Oh Come Let Us Adore Him

Advent Calendar Buddies

Amelia

On the move

Of course, she still prefers to be picked up

Nothing better than dancing with daddy.

Early December Fun

Amelia the pirate with her spyglass and loot.

Large box = way more fun than any toys.

I'm so big. And extra cool with my pant leg rolled up.

I asked Daddy to put Mommy's shirt on me. He did. Now I'm going to climb the slide.

Oooohhhh. Treeeeeeee. 

A pintrest success story. Calming jars. Not sure how calming they are but they came out exactly as pictured. 

A typical morning at the Reed household. Diapers need folding. Toys everywhere. Amelia sitting on the potty (but not producing anything), Erica in a box. Maybe that sounds bad. 

Hey, the box has a door at least.

So big. How did she get so big? My baby three-year-old.

This is what Erica did when I tried to get her to stand by the measuring giraffe. Tantrums at one. Great.

She was really quiet for a while and I found her here.

Erica is really becoming a daddy's girl. Except when she wants to eat. But otherwise she loves him!

Dining by candle-light. She "asks" to have the candles lit every time she sits in her high chair. She points at them and blows. That's her sign for "please light the candles so I can eat, what are we? Riff-raff? Come on."

The Big Oh-One

A year has gone by since Erica entered the world. It's been a year of not much sleep, getting used to having a second child, LOTS of diapers, and ear-piercing screams but we wouldn't trade Erica for anything. She is so stinkin' cute! She is super cuddly when she's tired and out to explore the world when she's awake. She's so close to walking well, but still prefers to hold my finger. I'm not too anxious for her to grow up since she is likely our last baby but it will be nice when she can be a bit more independent. 

Erica loves books like her sister. She crawls over to a book, holds it out and says "ah" to get me to read it. How can I resist that? She really just likes to flip pages and look for animals that she knows. She knows sounds for a cow, sheep, elephant, lion, dog, fish, snake, cheetah (zoom), and rooster (ka-doo doo). She's starting to try out more sounds and attempts to repeat me a lot. She loves face books too, and pictures, and anything with real baby faces. She doesn't quite have the attention to listen to books I read to Amelia but she likes flipping pages-which makes Amelia mad. 

Erica also plays with animals in the barn or just on the floor. She likes to put them all in a bin then take them back out again. She looks through a flip puzzle to find the cow saying "mooo" the whole time until she finds it, then proudly holds it up to show me. She digs through toy bins seemingly in search of some particular toy that she knows is in there. She loves rattles, or anything that can be a rattle, particularly spices and marble containers. She somehow knows when the spice cabinet was left open and quietly sneaks over there to shake to her heart's content. 

Erica is a more adventurous eater than Amelia. She will try most things I put in front of her although she often spits them out once or twice before accepting it and wanting more. She loves rice, quinoa, couscous, bananas, pears, scrambled eggs, graham crackers with cream cheese, shredded cheese, mixed veggies (corn, peas, carrots), yogurt, smoothies, muffins, soup, pancakes, and most other soft foods. She has two bottom teeth and is just starting to get the two middle top ones. 

Erica is in to everything. We didn't have to babyproof much for Amelia but now all the cabinets are locked, Soxy's food has been moved to the basement, the doors and gates all need to stay closed, and I'm going to have to relocate my empty mason jars soon. She loves to explore and often has something in her mouth and something else on the way in when I find her. 

Erica laughs easily and loves to be tickled. She loves dancing to music on the floor or in my arms and often sways her head back to be dipped. She stomps her feet when music is playing and claps when she accomplishes something (or anytime she hears someone say "yay"). She is often tackled to the ground by her crazy sister but recovers quickly and crawls right back to her. She adores Amelia. When Erica wakes from her nap first (which is most of the time) I take her with me to get Amelia and she lunges for Amelia's door giggling the whole time. If Amelia is still in bed, Erica will walk right over there and grab the binkey right out of her mouth. They chase each other around the upstairs and laugh the whole time. It's great to watch their blooming friendship.

Erica is starting to sleep better. She's pulled a few 8-hour teasers but is usually up once or twice a night-a drastic improvement to every 2 hours. She sleeps much better in our walk-in closet in a pack n play, I think because it's dark, quiet, warm, and she can't roll over. She uses the crib slats to roll in her crib and then stands up-clearly not conducive to sleeping. In the pack n play she is stuck on her back so she might as well just sleep. She naps twice a day, usually around 9 and again with Amelia at 1. 

It's been great having Erica-mommy time when Amelia goes to Preschool. We play on the floor, go for walks, have picnics in the living room, and go shopping. It's good for both of us and I look forward to that time each week. Erica does seem to look around for Amelia when she's gone though. She also loves her daddy and as soon as she hears the garage door open she starts saying "dadadada" and crawling toward the door. So cute.

Erica has added so much joy, and late nights, to our lives. We love her so much and can't wait to see how she grows this next year. Happy First Birthday my beautiful girl!

Amelia's Praise Song

Cousin Tubby Time

The Big Oh-Three

Amelia turned three last week. Hard to believe I've been a mom for three years, yet it seems like I've been a mom forever. That sounds pretty cliche but cliches come from reality right? Amelia is truly becoming a little girl with her distinct personality, desires, quirks, loves, dislikes, and charm. She has tons of energy at times yet can sit and listen to books or stories for hours. 

She loves books. She would be happy to sit on my lap and read books all day if I had the time (and didn't have a one-year-old also). I try hard to make time to read to Amelia every day and often catch her reading to her animals or to Erica. She has an amazing oral memory. She can hear a book two or three times and have it memorized, word-for-word. Just the other day, I was reading a library book called "The Water Hole" and missed a line. When I flipped the page she flipped it back and said, "Mommy, say 'mmmm, how very delectable'" which was the exact line I missed. Amelia can dictate probably 40+ books and I sometimes hear her reciting them while laying in bed. She loves Amelia Bedelia books, of course, and Curious George. She also loves the Read Aloud Bible Stories that we have, and can recite them all to me. 

Amelia has also started enjoying hearing stories told out loud. She often asks me to tell a Bible story while we are in the car. She's good at filling in details and making sure I don't forget any important points. She's learning more and more about God and often talks about Him. She's in the big girl class at Sunday School now-no longer the nursery or the toddler class-and can usually tell me what she learned. Her teachers say she understands the stories well and has great recall. 

Even though it's November, Amelia still loves to play outside. She doesn't like the wind blowing her hair around so that has posed a challenge lately, but she asks to go out multiple times a day, even at night. We try to get out, but it's hard with a non-walking baby and they both nap during the warmest time of the day. A few days ago, it was beautiful out in the afternoon right after I put Erica down for a nap so I kept Amelia up and we played outside for almost an hour before we started to get too cold. I mentioned how cold her hands were and she said, 'I think some hot chocolate and marshmallows will help with that." Smart girl. She loves to "explore" which to her means pointing to random things and saying or asking what they are. She also enjoys "I spy with my little eye" although whatever you say is always the right answer. 

Inside, Amelia can play for hours with her little people animals. She puts them down for naps, reads them books, lines them up to get coffee, takes them to the playground, gives them tickets to buy things, and corrals them in her fences. She will also make food in her kitchen, usually birthday cake and coffee, and serve it to Rob, Erica, and me. She plays "sleep" with the changing table pad, a pillow, and a blanket and wants Erica and I to sleep with her. Erica isn't so into 'sleep'. She also plays "preschool" a lot, setting her books out as circle time mats and assigning each of her animals a name of one of her preschool friends. She always has a theme and teaches her animals about that topic. 

Speaking of Preschool, Amelia loves it! She has done really well so far, even though she is the youngest in her class. She doesn't really like to color but seems to enjoy painting, which they do a lot of in preschool. She talks about her preschool friends often and sings the songs that they sing all the time. She got to celebrate her birthday at preschool last Tuesday and was so excited to bring chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles in to share. 

Amelia is bright, caring (most of the time), cheerful, and so funny. I love you my little three-year-old!