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.

Pre-Halloween

Those who have spent any length of time with Amelia will agree that she's a lunatic. A fun, adorable, loving lunatic, but a lunatic nonetheless. This gave me an idea. Add some fringe and you have Lunatic Fringe. I think this may be a sign I've lived in DC too long.  Matt's mom was kind enough to make this cape Amelia can wear for Halloween because there seems to be a lack of Lunatic Fringe outfits at Target. She also made a red furry suit and hat so Amelia can be Elmo if she decides that she won't wear the cape. I'm debating wearing the cape myself if Amelia goes as Elmo. Either way it will be great outfit for every election night. Yeah, I've been in DC too long when there are special election day outfits.

18 Months

Ok, who pushed the fast forward button on this year? Please stop it.

I can't believe Amelia is 18 months old and having mini conversations with us. They mainly involve telling us where to sit so we can play together, asking to watch Elmo, or asking for food. She also talks to Teddy and is constantly asking "Are you T?" (Where are you Teddy?) when they run around the backyard together. She smiles constantly and always has to tilt her head when she says "please." She can walk and gallop, but prefers to run. There's not much she won't eat, but if you say "ice cream" in front of her she won't eat anything till she's had ice cream. She still sleeps with more books than toys, but has recently started sleeping under the covers (at least at the beginning of the night) and will crawl into bed to read her bedtime stories. She decided that her small pillow wasn't big enough and stole one of my pillows for her bed. She's outgrown the dinosaur ride-on toy she got for Christmas, but will still push it around to listen to the music. She dances almost every time she hears music, unless there are people around to watch. She's in a big time Mommy phase, except when Matt is not home. She makes us crazy and thinks it's funny. She's a beautiful and amazing little girl who recently learned to say "I love you." There's not that much baby left in her, but we're holding on tight to the parts that are. Amelia, we love you very much and can't believe the joy you've brought us.

Official 18 month stats.
Weight: 25 lb, 12 oz (75%)
Length: 34 1/2 in (97%)

More Pics and Updates

Hey there! I like to party like rockstar!

I love being the center of attention. Also, flying.

Amelia with her uncle and aunts. (From left to right: Hugh, Anne, Mrs. Bunny Thompson, Amanda.) You can see why the Facebook facial recognition software had some issues with my family.

The new extended family. Pete's parents are on the right. When our family grows much more I don't think we'll all fit in one photo. Currently: Dad and Mary, 6 siblings, 4 spouses/might as well be married, and 1 grandchild = really hard to get in the same place, let alone the same photo.

Kent gave Amelia a panda hat in honor of one of the Giants players. She liked it, but only for short periods of time.

Now a few from the wedding itself. Anne, me and the bride.

And one cute one of Bunny and Dad. My dad looks so much like his father that I kept doing a double take. All he's missing are the glasses. At least Will and Hugh know what they will look like when they get older.

Thanks to Madison for the photos. You can find her and Bunny baking at dessertpocket.com.

As for us, we are doing pretty well and almost completely unpacked. The big thing left is our 12 boxes of books. We're figuring out where we want to put the bookcases we need. Amelia and I bought some flowers for the front flower boxes yesterday. She selected yellow, but I think that's because it's her current default color. I tried to get her to help with the watering, but that did not go well. She had just had some ice cream, so at least she was cleaned up from that.

Matt's still enjoying his new job and the lack of travel. Which is good because I have been one the road almost once a week recently. I've actually been to San Francisco twice since the wedding, and I have another two trips there in the next six weeks.

Amelia LOVES her daycare. Sometimes the only way to get her to go to sleep is to tell her that she will get to see her teachers (and Hunter or Cole depending on her mood) the next day. This morning she made a beeline for Cole when we walked in. Matt and I have babyproofed her door so she can't get out, but we're looking for ways to keep her locked in there till she's 30. She's becoming more verbal by the day. Now she can usually tell us what she wants, or at least get close enough. She's also very good with naming body parts. Ear, hair and eye are the favorites, but she also enjoys pulling up her shirt to show off her belly. She's going to be trouble when she gets older and has more words and moves. She's going to give at least one of us a heart attack, and both of us high blood pressure.

Settling In

So we've now been in the house for ten days. We are all getting used to the new sights, sounds and smells here. Amelia loves having the space to run around and the ability to play in the backyard. Teddy loves having a yard with plenty of space to chase squirrels and sliding glass doors to stare them down when she is inside. Matt and I are enjoying having all the storage space. We have a big bathroom, lots of kitchen space and a closet that's big enough for all of his suits and all of my shoes. I'll give you a quick tour. Please pardon the quality of the photos as they were all taken with my phone because I have no idea where the regular camera is. We'll start at the top and go down, because there's a monster at the end of this post.

The Attic, aka Alicia's Office
Since I'm working from home now it was really important that I have a room for my office and that the room had a door I could shut. This works out even better because I have to climb stairs to get into my office and there's nothing else up here except storage. At first Teddy would not come up here (she still hasn't gone into the basement), but I had lunch up here today and there was pizza crusts (Teddy's favorite treat) so she finally came up. She is now sitting at my feet like she did in the apartment.
I do still need to get a proper desk, and while bubblegum pink is a lovely color, I will be repainting soon. You can see the different paint swatches taped to the ceiling to help me make a choice.

Going down a level to the second floor, we have the bedrooms. First, Amelia's room. Again, the racetrack is nice, but her room is also on the To Be Painted list. Since we've been in the house she's been sleeping on the air mattress my mother sent her. It's bigger than her mattress, and has bumpers so it's harder for her to get out. We bought her a little pillow and she uses the blanket Matt's grandmother made and goes to sleep with minimal fuss. She will get up and can get out of the bed, and cry at the door (which she can't open) but if we don't respond she'll put herself back to sleep. She's asked me to join her in bed a couple of times, but I've politely declined as I think that would end badly. She's also decided that some of the time she wants to be in bed for her story instead of in the chair. She seems so grown up when we do that.

This is our bathroom. Amelia will learn to swim in that bathtub. You can't fully appreciate the size of it in the picture, but the whole family, including Teddy, could get in with room to spare.
Matt and I had really wanted a separate master bathroom. He wanted the space and I wanted to hide how many skin and hair products I now use to make it look like I'm not exhausted.

The bedroom itself (there's a small sitting room with French doors into the room) is pretty bare at the moment. We definitely need to get some more furniture and some rugs to make it look like someone actually lives there. One of my favorite features of the house is a balcony off the bedroom. I think it's going to become my "Mommy has PMS and needs a glass of wine and quiet" spot.

The front bedroom (the master is the back of the house) is the guest room. Teddy seems to love this room because it gets the most sun. It's already hosted Grandma and Grandpa who came down to help because I had to go out of town less than a week after moving in. There's a full bathroom for Amelia/guests and Matt's mom has been given her own shelf to store things because we know she's going to be here so much. We really appreciate her coming down to help with Amelia as often as she does.

And now we come to the first floor. This is the view from the front door. If you look closely you can see into the backyard from here, which is pretty cool. Also, Teddy would be paying more attention to you than she is in this photo.

And if you turn to your left you will see the living room, which has a lovely fireplace and built in bookshelves. The tower of purple bins on the right is all books (and it goes farther back) so we're going to need a little more bookcase room somewhere.

As you walk straight down the hall you would come to what I am referring to as the butler's pantry, because the pantry is off this room, and I've always wanted a butler's pantry. In real life it's not nearly this yellow.

Door #1 off the butler's pantry is our actual pantry (not shown due to embarrassing lack of food in the house). Door #2 leads to the powder room. We will be living with this wallpaper forever. I do not want to get into trying to take it off or paint over it. Foxhunting toile now has a permanent place in our lives.

Opposite the powder room is the dining room. It's got a cute built in and it's not too big.

It does however, have this as the lighting fixture. If anyone knows of a good place to find light fixtures, let me know because this thing is leaving our house sometime soon.

Now comes the parts that really sold us on the house. The kitchen is huge, and I know people won't believe this, but we have empty drawers and shelves and we've unpacked all the kitchen stuff. It's bananas. The fridge even has an ice maker, which Amelia loves.

View from the other side. First thing set up in the new kitchen? Coffee maker.

Past the kitchen is the family room. There's an opening above the sink, so I can be in the kitchen and keep track of Amelia and Teddy. Matt can usually take care of himself.

From the other side you can see the sliding doors to the back yard. Teddy guards us from squirrels, even when she's inside, so there's a lot of unexpected barking. One day she will give me a heart attack.

The other thing that sold us on the house was the basement. This will be Amelia's playroom, and as long as we can get to the laundry room, she can do whatever she wants down here. There's a full bathroom down here, and the door under the stairs leads to a storage place that will eventually become a secret hideout.

The basement also contains a monster. Actually two of them. These are our washer and dryer. There are cars that are less complex than these things. It took me ten minutes the first time to get a load of laundry going. Laundry should not be this complicated. They also randomly beep and make noises. I will have nightmares about them at some point.

Well, that's the tour. We hope you can come visit sometime soon! I promise the boxes will all be put away or unpacked by Christmas.

MOVING IN!!!

The movers come in 24 hours. I'm am excited beyond words that after this weekend I will no longer be living out of a suitcase full-time. It will only be part time with my job related travels.

Matt is also very excited to be in and to have our stuff. It's the little things, like the pots and pans here aren't nearly as good as we're used to. Not that we have the greatest ever, but we don't have dorm-ready pots and pans.

I think the happiest family member to have the move complete will be Teddy. She hates the elevators, and refuses to walk to the recycling room on our way out. Now she'll have a whole new yard and house to sniff. I think a fireplace screen should be at the top of our to-buy list because I can see her sniffing in there and then sneezing soot all over the house.

A Weekend at Home, sort of

This past weekend was the first where we had nothing we had to do in quite awhile. A friend had a BBQ that we went to and enjoyed ourselves at. I think Amelia managed to eat 5 cookies, but that's balanced by all the tomatoes and carrots she ate. She also had a great time playing with the "big kids" and other adults. After being shy for about 20 minutes, she was running around like she owned the place. She got to play in the dirt, with sidewalk chalk, and the cookies had icing so she was quite a mess when we left. She passed out immediately in the car, but woke up when we got home and took a quick shower. She's starting to enjoy those more than baths, but we don't have any non-slip stuff on the shower floor here, so it's a slippery exercise.

We also got ourselves fully set up in the temporary housing. Amelia and Teddy are adapting pretty well. Amelia keeps trying to find the ice machine like the one that was in the hotel we stayed in the first night back. Teddy is doing fine in the apartment, but definitely not a fan of the elevator. She is enjoying living closer to a fire station, so there's plenty of sirens to howl with. As I write this Teddy is literally sitting on my feet because she's more scared of the thunder here than at our old house. Either that or we're about to have another earthquake.

We have finally settled on the new house and signed all the paperwork. The movers come a week from Saturday, and we can't wait to get in. I think we all just want to feel "home" as opposed to the temporary places we've been, even if one was Hawaii. When you see us I think we even look more relaxed because almost everything is done. Now all we have to do is unpack and paint. My goal is to be fully unpacked by Christmas. No need to rush things. :)