Tatos, Eche, and Niighe

In the last few months, Amélie's been slowly picking up a lot of new words in her vocabulary. She "talks" pretty much all day, but there are a few words that are distinctly obvious interpretations of real words. It's amazing to me how much she understands. Anything I ask her to do, she follows and she can respond correctly to many simple questions. Oh, and of course this is all mostly in Spanish since that's all she hears from mommy. Yet, she still has managed to pick up just as many words in English. Since most of these words will eventually be pronounced correctly, I wanted to make a list of what she knows now, at 19 months, and says in her cute little girl pronunciations.

tatos = zapatos = shoes
tines = calcetines = socks
eche = leche = milk
baeby = baby - she stretches out the "a"- she calls human and dolls alike
daggy = doggy - She knows when I say perrito, it means doggy
gato = gato = cat
agua= agua = water - although she likes to call anything in her sippy cup water
bubbas = bubbles
niighe = nice
uh oh
wow - it always surprises me that she knows exactly when to use "uh oh" and "wow"
si = yes
pee-pee = I believe this is obvious in both languages. She's currently potty training herself. She started it.
nana = banana
mMMmmm = yumm- she emphasizes the capital "m"
zana = manzana = apple
ousigh = outside
bajo = abajo = down
mimi = dormir = bedtime- she also has a special blankie that she calls mimi since she's almost always used it for bed
hi
bye-bye - says this to anything and everyone!
doe = dos = two
ballo = caballo = horse
shoo = shoes
mine -  with real emphasis on the "n." Yeah, not so thrilled about this one.
no, no, no, no, no = no. Also, not wonderful to hear sometimes.
mami = mommy
coco = Rosco, the dog
daddy
nigh nigh = night night

Really, at this point, there's something new everyday. She's constantly repeating words I say and adding them to her vocabulary. She's currently in love with the alphabet song and will ask us to sing and help her point to the letters in her A, B, C book. She sings along, although it's very far from accurate but completely adorable.

We've met other kids her age and they have a larger vocabulary, but I'm not worried. She's a sponge right now and she's bilingual. It's expected that her language development will be different and a bit slower.

All this in conjunction with her daily doings (she's hilarious to us) just makes me feel like my baby isn't much of a baby anymore. I'm considering not celebrating anymore birthdays from now on. That'll make her stop aging, right?

Baby Bean Numero Dos: The First Trimester

With a busy little toddler around, it's needless you say that things are not as easily completed around the house. I thought I'd perhaps chronicle this pregnancy as well as I did with Amélie's, you know, just to be fair and all. Unfortunately, things haven't worked out as planned in that department. At this point, I only have two series of pictures. One set at 5ish weeks; pretty much the beginning and absolutely no signs of a bump, and at 12 weeks; with a somewhat noticeable bean bump. Therefore, I've decided a trimester series of photos will be the plan. I like that. There will be much more obvious changes!  Also, I'm going to give some few good and bad points about each trimester. Can I just say, woo hoo to the first trimester being over! 

Two-Thousand-Eleven: Eric, Nancy, & Amélie

I thought it would be fun to take a look back at some of the major (and not so major) things that happened to our little trio. So, here it is!

January:
We moved to San Jose and I officially became a stay-at-home mommy. After a year of no free running, the boys (our dogs) were very happy to have a yard again! Amélie had her first taste of frozen yogurt. She tried her daddy's chocolate.

{yum}

February:
Amélie really started eating(other than mommy milk), got her ears pierced, and seriously started sleeping 12 hours straight at night.


March: 
After getting into a groove with baby and home, I whipped out my sewing machine to begin projects again after a few slow months of sewing. We made the long drive down to Bakersfield for our nephew Corbin's first birthday.

{she was so little!}

{cousins}

April:
I started a vegetable garden and enjoyed some amazing warm weather. Daddy man came back to the States after being in Guatemala for 4 years. We made some new San Jose friends. I cut my hair and now want it all back.

May:
I started seriously planning Amélie's first birthday party and the sewing continued! The summer started getting very busy with birthdays and wedding celebrations. I also got a new/used car!

{4 generations}

June:
We took family photos. celebrated lots of birthdays, had Eric's mom visit, and the hubby took two weeks off work from his remaining family leave. We took a mini-vacation to Arizona and were spoiled by my family. We laid out in the sun, spent hours in the pool with our water baby, had a movie date, and ate lots of yummy food and drink.

{eric likes to take pictures while the photographer is working}

{water baby at Charlotte and Samantha's birthday}

{with abuelito jj in arizona}

{at our neighbor, lucy's birthday}

July:
Lots of birthdays again! The big one being Amélie's first birthday. It turned out perfect. Amélie started walking! She also took her first swim lessons. There were also lots of other birthdays and weddings.

{amélie's birthday cake}

August:
There was thrifting, sewing, family visits, crafting, vegetable gardening and harvesting, theme park riding, bike riding, and more birthday celebrating. We had an adventurous trip to Pennsylvania for the beautiful wedding of our friends. We got to see Eric's brother while we were there.  Eric and I celebrated our birthdays.

{riding}

{delicious pancakes in pennsylvania}

{a mushroom bigger than our heads in pennsylvania}

{working off the yummy ice cream we had at the creamery at penn state}

September:
My brother got married. We drove to Bakersfield and experienced some super duper desert-like heat.  I got a little more serious about my running for the race. The weddings continued and we were able to enjoy our last wedding of the season without baby. It was awesome. Thanks Abuelito JJ! We had some wonderful weather. We found an official baby sitter in San Jose and went out on a sushi dinner and dessert date for our third anniversary.

{my brothers}

{the baby flower girl}

{our friend's Jen and Will got married on Lake Merritt}

{someone got new glasses. daddy did.}

{example of art from the chalk festival in our neighborhood park}

{anniversary dessert}

October:
The awesome weather continued! I sold some of my things at a craft fair put on by one of my good friends. I ran the Rock 'n Roll half marathon with by brother. We ran together the whole way. We bought Amélie's big girl bed frame. We stocked up on lots and lots of candy. I made Amélie's parrot costume and celebrated Halloween with our neighbors. I finally got an iPhone. Oh, and we went to Disneyland!!!

{waiting to get faces}

{we finished with a great time}

{at the fair}

{excited about pumpkins}

{beach day in october!}

November:
Eric's dad, stepmom, and brother came to visit. Eric's brother nearly got in a bar fight while we were out dancing. We had the best strawberry shortcake I've ever had. We found out that we're expecting baby number two (due July 2012)!* We ate REALLY good food during our intimate Thanksgiving at home and at my bestie's annual celebration.

{kansas johnson's in california}

{preparing our little thanksgiving feast}

{kristin's 25 pound turkey}

{enjoying great weather}

December:

Still enjoyed some amazing weather. When it is going to be winter (I'm not complaining)?! My brother Christian turned 20! We had fun ice-skating downtown with our friends Tegan and Daniel. Amélie and I took a really bad picture with santa and then went back and asked them to take it over again. Luckily, they did and ended taking about ten more pictures until we had the perfect one. Eric and I overate at his holiday work party. It was the first time in 15 years that my entire family celebrated Christmas together. All my brothers, both of my parents, new babies, and significant others were here in our house. It was wonderful and a little crazy. We had a quite evening at home to celebrate the new year. I made pizza and our neighbors hung out with us until the babies needed to sleep. Then, Eric and I went to the movies and got home in order to celebrate with daddy man at midnight. It was great!

{our 14th or so try}

{ice-skating!}

{those nerds are classy}

{making gingerbread houses with my family}

{we did a lot of christmas light drive-bys. amélie loved all the lights}

{we thank amélie for lots of sleeping in}

*if you actually read this far, good job! Yes, we are expecting again! Like how I threw that in?

The Happiest Place on Earth

The hubby is super lucky to get the whole week of Thanksgiving off. So, when he also received a nice bonus at work, we decided it would be the perfect time for a family vacation to Disneyland. I'm a big fan of Disneyland. It really does feel like such a magical little place. The attention to detail is just amazing to me. The fact that it'd be our little bean's first visit just made it extra special. We left last Friday night with our 2-day park-hopper passes in hand!

 {Yay! Day One}

 {the snowy icicle covered castle}

{Our first ride- Dumbo}

 {it's so hard to get a good picture of this girl. she loved the teacups! it was my favorite as a little girl}

 {little door for a little girl}

{We're excited!}

On our first day the focus was to enjoy Disneyland park as much as possible. We had a great start; nice and early, and were able to enjoy quite a few rides before heading back to our hotel across the street for Amélie's nap. After a nap (for all of us!), we went back and really took advantage of the day. We rode as many rides as we could and fortunately none of lines were longer than a 20 minute wait. We watched the Christmas parade and were able to sneak onto Small World toward the end of the show and avoid the ridiculous 40 wait that it had all day! I have to say it was probably my most favorite ride of all. Amélie LOVED it. She was fascinated by everything and was smiling and clapping the entire time. The park and many of it's rides were decorated for the holiday season and Small World was especially beautiful. I also told the hubby we should stay for the special fireworks display and snow(!!!) that night, which was well past Amélie's bedtime, but we're so happy we did because once we got back to the hotel with a passed out Amélie in the stroller (she never sleeps in the stroller!), we realized the weather report called for rain the next day.

 {having fun with hats. Amélie did end up getting the traditional Mickey ears}

 {she was actually having fun. getting close to nap time}

{darn handle!}

{just cruising}

With the weather report in mind, the next day our goal was to get to the park at opening time, ride as many things as possible and then head over to California Adventure since we'd never been there; hopefully before the rain started. Well, we did alright. We did get there on time, did ride as many as we could before nap time, but we never made it to California Adventure. It started pouring as soon as we started having lunch before nap time. We went back, slept, and then decided on braving the cold and rain to ride Space Mountain, Peter Pan, and the Haunted Mansion. Just three rides...we could do it in the rain, right?! Well, we accomplished it, but it was definitely an adventure. Amélie's at a stage now where she cannot lose sight of me. So, when Eric and I switched in order for me to get on Space Mountain, Amélie started crying immediately and didn't stop until I got back. Then, we found out Amélie doesn't like being in the rain (even with a raincoat and umbrella) and during the time we were waiting in the portion of the line that was in the rain for Peter Pan, she whined and cried a little. Fortunately, she was totally into the Haunted Mansion and she pointed and clapped throughout the ride. With our goals completed, we headed back to a warm comforting dinner, bath time, and on-time bedtime. Overall, our trip was a big success and we had a wonderful time.

{beautiful lit up castle}

{christmas lights. love.}

{the only picture on our camera from our rainy second day}

We of course took lots of pictures with our phones too, but I'll post those on Facebook since it's easier that way.