Go Pinky!

One of Amelia's Christmas gift was a rocking horse from Uncle James, Aunt Jenna and Olivia.

 Amelia loves to squeeze the ears and dances to the song little Pinky plays.  Though I'm not sure who likes the song better....Daddy or Amelia :)

 Rockin' away

 Enjoying the ride.

One night while making supper Amelia made her appearance with Daddy's stocking hat on.  Its so big for her little head that she could hardly see anything.  Though for some reason she really does like covering her eyes, walking and seeing where she ends up.

 Making her grand entrance.

Where will I end up?  Who is this sniffing me?!

Help Mommy!

A couple weeks ago, we showed Amelia the sign for 'help'.  It seemed like it could be useful thing for her to communicate and overall - it has been.

Tonight - I was sitting on the floor with a pillow behind my back and Amelia was on the other side of the room.  Suddenly, she started pointing to the toy side of the room with a concerned look on her face, signing help and please.  So I ended coming over in order for her to show me more clearly what she needed.  I walked over to the place was and she proceeded to take a seat exactly where I was.  Suddenly everything was right in Amelia's world.  I guess the saying "move your feet, loose your seat"  was pretty applicable here.

Advise?!

So I need some advise......

Amelia loves to scream in public - mainly at the store when she is in the shopping cart.  It seems to occur the most when she is bored or doesn't want to be sitting in the shopping cart anymore or just for the fun of it.   I have tried to ignore it and I have considered leaving the store, but since her goal is to get out of the shopping cart - I feel like she would be winning in that instance as well.  I've also considered, giving her snacks, but that seems like it would only reinforce the behavior or anytime we go to a store she will want to eat. 

At home I have been trying to identify - a loud voice vs. a quiet voice - hoping this will help when we are in public.   Amelia totally thinks the whole thing is a game and thinks it is quite funny. 

Any suggestions - very wise ladies?!

Update: Thank you so much for your advise ladies - I totally appreciate it and will give it a try....this weekend will be our first store outing.
Update #2:  Well, we had our outing this weekend and overall Amelia did much better.  She had a bit of a difficult time towards the end, but I'm not sure I can blame her - it was her naptime and she was really tired.   I distracted her with a book, held back on giving any distraction (aka - reward) snacks and tried to entertain her.  I'm sure some outings will be good and some bad, but at least I feel like I have more tricks in my back pocket now!  Thanks again ladies!

New Levels

You know you have reached new levels with your spouse when:

You start singing to your child, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and end with "Jesus Loves Me" without missing a beat or realizing it until the song is over.

Christmas At Home

When we got home from our Christmas adventures, we celebrated our family Christmas.  Amelia loved opening this first gift - in fact, we had to stop her pre-Christmas.

 "Do I get to open it for real this time?!"

 Amelia digging in

 "Hurry up Daddy - I'm waiting patiently"

Thanks Uncle Tom, Aunt Michelle, Noah, Emma and Elijah!!!!

 Books from Mommy and Daddy

 And eventually word puzzles :)

 I have to admit - out of all she got, the picnic basket was the immediate hit!

We did decorate for Christmas this year - and the day we decorated, Amelia was dressed super cute; however, by the time we were done I was too tired to take any pictures.  So here is the tree.

'The 9 Hour' & 'The 4 Hour'

Is there that one food dish you just can't seem to ever conquer.  Probably that dish is rather difficult and most likely its not eaten often or at all - because quite frankly you just aren't very good.   Unfortunately, my food dish is a common one.  My food dish should be an easy one.  Yet, it continues to elude me.

The 9 Hour:  When Patrick and I were first married we lived in Orange City while I finished up my last year of college.  Being the new housewife that I was - I wanted to have meals on the table every night by the time my new hubby got home from work.  And thus my battle began.  One day I was pretty busy with school and decided to do a nice easy - yet Betty Crocker-esk meal of pot roast.  I started it at noon, but my paranoia of a fully cooked piece of meat over took me, so I would lift the lid (essentially letting all the heat and steam out) to check my raw piece of meat.  I didn't dare stick it on high - the crock pot may have just completely burnt this ever so raw piece of meat in a manner of minutes.  And so this continued almost every hour, until the hour before Patrick got home.  I cranked that sucker up to high and thought surely it will be finished!  In the mean time I got all the fixin's ready to go for that perfect meal.   Well, Patrick came home and we dined on the fixin's, because of course I still had a raw piece of meat.  My sweet husband explained how a crock pot worked and how I was not allowing it to cook by removing the lid.  We left it at high and at 9:00pm that wonderful roast was done.  Of course by this time, we were so tired of smelling roast that I don't think hardly any of it was eaten....at all.   And thus, the 9 Hour Roast was born.

Now, understanding my issues - Patrick for the last pretty much 8 years (remember it happened early in the marriage) has taken it upon himself to prepare roasts in our house.  Which I must say he can make a pretty mean roast (to which he would probably reply - it really isn't that hard.  Oh contrare I say). 

The 4 Hour:   We have recently had some changes in our household and it was upon me just the other day to try and conquer my fear of the roast.  "Don't touch it, Don't touch it" - is all I could think.   This hunk of deeply frozen meat seemed quite intimidating, but with a can do attitude - I said to myself - "I can do this and don't mess with the crock pot".   So I prepared away, potatoes, carrots, the hunk of meat.  I seasoned with pretty much anything that said 'for beef'.  The lid went on and I set the timer to 8 hours.  Who wants roast at 9:00pm again - haha.  So I walked away with thoughts of how easy this was going through my head.  (Yay me - I never touched the crockpot once in those 8 hours)  Time for Patrick to get home!!!   Hmmm the wonderful aroma of a tasty roast waiting for our salivating mouths.   Or so we thought.   I went to get Amelia's serving so it could start to cool - and you know how roast is known for the fact that it kind of 'falls apart' - especially with a fork.  Well, not so much in this case.  In fact it took a serrated knife and many a saw action to get through that tough meat hunk.  To which we did laugh.  Luckily there were potatoes in there or so we thought.  Amazingly, with 8 hours of cook time a potato can still be rather hard.  Amazing, huh?!  Our meal consisted of 50% overcooked meat and 50% undercooked potatoes.  We still did laugh through supper - at which point Patrick pointed out this roast was like the 4 hour roast, because everyone knows if you cook a roast too fast, it will be tough as nails.  And thus, the 4 Hour Roast goes down in the history books.

Chalk another point up to the pot roast - I definitely did not conquer it this time.

Time with Nana and Papa

The week between Christmas and New Years Eve, Mommy and Daddy went on a couple day trip and Amelia spent time with Nana and Papa!

 The beads continued!

 The weather was beautiful, so Amelia got to do one of her favorite things - go outside!

 Walking with Nana

 Outside swing time!

 I'm scary!

Nana, Papa and Amelia

Thanks for watching me!

Merry Christmas

This year for Christmas we went to Nana and Papa's house!

Nana and the grand girls. The swing got a lot of use while everyone was there.  Amelia loved it and tried to swing on it whenever she could.

 All of the cousins swinging together.

 Amelia and Paige swinging together

 Amelia's first time on Blondie - what a thrill!  Alaina was very helpful showing her the ropes on how to go really fast.

 On Christmas eve, before church all of the girls got to open one gift.

 Amelia was very excited to open her gift.

 Plenty of time to take a ride in the car prior to church!

 A picture of all the girls.  As you can see - no smiles.  None of them were really in the mood for a picture, so they tolerated our attempts to make them smile.

 Then we tried sitting down.  A small smile from Paige, but not much from the rest.

 Amelia and Mommy

 Nana and Papa with the girls.

 James, Jenna and Olivia

 A picture of Mommy and Amelia walking into church.  Both Amelia and Olivia did really well in the service, Amelia made it to the last song and Olivia ended up joining shortly after in the hallway.  With their long poofy dresses and fast little feet they kind of looked like they were floating.  Luckily it was both Patrick and I watching them, because wow - they run fast!

 The black and white version of Amelia

 The Christmas Eve gift from Nana and Papa was matching pajamas!

 More swing time!

 I had no idea they had Herky pillow pets!

 Auntie Mel and Alaina

 The other favorite thing at Nana and Papa's was the 4 bead necklaces!  Very rarely did you find Amelia without them around her neck.

 Olivia opening a gift with James and Amelia wanted some of the action.

 Daddy got a surprise gift from Amelia - the Super Dad book......starring Daddy!

 Is this Olivia or Amelia!?  Hard to tell with the matching pajamas, but this is Olivia!   Amelia got a pink horse from James, Jenna and Olivia and Olivia really liked that gift!

 Here is Amelia on her horsie

More swing time!

The Vigneron Family

Snotty Nose

Amelia got a cold after Christmas and since we've gotten home we've been using a lot of kleenex.  Amelia is a pretty quick learner and she started to wipe her own nose with this cold.  Its pretty cute and there should be no attempt to take away her kleenex - because that would be devastating considering she will use it again and again to wipe her nose.   She will even do a double fisted wipe.   At times it sounds like she may even be trying to blow her nose. 

This is not a very good picture, but she is getting fast as she runs around!

Multiple Uses

Amelia has a few words that she says, but they can mean a multitude of things!

"Da" = dog, daddy, her blankie (this last one was a recent realization), anything she is pointing at

"Na" or "Na na" =  nana, banana, no

"Mama" = mommy, general upset expression

Amelia also can say, "Hi", "Papa" (occasionally), "Ah mn" = amen

She also has been working on her g's, f's, and k's.   I am probably forgetting some.

For animal sounds she can do a lion/bear, cow, gorilla, kitty, horse (sometimes)

First "Haircut"

Right before Christmas, Auntie Mel graciously agreed to trim Amelia's hair!   Her bangs were so long they were constantly in her eyes and it was also a bit uneven in the back.  Amelia did pretty well holding still and now she looks so old!

Short Stories

Here is a set of short stories, provided by the phone camera....

 Lately we have been doing 2 things, go to church on Saturday instead of Sunday and get there a little earlier so we aren't rushing into church.   Both have proven to be great, because it is way less stressful and we have another day to "sleep in" (not really - but its at least another relaxing morning).   Amelia also enjoys us going to church early because it is a HUGE space she can run around in!

 For non-toys, Amelia loves to play with our dinner trays.  In this instance of serious play with the non-toys, she carried all of the trays into her room one-by-one.  As you can see she also found fun with the laundry basket.

 Amelia loves to play with her dolls and their blankies.  Lately though we have had some creative fun with one of her baby's blankies - we use it as a head scarf.

 Chowing down at snack time.

 This was prior to Christmas.  We had to make a stop at fleet farm and as we were strolling around, we passed this 4-wheeler.  Amelia thought it looked like great fun and decided to climb up.  Quite frankly I didn't think she would get all the way up with absolutely no help from us, but she did.  I guess that could have gone on the Christmas wish list!

 This is a sneak peek of Amelia's Christmas dress, prior to actually posting Christmas pictures yet.  So...sneak peek!