Amaya's 12 month pictures

Here are Amaya's 1 year photos. They were taken on 3-15-08, so her actual birthday. It worked great that her 1st birthday fell on a Saturday!

Evening by the Pool

Hi there, Everyone,

We hope that you all had a wonderful weekend! Here are a couple of brief video clips that we recorded this evening while enjoying some outdoor time (Amaya's favorite past time). She loves roaming and exploring...and blowing bubbles. Bubble is one of the words in her growing vocabulary, so you can hear her say "bubbal" in the video. Also, at the end of one of the clips, she had decided to head for the pool, another one of her fave past times. So the clip abruptly ends as I yell for Scott to cut off her path. She'd already gotten pool time logged for the day, so we were hoping to avoid that whole scenario with bedtime approaching and all. So, anyway, here she is, the busy body herself. Smile, smile. Have a good one!

Update

O.K. I admit it. I've been a bad blogger lately. We've been extra busy these past few weeks, but I know...no excuses. Bloggin' doesn't take very much time. It's as easy as composing an email. So, I promise I'll get back with it. I'll start with this text update. Then I'll follow by the end of the weekend with a video clip or two, and perhaps some photos. So here we go...

April has been a super busy month so far. It's been filled with playdates; a baby shower/bbq; painting, painting, and more painting; work classes, classes and more classes (and even more yet to come, crazy); Scott's birthday (Happy 32nd Birthday my love- welcome to old, smile, smile); the Masters; etc, etc. Amaya continues to be a joy and a busy body. She loves walking and running any and everywhere! And as many noticed at Mae and Brett's baby shower... she doesn't care what surface she's on...nothing holds her back. She navigates over rough surfaces without a flinch. She walks on the unstable surface of gravel without the slightest difficulty. She climbs over obstacles like they weren't there. She's definitely got an athletic balance about her. She must get that from her daddy. She's in love with people in general. Babies, other kids, adults alike. She waves at passerby's on walks. She waves at every car that goes by, too. She waves when we arrive at stores. She waves when we leave the stores. The cashiers all love that part. They love the "friendly, cute baby." Amaya even waves at our crazy, mean neighbor lady. Which breaks my heart because she'll never wave back. I hope she moves away before Amaya's old enough to question why she won't ever wave back or say hello. Although I guess that will just be where the life lessons will start. Amaya had a ball at the shower/bbq "playing with" the other kids and with Will's toys. She especially loved his lawn mower and practically "mowed" the entire Riecke backyard. Amaya also enjoyed another trip to the zoo, this time with Will and Anjee. For pics, since I haven't been a good blogger lately, check out Anjee's blog at www.rieckes.blogspot.com . Also in April Amaya had her first babysitter that hasn't been a grandparent. Erin and Jaxon were nice enough to come over one afternoon to watch Amaya during one of my many classes. When they arrived, Amaya got sooo excited. And Scott said when they left, Amaya cried. How sweet. Guess she wasn't ready for them to leave yet. Guess we can activate her gym membership now. She's clearly ready to be a social butterfly. O.K. What else. Amaya got to go stay with Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Jerry at their new house while Scott and I did some of our painting. She had fun meeting all their new neighbors and exploring the new digs. She's also taught mommy that she is definitely a toddler now with a free will and blossoming independence. I learned that she does not like to be carried around home depot. Even if we are just running in for a new switch plate cover. Gull darnit, she can walk. And she can climb the moving stairs, and she can check out the vast array of light switches if she gull darn wants. And she can walk down any aisle she wants. She doesn't need to follow me down the aisle I choose. Oh yeah. Next time, I'll take the time to put her in the baby bjorn. Which she still loves, thank goodness. Because mommy had no idea how much fun a "toddler" can have at home depot. So, that's about it in a nutshell. Happy Spring everyone!

Amaya's Latest

Hi all. Here are the latest going ons in little Amaya' life. An update follows the pictures.

Saturday morning trip to the AZ Science Center with mom and dad.
Amaya pointing at the cool "water works machine." It shot water in many different and creative ways.

Playtime with Jaxon. They are getting very interactive now, so it was very fun to watch.

Jaxon eyeing his toy. Amaya stooping down to interact with Jaxon.
Mommy is to slow! Amaya was just putting this little pink purse on Jaxon's head like it was a hat. So cute.
Amaya checking out Jaxon.
Jaxon putting on Amaya's lipstick, much to his daddy's dismay. Smile, smile.

Amaya had her 12-month check-up on Thursday. And it's official. She's going to be petite. She weighs 18 pounds 1 ounce and is 28 inches long. Wow. Her boyfriend Jaxon is the same size and he's only 6 months old. He'll be able to protect Amaya at the playground, so that will be nice.

Amaya continues to enjoy walking any and everywhere. She asks to go outside constantly by pointing at either the door or her sandals and saying da-da. Da-da means either "daddy" or "I wanna go outside" depending on the moment. Amaya has also been back to enjoying her pool since early-to-mid March. By her choice. No kidding. Thus her new nickname is polar baby. The cold water doesn't phase her. She loves it. Thank goodness we built a baby play area in our pool so that we can let her enjoy the water without fully getting in ourselves. Because the water is freezing. Even getting our feet and/or legs in is painful at first. Crazy. Disclaimer...we only let her stay in about 10 minutes so that she doesn't get cold stressed or anything. So nobody needs to call CPS on us. Smile, smile. The pool is starting to warm-up now, so we'll be able to let her get in more and more. Will be a fun summer. The water was about 72-74 degrees this weekend, so I got in with Amaya for the first time this season. We had a blast.

Amaya also got to enjoy a trip to the AZ Science Center this weekend, and a playdate with Jaxon. See photos above. So she had a super-fun weekend. She also enjoyed several walks up and down the sidewalks on our street, one of her favorite activities. She likes to walk down and visit the "big kids" who live a few houses down. She just loves them. Once she gets there, she just stands there, smiles at them, and watches them. It's so cute. They just love Amaya, too. So that's nice. Below is a video of this very activity.

That's all for now. Have a great day everyone!

Happy Birthday Will

A big Happy Birthday to the birthday boy Will. We hope you have a fabulous day. Just look at this sweet little guy! And now he's one! Crazy how time flies. Will, Amaya sends you her love and says to enjoy birthday cake round two. She's soooo excited for your zoo date! We love you little guy. See you soon.

Amaya Celebrates Easter

Happy belated Easter everyone. Scott, Amaya and I celebrated Easter on Saturday with Grandma Cindy, Grandpa Jerry, great-aunt Lynda, great-uncle Layne, and cousins Brooke and Eric. It was a beautiful day out, so we spent a good portion of the day outside. Which Amaya loved! She loves to be outside. She asks to go outside all the time. Even when it's dark out. The dark doesn't phase her. So, anyway, Amaya enjoyed her second Easter lots, as you can see in the pictures below.

These pictures were taken shortly after we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house. It's a hour-long drive, so we didn't put her Easter dress on her until after we arrived and had brunch.

Amaya had a ball running around and playing with the Easter eggs.
Amaya must have enjoyed the taste of the plastic Easter eggs. She was constantly putting them to her mouth. Wait until she tastes the candy ones!
A little orange picking before the Easter Egg Hunt. We already knew that Amaya loves to eat oranges. But now we've discovered that she loves to pick oranges, too. Good thing she took a long afternoon nap or the orange tree may be bare by now.


Amaya with her loot.

Walking around, warming up for "hunt" time.

Checking out her Easter basket and...
...swinging it around.
"Easter is sooo fun!"


Easter egg hunt time.

I was surprised that Amaya did pick up a few eggs and put them in her basket.
But for the most part, she just enjoyed walking around carrying them.
"Look at all of these eggs!"
Amaya double fisting it.

Going Green Step by Step

In an effort to continue to do our part to help our environment, we have decided to start sending thank you's via email to those we routinely correspond with via email. So...watch for your thank you's from Amaya to come via the information super highway, and any future thank you's, also. And... we encourage any of you to consider doing the same. It is "our" planet, thus it's all of "our" responsibility to help preserve it for future generations, even if it means a little effort. And heck, let's be honest, this is one conservation effort that is actually easier to do than the original way. So why not? Smile, smile.

Have a good one! SBandA