Happy Birthday Miss Amelia!

 

 One year ago today, our little Miss Amelia joined our family "on the outside" and quickly carved a place for herself in our hearts.

 With her quiet and sleepy ways she snoozed and snuggled Matt and me into new territory, the uncharted waters of outnumbered parenting.

(I'm thankful God saw fit to give us such an easy transition into this next stage in our parenting careers!)

 Her sisters adored her every move (and lack thereof!) and both blossomed under the duties of being big sisters to a new little one.

  We spent our days and nights listening to her coos and cries.

 We are truly blessed to have been chosen by God to have Amelia in our family.

 Watching her grow has been a joy, from getting the first glimpse of her smiles (even if I was the last person she smiled for...)

to watching her roll over and start to play.

 Each glimpse of her little personality has been like getting to see another page in a new book, the story unfolding slowly over time.

 She's happy and quick to smile,

 affectionate, with a touch of silliness, too.

 She patiently bears with her sisters' silliness,

 her parents silliness, too (I guess we know where she gets it from)

 She occasionally causes problems of her own, but that pretty much comes with the territory.

 Watching her discover all there is to this world helps us to appreciate the wonder that surrounds us every day, the simple things we take for granted.

 She's our happy, goofy, playful little girl, the third of our wonderful blessings.

 Her sisters continue to love her, to dote on her, and include her in their play.  The examples of love they show to her every day will go far in forming her for the future, and I am grateful beyond words for the bond they share.  It makes my heart happy.

 So happy first birthday Miss Amelia!

 We promise to love you, teach you, and guide you.

 (even when you scream at us!)

 And I'm sure you will continue to do the same for us.

We love you!

Amelia's First Solid Food

Amelia has been being very interested in the rest of the family whenever we're eating, really focusing on us moving the food from our plates to our mouths and even trying to steal food off our plates and put it in her mouth when we hold her during dinner, so I took that as a sign she was ready to start trying solids.  We waited until she was about 6 1/2 months old, which is older than the other two were when we started them on solids.

I said I wanted her to eat a vegetable, so Matt chose sweet potatoes as Amelia's first solid food

The spoon was more interesting than the food, which I'm sure is due to the fact that we let her chew on the rubber coated spoons when her gums are hurting due to teething.  She really seems to enjoy them as teethers, but that has makes feeding her a bit tricky from time to time.

She hasn't refused anything we've given her so far, and she doesn't spit the food out (unless she gets silly and starts blowing raspberries, but that's a different issue entirely), but she doesn't seem to be head-over-heels for solids either.  It's like she gets bored with them after about 10 bites and wants to be down playing.  Mobility is much more interesting than food.  If she keeps up that attitude she won't be our chubby baby much longer!

Amelia's Progress

 Since my last post a month ago Amelia has gone from

toppling over when you try to sit her up...

 ... to slumped over semi-sitting...

... to sitting independently like a pro!

 She's gone from  being dependent on others to get her from place to place...

 ... to scooting where she wants to go...

... and getting whatever she wants to get!

 Nothing is safe anymore!

 Full fledged crawling wasn't far behind the scooting, and with that came getting into predicaments that she can't get out of on her own.

(like getting stuck between the armchair and end table)

Within a week of the scooting/crawling accomplishment Amelia was pulling herself to semi-standing at the base of the stairs and getting one of her knees on the bottom step.
(Just for fun, there's a very similar picture of Claire in this post)

She quickly figured out how to pull herself to standing using just about any stationary object available (including Matt's leg hair!) and we quickly lowered the crib mattress.

 Now she's just showing off with this one foot, one hand combo.

Before that development had been around long enough to be old hat Amelia started slowly cruising furniture.

All of this in a little over a month!  And I naively thought the third child would give me a break in the mobility department since she has two older sisters to cater to her whims and bring stuff to her.  HA!  Looks like she opted for the "Gotta keep up with my big sisters" course of development instead!  Lord help me, I'm going to need it!