Amelie- 8 months

At 8 months, Amelie brings a lot of joy into our lives.  Every day I feel so lucky to have her.  She wakes up smiling and laughing and goes to bed the same way... its just fun to have such a happy little person around. She brings good balance to the rest of us:).

She has started  grabbing at everything within reach, including tipping over water bottles, pulling hair, and interfering in Logan's iPad games.  She loves the tags on things-- loves eating them, loves flapping them back and forth.  Her favorite toy is a cloth book called Pet's Tails, which has various animal tails hanging off of it for easy chewing.  When she gets excited she waves her arms back and forth, like a little dragonfly. She is just starting to get interested in eating food.  After months of trying to feed her baby food, we've revised our strategy and are just giving her normal food to gum on, which she much prefers. Apparently this has a fancy name called Baby Led Weaning.

 Her nicknames are Miss A, Little, and Pea.

San Diego

We headed out to San Diego President's Day weekend for the wedding of my best friend growing up, Kara. Seeing her get married made me so sentimental, in a way other weddings haven't really. I think its because I knew her when she was little, and experienced with her all those steps along the way that some day lead to marriage-- the 6th grade crushes and high school dances and later boyfriends.  And I now project all my experiences on my own kids, so I immediately fast forwarded through Amelie's life, to the day Mark walks her down the aisle. I'm such a sap these days.  I remember laughing at my mom for crying at movies-- especially Beaches.  Now I'm that mother-- maybe worse.  Even seeing nature videos of little baby birds squawking for their mothers to feed them makes me teary. Oh well. 

The wedding was sailing-themed since Kara & Justin spend a lot of time out on their boat.  We got to cook s'mores on the beach, take a sailing trip around Shelter Island, and then the wedding was at the San Diego Yacht Club.  Kendall came out for the weekend too to visit her friends and babysat during the wedding.  Logan LOVED her friend Kerin & family, and says he wants to go back and ride motorcycles again with them soon.  I don't know what that's about, but if they took my 3 year old on a motorcycle, maybe I don't want to know.  We also got to see Rob, Julie, Sam, and meet new baby Grady.  Grady's about 6 months younger than Amelie-- I already forgot she was that tiny!  We got in 2 days at the beach with them, much to Logan's delight, and Sam had all sorts of great toys for Logan to play with/ fight over. On our last day, in addition to taking our rambunctious toddler to the yacht club for breakfast (much to the delight of the yachting people, I'm sure-- but we escaped without breaking anything!) we also squeezed in one last visit with my college friend Kamla and her 2 girls.    It was a full weekend, but we always enjoy San Diego, especially when it means escaping Denver for a few days in the winter. 

The wedding weekend events included a sail boat trip around Shelter Island.  Amelie was a nice, calm sailor. Logan raced around the boat, making all the older ladies gasp in fear every time he got near the railing.  He had a life jacket on just in case.  We got to see sea lions sunning on a dock and a submarine pulled up out of the water in a maintenance bay. 

We got in lots of beach time much to Logan's delight.  He is always asking to go to the beach, but only gets to go once or twice a year.  This was Amelie's first trip to the beach.

Kara & Justin just married

Grandma & Grandpa A's visit

Karen & Marshall came to visit last week. They arrived just in time for one of the circuits in our house to break (the one that their bedroom and bathroom are on), so Mark & Marshall spent the first 2 days of the visit rewiring all the outlets and fixtures and finally the circuit breaker.  On the bright side, we have new fixtures:). I think ours were the original 1970s ones.

Logan helping with the electrical work

We took a break from the electrical work to go to the Children's Museum.  Logan's favorite is the ball room, where balls are sucked up through various tubes into a basket hanging near the ceiling.  When it gets full,  a siren starts to go off and all the balls fall.  No matter where we were in the museum, Logan would try to race back to that ball room every time we heard the siren to see the balls fall.

Sliding down the fireman's pole at the Children's Museum

Arts & crafts at Children's Museum

Bubbles at Children's Museum

We spent the rest of the week out in the wintry weather, ice skating at the lake and skiing/snowshoeing to a backcountry cabin. It was a snowy week, but we got a break in the weather just in time to ski into the cabin and enjoy all the cross-country ski trails around the cabin. I managed to make it in and out with out faceplanting Amelie in the snow, so I think it was a success. Cross- country skis are made to be pretty much uncontrollable as far as I can tell, so if there is the slightest incline or turn in the trail, it is pretty exciting.

Ice skating at the lake

Amelie is pretty happy bundled up in the stroller on the ice

Hockey at the lake

Crew getting ready to ski into the Point Breeze cabin

Logan & Mark on the ski in

Me & Amelie skiing in

We made it!  0.8 miles, perfect distance :)

Dinner at the hut

Grandparents & grandkids back at home

Thanks for coming to visit Karen & Marshall, and for all the help with wiring, dinners, laundry, and playtime. Looking forward to seeing you in June!