Bedtime Story

 We read the girls a story or two before bed every night.  While we were getting Claire in her pajamas we caught Melanie reading a story for Amelia.  She really is such a sweet big sister!

If You're Happy and You Know It

I caught Melanie singing this song (that she made up on her own) to Amelia.  It was cute enough to ask her for a repeat performance so I could get it on video, so now I'm sharing it with you.  Enjoy!

Giggles

Matt has been able to get Amelia to giggle a few times and I was able to catch it on video while we were getting the girls ready for bed one night.  As with all things involving their little sister (and a video camera!) Melanie and Claire were immediately drawn to what was going on and decided to join in on trying to get Amelia to giggle.  It was pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

Some Big Sister Love

Melanie really enjoys holding Amelia, we just don't let her do it as often as she'd like, so she's always excited when we prop her on the couch with some pillows for a some cuddle time with her littlest sister.

Of course we snapped a few pictures while we were at it.

After the quasi-smile Melanie gave us for the first picture Matt instructed her to "look excited", so she did.

Then we just asked for a big smile.

Amelia sure is patient with us!

And just for fun, here's Melanie holding Claire at about the same age.

A Little Love Between #2 and #3

Lest you think Claire doesn't enjoy Amelia as much as Melanie does, let me assure you she does indeed love her little sister.  It's just tough to elbow Melanie out of the way to get anywhere near Amelia!  Here she's thoroughly enjoying her alone time with her (sleeping) little sis while Melanie is at preschool.

She's Got Me!

Melanie called me over because she thought it was pretty neat that Amelia had grabbed her hair, so she asked me to take a picture of it.  I obliged.

Amelia's First Bath

So this is a bit out of order because Amelia's first bath took place before her baptism.

She wasn't too keen on the whole being cleaned thing at first.

She did really like having her hair/head washed though

As with everything else concerning Amelia, Melanie was completely fascinated.

(You'll have to excuse Melanie's crazy hair, she had worn pigtails that day, or "piggies" as she calls them)

Despite a rocky start Amelia managed to survive her first bath.  She's even gotten to the point where she's rather calm about them now.  It sure is rough figuring out this life on the outside stuff!

Wall Decals

When we moved and I had the chance to make some changes to Melanie's room I was excited to try out some of those wall decals I had been seeing in the stores.  I picked some up at Target that would go with the decor we already had for her room and was anxious to try them out.

Well, since I'm just now posting about this, my anxiety to try them out obviously wasn't enough to get me to actually do it in a timely manner.  Part of my excuse was that I wanted to do it when Matt was home so he could keep the girls occupied because I didn't want them to see me applying them and possibly peeling them back off, therefore showing that they too could peel them off the walls.  So they got put up in the closet and were forgotten about until a couple weeks ago when I finally decided to take care of it one Saturday morning as a distraction while putting away the girls' laundry, my least favorite chore, by far.  Not just the girls' laundry, but all laundry in general.  I would truly prefer to iron every day and live out of laundry baskets to the task of putting away laundry (a habit we do fall back in to every so often it seems).  But I digress.

Melanie was quite tickled when she came upstairs to see the new pretties on her walls.  I may go and pick up another set so that when Claire moves in with Melanie I can decorate around her name as well, instead of taking away from Melanie's name.  Anyway, here is little Miss Melanie showing you some of her new wall art.

She really likes that butterfly :)

 

Melanie very quickly informed me that the pink flower was her flower and the yellow one was Claire's.  That's fine with me, glad to hear she's sharing and all.  I just assumed this was because the pink one was bigger, and therefore should be hers.  Then last week Melanie shed a bit more light on her reasoning behind her choices.  One day when we were putting away laundry (Again!  I tell you, it never ends!) Melanie said "The pink flower is my flower, the yellow flower is Claire's flower.  Claire is a sunflower.  I'm a farmer.  I get candy!"  Ah, it all made sense now!  A reference back to Halloween.  Quite the memory our little lady has!

Claire was quite fascinated by the new additions

 

And just because it's cute, the girls lovin' on each other.

Claire's First Solid Food and Sitting Up

We let Claire try her first solid food on the July 12th

These obviously aren't it,
I just thought they were funny.
She's quite the grabby little thing!

I was feeling too tired (lazy) to pump any milk for the rice cereal, so we just mixed in warm water.
Claire was not impressed.

So we tried again a few days later with breast milk instead, and she loved it!

If you don't get another spoonful to her quickly enough she starts to gnaw on the highchair :D
I just bought some fruits and veggies yesterday, so we'll see how well received those will be!

You can't really tell from this picture, but she's been sitting without support for a couple weeks now.

She hasn't quite mastered getting herself into the sitting position yet.
It's quite frustrating for her.
So close though!

Good thing she has Melanie there to help her through the tough times!