Play Date at Agritopia

Second Look

Can you spot the difference between the 2 pics?

Between pictures, Amaya's mommy magically dyed her hair black, changed her outfit, and and became 351/2 weeks pregnant. Wow. Smile, smile.

These are a couple of pictures from our play date today. We had a nice turnout and a nice time. Everyone made it, including some new additions to the gang (Ashley and her daughter Kate, and Lori and her son Brayden). We're missing 2 mommies and their kiddies from the pictures (Lori and Brayden, and Christine and Emma). At the last moment, we decided to snap a few photos before leaving and they had already left. Bummer! Any which way, it was nice to see everyone. Amaya and I are already looking forward to our next outing. Next time I'm feeding Amaya ahead of time so she can have more time to play with her buddies. Smile, smile. (For those of you not up on Amaya's eating habits, she can put away more food than me, thus it takes her a long time to eat. She's presently training for the local 4th of July hot dog eating contest...and she's favored to win. If you've seen her eat, you'd know why.)

Splish Splash time

It's pool season! Yeah! Today we spent the afternoon by the pool. It was a beautiful day, 90+ degrees, and the water was just right.

Here Amaya is checking out the pool thermometer. Her verdict...the water is perfect.
Amaya tells her little friends it's time to go swimming.
Amaya running around with her little buddies.
Daddy and Amaya chilling.

Amaya also enjoyed a fun game of successively jumping in the pool and climbing out...over and over again. But, we have no pics of that because daddy was busy putting our new umbrella together. But it was quite cute and funny. She had a ball. She climbs out of the pool all by herself, and then turns around and jumps back in...to my waiting arms of course. We'll try to video it next time. Have a nice evening everyone.

Zoo Pics...finally

Here are some pics from our playdate at the zoo earlier this month. I was uploading photos from our day by the pool, and these were still on my camera, so I thought I'd share a few.

Amaya more interested in running around and checking out the other kids, than looking at the animals.
Will had the same idea as Amaya. We'll check out the petting zoo next time. They enjoy being up close and personal much more at this age.
Anjee and Will in the "monkey cage."
Will and Amaya having a chat.
Inside joke. They were probably chatting about their mommies.

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!