New Year, New Pictures

I have no good excuse for not posting so I'm not going to try to come up with one. I'm hoping this will satisfy cravings for more Amelia photos. 

These are more shots from our shoot with Angelia Photography. (side note - Steph just ran the Disney marathon and finished a series of Wounded Warriors photo shoot raising over $4,000 for The Wounded Warrior Project. We totally love her and wish her the best for her wedding this fall.) As I sent our Christmas cards out on Monday, some of these will be on that. I'm clearly totally on top of everything right now. :) 

Family shots

Princess Won't Look At The Camera

Twirling much?

School Pictures - Amelia refused to do it last year but was totally into it this year.

She's realized that she can swim in our bathtub and now would like every bath to be in there and to be a bubble bath please. I also have a picture of her washing her hair with her foot, but it's not quite appropriate for a public posting.

Playground!!

I have some more photos coming, but I'm having technical difficulities. I promise it won't take another six weeks to put them up.

Almost Too Cute

In one of the few things we've managed to do every year since Amelia came is to have professional photos taken in the fall. We've used Steph at www.angelinaphtographyblog.com for every session and I love how them come out. It's also great to see how Amelia changes over the years.

2010 (6 months old)

2011 (18 months old)

2012 (2 1/2 years old)

 I'm not going to share anymore of the photos as not to spoil potential cards or gifts this year. But let's just say that they turned out great again this year and Steph once again did a great job of capturing our little tornado.

Family Times Two

My step-mother's father recently passed away, and I was able to go out to Long Beach and spend some time with her and her family, along with a sibling reunion. It's always amusing to step back in sister/daughter mode for a few days. For the record I did not start a food fight this time. While it was a short trip, I was glad to be back home to be wife/mother.

I got back just as Sandy was starting to bring a little rain to DC. Thankfully Matt's mom was able to get out before the storm started, after being here a couple of days to spend time with Amelia. While I'm not saying it's her fault, Amelia did not think she was a princess till after Grandma was here. I'm just pointing out the timing. :) Thankfully we survived the storm with no damage and never lost power, which is some sort of miracle.

Family - Matt, Amelia and Teddy

 Our little ham enjoyed the idea of Halloween more than the actual day. She rallied for the school party and some pictures at home, but was not interested in trick-or-treating. She did like giving out candy and by the end of the night was running after other kids to give them candy. Great parenting win - she learns about giving to others and we end up with no leftover candy. Excellent.

Mary Poppins with all accessories.

(A big thanks to Grandma for the AMAZING outfit)

 Mary Poppins at school. I wouldn't let her take the umbrella to school because I didn't want to get a note from the teacher about Amelia putting out some kid's eye.

(Note: the kid behind her in the gold and black is Carnac the Magnificent aka Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show. He has no idea what he is and his mom said it was the second year in a row in that costume.)

I went in for the "party" at Amelia's school, which was cute. It featured 2 Buzz Lightyears, Mickey and Minnie Mouse (not related just coincidence), Batman and Robin (again not preplanned), Elmo, a doctor and a couple of other animals. I learned that numerous kids, especially boys, talk about her at home, thankfully all good. However, Amelia has never talked about some of those kids and I only know their names because they have a cubby with their name on it.

On a recent park outing we were again reminded that this child has no fear. Also, endless energy.

Seriously, how are you big enough to do that?

Oh, and she's learned how to snap and even creates a little noise when she does it. Thankfully she only tries to imitate Swiper the fox, of Dora fame, but it's only a matter of time till she does it with attitude. I've discovered that recording her at the grocery store will buy us a few more minutes of calm until we checkout.

And now we present that she is Matt's daughter. She's trying to brush the dog hair off the blanket while Teddy is still on it. I don't try and get the dog hair off of most things, including the bed. But I will take "credit" for the crazy laughing while harassing the dog.

Family - The six pack

(six beers in a pack - six siblings)

We were all able to make it to Long Beach for Mary's father's funeral. It was the first time since I came home for Christmas my freshman year of college that all of us were there with no SOs. Yeah, Amanda will be a college freshman next fall so we clearly spend too much time with each other. I'm officially twice as old as Amanda and she's closer to Amelia's age than mine. She will be coming out to the East Coast and will attend Princeton and be a coxswain for their rowing team. She was recruited by Stanford but chose Princeton because of coach issues. My father still has not forgiven her, even if he agrees with the choice.

Sisters - Amanda, Anne, me, Bunny

Bunny and I look much more like our father, while Anne and Amanda are carbon copies of each other and look more like Mary.

Brothers - Hugh and Will

Speaking of family resemblance...

Seriously, other than height, did they get any genes from their mothers?

What??

So this happened over the weekend. I think the best part is that the local paper titled the article on it as "Heavenly Bodies Hit Minister's House." For the record, it did hit his study first.

Over here in the Commonwealth we had a busy weekend as well, even if it didn't involve stuff falling from space. On Saturday we went to a friend's house for an Oktoberfest party. Matt and I got some grown-up time and Amelia got to play with a bunch of kids, especially the son of the hosts. The two of them are only a few months apart and have played with each other since they were very small. They shared a kiss before their first birthdays, which was a little horrifying at the time. They are currently a little obsessed with each other, but I don't know how much longer he's going to want to play with Amelia. She tells him what to do AND will rat him out every time he does something Amelia thinks is wrong.

On Sunday we went to a joint birthday party for Sabrina (6!?!?!?) and Stevie (4!) at a place that's AWESOME for kids and migraine-inducing for adults. It was a little overwhelming for Amelia, but once she found a slide that wasn't too crowded, she was good to go.

The birthday girl and boy. With pizza and cake given after they were done with the bouncy castles.

Amelia's friend from the day before was there as well. I tried to get a picture of them.
Take 1 - Amelia not looking at the camera.

 Take 2 - No one is looking at the camera.

 Take 3 - Both looking at the camera! Victory!

 I know you can't tell by looking at them, both they're both 1/4 Italian. Blonde, blue eyes - they look like they could start their own Scandinavian country.

After a busy weekend, Amelia and I watched Cinderella and ate mac'n'cheese and she passed right out. Which is good, because I needed to do the same thing.