other baby chicks.  What a lucky lad!

This is her church bud, Soleil, a fashionista.

Here is our absolute best attempt to get a group photo during this playdate.

Here is Amelie trying to get her big bro friend, Maxx's, attention who loves the movie 'Up'.

Amelie got to welcome his new sister, Ellie, into the world.  She loves to smile.

This is Aunt Soo and another new friend, Elias, who Amelie got to welcome into the world.  They will make beautiful music together when they get older. 

Fresh from a recent playdate and looking much older now are buds, Nora and Cana.  Nora can already wobble walk.

To get this rare photo of them together, it took lots of strange sounds, snacks and one heckuva strong grip*

I leave you with some cute little videos of all of them "playing" together.  Notice how they all just kinda do their own thing.

Glee Club*

Is there anything better than the sound of a baby's giggling-with-glee-laughter?  Whenever I hear Amelie laugh, it reminds me of how pure it sounds, especially from such an innocent young thing.  Only happiness and joy can produce such genuine laughter.  How amazing is that?

Here's a little glimpse of what that sounds like.

Man, the strange things we do to get our kids to laugh...

Amelie the Bookworm*

Amelie has taken up a new hobby lately...books!  She most definitely gets that from me because I was the kid always staying up late at night to read books under her blanket with a flashlight after lights out and getting the most stars on the wall for all the books I read.  Whenever I go to the bookstore, I can't leave without buying at least one book for her but with so many books out there it's so hard to know what she'll like!  Recommendations are very welcome!

Here are a couple of Amelie's favorite books we'd recommend:






Since birth, Amelie has always shown interest in this book and even at the age of 10.5 months, she sits still when I read this to her!  I think it's the bright colors and the story is almost lyrical.  A very colorful read~













I just recently bought her this book and she goes blah blah over it!  She points to everything asking what it is and tries to imitate what I say.













As much as she loves to take all the cards out, she loves to see the shapes and colors on these concept cards.  I think these are great flash cards to get babies to know their shapes and colors.












This book with it's lyrical whimsy is great fun for me to read to Amelie.  We both get a kick out of this book.












If you want something with bright lights and music, I recommend this.  I bought this for Amelie this past weekend and she is LOVING it!  It combines rhythm and rhyme with seven classic nursery favorites.  She claps to it, sings to it and it keeps her occupied for a good while which is key for us mothers ^-*

These Sesame Street Board books are awesome to bring in the diaper bag when you go out.  They keep Amelie entertained in the car, at the mall, at church, anywhere!  They're really sturdy, easily wiped down, colorful and adorable.  There are a series of these books and if you go to the Target $1 section in the front of the store, you can score them for a buck a piece!




Here is Amelie reading her 'first 100 Words' book and spending the good latter part of it making an animal noise that she recently had breakthrough with.