Amaya's Birthday Celebration

Here are some pictures from Amaya's birthday celebration last Sunday. It was a beautiful day, which was nice since we had her party outside at Oregano's. We were their 1st "group event" in their new outdoor party area. So that was neat. As always, the staff at Oregano's was wonderful. They are known for their service as much as they are known for their yummy food. So, anyway, it was a fabulous afternoon, but was also a whirl wind with toddlers running about. They definitely keep you on your toes.

Amaya waiting for her guests to arrive.
The birthday girl with mommy and daddy.

Amaya with Papa Jerry and Mam-ma Cindy

Some of the kiddies hanging out after eating. They are patiently waiting for gift opening.

Gift opening begins. Will, always the gentleman, assisted Amaya with opening her presents.

Ellie helped, too.

Amaya pausing to take it all in for a moment. I am sure she is thinking, "wow, birthdays rock!"

Will helping Amaya with a big one. Amaya says, "Whatever could it be, Will?"

Will answers, "Wow, it's a trike. Look at those awesome wheels, Amaya."

With all these gifts around, what are Will and Amaya looking at the ground for? It looks like they are checking out Amaya's shoes. Maybe there was a creepy crawly. Glad I didn't know.

Amaya: "Look, Will, it's a shake 'n' go car."

Will: "Super fun. Let's take it for a spin."

Pretty in pink Kate checking out gift opening.

Clearly already a girlie-girl, Ellie admires Amaya's new hair ties. And Will, he's anxious to move on with gift opening. He's all practiced up and ready for his big day coming up in a few days.

Mommy says, "Look at your new Elmo swimming suit, Amaya."

Will says, "Oh yes. That's one fine looking swimming suit. You'll look great in that Amaya. But...

...now can we open this big one?"

Amaya and Will tear into the big blue package.

Will and Amaya in unison, "It's a basketball hoop!"

Kate says, "Mommy, when is my birthday? This looks so fun!"

Amaya and Will patiently waiting for me to get the shake 'n' go car out of it's packaging.

"Who wants to have a tea party with me?"

Jaxon trying out Amaya's new trike. He doesn't care that it's still in the box.

Cake Time

Amaya blew out her candles all by herself. We practiced a few times in the morning, so she had it down.

Brooklyn looks on in the background, anxious to taste her first cupcake.

Yum!

Thanks to everyone who celebrated with us!

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

3-15-08

3-13-09

Our baby is TWO! Wow...how time flies when you are having fun! Here's to a fabulous day, baby girl. We have lots of fun stuff planned for you. We are so excited for this very special day. Time to go get it started. I will blog more later this week to include an update on Amaya's latest and birthday photos, too.

Amaya's First Cubs Game

On Wednesday, Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Jerry took us to a Cubs spring training game. It was Amaya's first Cubs game and she had a blast! It was a beautiful day...82 degrees and breezy, so it was pefect. Amaya was sooooo good. The people behind us even commented on how good she was, especially being she was so young. The people around us enjoyed Amaya's entertainment value. She danced to the music that they played between innings. She cheered. She played peek-a-boo with the little boy in front of us. She alerted the audience whenever there was a plane or bird overhead. She was so fun. She actually sat and watched the game at times and she would literally cheer at appropriate times when doing so. Guess watching all those games on t.v. with dad paid off. Smile, smile. Amaya even lasted the whole game, with the help of 3 walks on on the concourse and a short trip to the kiddie batting cages. A true blue baseball fan already. We rewarded her at the end of game with a longer period of time at the kiddie batting cages. She had a ball. Needless to say she asked to go to bed 30 minutes early Wednesday evening. She had a big day!!!

Beautiful Goodyear Ballpark

Go Cubbies!

Geez, would you people just let me watch the game already!

Oh, yeah, Derrek Lee is up to bat. He's one of my favorites.

This pitcher is terrible! Get him out of there already.

Basehit! Yeah! Run, run, run!

I love these kiddie cages!

It's the perfect place to practice my pitching...

my throwing,

my baserunning,

my sliding,

and even just being silly.

I love baseball...just like my daddy!

Gotta throw a tackle in there...my first love will always be football.

That was soooo fun! But I am beat. Time to go home and have some dinner. Bye!

Baking With Mommy

Here are some pictures of Amaya and I baking daddy's favorite cookies for Valentine's Day. I found the cutest kid's baking kit so that Amaya could "help" me. She "helped" me for about 15 minutes, then she was ready to go do something else. Looks like it'll be a few years yet until she has the attention span to bake with mommy. I enjoyed our 15 minutes, though. And I think her play-doh cookies turned out great! She's a natural. Smile, smile.

"Before we start, you better preheat the oven, mom."

"O.K. Now let's see if we have everything we need."

"We have our whisk...

...some measuring spoons...

...and a rolling pin. We're set."

"O.K., mom, let's roll out our dough."

"Now we can use our cookie cutters to cut-out the cookies."

"Push hard."

"Look at that...a perfect heart."

"All done. Let's go outside now."

Amaya the Climber

Well, we've long known Amaya is a climber. What can we say...she's part monkey. So, we knew it was just a matter of time before she started climbing out of her crib. Although, there were times when we thought she may never try because she loves her crib. Make that loved her crib. Until Monday night that is. Before Monday, Amaya was the child that would sometimes ask to go to bed before it was even naptime or bedtime. She'd usually talk and/or sing to herself for quite sometime before she go to sleep. She'd wake up talking and singing. Overall, her crib was definitely one of her happy places. Even forgoing storytime in lieu of starting cribtime sooner. We started reading to her earlier in the evening in the family room so mommy and daddy could still partake in storytime with Amaya. Because we knew she'd answer "no, bed" to the question "should we read a story" upon entering her room at bedtime. But then the storm came. It was quite a storm, with heavy rain and strong winds, thus making it a very loud and scary storm. This was the night Amaya fell out of love with her crib and learned instantaneously to fly on out of it. Seriously, it takes her not even 3 seconds to climb out of her crib, open her door and arrive in our room. It is actually quite hilarious. The image of it is so darn funny I wish I could somehow video it. The first time she got out of the crib I was on my way down the hall to go to her when I saw her door fly open and her run out in a dead sprint. And the look on her face, oh the look on her face. What a little sweetheart. Since that fateful night, she has "flown" out of her crib atleast 100 times, no exageration, and she landed on her feet everytime. But even so, we decided it was time for a toddler bed. Thurs. morning I heard her crawl out of her crib, but she didn't come out of her room. She fell asleep on the floor. So, clearly she was ready to sleep somewhere other than her crib. So below you will find a picture of Amaya's new "big girl" bed. So far she's very excited about it and seems to love it. Hope this love affair lasts for as long as the one with her crib!


Here is another picture I had to share. Today Amaya wasn't sleepy at her usual naptime. She sat in her "big girl" bed for 45 minutes playing and never went to sleep. But clearly she's not ready to drop her nap all together. This is what I found after I ran upstairs to switch out the laundry. Michael Buble' was playing loudly. The windows were all open and dogs were barking. But there she slept on the cold, hard tile. So sweet.

Back to Bloggin'

I'm baaaack. This post marks my official return to bloggin'. My goal is to get back to my weekly bloggin' sessions. I know, I know...it's about time. Believe you me, this return was planned for Jan. 6th, not Feb. 6th, but....the best laid plans....you know how it goes. It all started with football season. Scott and I don't miss Packer games, and this year, for the obvious reasons, we tried not to miss Jets games. So, with Amaya being an active toddler now, this year we opted to take her to grandma and grandpa's on Sundays. We didn't think she'd enjoy 3 hours at b-dubbs on Sundays as much as she did last year. Big difference between 6-9 months of age and 18-21 months of age. So, that meant a 2-hour drive in addition to the 3-3.5 hour game viewing time on Sundays. Thus the reduction in free time. Somethings gotta give...ie bloggin'. But I did manage to blog monthly...until Dec. Then we were too busy enjoying the holidays and football, so I took the month off of bloggin' with plans to get back at it in Jan. I took the first clip below between Christmas and New Year's and planned to get back to bloggin' with it. Then I began having stomach pains the week of New Year's and my bloggin' time was replaced with trips to dr.'s, ultrasounds, mri's, and labs. Long story short, luckily my condition is looking to be benign. I may be having surgery, but sounds like if I have to, it should be a speedy recovery. So, anyway....other than football, holiday festivities, and dr. apt.'s, we've kept busy in Dec. and Jan. with the usual mix of work, family time, friend time, playdates, etc., etc. We're busting at the seams at work... babies, babies everywhere. So I've also been working a lot more lately. I'm on day shift now. Yeah! I love it. So I don't mind working extra. I miss Amaya, but it's good for her, now that she's nearing the big 2, to have the interaction of "school." She'll be starting at La Petite in March. Until then, we've been blessed to have our friend Erin looking after Amaya, allowing her to get used to being away from home all day. Between that and her enjoyment of the gym daycare center, I am confident she'll love her new "school" as they call it. Every time we've stopped by she was off and running, not wanting to leave. So, we'll see how it goes when mom and dad aren't there. Other than that, Amaya continues to be little miss sweetheart and little miss fun, fun, fun...keeping us perpetually entertained. You all know how funny toddlers are...with their play, exploration, talking, etc., etc. Here's a few clips from Dec. of the little sweetheart and I promise I'll get some current pics posted in my next blog entry. Have a great weekend everyone.

Amaya and Elmo Dancing (sometime after Christmas)

Amaya's First Popsicle (12-4-08)