Holiday Photo Shoot

Tis the season for holiday photos. I subjected Amelia to a few photo shoots last weekend. Frankly she was way too busy to be bothered with me.

Waving at the cars, buses and people passing by is a favorite past time, which must be an urban baby thing.
Why have toys when you have a cabinet full of spices? At the end of the day we literally find spices all over the place from the dishwasher, other cabinets and empty boxes. Amelia will be a lot of help preparing our Christmas meal.

Good lord it is hard to get her with out something in her mouth.

Harder than getting her to cooperate without something in her mouth is getting her to cooperate when daddy isn't in the room. Here she was very impatiently waiting for him to be done with the delivery men. Standing at the top of the stairs yelling, "DADA" was more pressing than posing for the camera.

Yeah, I finally got one that is a keeper!!!

Happy Birthday Amelia!

Our little turkey is a year old. Amelia's first birthday fell on Thanksgiving Day and we spent a wonderful day celebrating both Thanksgiving and our baby girl's first birthday. I'm at a loss of words when I try to put into writing what this past year has been for me. Here is my attempt:

• We welcomed our baby girl into the world thankfully in the hospital and not on Lake Shore Drive. The doctors lied to me when they said fast deliveries are not genetic.
• We have watched our families fall in love with Amelia like they have never known life without her.
• We were overjoyed by all of our friends and family who came to meet Amelia, who sent sweet e-mails from faraway and who kept Mark and I well fed during the early weeks.
• We spent many hours trying to sooth a newborn who struggled sleeping and then turned around to find we have a daughter who sleeps like a teenager.
• We shared many of our favorite past times with her; KU basketball, yoga, swimming, long walks around Chicago, traveling and dining out. She still has a few more birthdays to celebrate before we can share our love of red wine......
• We were fortunate enough to take her to many special places such as Kansas, Arizona, Colorado and Minnesota to meet many special people.
• We have cheered for her as she has accomplished many new feats such as smiling, rolling over, crawling and standing up.
• We have reaffirmed that Mark is more patient.
• We worked through my heart ache over returning to work and now have a routine that we find much joy in.
• We have learned that our daughter's smile can take away a days worth of stress in an instant and can heal a grandparent going through major surgery.
• In short, we fell head over heals in love with our amazing little girl!

Here are a few pictures of our weekend birthday/Thanksgiving celebration!

It turns out that I don't have much time to reflect on her first year as this morning I got my first glimpse of what the toddler years will be like. When I was leaving for work this morning Amelia threw herself on the carpet and had a full blown meltdown. Does it make me a bad parent that I found it a bit cute......

the park

Amelia LOVES going to the park. Her favorite parts are the swing and waving at all the little people. Sunday was a picture perfect fall day so we had a family park date!

Birthday Pre-Party

Someone we know and love has her first birthday coming up. I won't spare any of you with the, I can't believe our baby is already a year old drama. I will save that posting for another night. Sweet, sweet Clara came over for dinner Sunday. With all the wisdom of a 3 1/2 year old she put together that they were bringing Amelia a birthday present and that her mom was bringing dessert which happened to be a cake so therefore it had to be a birthday party. That was certainly not the intent but I learned you can't say no to those brown eyes!

Before we could get to the cake Clara helped Amelia with her mac-n-cheese. Clearly Amelia needs a lot of help as she is a mess!

After Clara's request we found some candles and Clara taught Amelia how to blow out a candle!

I think the above pictures of Clara and Amelia show two little girls who look a lot like their moms. When writing this post I recalled a picture of me on my first birthday which (a) I was sitting in the same highchair Amelia uses and (b) Clara's mama Gretchen was in. Here it is!

Out With the Old in With the New

So, you haven't heard from us in a while because we have been busy getting way too many new things. Some by choice others not so much.

New Home: It all really started with thinking that putting our old condo on the market was a good idea. After some closing drama we are now tucked away in our new home. Please come visit. We can even offer you your own bedroom AND bathroom.

Here are Amelia and I right before leaving her first home for the last time.

Shock, Amelia was an enormous help with packing and unpacking.

Auntie M and Mr. P came in town the day after we moved in. Our new home has stairs which Auntie M wasted no time teaching Amelia how to climb.

New Car: The new home lead us to needing a second car. We were very grumpy about having to buy a second car. We live in the city for many reasons and one of them is because we enjoy walking and public transportation. However our new place is no longer within walking distance of daycare and since Amelia can't get herself to daycare a new car it had to be. Now that we have our new (to us) Prius I am totally obsessed. It is really freaking cute.


New Daycare: Really I won't spare you with the details (although many of you have already patiently listened to the saga) but Amelia will now be spending her days with Jenn. Thank you to all of our wonderful friends and family members who helped us out in the meantime. Amelia got to spend QT with Grandma Ginnie, GranAnn, Aunt Bobbie, Cousin G, Auntie M and her good friends Mariah and Carla. Having Amelia at home with a sitter wasn't what we ever planned on but we are super excited about Jenn and selfishly I'm excited to not have to get her out the door in the morning. In case you are wondering, that new car we bought to take Amelia to daycare in is now of no use....... Sweet.

Camera(s): My dad always seems to be getting a new camera which works out very well for us. So thanks to Papa we now have a video camera. Movies staring Amelia will of course be finding there way to our blog. We also have our regular camera back. After a little incident at Andrew and Lee's wedding our camera had to spend some time at the repair shop.

Cousin: Just kidding, Amelia's new cousin isn't here yet so for now she is "stuck" with G.

We are done helping our economy for a very long time! Instead of shopping I can now focus on taking lots of pictures and videos of our little girl.

Amelia "untouched"

Oh there are so many things I miss about maternity leave. Of course at the top of the list is all the time with Amelia. Some of the other things I miss are not having to pick out an outfit for work, reading the newspaper at home as opposed to attempting to read it on the L (that is if I even get a seat), the extra time for working out, long afternoon walks with Amelia and photo shoots. I took an insane amount of pictures when I was on maternity leave and frequently staged photo shoots. We had some extra Amelia/Mommy time this week so I attempted to get her to cooperate for the camera. I personally think they are darling. The last one is my favorite. As you can see her nose is pretty dirty. When Mark and I were looking at the pictures I said something along the lines of, "that is such a cute picture but I should Photoshop it so her nose is clean." Mark responded, "we don't Photoshop our daughter." So here is Amelia "untouched."

Adults Only

Disclaimer: I saw this post sitting in my drafts and can't figure out why I didn't post it a month ago when I wrote it.......

Between preparing to move into our new home, both Mark and I working full time and most importantly wanting to be with Amelia 24/7 we don't get out with friends nearly as much as we wish. For all the joys of parenthood the challenges of juggling couple/baby/family/friend time leaves me carrying around guilt on a regular basis. Thank goodness for weddings and willing babysitters which combine for great evenings with friends.

Congratulations to Randi and Niko on their Big Fat Greek Wedding. In September we traveled to Kansas to share in Randi and Niko's celebration. Amelia spent the evening watching KU football and eating ice cream with GrandAnn and Auntie M. We spent the evening catching up with my girls from college (their men and a couple of baby bumps) who I miss on a daily basis! For those who have never attended a Greek wedding they serve you shots of Ouzo on your way out of the wedding. Sorry brides but that sure beats bubbles and bird seed. Good to see we haven't lost our love of the "sorority pose" and open bars. Congratulations to Andrew and Lee on their Motown Bash. Amelia stayed in Chicago where Grandma and Grandpa Lang spoiled her rotten! We spent the weekend in Detroit and got to catch-up with many of my architecture school friends and former HOKers. Props to Andrew and Lee for pulling off a wedding on a street (which one would typically drive down) in urban Detroit. Joking aside it was a touching ceremony lead by Reverend Gene in a very hip location. The party wasn't bad either and for those of you who know my architecture crew you probably aren't surprised.

Happy Birthday Old Man

Yep, Amelia's old man turned 31 a while back. Our celebration was totally wild and included:
a round of "so big" (Yes I know standing in her highchair is not safe. I was just so proud of her for standing up on her own that I had to take a picture), fried ice cream with a candle,
a homemade card,

helping dad open his gifts,

avocados (one of Amelia's favorites),

a trip to the petting zoo with Grandma Ginnie, Poppy and Cousin G (Happy Birthday to Poppy as well as Mark and his dad share a birthday!) and

and some daddy love!

Early Christmas List

In case anyone is wondering Amelia has already started her Christmas list so far she has added:

1) iPhone. She likes the way it lights up and needs to be able to stay in touch with all of her family and friends. And if she has her own she won't have to use Papa's and mess up all of his settings.

2) A second iPhone. Why two you ask? She is having trouble playing blackjack and making phone calls at the same time.

2) More Turtle Coasters. See Mark saw these coasters at Mo & Missy's condo and decided he needed a set. Mo being the generous guy that he is splurged for a set on eBay. For most people one set would be enough. However as SOON as Amelia eyes the coasters she will do whatever it takes to get to them. No, she does not use the coasters to prevent rings on our furniture which is again what most people would do. Amelia on the other hand LOVES dropping them onto the floor. She could use another set so she can play her game longer before mom and dad have to pick them up so she can start all over again.

3) Building Blocks. Could we have three generations of Evans Architects? Amelia loved Georgia's blocks and wouldn't even put her favorite one down for a story from Grandma Ginnie. After Georgia left our condo with her building blocks in tow we found one lonely yellow one hidden in Amelia's toy basket. Sorry Georgia that your cousin is a thief.

What is not on her list you ask? Clothes. She isn't a fan. Now that she can take her diaper off we are really in trouble.