Holiday Friends!

Every year when Patrick and I travel to Alabama for the holidays, we meet up with all of our friends who are still in the area and everyone is always so gracious to us and work around our schedule. This year, meeting Amelia was on the agenda for everyone.

Lydia is a homeschool friend who is in the process of becoming a full time missionary in SE Europe.

Renee & Steve drove down from Auburn. Amelia went right into Renee's arms with no hesitation!

Amelia graced Erin with a huge spit-up in her lap but Erin was so gracious about it! We didn't get any photos of Amelia and Catlin; but he's there too.

Shanda was on Patrick's senior design team and she sweetly keeps up with us!

Amelia met two of her uncles over the holidays. Here is Uncle Steve.

And here is Uncle Jimmy. Both of the uncles came in for my dad's 50th party.

Amelia LOVED Ben and he kept her happy by bouncing for a lot of our time together.

Yay time with Donna too! 

Thanks friends for making time to see us and being patient with our squirmy kid! You are one of the highlights of coming home to Alabama for the holidays!

Attempt at Videos

To continue the onslaught of Amelia from the holidays (would you be at this site if you didn't want it?), I'm going to try to post a few videos of her latest activities.

She's talking up a storm and we think she even understands singing because she'll start making "la la la" type noises when we sing to her or with music. Please excuse Patrick's crazy morning hair since this was at breakfast. And I have no idea how to rotate this video. If any of our followers out in blogger land know how, please let me know!

Here is one of her unique form of scooting. She does a backbend and then pushes off with her heels. But she does seem to require some sort of "revving up" to really cover distance and we find it hysterical. Combining this move with rolling and I've been finding her stuck under bookshelves, couches, tables, etc. She is officially on the move.

On Christmas eve, Amelia rolled herself under the tree and grabbed this present from Aunt Lori. After confirming that she couldn't harm it, we let her go at it and she had so much fun.



Six Months

Amelia turned 6 months while we were in Alabama. It's pretty surreal.

She spent most of my photo shoot trying to get out of the chair. I think next month we'll have to move to a different location.

She tried to lean forward to get out.

Bucking out

Trying to stand to get out

Slouching out

We thank God for the blessing of having Amelia in our lives for the past 6 months!



Christmas Visit Part 2

We spent the week between Christmas and New Year's with the Hanks and Amelia had more fun exploring and practicing her sitting/eating/rolling/jumping skills. These times with our families make us so sad to live far away!

Amelia had fun sitting up to the table with everyone. She has perfected the "drop the toy over the side of the tray onto the floor" manuever.

Going on a walk with Grandma

We went to Target and Amelia snagged this christmas bag in the clearance area and started gnawing on it. You'd think we didn't feed her enough!

Not too many cooks in this kitchen, in my opinion!

Helping Grandaddy with his filing. She's learning organization at an early age. :)

Practicing feeding herself. This skill is completely mood dependent.

More walks with Daddy

Laughing at Granddaddy!

 This is Amelia about 15 minutes after we got on the road to head home. So much fun!



Christmas Celebrations

Once Patrick got to Alabama, we hopped between our families for Christmas celebrations in which Amelia got super spoiled and we ate way too much good food. As an added bonus, it was in the 60's & 70's while it was near freezing in VA. Oh how we love Christmas!

Amelia learning how to unwrap presents.

New toys are great, but this penguin is still a favorite.

Four generations of Berryhills all together

Great Granddaddy riling Amelia up.

Delights my heart

Amelia got to spend time with her great aunts

And John Hudson was the most curious of the cousins to play with Amelia

But she had fun meeting all of them!



Amelia rolling on top of her very large stocking on Christmas morning. I have never seen such a one before.

She had fun in it too after all the gifts were pulled out.

Three generations of gals

Yay first Christmas!

Christmas Visit Part 1

As I said earlier, Amelia and I flew to Alabama a week before Christmas in order to surprise my dad for his 50th birthday. We spent that week with my folks and here are some photos of the fun we had.

Amelia enjoyed the rocking dog that Grammie salvaged from a neighbor whose kiddos are too big for it. Her favorite thing is chewing its nose, but riding side saddle was fun too.



The coffee table was the perfect height for practicing standing without help from mommy. And it tasted really good too on those sore gums.

Patrick wants to point out that Amelia has the "hook 'em" sign down already.

Bedtime with Pappy

 We did some cooking and Amelia was an excellent helper, holding the bowl for Mommy.



2012 Calendar

While I'm sorting through all of my Christmas trip photos to post some on the blog, I thought I'd go ahead and do an update by showing you what we made our families for Christmas. Creating a calendar for 2012 may be an average gift, but we tried to make it more-than-average by posing Amelia for each month with props that symbolized that month.

The complicating factor is that we came up with the idea on the drive back from Alabama for Thanksgiving, and had 2 weeks to do so before Patrick had to travel for work and I left for Alabama early. We decided to make the props from things we already had in the house so I didn't have to make extra trips to the store with everything else going on. So, some of the months are a little cheesy, but we had a blast and Amelia was a great sport with it all. Hope our families enjoy them in 2012!

For our friends who don't live in the South, this is symbolizing Mardi Gras, but I couldn't get Amelia to wear the mask without getting upset.

Everyone has been claiming their favorite month. Do you have a favorite?