Stuck

Let me begin by saying that I hate baby proofing. I find it very annoying whenever I want to get into a cupboard or drawer that I have to push down on that stupid locky-thingy (very technical) to get into it. Therefore, we have done the most minimal amount of baby proofing around our house. Don't worry, we have all the chemicals and other harmful things safely locked away, but pretty much everything else is fair game for Amelia to get into. We have been closing the door to the bathroom for quite some time now, finding that to be the easier option. Finally, the other day we decided it would be necessary to baby proof the bathroom because Amelia now knows how to open lids and squirt stuff in her mouth, like diaper rash cream and toothpaste, and enough is enough. Now that the bathroom is all squared away, we can leave the door open! YAY!

So, today I'm sitting on the couch in the living room and Amelia is wandering around the house as usual. I hear her messing with some stuff in the bathroom for a few minutes, then she lets out a few whimpers and then very clearly (for the first time) says, "stuck." I go to the bathroom to find this:



Great.

Happy Halloween!

We celebrated our Halloween tonight. Even though it's a couple days early, tonight was our church get-together. It was just a gathering in the gym, with a few activities for kids to do. Unfortunately, Amelia isn't old enough to appreciate crafts or really trick-or-treating yet, so our time there was short-lived, but we really enjoyed dressing up! In my opinion, Ameila was the most adorable kid there. :) You be the judge:



Trick-or-treat!


Yummy sucker


I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!

October

Wow, I can't believe it's already the end of October! Life has been busy, as usual. Eric, Amy and Espen were here this weekend and we had lots of fun together! Friday night we had a family get-together at Melody and Tom's house with about 25 of Jonathan's family members. Saturday we met the boys for lunch and then took a walk around the River Walk, and that night we just hung out at home. Thanks for coming guys! We love having visitors!

Here's Espen wearing my shoes :)

I'll sum up the rest of the month in pictures.

Justin came home!! He's been overseas working construction in the Afghanistan/Kabul/Dubai area since January. We were all so excited for him to be home, safe and sound.



We took 2 trips to the pumpkin patch, which was fun, but will be MUCH more fun when Amelia cares, and can walk around that crazy terrain on her own. :)



My friend Stevie and I have been making baby girl tutus and headbands to sell for a little bit of extra money here and there.. Or maybe just for our own kids :)
Cute bow huh?!?


And here's my favorite..


Recently Amelia has really taken to loving chairs. She likes to climb into them and sit proud like a big lady. So, Jonathan and I thought it would be the cutest thing to buy her a chair..


And it was..



It's a little brown leather chair to match the rest of our living room furniture. Love it!

I hope everyone has had a great October so far! Can't wait to post Halloween pictures, and see everyone else's!

California

We just got home from a wonderful trip to California. On Friday morning we got up bright and early, (poor Jonathan woke up at 2:30am and couldn't go back to sleep), loaded up the car and headed for DIA. Our plane left at 9:30am and was a success:

We spent that whole day and night with my Mom's side of the family:

Grandma telling Amelia she doesn't need to cry every time the dog comes around

Grandma and Amelia

That night we went to Holly and Ryan's to play some guitar hero


Saturday we got ready and went to San Marcos for the rehearsal dinner. First we got more pictures with the fam:
Grandma, Me, Amelia

Add in Jonathan

Take out Jonathan and add Carolyn


Here are some cute shots at the rehearsal dinner:



Passing out gifts

All the bridesmaids got matching Coach clutches. They're so cute!

The ribbon made a great hair bow!

I love my Maria


The next day was the wedding, which was wonderful.

Maria with her Dad

9 bridesmaids!

The whole wedding (Jonathan stood in the back with Amelia so he got lots of great pictures!)

Our family

And then she broke my necklace :(

But she loved the flowers

And my Coach clutch

And me!

The whole wedding party


YAY! Maria Chiovare is now Maria Ayala!! :)


Monday morning we were able to stop by Bryan and Erin's house and chat for about an hour, then we met Carolyn and Shirley for an In-N-Out lunch, and then headed to the airport to go home. After the worst flight home ever, and Amelia getting a minor motion sickness barfing episode, we are home safe and sound, and it feels great!

Houston, we have a walker!

Amelia is walking! Yay! She still does the "Frankenstein" walk right now, but she's getting better every day. Now, when she falls down, she gets right back up to walking, instead of crawling the rest of the way. Pretty exciting new steps in her life (pun intended).
She also knows how to go down the stairs, which is nice because no more baby gate! The other night while I was doing the dishes and Jonathan was busy, she went downstairs, got her favorite stick of chapstick, and came right back up! How funny.


We've also been working on her signs. It's pretty cute that all day every day she signs bath time, because she SO loves her baths. Even though she only gets one every other day, she'll sign it while we're driving and stuff. Haha. Maybe when it gets colder we'll take more.


Remember when she had tons of hair, and as she got older everything started to fall out except the middle mowhawk?? Well, we finally put it in a ponytail, and look how long it is!


If those videos don't work, could someone please tell me how to upload videos so they do work?! Thanks :)

The Many Adventures Of Patrick Jacobs

As I mentioned in my last blog, Kirsta and Joe came down to stay with us this past weekend for Labor Day. Unfortunately, Jonathan doesn't get Labor Day off work so we had to cram all the fun into one day. First, we went to the Colorado State Fair and checked out lots of animals:

Goats

Sheep

Bunnies

And cows


After that we came home and ate dinner, then headed out to City Park, which has rides going every night during the summer from 5-9 pm for only 50 cents! Sadly, we discovered these rides about a week after Kirsta and Joe had left last time, so I was DYING for Patrick to come back before they were closed. There's a train and a carousal that adults can ride with the kids, but all the other rides are kids only and they have to be at least 2 years old, which excludes Amelia from doing anything fun. So, Patrick was my go-to guy!

On the train

Ferris Wheel

These little cars just went around and around

More car rides

The carousal

I went on the roller coaster with him, and afterwards he said, "That was NOT a fun ride!" Lol.


As always, we had a great time with the Jacobs!

Messes

As Amelia gets older, she is figuring out how to get into stuff. I mean, REALLY get into stuff. We used to be OK if things were in their boxes, but now she knows how to open the box and get into whatever is in there. I thought I would share a few examples:

She has a yeast infection right now, so the Doctor told us to get women's Monistat cream and use it on her like diaper rash cream. Well, women's yeast infection treatment kits come with injection tubes, which we of course are not using on her, but they still came in the box.. She found them:



The only thing in the kitchen that we put baby locks on were the cupboards under the sink because there are some chemicals under there. I didn't want locks on the rest of them because when I am cooking dinner she likes to be in there with me but I'd rather have her playing with stuff than whining at me to pick her up. Well, until now. She learned how to get into boxes of food, such as:

Cornstarch!


Today she found the bag of straws:


We bought her a set of fridge magnets so she could have something to entertain herself, and she absolutely loves to "rake" them all on to the floor, which then just leaves me with another mess. So, what's the verdict? Do I baby proof and listen to the whining, or just keep myself busy picking up a lot of messes??