Family Visit!

By: Shelsy

July isn't even over yet and this has already been quite a month! Her Grandma, Aunt Shanna, and Uncle Aaron came down to visit for two weeks, and were joined by other visitors at different points during their stay. It was very exciting! And very busy. :-)

They arrived on the 4th, and Amber was all ready to go in her 4th of July outfit (the back of it is blue with stars).

The next day we were joined by the O'Neills and we went all kinds of fun places! We hit some of the parks, of course. Here are a couple of pictures of us at SeaWorld:

And here's a picture of her hanging out with Uncle Aaron at Universal:

The O'Neills left after the first week and then we were joined by Jidu and Ryan's Nana and Papa. Here she is meeting Nana and Papa for the first time!

And of course her grandparents and great grandparents were fully prepared to spoil her rotten. :-) Papa made her some beautiful wooden puzzles. I can't wait until she's old enough to play with them!

This one has the alphabet painted on the other side!

We went to Downtown Disney and, as I said, she got very spoiled! This Mickey was the first thing she's ever really grabbed and put in her mouth. As soon as Nana showed it to her she started chewing on his ear! She continued to chew on his ear (and anything else we gave her) for the rest of the week.

She was also dedicated at church on the 18th. We were excited that Ryan's family and his grandparents were able to be there. We were planning on having her dedicated anyway, but we were glad that it happened to fall during the time they would be here!

We did some swimming while they were here, which is always fun. Amber seems to really enjoy the water. Here's a video of her making some of her signature noises to express her excitement.

Speaking of noises, the day after everyone left, she started doing this screaming thing. It's just a new noise she figured out, so she enjoys practicing all the time. It's very loud and high pitched and gives me a headache. But it's hilarious at the same time. I've started referring to her affectionately as my pterodactyl baby. Mom thinks she'll sing higher than Mariah Carey if she keeps it up. See for yourself:

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Three Months!

By: Shelsy

That's right, three whole months have gone by already. So super crazy. It's amazing because I look at her now and I'm really starting to see a little person, not just a baby. She's settling into a routine during the day. She doesn't do things at the same time every day, but she usually seems to follow the same pattern, which helps. She still sleeps wonderfully, but she's started falling asleep earlier in the evening than before. It's great because then Ryan and I can enjoy a few hours together each night. But on the flip side, she now wakes up for her first feeding at around 3:30am instead of 5:30. I'm not a huge fan of that, but I imagine she'll start stretching that out before too long.

This has also been a big month for her developmentally. First of all, she's grown a lot. She's now 15 pounds, 14 ounces and 24 1/2 inches long. She can lift her head up from her stomach. I just laid her down one day and she held her head about an inch off the floor for 30 seconds or so. But she's only done it once since then. I've suspected that she's been able to lift her head for awhile now, but just doesn't want to.

She's also learned a lot about her hands this month. She bats at things sometimes, and I gave her a rattle to hold and she grasped it and held on tight for about 10 minutes while she shook it around!

She also discovered her hands. She was sitting in the swing (which she adores, by the way. She loves to stare at the hinge where the motor is. I don't know why it's so fascinating, but she pretty much stares at and talks to it the entire time she's sitting there) and Ryan looked over and she was staring at her fist with this look of deep concentration on her face. It was so cute! I managed to get a picture:

It's only a matter of time before she starts putting it all together and realizes that her hands are attached and she can use them to grab things. 

We also celebrated Ryan's first Father's Day this month! 

Another new thing she does is smile when we go to get her after she wakes up. She gets the biggest grin on her face--I love it! And sometimes when I'm singing to her to sleep, she'll stop mid-cry and smile at me. That's my favorite! 

We took her to the pool this past Sunday. This was the first time we actually put her in the water. I don't really know if she liked it, but she didn't seem to mind, either. We took a bunch of pictures and they were all so good, I couldn't pick a favorite, so here they are:

And here are some more of my favorite pictures from this month:






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