Party Pics

The birthday girl. With a fresh bruise smack dab in the middle of her forehead. The hazards of walking....







Opening presents...





The smash cake


The smashed cake.

Amelia is one today, and I'll be honest, I'm a little sad about it. "One" marks the end of infancy. "One" is the beginning of toddlerhood, which, as you may know, inevitably turns children into preschoolers and then grade schoolers and then before you know it, my last baby is packing her bags for her study abroad at Oxford before she completes her fellowship in rocket science at MIT. And then goes on tour with her sisters a la The Partridge Family. Only a LOT cooler. But still with a van.

Anyway.

It's hard to believe we've had Amelia for 12 months. Those 12 months have flown by at an unbelievable rate, but still, I'm shocked at how slow some of the moments have been. Today, I was flipping through last year's calendar (looking for the number of our heater repair guy--don't get me started) and came across three phone numbers for our beloved Dr. J on April 17. That's the day we found out about Amelia's PHPV. That's the day we sat across from a man we'd never met and he told us our daughter had been given a challenge. That's the day we sat in frozen fear, Jason asking for more information, me motionless in a brown leather chair, clutching Amelia, too scared, too shocked to move. That's the day we cried a thousand tears, unsure of what our baby's future held.



And now look at her. She's walking EVERYWHERE. She gets into EVERYTHING. She says "Mama" and "Baa" and "Ah boo!". She giggles at her sisters and loves to be tickled. She has a certain fondness for grilled cheese, chocolate, and strangely, Arden's flip flops. She stops and dances whenever she hears music and she has recently discovered the joy of screaming.




She is doing exactly what she should be doing and you have no idea how grateful we are for that.

Happy birthday, my sweet, sweet baby girl!

This One's For My Sister

So This Is Christmas

I started to do a big Christmas recap the other day, then got sidetracked when I saw Stanford Blatch from SATC on Disney's Imagination Movers. For some reason, I felt compelled to write a post about how bizarre that seemed to me, but when I got to the end of it, I realized I really had no point other than: it was bizarre to see Stanford Blatch on Imagination Movers.

So. I scratched that one and will now commence with the Christms Story of '09 (in pictures, because I have a sore throat and cough and am not feeling the Christmas spirit so much now).

Christmas Eve at Nana and Grandad's House







Christmas Eve--Getting Ready for Santa
Jason put out reindeer food in the freezing rain. The next morning, Claire really really REALLY wanted to see if the food was gone but it was unfortunately covered in four inches of snow (lucky for us because who would've thought to actually remove the reindeer food?).

Cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. Claire realized the next day that we neglected to leave milk for Santa. You have no idea how much this troubled her, but I assured that other kids with more thoughtful moms left him some.

Claire's letter to Santa.

The tree with a few presents under it (not all ours--also Grandma's and Ashley's loot too).

Coming down the stairs on Christmas morning. Claire later admitted that she came down in the middle of the night "just to make sure Santa came".

Hello, Elmo. I think I love you.


Arden with her Barbie dress. The only thing she asked for this year.


Claire with her Just Like Me American Girl doll (who would look a lot more like Claire if she were from Latin America).


Sweet Samuel Cade. My girls couldn't keep their hands off of him.


The cousins.


A white Christmas meant that as soon as the presents were open, these crazy girls were ready to head outside. In their pajama pants. They only lasted about 30 seconds before they came back in and put on some warmer gear.





This girl was smart--she stayed inside where it was warm.

Arden and the Huly Hoop

Ladies and Gentleman, This is Reindeer # 4

We got the good news several weeks ago that Claire had landed both a speaking part and a singing part in the kindergarten rendition of "Holiday Moosical". I was much more excited about the news than Claire, who felt more than a little slighted that she had been passed over for the role of Sugar Plum Fairy. Despite my best efforts to convince her that a reindeer was waaaay cooler than a Sugar Plum Fairy (who drives Santa's sleigh? Who? That's right. Reindeer. NOT fairies.), she remained skeptical about wearing antlers and singing in front of an audience.

I can't say that I blame her, especially since I had to be an elf in my own kindergarten musical when what I really wanted to be one of the presents. Because when you're five, wearing a box covered in wrapping paper trumps pointy-toed shoes any day.

But even though I understood where Claire was coming from, I did my best to psyche her up for her musical theatre debut. Because, I'll be honest with you, I've never had a singing part OR a speaking part in any kind of on-stage production and this was kind of exciting to me. Not that I'm living vicariously through my five year old. Because that would be weird.

I guess all my pep-talking worked, because by the time the night of the musical rolled around, Claire was full of nervous energy and couldn't wait to hit the stage. There was no more talk of Sugar Plum Fairies. Reindeer #4 was in the house.



I played the part of the proud mama, simultaneously filming and snapping pictures as Claire said her line (Flying is our job alone. Flying is our gig.) and sang her song. The other moms and I congratulated each other on how good our children were doing. Wait a minute. Is Claire grabbing the microphone? Like a rock star? Perhaps she's watched one to many Hannah Montana episodes. Oh, look. They're done. Here they go, marching sweetly off the stage. Wait a minute. Is Claire dancing? Where did she learn that Beyonce-esqe "Single Ladies" move? I swear she gets this from her dad.



After the show, Claire was on some kind of post-performance high. "I love the stage!" she proclaimed. "Yeah," I said, "I kind of noticed that."

There Are No Stupid Questions

Top Ten Things Strangers Have Asked or Said About Amelia's Glasses(and the responses I would like to give)

10. Are those real glasses?
No--I just like putting Mr. Potato Head glasses on my baby.

9. Is she wearing glasses?
No. You must be seeing things.

8. How did you know she needed them?
This is actually a legitimate question, and one that I totally don't mind answering. So no sarcastic response is necessary.

7. Does she wear those to help her see?
No....I just think they make her look smarter.

6. Does she keep them on?
Again. Completely legitimate question, thus no internal eye-rolling on this one.

5. Marge! Get over here! You gotta check out this baby with glasses.
Yeah.... This is for real. I wish I were making this up, but we were approached by an older gentleman in Branson who got such a kick out of Amelia's glasses that he called over his wife to share in the fun.

4. Those are REAL glasses? SER-iously? They're REAL? How can they even TELL how strong the glasses need to be on a BABY?
I sense your skepticism, teenage girl, but I'm guessing you're not an EYE DOCTOR. My daughter's EYE DOCTOR is pretty adept at this sort of thing, what with all his MEDICAL TRAINING and EXPERIENCE.

3. Where did you get those precious glasses??
Are you familiar with Forever 21?

2. DUDE! Nice Shades!
Um...technically they aren't shades, pizza guy. But I like your enthusiasm.


And the number one question I get asked about Amelia's glasses...

1. Are those REAL glasses????
They're real. And they're SPECTACULAR.