April fun

Last weekend was filled with fun times! First, on Saturday. Our computer is currently in our guest room since we lost the "office" to the nursery when Amanda was born. Mike stores his comic book collection in there as well. I sat down Saturday morning to check my e-mail and after a few minutes looked over to find this:

The little rugrat had figured out how to open the cupboard and was taking ALL the comic books out! She thought she was just hilarious!

Sunday, we headed to my parent's house to celebrate mine and my sister Erin's birthdays. Amanda loves going outside, so she went out back and found a chair that she insisted on sitting in like a big girl. So I grabbed some shots:

A little later, my dad decided to show her the fish tank. She was FASCINTED by the fish inside!

Beach Day!

This past weekend was HOT here in SoCal, so we headed to the beach to cool off on Sunday. When we first got there, Amanda playing with the sand:

Then I changed her into her swimsuit and Mike snapped a pic of us before heading down to the water:

Deciding if she's going to like the cooooooold water:

No Mommy, I don't like the cold water! Get me out of here!

Holding her because she wouldn't go back down into the water again:

So, back to the shade where she amused herself for the better part of an hour putting sand into and out of a peice of tupperware I brought to build sandcastles with:

Happy Belated Birthday to Me!

I turned 30 this past Sunday April 6. It was a good weekend. I took Friday off of work because Amanda's daycare had a "staff development" day and were closed. We went shopping in the morning, and then headed over to my work to show off how Amanda is running around now. She took a few minutes to warm up, but after she decided she could, she took off running all around the floor! It was too funny!

Saturday we hung around the house and then went to an early dinner at Chili's. Came home and hosted a poker game for some friends. Sunday we dropped Amanda off at my mom's and headed up to Mountain High for some snowboarding. There wasn't much snow left (it was definitely the last weekend they were open), but I had fun. I hadn't been able to go yet this season because I think I broke my toe in January, but I was finally able to make it this time. We left by 3:30pm and after picking up Amanda headed out to dinner at CPK.

I seem to have hit a major plateau with the weightloss. I dropped 10 pounds so easily at first, and now I can't seem to lose any more. The last 2 weeks I've just stagnated, despite my best efforts at more exercise and less calories. I may have to actually join some weight watchers meetings rather than just continuing to follow the plan. There's obviously something I'm missing!

Without further ado, here are some pictures of Amanda on Saturday. My mom has some pictures from when I was little of me in a rocking chair reading "Goodnight Moon". Saturday Amanda wanted up into her rocker and started reading the same book, so I snapped some pictures of her. So cute!

More pictures (I know you love 'em!)

At Tracey’s request, I had Mike snap a few shots of me with Amanda, since I’m usually the one behind the camera.  I was laying on the couch after a long day at work, and Amanda wanted to crawl up with me.




After she bored of that, she crawled down and started looking at her baby pictures.  Happy baby loves to look at herself :D




And last weekend my sister and mom babysat while Mike and I finally went out for our anniversary/Valentine’s Day.  My mom bought a bubble maker and Amanda LOVED it!

Pictures!

Alright, so here are my latest pictures!
First, a couple of days ago I popped in one of Amanda's new videos she got for her birthday just to see if she'd watch it.  She ran right up to the TV and started clapping and swaying along with the music.  I snapped a pic of her staring up at the screen.  Her favorite is the "Old McDonald Had a Farm" song!

Next, this is from Easter. Amanda had *so* much fun bringing empty eggs we were trying to fill to my grandfather (her great grandfather). I tried to get some pics, and these were the best I got.

Here is also some pictures from the egg hunt. This first one shows us trying to get Andrew or Amanda to find the egg in the brick, and how Amanda finally found it.

I don't know if you can tell, but Amanda's outfit (that I picked out) matches from head to toe. Pink gingham shoes, pink gingham capris and a matching white with pink gingham trim top:


There were bows for her hair too, but they kept falling out, so I left them out. She was so cute :)

Happy Easter!

Sorry it's been a while since I posted, it's been major hectic around the house. We decided to have Easter at our house, so there was lots of cleaning and preparing to be done. We also changed Amanda to a forward facing carseat finally. Her infant carseat is rated up to 30 pounds, so she could have stayed in it longer, but she was growing out of the straps, so we decided it was time to move on.

I've been doing weight watchers for the last several weeks, and so far I'm down almost 9 pounds! My best friend and I have a bet and whoever loses the most weight in 6 months buys the other a spa treatment. I'm hoping I win that!

Pictures to follow, as I haven't had a moment to download them yet.

Friday Amanda and I both had the day off for Good Friday. So first thing we did was go down to Babies 'R Us. The weather has been getting warmer so I needed to get some light sleepers for her in 24 month size. Of course we stocked up on diapers, wipes and several other toys while we were there too :)

Then we came home and while Amanda napped I cleaned and had groceries delivered from Vons.com. This was my first time doing it, and I *loved* the convenience! They put all the groceries in my kitchen, I signed the paper and they were gone. No spending hours looking for stuff at the market!

Saturday was more cleaning. Amanda and I took a walk in the afternoon since the weather was so good. Mike fixed a couple of things around the house, and I decorated.

Sunday was Easter. Amanda got an Easter Basket this year, but didn't seem to really be interested. I decided not to do pictures with the Easter Bunny this year, as we did them last year. I spent an hour standing in line which wasn't bad when she was 3 months old. But now she's a toddler who wants to run around, so I wasn't about to risk that this time around!

My sister Erin called in the morning and told me they weren't coming - Andrew (my nephew) had been up in the middle of the night throwing up. So we went to Church where the sermon was about "new hope" and they had this video of a couple in the Church that had had twins born *really* early (27 weeks) and how faith got them through it. I had tears streaming down my face. Picked up Amanda and headed home. My parents were coming early to help Mike change the oil in his car, so they got there about noon. Amanda greeted them with "Bye-bye" (her new word) and RAN to my sister Ilene's arms. So much for my clingy little girl! She was running away from me all day to be with her aunt and grandma!

Anyway, they told me Erin might be coming, that Andrew was feeling better. So I re-set the table for them. We stuffed eggs for the hunt and my mom kept giving Amanda candy! Good Lord she was hyper from sugar! Erin called around 2:30 and said they WERE coming. They got to my house about the time the ham was ready, but then I realized I forgot the potato casserole! ack! So we did the egg hunt while the casserole cooked. Amanda actually showed more interest in egg hunting than I thought. She figured out that the eggs with jelly beans make noise if you shake them, so she went around looking for the eggs that made noise :) So cute!

Then I discovered Erin didn't bring the salad she was supposed to, so I quickly put together some steamed veggies, and sat down to dinner. But the kids had had so much candy by then, they weren't into sitting and eating, so I had a quick bite and then ran around with Amanda & Andrew until everyone else was done. Then they watched Amanda while I cleared the table. After they left, Amanda was still bouncing off the walls, so I was running around with her until bedtime. Then I finally got to sit down.

*whew*

Off and Running!

Ok, so 2 weeks ago, Amanda wouldn't take a step on her own to save her life.  And this weekend, she started practically running around without me!  It always seems like she makes progress in spurts, and this is no exception.  Once she decided she could walk, she has just taken off!

First, some pictures of the zoo from Thursday.  Here's a little zoo trivia I'm sure my zoo friends will know the answer to , but leave me a comment if you think you know:
What is the difference between Sea Lions and Seals?
Which... leads me into my first picture of Amanda watching the Sea Lions.  

This is the first exhibit when you walk in the zoo, and I *know* this wasn't there before.  It's pretty neat, with a glass side to the water so you can see them swimming under the water.

On to the flamingos, here's Mike holding her up to see them since the hedge was blocking her view.



And the last good shot I got was the giraffe, from Amanda's point of view.

Moving on... Saturday in the morning I caught Amanda and Sophie both trying to get out of the security gate on our front door.  Sophie kept running away, so I didn't get a good shot, so this is the closest I got.  Imagine them both with their hands (front paws) on the gate, like they are trying to get out.  I'm such a mean mom, I keep them all cooped up

In the afternoon, we headed to my parents' house to celebrate Mike's birthday (which was the 4th).  Everyone headed outside to play some basketball, of which Amanda had to partake.  I *love* this shot I got of her :)

And, carrying the ball to Daddy...



Here's a shot of my nephew playing on the computer.  He's so cute, he even knows how to use the mouse!  What a smartypants!

Andrew is also into kisses and hugs, which he felt Amanda needed a lot of.  Here's Amanda trying to climb the stairs and finding Andrew trying to give her a hug!

Growing up fast!

First of all, Happy Birthday Mike!  Today is his 32nd birthday.  We didn't do much, just went to Olive Garden for dinner.  He gets the whole week off though (lucky guy) and tomorrow he's going snowboarding.  Thursday we're going to take Amanda to the zoo, so I'll probably have more pics of that sooN!

Here is Amanda on Saturday (with snacktrap in hand)


Also this weekend, Mike was playing basketball and Amanda wanted to play too:


Finally, last night (Monday), she wanted to climb up on the couch and read a magazine with me.  She babbled like she was really "reading" and began pointing at things too.  She was just too cute to pass up the photo op: