Spring Trip to Alabama - Part 2

We snuck in a trip to visit Aunt Laura & Uncle Nathan in between the grandparents. We started our weekend off with a walk to Amelia's first ice cream cone (who knew Brewsters did baby cones!? perfect size!)

We spent the next morning at the local botanical gardens which had a special exhibit for kids with 'giant' pieces for them to check out, as well as a permanent children's garden which was pretty cool.

Some of the pieces were interactive 'water' exhibits, which we found out when this one started spraying water as Amelia approached it.  Makes perfect sense for the typically hot Alabama weather; not super comfortable on a mild spring day.

She was not happy about the sprinklers, but couldn't be convinced to turn around and walk away. So I had to go haul her off.

Huge 'blades' of grass to run between!

Chasing/hiding from/running from Uncle Nathan

Making lots of loud noise!

Digging in the giant sandbox was probably the highlight for Amelia (along with the grass blades).

In the afternoon, we attended a birthday party for a 2 year old friend of Aunt Laura & Uncle Nathan's. Amelia basically parked herself at the water table. Thanks Uncle Nathan for supervising her most of the time so I could relax and enjoy adult conversation!

Wearing her cool sunglasses party favor during the next morning. 

Mommy put them on my shirt - that's too funny!

Amelia had fun playing with the nifty toys that Aunt Laura & Uncle Nathan had bought/borrowed for our visit. Since we don't have any Little People playsets (besides the nativity one) or duplos, they were the favorites!

Building a tower

Being silly with Uncle Nathan

Amelia getting worked up that Uncle Nathan took his socks off; she's insisting that he put them back on and trying to do so for him.

I was amazed how, with only seeing them a few times a year, Amelia knew exactly who Aunt Laura & Uncle Nathan were and went to them without hesitation. She's done the same with the rest of the family - I guess reviewing her little family photo album frequently helps! 

You can tell that Amelia adores wrestling/tickling/being thrown around. She demanded Uncle Nathan do so frequently and we had to require 'rest' times because she would have kept him going until one or both of them were hurt/sick.



 

Spring Trip to Alabama - Part 1

Because someone at Exxon decided to schedule Patrick for a week-long course in North Carolina during the week before our move and that course was not transferable, we decided that Amelia and I would head to Alabama to get in a visit with all of our families rather than stay by ourselves in a hotel. While the round trip was Amelia's 17th & 18th flights, it was our first flights with her in her own seat; getting off and on the plane is definitely far more difficult lugging a giant carseat with you than keeping her in my lap, but we didn't want to traumatize the poor people around us with attempting any more lapchild flights (since she's now bigger than most 2 year olds).

We were also blessed that my dad had a last minute meeting in Northern Virginia when we were going to fly down to Alabama, so we coordinated our flights and ended up having him fly one segment with us. So don't be surprised if Amelia sees a bus (any bus) and starts to tell you "Bus. On. (pointing to herself). White. Pappy. Mama. (signs airplane)" to communicate that she got to ride on the rental car bus at the airport. We hear about it multiple times each day, even weeks later.

We bought this nifty contraption that attaches to the carseat so I just wheeled her around the airport in it. With just this and our backpack, we had an easy time getting through everything. Amelia is practicing with her baby (specifically, "yellow baby", which she asks for by name and is now differentiated from "pink baby").

 

Amelia was greated by this when she arrived at Grammie & Pappy's house. Let's just say she had to be pried out multiple times to eat/sleep/etc. She basically lived in this car and I made us hide it at night so we could get her to eat breakfast before she saw it.

 Helping Pappy change the batteries in a toy.

More pretending to sleep.

Sneaking a snack with Pappy.

Meeting the neighbor's dogs.

Visit with Great-Grammie after church

Helping Pappy pack his suitcase. Unfortunately he had to leave on another business trip for most of the week.

Playing with an alphabet toy upside down.

Making a 'surprised' face.

A little croquet

So my dad hasn't had as much time with Amelia, but he somehow has brainwashed her on two points. The first is that "P" stands for "Pappy". So anytime we see a "P", she exclaims "P. Pappy." - it's a frequent public occurence.  Second, when we showed him the sign for "apple", he started signing to Amelia that she was the "apple" of his "eye".  While she doesn't get the literary technique, this stuck and now whenever she sees an apple (eating, photos, grocery store, etc), she starts exclaiming "Apple. Pappy. Apple. Eye". Complete brainwashing.

Running in a yard! Yay!

Yup. That's Amelia eating a raw red potato. Go figure.

Cooking with Grammie

Back in the car in case all the photos of other activities lead you to believe that she didn't actually live in this car.

Small projects

A little flower arranging

Amelia also talks about our trip to the National Zoo daily. So we made a trip to the local zoo for a morning. Amelia LOVED it - here she is by the alligator, showing off her "chomp, chomp" motion.

Turtle!

We spent awhile at the park, getting on what equipment wasn't overtaken by hoards of school kids. This girl sure loves a swing.

Big kid swings!

Playing on the arcade machine at the airport while waiting to pick up Pappy.

Enjoying a sweet treat!

Virginia Friends

During our last few days in Virginia we tried to soak up as much time as we could with our friends. It helped that we tried to stay out of the house while Patrick handled the packers/movers. I don't have photos of all our of fun.

So this is a group photo from our church playgroup Easter party, which was not super recent. But it's a great photo of the gals and their kiddos that we've had as our community over the last two years. They've been such great examples for me!

We are going to really miss these boys - they've been our weekly playdates. I met their mamas in the New Mom's group from the hospital and have appreciated swapping stories and commisserating together. I love how well Amelia plays with them and how comfortable she is with their families.

Carrie managing all four at once - those teacher skills came in handy!

Our first morning of Amelia demanding to pick out her own clothes. You can tell she knows pink and green - at least they kinda match, right?

 

We had nice weather before we moved, so we pulled out the water table for one last time and someone got the giggles.