no one likes a complainer.....

So there I was in a cab coming home from work tonight complaining to myself about anything and everything; I've been working way too many hours, I miss Amelia, this Lake Shore Drive traffic sucks, this Chicago weather blows, I wish I could afford the time and money to go on a big shopping trip, etc, etc. Then all of a sudden the cab driver cranked up Bad Romance (that's right I dig Lady Gaga) and slowly I started to feel better. Then I got to thinking about how I recently read an article about complaining and why, you just shouldn't do it. Does anyone want to listen to a complainer? Um, no. I mean what do I even have to complain about anyway? Um, nothing especially considering the devistation in Haiti which our home has been so humbled by.

I'm not complaining here, just making a statement (can I do that?). I have really been struggling with my work life balance over the past month or so. Even though the balance has not been ideal we have still had plenty of laughter as a family over the last few weeks! My deadline is out the door so like it it or not my family is going to be stuck with more of my time.

We love lazy weekend mornings in our home! PJ's, coffee, the newspaper and of course our girl who is a total morning gal.

Frankly I can't recall if it is an Evans or Kaiser tradition to have popcorn for dinner. If I had to guess I would put money on my dad's grandma as the one who served popcorn and apples for dinner every Sunday. However I also feel like I have memories of my Grandma Kaiser serving her share of popcorn. Regardless I was raised believing that popcorn is a perfectly acceptable dinner. For the first time I shared a popcorn dinner with Amelia. She must be an Evans/Kaiser as she kept stuffing her face with it. After our meal (yeah good timing) I did research on when you are "supposed" to feed a baby popcorn and apparently many people believe popcorn is a totally no-no for little tykes. Hm, just another day where I am disqualified from winning a parenting award.

This is a view I see a lot of Amelia wanting mommy to pick her up. Not sure if you caught her shirt covered in water but the reason for that is; Amelia has decided she loves trying to drink water from a glass. It doesn't always go so well.

We have to be quick about getting things in and out of the refrigerator or the entire cheese drawer ends up on the floor. I must not be doing everything wrong as a mom because at least she pulls out the cheese and not the champagne and/or wine.....

Most people use utensils to eat spaghetti but then again most people aren't toddlers.

Cheers!!!

This year we realized that we have a tradition of spending New Years with the Meyers and Moddrells. This year was no exception. Instead of our usual classy dinner party take out pizza and bakery cupcakes were the menu this year. Seriously it was the easiest party we have ever hosted and should do it that casual more often.

Amelia got to stay up past her bedtime so she could spend some QT with Uncle Meyer. She even showed off her new pj's GranAnn gave her for Christmas as she knew her favorite Andy's would love them. Finally Amelia has pj's that aren't incredibly baggy on her. Our little stick just doesn't seem to fit into pj's well. Here new ones are nice and trim and show off her lovely figure and her greatest feature her milk gut.

Our little girl, who every night chugs a bottle of milk and then can't get into her crib fast enough was not having bedtime last night. She knew there was a party and needed to be a part of it. So at 10:30pm she was happy as a clam eating a slice of pizza and entertaining the party.

Yep, those are cans of champagne. Hey, they looked cute in the store and you can take a girl out of Kansas/Nebraska but you can't take Kansas/Nebraska out of the girl!

A Very Merry Christmas!

Oh, the holidays are the best; all the family time, visits from out of town family, no work, lots of great food, good red wine paid for by Papa. Really the list could keep going. Here are some highlights from Christmas 09:

I fully expected to spend all of our meals calmly asking Amelia to sit down in her highchair. When all else fails she gets her way and runs around under the table as we eat. What I wasn't expecting was that I would also have to tell Papa to politely sit at the table and eat his Christmas dinner.
Oh when all else fails Grandma G, fishies and a bottle always make Amelia happy!

Darn right, I am rocking my cobbler apron. Grandma Kaiser was on to something with her cobbler apron obsession. They rock. I mean how great to be able to carry around your cell phone, camera, lip gloss, kleenex, etc and not lose a beat in the kitchen? Speaking of kleenex I think I also inherited Grandma Kaiser's tissue habit. I literally find them in every pocket no matter what I'm wearing. I could never figure out why Grandma ALWAYS had kleenex in everything and now here I am. Can I blame it on having a teething baby whose nose is always running?

We had a grilled rack of lamb for Christmas dinner. Oh the joys of grilling in December in Chicago. I think it was about 10 degrees and the snow was just starting to fall.

Grandma Ginnie and I tried SO hard to get a picture of Amelia in her so cute Christmas dress but she wasn't having it. This was the best we could do.

Why is at that Evans' holidays always end with a dance party of some sort? At least this Christmas no one ended up in a swimming pool fully clothed.... Auntie M and Papa did end up soaking wet when they decided to turn the whirlpool jets on while bathing Amelia. The problem was that without a full tub the jets blew water all over the bathroom. Poor Amelia might not have much hope.....

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!