college friends

today the girls and i ventured over to petaluma where two of my collge friends and roommates, nina and vanessa, now live. the sad thing is that we haven't seen each other for 5 years, but the good thing is that it seemed like just a few months. i am so thankful for the friendships that pick up easily where they left off, and these happen to be some of those. the fun part is that we now have 4 kiddos between us-how fun it is to see our kids play together! thanks for having us to your houses and for the fun conversation and catch-up. we can't wait to do it again! here is a picture of our kids-finn (vanessa & brian's), wes (chris & nina's), and of course, amelia, and kate.

fun outside

with the weather being so nice, i've been trying to take advantage of being outside as much as possible. i realize how much amelia is loving being outside too. if kate is outside, she stands at the screen door and cries until someone let's her out. i realize this picture is awful in quality, but wanted to show you how they were playing together in their little house. we've waited so long to see this happen.

thumb-sucking hints

like i said in an earlier post, we are working on getting kate to stop the habit of thumb-sucking. she seemed pretty gung-ho about it at first, but it seems like she is reverting a bit. she is pretty good about it during the day, but at night or nap when she is really tired, so does it automatically. i tried the nail-biking polish, but that doens't help at all. do you have any ideas or things that have worked for you? i have no idea what will remind her while she is sleeping. PLEASE HELP!!!

then and now...

today is amelia's first birthday. as i reflect on the past year, i really cannot imagine our family without her. she is the happiest baby, with the sweetest personality. from day one, she has been go-with-the-flow and always very smiley. it's fun to see the relationship between her & big sister kate. she seems to adore kate and is starting to want to be involved in whatever kate is doing. we look forward to anther year with our sweet amelia.

happy birthday amelia

on saturday we celebrated amelia's 1st birthday (her actual birthday is on tuesday) with tim's family in napa. it was a fun time to be with family, and i think the birthday girl is a party girl! my mom was here for the week, so it was nice to have her help and her company.

kate's dentist appt

on thursday i took kate to her first dentist appointment. i realize that it's something i have been putting off, and since my mom was here to watch amelia i decided now was just a good a time as ever. i tried to pump it up and make it seem like a really cool thing that we got to do, just her and me. she seemed excited, and when we got there, the office staff proved to be amazing. it was like we were at a birthday party-she had a bag FULL of treats. she got stickers, pencils, a tatoo, princess toothbrush, and a really ugly plastic finger (like the kind you see around halloween). the funny thing, and why i write this post is the result of the visit. she heard me talking with the dentist about the need to quit her thumb-sucking(she now needs orthodontic work because of it), and has since quit the habit entirely on her own. after walking out of the office she has not sucked her thumb once. talk about a 3-year-old having self will. she just keeps saying, "i really want to suck my thumb, but the dentist says i can't". so, we haven't had to try any of the things we were anticipating to help her stop. we think that it's so funny that she totally quit all by herself. i wish that i could just will myself to do or not do the things that i should.

more pictures

i forgot to mention that amelia is starting to walk. we also discovered that she REALLY does not like sand. sorry about the naked picture-i thought it was adorable. this is her version of a patutty run (kate runs naked through the house after time. hopefully you don't think we're weird:)

we're back

we had such a fun time down at my parents for christmas. besides some travel issues and a slight bout of pneumonia for my niece, we had a really good trip. we spent 8 days hanging out as a family. amy, kelly, & abby flew from wa, and we drove down. we were able to see lots of extended family, as well as good friends. we celebrated amelia's 1st (how did it happen that she is one already), went to knott's berry farm, spent a morning down at newport beach, and played guitar hero (my dad seems to think he's the next big rock star:). we drove all day on new year's eve and ended up in napa with tim's family. we played more games, ate more food, and were pretty lazy. what a fun trip! we definitely didn't waste time getting back into the daily routine. tim left for chicago this morning for the week and amelia landed a slight ear infection and pink eye. oh well-we still had a blast!