Potato Catastrophe

We have been having internet problems since the beginning of time sometime around April or May.  Its been so long, I've forgotten when it happened.  So, 1 modem, 1 wireless router, 2 cable technicians at the house, and who knows how many service calls, our internet finally works again, properly. (fingers crossed)  It had gotten so bad and was making us so mad, research into new means of internet and cable were beginning to be discussed.

On a different note, I had a minor catastrophe with supper tonight.  Now, I know that there are people out there who encounter a food disaster nearly every time they cook.  There are also people who never encounter them.  I'm someone who has them about once a month.  Mind you, mine are usually meals that Chris eats just because I made them, all while telling me how good they are, of course.  My normal, and somewhat recurring, cooking disaster is not being able to remember what side of the fish goes onto the pan first, the skin or the meat.  I read the same recipe each time we have salmon, and each time it says to place the fillet "flesh side down" for the first turn in the heat.  I really wish that the chef would say "skin side down" or not because to me, flesh is skin.  Flesh colored crayons are the color of skin, so why would I think that flesh meant "meat?  Now, I realize that's not a huge disaster.  All that happens then is its harder to clean the skillet because, when I put the skin down first, the skin ends up being stuck to the pan.

Anyway, my disaster tonight was a matter of not paying attention, whatsoever.  Chris was so nice and had the foresight to bake the potatoes for twice baked potatoes last night so that we wouldn't have to wait on them tonight.  I scooped the potatoes out, added the butter, milk, and some black pepper.  Ever since we got on our Sam's kick, we have purchased industrial size where we need/have space to store.  That being said, I proceeded to grab our industrial size black pepper, open up the "pour" spout as opposed to the "sprinkle" spout, and added about 1/2 cup of black pepper to my potato mixture.  It isn't like I had 10 gallons of potatoes, otherwise that amount of pepper wouldn't have impacted anything much.  All I had was 4 potatoes.  It just tasted like black pepper.  I can handle some heat, but when it just tastes like pepper, and you can't even taste the food it's supposed to be seasoning, it is not appetizing at all. This was the end result.

Notice the white potato vs the black mixture.

On a better note, here are some new pics of Amelia.  I've also got the video (to come later, upload was taking WAAAYYY too long) I promised of her walking better.

"Naked Baby"

Jazzercising

Her first Oreo experience.

Just chillin', bein' silly. (Chris dressed her.)

Amelia's Baptism and 1st Birthday

Amelia had a big celebration for her 1st birthday.  My brother and his family, my sister, my cousin's family, close family friends, and Chris' parents all came for the party which was at my mom's house.  She did very well for her big day.  Surprisingly though, she didn't care too much about her birthday cupcake.  I was expecting a full fledged dig in on Amelia's part.  But all she did was kind of put the tips of her fingers in it.  She didn't even eat any of it.  That's alright though, everyone else enjoyed her cake enough for her.  She got so many good toys, but I think my parents were the winners.  They gave her a set of shape sorting blocks that AD played with the most.  She loved to put the blocks in their bucket, then shake the bucket to empty it out, then she'd put the blocks back in the bucket, and repeat the whole process over again.  Before the presents were opened, she walked all over the place chasing after Lucy and Merlin and getting into all kinds of trouble.

She was also baptized on Sunday.  She actually did very well, but not as good as the little boy who was baptized after her.  Our pastor said that she did really good.  She hardly made any noise.  But the follow up act didn't make any noise at all.  While we were waiting to have her baptized, she kept trying to give Chris her paci.  Everyone who saw it said how cute she was sharing her paci with her Daddy.

In other news, she's been walking since about 10 months.  She took her first steps on June 3, and she really took off on June 30.  She also has 8 teeth (4 on the top and 4 on the bottom).  She is also working on getting out 4 molars.  Two have been coming in for about 2 weeks, and we just noticed the two on top coming in today.  So it hasn't really been fun at our house for a little while.  These are also the first teeth that have really caused her any problems.  She's been a little more finicky with eating, but we're hoping it goes away when she finally gets those teeth out.

I've also got some video of her walking and all sorts of recent pics.  Hope you enjoy.

Amelia's 1st Watermelon on 4th of July Weekend

She was so kind to help me shell some peas.

Blueberry Yogurt Pretzel Time!!!

Her birthday cake...giraffes are her favorite stuffed animals.

The cupcakes were the rest of her "zoo."

Lu and AD in their tutus from Aunt Virginia

Not too interested in the cupcake

AD with her birthday haul

Her cake toppers

AD in her baptism dress

She's a lot better now.  This was taken about 1 month ago.

Blazing

South Mississippi. End of May. Mid afternoon. Y'all know what its like. Its not August by any means, but it still feels good to come into the air conditioning. Now lets add in, just for kicks, a broken air conditioner upstairs. Yeah, I said broken. We don't know what's wrong b/c we can't get in touch with anyone to come fix it for us. It broke sometime early morning. We were totally comfortable last night and this morning. I went upstairs around 9:30 and realized it was broken. We'll be able to survive tonight when its time to go to bed. Our only problem during the day is that it is sweltering in Amelia's room, and she has woken up from her naps drenched in sweat, even though she is only wearing a diaper. The one person we have been able to get in touch with so far told us that he couldn't come out cause he was too busy and the office would call us on Monday. We'll have to wait and see if we ever do business with those people again.

On a better note, here are some new pics of Amelia.

Sleeping on her daddy's chest.

Already loving Family Guy and The Grinch.

"What is that thing you always have in my face?"

At Virginia's graduation from law school.

"What pot would be best for supper tonight?"

Kick It Up Another Notch

Amelia is full speed ahead, hands and knees crawling. She is definitely good enough to be on our heels now. There really is no escaping her. You can't even tell when she's following you sometimes because she's so quiet about it. She was playing at Eva's bowl before I even knew she had left her play area.

She's also getting a lot better about walking holding on to stuff. Today, she stepped over Eva trying to get to me. I love looking at her and watching her process how to do something. She'll stand up, look at what's in her way, sit down, look at it again, then stand up, and try to pull herself along over her roadblock. She has even figured out how to carry her toys with her without holding it in her mouth. When she loses a toy under the bookshelf or sofa, she bends down and looks under to see where it is. She is even getting so good as to be able to tell if she can reach her lost toy under the sofa or not. Everyone says its because she's the progeny of two engineers. But I think she'd be a genius anyway.

I wish I had some new pictures of her. Her hair is getting so long. We can brush a little of it behind her ears now. I wish I could get some good pictures of her smiling showing off her teeth. But she stops smiling every time the flash goes off. Oh well, maybe in time. Hopefully I'll have some pictures and a video soon.

Now We're Cooking With......Crawling?

Yes, Amelia has started crawling. Its not crawling in the sense of being up on her hands and knees moving all over the house. But there's no keeping her confined to her "play mat" anymore. She used to move backwards, literally. She'd get up on her hands and knees. Her knees would go out from under her, and she moved in reverse. But now she's figured out how to put it in drive instead of reverse. She has already pulled stuff off of tables. And this morning, she was at Eva's house trying to eat the door. Her legs have ended up under one sofa and our sofa table. She will "crawl" to paper the most. But she's starting to move to other things too. She loves to come after Eva if she's out of reach. If Chris or I are over by her and walk away, she tries to follow us. But she's not good enough to be at our heels all the time yet.

I still haven't been able to get a good picture of her teeth. I've tried. She smiles big and you see them. But when you get the camera out ready to take a picture, she stops smiling. We've tried to hold her lip down, but her tongue comes out. She just knows our game and isn't gonna let us get them at all. So here's my best attempt so far. You can see the blurry white nibs on her bottom gum.



She's also been sitting up for a while now. We were never letting her sit up. We'd just always put her down on her back or stomach. And one night I decided that it was time for her to start learning how to sit up on her own. The first time I sat her up, she sat there for about 3 minutes before falling over. I guess the babysitter has been letting her practice. Chris went in to wake her up two mornings ago, and she was sitting up in her crib.

She's looking at Eva here. She smiles every time she sees her. You can kind of see it here.

She loves Miss Eva.

Ugh...

Amelia got her first tooth just before New Year's. The next weekend Chris went hunting, and I stayed home with Amelia Delia. She'd go to bed at 7, and wake up about 8:30 just screaming. If she wakes up after we've put her down, its usually a little cooing and some frustration that she doesn't have her paci. With her screaming like that, I thought maybe her tooth was hurting her or something. So I felt around her tooth and found that her second tooth was coming in. Luckily I had some orajel on hand, so it wasn't too bad after that. I wasn't gonna post until I was able to take some pictures. When I went to take the picture, my camera flashed a low battery then shut off. And it has been two weeks, and I have been unable to locate my battery charger. So I finally decided to post the news anyway. If I ever find my charger, there will definitely be some pics though.

Happy New Year!!!

Amelia decided that she wanted to start the new year off right...she popped out her first tooth on New Year's Eve!!!! The doctor told us she'd have one by Christmas, but I guess one week off is a good enough guess. Hopefully that was why she was giving us such a hard time about starting solids. Maybe now things will go better.