Updates

Since Amelia turned 9 months just before Christmas, I thought I would give a few updates about what the girls are up to (in to) right now. Amelia, of course, is crawling around everywhere and getting into everything. She is really content just crawling around and playing by herself. Isabella on the other hand, still doesn't want to play by herself. She loves playing with her toys, but doesn't last too long with one thing unless mommy comes and plays with her. Like I've said before, she thrives on having others around her. In some ways this is good, because she makes friends so easily and really does great playing with others. I just hope that her and Amelia play good together as Amelia gets old enough to "really" play with. Amelia had been pulling up in her crib and on us for a little while, but then on Christmas Eve she decided she could do that other things as well. So now I get to worry about her around the tables, slipping on the kitchen floor as she tries to pull up on the cabinets, etc. The funny thing is that if she pulls up and doesn't have her footing just right, she can't figure out how to get down and she will start screaming -- I know I shouldn't say its funny, but it is. :) She still has no teeth, although this morning I thought her bottom middle gums looked and felt more swollen, so maybe soon. I'm not sure what we're going to do if she doesn't have any teeth to eat her first birthday cake in a few months. :) She still loves to suck her thumb and is just too cute when she grabs her little stuffed horse and holds onto it with one hand and has the other thumb in her mouth. I try to enjoy how cute this is and not think about how this might be a couple years from now. She still is such a good baby -- she is happy most of the time and is still so easy to put to bed. As soon as its time for a nap or bedtime, I lay her in her crib give her a blanket and stuffed animal and she will cuddle up and go to sleep. She loves all the little toys that make noise and is really cute squealing and kicking when you show her a toy. Oh, but she crawled over Isabella's little play vacuum yesterday and turned it on and wasn't too happy about that. She is even cuter giving her little kisses now, she'll give them to you when you ask and then sometimes just out of the blue. They are slobbery and normally open mouth, but cute nonetheless. And she likes to give you long kisses, she'll kiss you and then just keep it there with a silly little grin coming on her face until she's done. She loves to eat and now thinks anytime someone else is eating that she has to eat too. She's still a little peanut though -- long and lean, lucky girl, long and lean! She's still pretty fearful of strangers or pretty much anyone other than mommy and daddy -- at least until she gets to know them. She's actually a little scared of my brother Mike and we're not sure why. On Christmas she crawled over to him and was climbing up on him (I think she was thinking it was her daddy since Mike has dark hair and a goatee like Kenny) but then she looked up at him and freaked out. Certain people can talk to her and she'll smile, but others she will just start crying and she ALWAYS puts her head on our shoulder and grabs us a little tighter when someone talks to her. I'm actually hoping this stays this way kind of (although it would be nice to be able to leave her in the nursery once in a while) because Isabella is the absolute opposite, to the point that it scares me and I am wondering how to teach her about strangers without taking away the innocence of everyone being her "new friends". And the best thing of all about Amelia..... she's becoming more of a cuddler. Although it has been nice that she will go right to sleep in her crib, I've missed cuddling her as much as I did Isabella. She used to arch her back when she was tired so that we would put her in her crib, but now she has decided its ok if we want to rock her a little before bedtime. Isabella will be 3 in 13 days!!!! I can't even believe that, but we are in birthday party mode. We aren't planning a big party, just my family and her little friend Makenna, but I will probably still go overboard on thinking of how to decorate everything. She is having a princess party -- although she loves the Disney princess, we aren't doing any of those, just a pink and purple princess party. I think it will be really cute and I'll be sure to post pictures after. Last year she was so into Elmo that we had an Elmo party, against my hopes of having all girly parties. :) Like I said, Isabella is almost too friendly to people, her new thing starting this past month has been asking everyone (yes EVERYONE) "What's your name?" and that's not enough, if they tell her their name then she will ask "What's your mother's name? What's your father's, brother's, etc name?" We try to forewarn people and tell her to stop or they will be standing their all day. :) And she is quite open to introduce all of us to them as well. The other day when my cousin Alyssa was here (she calls her La la - yes she can say Alyssa, but long story) anyway, she asked the people in line behind us what their name was and then she said "This is La La." Right before Christmas we watched the Wizard of Oz and then Isabella became obsessed with it, she kept asking to watch it, but we didn't have the movie, so we decided to buy it for her for Christmas. She doesn't normally call it Wizard of Oz though, she normally calls it "The bad lady" (obviously for the witch) or "bad lady and the girl with the dog". Sunday after Christmas, while Pastor had the kids sitting up front before Children's Church he was asking them about what they got for Christmas. I couldn't hear what Isabella told him, but afterwards Jamie (pastor's wife) said "It sounded like Isabella said something like bad girl" I laughed and had to explain what she probably said. Thankfully no one else heard her or they would have thought we told her she was a bad girl and didn't give her any gifts. :) Ok, that's all the updates I can think of for now -- I guess it ended up being longer than I thought.