Taming the Wild Beast

I love looking at the photos we get from Angelina Photography, but I have to say the outtakes are just as good sometimes. I now present "Trying to get a family picture with Amelia."

Nope, not sitting right now.

No thank you.

I think I'll leave now.

Matt: One minute. (Translation - sit here and smile for one minute, it's not going to kill you.)

I'll stay, but I'm not happy about it.

I would like to sit there please.

I'm gonna get away..

Trying really hard

Almost...

Damn, caught again.

Non-violent resistance.

Fine.

Not gonna look at the camera.

Not gonna do it.

Did you just promise me ice cream?

I'll come back for ice cream.

I can have chocolate, right?
 

Whee! Twirling!

Ok, I have to get situated.

How's this?

Did you get my good side?

One last chance...

And I'm off.

We were able to get a couple of other good shots of the three of us, a bunch of one of us with Amelia and a ton of cute Amelia solo shots. I'm reconsidering my nickname for her. I call her Snarf right now, but after this I'm thinking of changing that to Ham.

Cloning???

When Amelia was first born, and for awhile after, I didn't really see the resemblance between me and Amelia as much as other people did. Now that she's a little older I see it all the time. And while everything that Amelia got from me in terms of looks (except the blond hair) is something I got from my father, she definitely makes faces and gestures where she looks exactly like my mom. Since my brother Will and I look so much alike, Amelia looks like him, even more than she looks like me. I think she's also starting to look more and more like Matt. Especially when she's sleeping. It's adorable. 

And here I present the photo evidence. 

 Alicia at 18 months - I actually gasped out loud when I saw this one because Amelia does exactly the same thing with her hands.

 

My brother Will at 18 months

Amelia at 18 months

Maybe she does have a little of her dad in her.

Matt at 16 months.

Running Machine

I never believed women who said they lost all the baby weight just by chasing their child. I still don't believe that celebrities lose it that way. But yet again Amelia has proved me wrong. She's constantly moving and running around that I really did lose the baby weight just by chasing her around. Thankfully(?) she still falls enough that she can't get too far away.

This weekend we did a family photo shoot with Angelina Photography, and again I can't recommend Steph enough.  We did one with her last year, but Amelia wasn't too mobile then. This time we spent over an hour running along the Alexandria waterfront and up and down every flight of stairs Amelia could find. We got a sneak peek at some of the photos, and Amelia is such a ham. The only issue is that it was so hard to get her to stand still that I'm not sure any of the photos of the three of us came out. I had considered bringing Teddy (I get a little insane sometimes) and I was so glad I didn't.

In completely unrelated news, it looks like we are all going to be home for the entire month of November. Looking back I think the last time that happened was November of 2007. While I've enjoyed my travels this year, and Matt didn't mind the travel with his old job and there's not much with the new one, there is just a point when you want to be able to put the suitcase in the closet and leave it there for awhile. But it's not going to last long. I already have travel scheduled for December, January, February and March. We're hoping the time at home will allow us to finish getting settled. We're almost there, just a couple of furniture purchases and then unpacking and we're basically there. There are some things that we're going to do later, but we've done/are doing enough this fall that we need a break. I'm hoping we're finally settled in by Christmas. But the lack of certain types of storage has lead to some amusing storage solutions. My uncle gave us two very large plants (one is actually a tree), and I've hidden the boxes holding the wine we don't have storage for under the leaves of the smaller plant.

That's it for right now. I always need a little extra coffee on Monday mornings because I'm worn out from the weekend. The time change didn't seem to affect Amelia at all. She still woke up early (5 am) both mornings and went to bed about 7 both night. Thankfully during the weekend she will still take two naps. I think that's the only thing that keeps Matt and I sane.

Backyard Fun

One of the great things about our new house is the back yard. It's low-maintenance, has a deck and isn't too big. We didn't realize when we bought the house that there was an alley between the trees at the back and the bushes in front. Teddy found the spot first, and now it's their favorite spot to run in. They also have an area that Amelia calls "Teddy's House" where Amelia attempts to climb trees. Follow Amelia behind the bushes by looking for her pink sweatshirt or white sneakers. You can tell how many kids are in this neighborhood because you can hear them in the background of the video.

I've tried to get better about taking video, but sometimes it doesn't work out quite the way you plan. This is currently Amelia's favorite video and she laughs harder every time she sees it. This is the side of parenting they don't tell you about. In case you can't tell, she's waving a stick the whole time.

For the record, Amelia did not go trick-or-treating as Lunatic Fringe or Elmo. She had a double ear infection and we decided it was better to stay home. We did let her have some chocolate from our basket, and she got more wired than I've seen her in a long time. So in the end I did get a lunatic, but she was fringeless.