You got the pictures, now the words.

What have we been up to lately? Nothing too exciting, really. Jeff is finally on his own at work for real. He is loving it, though his shift is sometimes a little boring (I think that's a great thing.) He's working days, but Fri-Mon, with Tues-Thurs off. It's sad having him gone all weekend, and it gets us both really confused on the days. The great thing is that he's home by 4:30 everyday and that he gets to use his lunch break to go to church on Sundays! I'm really proud of him.

Amelie is now almost 18 pounds, yay! She gains like crazy, but still is a bit small (relatively.) She is almost 5.5 months now, and just fitting into her 3-6 mo clothes. She's laughing a ton now, and almost sitting up on her own. She still falls lots. She has been sleeping all the way through the night now, about 4 nights a week. It is amazing!!! As for solid foods, she LOVES them! (I guess solid is a relative term, though, right?) French fries and anything tomato are her favorite... but then, everything that goes in her mouth is her favorite. EXCEPT baby cereal, of course. One thing that I am particularly excited about lately in the Amie arena, is that she just had a cousin be born, AND has 3 friends on the way! Lots of our close friends and family are pregnant, or were, and I love it! It feels very conspicuous being the only one with a new baby.

As for me, I'm pretty much just living life. I'm cooking with my dad, who's starting up a food business, and I catered a 2-day film shoot for my mom. (Perhaps my next endeavor will be culinary school-I can't stop at one thing!) Otherwise, I'm just playing with my daughter and wishing my house was cleaner! Life's good!

Long-needed update... sort of.

Here's a little (or a lot) of what we've been up to lately, mostly Amelie, of course!

I took Amie down the slide at the park for the first time-you can see how much she liked it! (We've been numerous times since, and sometimes she loves it, sometimes she hates it.)


We went to the Zoo on one of their free Wednesdays, and it was packed with moms with young kids! Luckily, we got to go as a family and Auntie Mal came, too.



While watching TV, Jeff and Amie looked EXACTLY alike, but once I got out the camera, Jeff started to laugh cause he knew why I was taking a picture. It ruined the twin-ness, but there's still a resemblance.
Daddy and Amie-They're buddies.







These are from our cousin, Chad's wedding. She will NEVER smile when the camera's out!






These were the attempts to get all the cute girls, but we could never get them all working at the same time!




Here are a few from her first few times eating solid foods in her high chair. She never gets very messy, cause she always grabs her bib and wipes her mouth. It's super cute!







Here are a few of Amie's new favorite spot-her jumperoo!







These are from her favorite walker AND eating. What was that I was saying about not getting messy?

Amelie's Laughing!

Here is a quick video from the Super Bowl. I was tickling Amie's feet, not unusual, and she just busted out with the cutest laugh ever! It was her first really real laughing. I didn't know anyone had a recorder, so too bad we didn't catch it sooner. Here's the short tail-end of that adorable noise! She's done it only 2 or 3 times since.

It wasn't saved to my computer, so here's just a link to it on facebook until I can get my hands on it.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1520700583#/video/video.php?v=126732300693

Whoa

Check it out- Amelie has grown so fast, and SO MANY people have remarked on it, I thought I'd give you the evidence and let you decide for yourself. Here's a picture from 2 weeks old, and one from 3 1/2 mos., both in the same position so you can better judge.



OK, WHOA! I take it back about being your own judge, I HAVE to comment, and just say how happy I am that she came out the size she did. She has more than doubled in weight and is doing so well! But, coulda been... ouch.

Bear Lake

So, in case you haven't noticed yet, one of the things Jeff and I love the most is traveling. For us, it almost doesn't matter where, either. We have a blast together, listening to books on the drive, finding awesome little food joints, exploring wherever we are, and relaxing together. So, this week, Jeff had a 7-day period where he only had to work one day! (Because of the way his training rotation worked out.) We thought this was a great opportunity, and so we decided to go to Bear Lake for a few days. It was snowing on the drive up, but it was definitely worth it. We had the most gorgeous view of the snowy mountains and the lake, and you could see the beautiful sunrise right out our window. We cooked some meals in our condo, but went out to an amazing breakfast at a sweet little dive. )Jeff had pancakes bigger than his head!) We played some games and watched some movies by the fireplace, but we also went out to the lake and even went swimming! OK, not there. Our condo has a sweet indoor swimming pool and spa. We took Amie swimming for the first time, and she appeared to enjoy it. Until she got a huge mouthful of unwanted water, that is. Here's some highlights.


Ready to leave for her first vaca!


The beautiful surroundings.


Jeffy


Mommy and Amie


Swimming!

Random Catch Up

It seems I am always only playing catch up with my blog these days. It's amazing how one baby can rule your life. How do 2 and 3 work? (I figure by 4, you should have kid helpers.)

Anyway, here are a few random photos. First, lately Amie curls like she's doing a sit up when you hold her, so we figure she wants to sit up. We've been propping her in safe places and it usually keeps her happy for awhile!



Here's a photo of the sweet U cheerleader that is my daughter. This is from the bowl game. (A little too loud for her taste.) Go Utes! 13-0!


And, I just thought this was just a funny pic. Amelie was being pretty demanding this morning, but I had to put her down real quick so I could finish getting ready for church. The nearest spot was a pile of clothes, and when I turned around, there she was, totally content to eat her hand and click her little feet together. Adorable!

Christmas?

It occurred to me that I completely skipped over Christmas in my mass bloggings, so here are a few notes from that fabulous week. My uncle Don was in town with his family (who we see the least) and we all went to Temple Square for the lights the day before Christmas (SO crowded!) Early on Christmas Eve we had a big Martindale family get together in Ogden with games and SOO much food. It was pretty darn crammed, but really fun. We got some good bingo prizes/gifts. Then, we drove from Ogden out to Grantsville for Jeff's big family party. We had more excellent food there, and got some more great gifts. The little kids all acted out the nativity, and of course, Amie got to play the Baby Jesus. She was super hungry during that time though, and the Mary was a bit young to handle her, so our Nativity only had a Jesus for a short while. After festivities there were over, we drove out to Eagle Mountain, and by this time, the weather was REALLY bad. We were driving in the West Mountains in the middle of that snow storm and it took us so long, and was kinda scary. Lucky for Jeff the driver, Amelie was asleep most of the way. We finally arrived in one piece fairly late (all the kids in my family still sleep over at my parent's on Christmas Eve.) We then didn't get much sleep at all with the baby before the 7 am presents appointment. Of course, this is when Amelie finally decided to do her sleeping, so she missed all the gift opening. But she sure looked cute in her Christmas jammies. After a leisurely day at my mom's and an over-luscious Christmas Dinner, we went for presents with Jeff's immediate family in Taylorsville. Then finally home about 8pm on Christmas day. I think we used an entire tank of gas just in those 2 days of travel! Overall, it was SUCH a blast, just a bummer to be driving so much in such a snow stormy few days.


Sleeping through her presents on Christmas Day!


My cutie niece, Stacey, left a note for Santa with the cookies.


The giant spread Christmas morning, and that's not even all of it!


Closeup of the feeding Baby Jesus.


The whole super-cute nativity.


Amelie's first viewing of the temple square lights... or my jacket.


What she did the whole time.

Photos

We got some pictures done of Amelie at 3 weeks, and I didn't love them. We used a $5 coupon, so we obviously didn't have many good choices. We also had a free family shot, so we decided to have a look through the poses of Amelie they did there and couldn't resist getting one of those, too. Here they are - 3 wks, 7 wks, and the whole, happy North family.